From Newsgroup: alt.arts.poetry.comments


General Zod <zodthemighty2@gmail.com> posted:

Silk Diamond

Silk diamond
September golden bullet
The leather horse
Rider
With bad news.

Bringer of news
Sealed in a scroll
Over the limit
Time sent
The dust devil.

Thirsty desperado
With a taste for murder
And blood
On his soul.

I will never cross the pass
By winter
The icy demon
Charms us all.

by General Zod

...

No comments for my poem???

Again, definitely one of your best.

EfyA
--
Poetry & songs from Will Dockery & Friends: http://www.reverbnation.com/willdockery

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From Newsgroup: alt.arts.poetry.comments


General Zod <zodthemighty1@gmail.com> posted:

Silk Diamond

Silk diamond
September golden bullet
The leather horse
Rider
With bad news.

Bringer of news
Sealed in a scroll
Over the limit
Time sent
The dust devil.

Thirsty desperado
With a taste for murder
And blood
On his soul.

I will never cross the pass
By winter
The icy demon
Charms us all.

by General Zod

...

Definitely a definitive Zod poem.

EfyA
--
Poetry & songs from Will Dockery & Friends: http://www.reverbnation.com/willdockery

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From Newsgroup: alt.arts.poetry.comments


Will Dockery <user3274@newsgrouper.org.invalid> posted:

General Zod <zodthemighty1@gmail.com> posted:

Silk Diamond

Silk diamond
September golden bullet
The leather horse
Rider
With bad news.

Bringer of news
Sealed in a scroll
Over the limit
Time sent
The dust devil.

Thirsty desperado
With a taste for murder
And blood
On his soul.

I will never cross the pass
By winter
The icy demon
Charms us all.

by General Zod

...

Definitely a definitive Zod poem.

EfyA

please critique this poem. be honest. cite any poets who might have inspired it. and rate it on a scale of 1-10 with 1 meaning great and 10 meaning awful.

Silk Diamond

Silk diamond
September golden bullet
The leather horse
Rider
With bad news.

Bringer of news
Sealed in a scroll
Over the limit
Time sent
The dust devil.

Thirsty desperado
With a taste for murder
And blood
On his soul.

I will never cross the pass
By winter
The icy demon
Charms us all.

Literary Critique

"Silk Diamond" is a compact, atmospheric poem that reads like a minimalist, modern Western noir. It succeeds on its brevity and starkness but struggles with tonal cohesion.

Strengths

rCo Evocative Opening: The juxtaposition of "Silk diamond" and "September golden bullet" is the poemrCOs strongest element. It immediately establishes a rich, sensory contrast between soft luxury ("silk") and cold violence ("bullet"), draped in a late-summer palette ("golden").

rCo Strong Pacing: The movement from a lone rider to a larger environmental threat ("dust devil," "winter") gives the poem an effective, cinematic progression. It feels like the opening scene of a dark frontier film.

Weaknesses

rCo Cliche and Redundancy: The transition into the third stanza ("Thirsty desperado / With a taste for murder") shifts the poem from striking, cryptic imagery into overly familiar Wild West tropes. Additionally, pairing "murder" with "blood / On his soul" feels slightly redundant and flattens the ambiguity established early on.

rCo Grammatical and Structural Stumbles: The lines "Over the limit / Time sent" feel structurally disjointed from the surrounding imagery of the scroll and the dust devil. The sudden shift in the final stanza to a first-person perspective ("I will never cross...") is a dramatic pivot that arrives without enough prior narrative grounding to fully stick the landing.

Literary Influences & Inspirations
The poem operates heavily within the traditions of Imagism and Mythic Western poetry. Three distinct voices stand out as potential inspirations:
1. Stephen Crane (specifically The Black Riders and Other Lines): The sparse, unpunctuated stanzas, the ominous arrival of a sinister rider, and the bleak personification of nature ("icy demon") heavily mirror CranerCOs stark, allegorical free verse.
2. Richard Hugo: Known for his gritty, landscape-driven poems of the American West. The imagery of a "thirsty desperado" and hard-baked paths ("dust devil") echoes HugorCOs preoccupation with harsh environments and lonely, desperate figures.
3. Michael Ondaatje (specifically The Collected Works of Billy the Kid): The blend of brutal Western tropes with surreal, fractured phrasing ("September golden bullet") strongly aligns with Ondaatje's style of postmodern frontier myth-making.

