Cobwebs, cobwebs everywhere
In the water in the air
On the branches of the trees
In the foam of the seas -
On the skyscrapers and towers
On the grass and on the flowers
In the meadows, forests, lakes
In the rain and snowflakes
In the desert, tundra, hills,
On the tulips, daffodils,
In the jungle, on the ice,
On the ears and on the eyes,
In the clouds, in the sky,
In the place where shadows fly -
Cobwebs, cobwebs take each part
And connect it to the heart,
There to bring them into light
And replenish it with might.
In the intricate designs
Live the how's, the where's and why's
That connect each part to all
And through pieces and the whole
Manifests the gorgeous web
Of the world, as spiders grab
By their ignorance and lies
Moths, mosquitoes, wasps and flies.

Spider! Spider! Speak your mind –
Are you gentle? Are you kind?
Are you, like they say, a fiend?
And who – you or they – have sinned
More and harder? Are you glad
For what you have always had?
Who has made you? Did he smile
To see you to be his child?
Or did you from genome make
What they thought was a mistake
Till your perfect webs you made
And with their perfection played
In the wind and in the rain
And, as insects went insane,
Made them vanish with no trace
In your poisonous embrace?

Cobwebs! Cobwebs! Here you are -
Be you near, be you far,
You are hanging everywhere
In the water in the air
Taking substances of life
And from them the truth derive.
For who made the cobwebs all
Made them grasp the mind and soul -
From the world, like from a fly,
To wring life and suck it dry -
And then make it food for webs
Or for others still, perhaps
Or for passion, or for bliss,
Hoping for eternal peace.

Spider! Spider! Take what’s here
Every laughter, every tear,
Every truth and every lie
And wring, just like from a fly,
Its quintessence and its juice –
Its intention and its truth –
And then make it live again –
And no longer live in vain,
But go where they’re needed most;
Walking through walls like a ghost,
Reaching minds and reaching hearts –
Just like arrows, just like darts –
Or like bullets as they zoom:
Bring the joy, dispel the gloom
And bring all eternal youth –
Cobwebs, cobwebs made of truth!

The central idea is a good one -- I have, when in a state of expanded perception observed the "cobwebs" (neon blue-white light threads) that connect our entire universe.

There are a lot of good lines in the poem, and a lot of not-so-good lines.

Ideally, you should trim it down considerably. I suggest focusing on the interconnectedness (that's a big enough subject for a reader to wrap his head around) and remove the spiders whose nefarious deeds (as you've described them) run counter to the "Oneness" of existence. Yes, I get that you're contrasting the negativity with the positive elements and calling for the former to switch sides... but it's a bit too convoluted for my tastes. Also, from a philosophical stance, the deceit and blood lust of the spiders is part and parcel with the nature of the universe: IOW, they are already part of the "cobweb of truth." Which opens up a can of philosophical worms that are at odds with the Christian ("God is love") message of your poem -- the Blakean God who made both the tyger and the lamb also made the spiders and gave them their carnivorous nature (a point you touch on, but misread).

You might also consider breaking it into two poems: one about the connectivity of the universal "cobwebs" that tie us all together, and one about the role of "spiders" (if you can come up with a philosophically acceptable role) -- much as Blake paired his songs of "Innocence" and "Experience."

In any case, it's much too long. I would trim it down to 16 - 24 lines (removing the near-rhymes, the off-metered lines, and focusing only on the interconnectedness of life. If you do a second, spider-focused poem, it should run the same amount of lines, and have the same form and meter.

BTW: I see that you figured out how to use em dashes in the final stanza. They make the poem look much more professional.