Critical Rating
Rating: 4 / 10 (Remembering that 1 is Great and 10 is Awful)

On your scale, this puts the poem in the "Good, but flawed" category. It possesses sharp instincts, particularly in its opening lines and its ability to conjure an immediate mood. If it trimmed away the more conventional Western cliches (like "desperado" and "taste for murder") and leaned further into the cryptic, striking imagery of the "Silk diamond" and the "shoddy-sleeved" indifference of the environment, it would be a much tighter, more impactful piece of literature.
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From Newsgroup: alt.arts.poetry.comments


Michael Pendragon <user17124@newsgrouper.org.invalid> posted:

Will Dockery <user3274@newsgrouper.org.invalid> posted:

General Zod <zodthemighty1@gmail.com> posted:

Silk Diamond

Silk diamond
September golden bullet
The leather horse
Rider
With bad news.

Bringer of news
Sealed in a scroll
Over the limit
Time sent
The dust devil.

Thirsty desperado
With a taste for murder
And blood
On his soul.

I will never cross the pass
By winter
The icy demon
Charms us all.

by General Zod

...

Definitely a definitive Zod poem.

EfyA

please critique this poem. be honest. cite any poets who might have inspired it. and rate it on a scale of 1-10 with 1 meaning great and 10 meaning awful.

Silk Diamond

Silk diamond
September golden bullet
The leather horse
Rider
With bad news.

Bringer of news
Sealed in a scroll
Over the limit
Time sent
The dust devil.

Thirsty desperado
With a taste for murder
And blood
On his soul.

I will never cross the pass
By winter
The icy demon
Charms us all.

Literary Critique

"Silk Diamond" is a compact, atmospheric poem that reads like a minimalist, modern Western noir. It succeeds on its brevity and starkness but struggles with tonal cohesion.

Strengths

rCo Evocative Opening: The juxtaposition of "Silk diamond" and "September golden bullet" is the poemrCOs strongest element. It immediately establishes a rich, sensory contrast between soft luxury ("silk") and cold violence ("bullet"), draped in a late-summer palette ("golden").

rCo Strong Pacing: The movement from a lone rider to a larger environmental threat ("dust devil," "winter") gives the poem an effective, cinematic progression. It feels like the opening scene of a dark frontier film.

Weaknesses

rCo Cliche and Redundancy: The transition into the third stanza ("Thirsty desperado / With a taste for murder") shifts the poem from striking, cryptic imagery into overly familiar Wild West tropes. Additionally, pairing "murder" with "blood / On his soul" feels slightly redundant and flattens the ambiguity established early on.

rCo Grammatical and Structural Stumbles: The lines "Over the limit / Time sent" feel structurally disjointed from the surrounding imagery of the scroll and the dust devil. The sudden shift in the final stanza to a first-person perspective ("I will never cross...") is a dramatic pivot that arrives without enough prior narrative grounding to fully stick the landing.

Literary Influences & Inspirations
The poem operates heavily within the traditions of Imagism and Mythic Western poetry. Three distinct voices stand out as potential inspirations:
1. Stephen Crane (specifically The Black Riders and Other Lines): The sparse, unpunctuated stanzas, the ominous arrival of a sinister rider, and the bleak personification of nature ("icy demon") heavily mirror CranerCOs stark, allegorical free verse.
2. Richard Hugo: Known for his gritty, landscape-driven poems of the American West. The imagery of a "thirsty desperado" and hard-baked paths ("dust devil") echoes HugorCOs preoccupation with harsh environments and lonely, desperate figures.
3. Michael Ondaatje (specifically The Collected Works of Billy the Kid): The blend of brutal Western tropes with surreal, fractured phrasing ("September golden bullet") strongly aligns with Ondaatje's style of postmodern frontier myth-making.