On Thursday, January 12, 2023 at 9:15:29 AM UTC-5, michaelmalef...@gmail.com wrote:
> The central idea is a good one -- I have, when in a state of expanded perception observed the "cobwebs" (neon blue-white light threads) that connect our entire universe.
>
> There are a lot of good lines in the poem, and a lot of not-so-good lines..
>
> Ideally, you should trim it down considerably. I suggest focusing on the interconnectedness (that's a big enough subject for a reader to wrap his head around) and remove the spiders whose nefarious deeds (as you've described them) run counter to the "Oneness" of existence. Yes, I get that you're contrasting the negativity with the positive elements and calling for the former to switch sides... but it's a bit too convoluted for my tastes. Also, from a philosophical stance, the deceit and blood lust of the spiders is part and parcel with the nature of the universe: IOW, they are already part of the "cobweb of truth." Which opens up a can of philosophical worms that are at odds with the Christian ("God is love") message of your poem -- the Blakean God who made both the tyger and the lamb also made the spiders and gave them their carnivorous nature (a point you touch on, but misread).
>
> You might also consider breaking it into two poems: one about the connectivity of the universal "cobwebs" that tie us all together, and one about the role of "spiders" (if you can come up with a philosophically acceptable role) -- much as Blake paired his songs of "Innocence" and "Experience."
>
> In any case, it's much too long. I would trim it down to 16 - 24 lines (removing the near-rhymes, the off-metered lines, and focusing only on the interconnectedness of life. If you do a second, spider-focused poem, it should run the same amount of lines, and have the same form and meter.
>
> BTW: I see that you figured out how to use em dashes in the final stanza. They make the poem look much more professional.

Excellent about the dashes.
It has potential-- that's the important thing, at least to me...
The spider/web theme is a most excellent idea-- again, at least to me.
\ *(I haven't called off my cease-fire on you yet, it was just one essay posted that I saw so far-- I'm actually more lenient that people give me credit for)

On Thursday, January 12, 2023 at 2:15:29 PM UTC, michaelmalef...@gmail.com wrote:
> The central idea is a good one -- I have, when in a state of expanded perception observed the "cobwebs" (neon blue-white light threads) that connect our entire universe.
>
> There are a lot of good lines in the poem, and a lot of not-so-good lines..
>
> Ideally, you should trim it down considerably. I suggest focusing on the interconnectedness (that's a big enough subject for a reader to wrap his head around) and remove the spiders whose nefarious deeds (as you've described them) run counter to the "Oneness" of existence. Yes, I get that you're contrasting the negativity with the positive elements and calling for the former to switch sides... but it's a bit too convoluted for my tastes. Also, from a philosophical stance, the deceit and blood lust of the spiders is part and parcel with the nature of the universe: IOW, they are already part of the "cobweb of truth." Which opens up a can of philosophical worms that are at odds with the Christian ("God is love") message of your poem -- the Blakean God who made both the tyger and the lamb also made the spiders and gave them their carnivorous nature (a point you touch on, but misread).
>
> You might also consider breaking it into two poems: one about the connectivity of the universal "cobwebs" that tie us all together, and one about the role of "spiders" (if you can come up with a philosophically acceptable role) -- much as Blake paired his songs of "Innocence" and "Experience."
>
> In any case, it's much too long. I would trim it down to 16 - 24 lines (removing the near-rhymes, the off-metered lines, and focusing only on the interconnectedness of life. If you do a second, spider-focused poem, it should run the same amount of lines, and have the same form and meter.
>
> BTW: I see that you figured out how to use em dashes in the final stanza. They make the poem look much more professional.

But Ibish has not "figured out how to use em dashes" in the final stanza or the preceding stanzas! He uses plain old hyphens in the first three stanzas and then sticks what may look like an em dash into the last one, but we think that maybe his word processing program did that. However, em dashes do not have spaces before and after them (unless he is writing in a newspaper), so they are still being used incorrectly.