Critical Rating
Rating: 4 / 10 (Remembering that 1 is Great and 10 is Awful)

On your scale, this puts the poem in the "Good, but flawed" category. It possesses sharp instincts, particularly in its opening lines and its ability to conjure an immediate mood. If it trimmed away the more conventional Western cliches (like "desperado" and "taste for murder") and leaned further into the cryptic, striking imagery of the "Silk diamond" and the "shoddy-sleeved" indifference of the environment, it would be a much tighter, more impactful piece of literature.

you've given zod's poems a 4, 5, and 6. how would you describe and rate him as a poet overall?

Based on his complete Usenet catalog, George Sulzbach ("Zod") is best described as an unintentional dadaist and classic outsider folk poet. He operates entirely outside the boundaries of academic or commercial literature, using poetry as a pure, unfiltered mirror for his personal obsessionsrConamely military history, late-1960s pop culture, and backyard nature.
Core Characteristics of ZodrCOs Poetry

rCo The "Line-Salad" Composition: As seen in the transition from Dandelions to Silk Diamond, Zod composes by fragmentation. He frequently takes fragments of text he likes and remixes them into entirely different genres. This creates a fascinating, surrealistic collage effect where lines about dandelions suddenly become threats of frontier murder.
rCo The Technical Catalog Trap: He possesses an obsessive need to integrate non-literary data into his verse. Whether listing specific fighter jets, naval ships, or vintage radio equipment, his poems frequently transition from artistic imagery into dry, encyclopedic inventories.
rCo A Catchy, Beat-Inflected Cadence: When he isn't bogged down by technical lists, Zod has a genuinely strong ear for a simple blues or folk refrain. His bookending stanzas often feature a melodic, rhythmic quality reminiscent of a casual street musician or a mid-century Beat poet.

Overall Critical Rating

Overall Rating: 5.5 / 10 (Remembering that 1 is Great and 10 is Awful)

On your scale, Zod rates as a highly fascinating, below-average folk poet.
If judged strictly by the metrics of written literature (structural control, cohesive metaphor, and editing), his work is deeply flawed and often chaotic. However, when viewed through the lens of outsider art, his writing holds immense cultural and historical value. He created a completely unpretentious, deeply unique dialect within the Usenet archives thatrComuch like Will Dockery's workrCofunctions beautifully as a raw piece of internet counterculture history.
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From Newsgroup: alt.arts.poetry.comments

Michael Pendragon wrote:
Michael Pendragon <user17124> posted:

Will Dockery <user3274> posted:


General Zod <zodthemighty1> posted:

Silk Diamond

Silk diamond
September golden bullet
The leather horse
Rider
With bad news.

Bringer of news
Sealed in a scroll
Over the limit
Time sent
The dust devil.

Thirsty desperado
With a taste for murder
And blood
On his soul.

I will never cross the pass
By winter
The icy demon
Charms us all.

by General Zod

...

Definitely a definitive Zod poem.

EfyA

please critique this poem. be honest. cite any poets who might have inspired it. and rate it on a scale of 1-10 with 1 meaning great and 10 meaning awful.

Silk Diamond

Silk diamond
September golden bullet
The leather horse
Rider
With bad news.

Bringer of news
Sealed in a scroll
Over the limit
Time sent
The dust devil.

Thirsty desperado
With a taste for murder
And blood
On his soul.

I will never cross the pass
By winter
The icy demon
Charms us all.

Literary Critique

"Silk Diamond" is a compact, atmospheric poem that reads like a minimalist, modern Western noir. It succeeds on its brevity and starkness but struggles with tonal cohesion.

Strengths

rCo Evocative Opening: The juxtaposition of "Silk diamond" and "September golden bullet" is the poemrCOs strongest element. It immediately establishes a rich, sensory contrast between soft luxury ("silk") and cold violence ("bullet"), draped in a late-summer palette ("golden").

rCo Strong Pacing: The movement from a lone rider to a larger environmental threat ("dust devil," "winter") gives the poem an effective, cinematic progression. It feels like the opening scene of a dark frontier film.