On Friday, January 13, 2023 at 12:36:42 PM UTC-5, NancyGene wrote:
> On Thursday, January 12, 2023 at 2:15:29 PM UTC, michaelmalef...@gmail.com wrote:
> > The central idea is a good one -- I have, when in a state of expanded perception observed the "cobwebs" (neon blue-white light threads) that connect our entire universe.
> >
> > There are a lot of good lines in the poem, and a lot of not-so-good lines.
> >
> > Ideally, you should trim it down considerably. I suggest focusing on the interconnectedness (that's a big enough subject for a reader to wrap his head around) and remove the spiders whose nefarious deeds (as you've described them) run counter to the "Oneness" of existence. Yes, I get that you're contrasting the negativity with the positive elements and calling for the former to switch sides... but it's a bit too convoluted for my tastes. Also, from a philosophical stance, the deceit and blood lust of the spiders is part and parcel with the nature of the universe: IOW, they are already part of the "cobweb of truth." Which opens up a can of philosophical worms that are at odds with the Christian ("God is love") message of your poem -- the Blakean God who made both the tyger and the lamb also made the spiders and gave them their carnivorous nature (a point you touch on, but misread).
> >
> > You might also consider breaking it into two poems: one about the connectivity of the universal "cobwebs" that tie us all together, and one about the role of "spiders" (if you can come up with a philosophically acceptable role) -- much as Blake paired his songs of "Innocence" and "Experience."
> >
> > In any case, it's much too long. I would trim it down to 16 - 24 lines (removing the near-rhymes, the off-metered lines, and focusing only on the interconnectedness of life. If you do a second, spider-focused poem, it should run the same amount of lines, and have the same form and meter.
> >
> > BTW: I see that you figured out how to use em dashes in the final stanza. They make the poem look much more professional.
> But Ibish has not "figured out how to use em dashes" in the final stanza or the preceding stanzas! He uses plain old hyphens in the first three stanzas and then sticks what may look like an em dash into the last one, but we think that maybe his word processing program did that. However, em dashes do not have spaces before and after them (unless he is writing in a newspaper), so they are still being used incorrectly.
>

True... but I always add spaces to my em dashes, as I find them more aesthetically pleasing that way.

On Friday, January 13, 2023 at 6:03:04 PM UTC, michaelmalef...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, January 13, 2023 at 12:36:42 PM UTC-5, NancyGene wrote:
> > On Thursday, January 12, 2023 at 2:15:29 PM UTC, michaelmalef...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > The central idea is a good one -- I have, when in a state of expanded perception observed the "cobwebs" (neon blue-white light threads) that connect our entire universe.
> > >
> > > There are a lot of good lines in the poem, and a lot of not-so-good lines.
> > >
> > > Ideally, you should trim it down considerably. I suggest focusing on the interconnectedness (that's a big enough subject for a reader to wrap his head around) and remove the spiders whose nefarious deeds (as you've described them) run counter to the "Oneness" of existence. Yes, I get that you're contrasting the negativity with the positive elements and calling for the former to switch sides... but it's a bit too convoluted for my tastes. Also, from a philosophical stance, the deceit and blood lust of the spiders is part and parcel with the nature of the universe: IOW, they are already part of the "cobweb of truth." Which opens up a can of philosophical worms that are at odds with the Christian ("God is love") message of your poem -- the Blakean God who made both the tyger and the lamb also made the spiders and gave them their carnivorous nature (a point you touch on, but misread).
> > >
> > > You might also consider breaking it into two poems: one about the connectivity of the universal "cobwebs" that tie us all together, and one about the role of "spiders" (if you can come up with a philosophically acceptable role) -- much as Blake paired his songs of "Innocence" and "Experience."
> > >
> > > In any case, it's much too long. I would trim it down to 16 - 24 lines (removing the near-rhymes, the off-metered lines, and focusing only on the interconnectedness of life. If you do a second, spider-focused poem, it should run the same amount of lines, and have the same form and meter.
> > >
> > > BTW: I see that you figured out how to use em dashes in the final stanza. They make the poem look much more professional.
> > But Ibish has not "figured out how to use em dashes" in the final stanza or the preceding stanzas! He uses plain old hyphens in the first three stanzas and then sticks what may look like an em dash into the last one, but we think that maybe his word processing program did that. However, em dashes do not have spaces before and after them (unless he is writing in a newspaper), so they are still being used incorrectly.
> >
> True... but I always add spaces to my em dashes, as I find them more aesthetically pleasing that way.

Well, be like that, Emily Dickinson!