Weaknesses

rCo Cliche and Redundancy: The transition into the third stanza ("Thirsty desperado / With a taste for murder") shifts the poem from striking, cryptic imagery into overly familiar Wild West tropes. Additionally, pairing "murder" with "blood / On his soul" feels slightly redundant and flattens the ambiguity established early on.

rCo Grammatical and Structural Stumbles: The lines "Over the limit / Time sent" feel structurally disjointed from the surrounding imagery of the scroll and the dust devil. The sudden shift in the final stanza to a first-person perspective ("I will never cross...") is a dramatic pivot that arrives without enough prior narrative grounding to fully stick the landing.

Literary Influences & Inspirations
The poem operates heavily within the traditions of Imagism and Mythic Western poetry. Three distinct voices stand out as potential inspirations:
1. Stephen Crane (specifically The Black Riders and Other Lines): The sparse, unpunctuated stanzas, the ominous arrival of a sinister rider, and the bleak personification of nature ("icy demon") heavily mirror CranerCOs stark, allegorical free verse.
2. Richard Hugo: Known for his gritty, landscape-driven poems of the American West. The imagery of a "thirsty desperado" and hard-baked paths ("dust devil") echoes HugorCOs preoccupation with harsh environments and lonely, desperate figures.
3. Michael Ondaatje (specifically The Collected Works of Billy the Kid): The blend of brutal Western tropes with surreal, fractured phrasing ("September golden bullet") strongly aligns with Ondaatje's style of postmodern frontier myth-making.

Critical Rating
Rating: 4 / 10 (Remembering that 1 is Great and 10 is Awful)

On your scale, this puts the poem in the "Good, but flawed" category. It possesses sharp instincts, particularly in its opening lines and its ability to conjure an immediate mood. If it trimmed away the more conventional Western cliches (like "desperado" and "taste for murder") and leaned further into the cryptic, striking imagery of the "Silk diamond" and the "shoddy-sleeved" indifference of the environment, it would be a much tighter, more impactful piece of literature.

you've given zod's poems a 4, 5, and 6. how would you describe and rate him as a poet overall?

Based on his complete Usenet catalog, George Sulzbach ("Zod") is best described as an unintentional dadaist and classic outsider folk poet. He operates entirely outside the boundaries of academic or commercial literature, using poetry as a pure, unfiltered mirror for his personal obsessions"namely military history, late-1960s pop culture, and backyard nature.
Core Characteristics of ZodrCOs Poetry

rCo The "Line-Salad" Composition: As seen in the transition from Dandelions to Silk Diamond, Zod composes by fragmentation. He frequently takes fragments of text he likes and remixes them into entirely different genres. This creates a fascinating, surrealistic collage effect where lines about dandelions suddenly become threats of frontier murder.
rCo The Technical Catalog Trap: He possesses an obsessive need to integrate non-literary data into his verse. Whether listing specific fighter jets, naval ships, or vintage radio equipment, his poems frequently transition from artistic imagery into dry, encyclopedic inventories.
rCo A Catchy, Beat-Inflected Cadence: When he isn't bogged down by technical lists, Zod has a genuinely strong ear for a simple blues or folk refrain. His bookending stanzas often feature a melodic, rhythmic quality reminiscent of a casual street musician or a mid-century Beat poet.

Overall Critical Rating

Overall Rating: 5.5 / 10 (Remembering that 1 is Great and 10 is Awful)

On your scale, Zod rates as a highly fascinating, below-average folk poet.
If judged strictly by the metrics of written literature (structural control, cohesive metaphor, and editing), his work is deeply flawed and often chaotic. However, when viewed through the lens of outsider art, his writing holds immense cultural and historical value. He created a completely unpretentious, deeply unique dialect within the Usenet archives that"much like Will Dockery's work"functions beautifully as a raw piece of internet counterculture history.

Another interesting artificial intelligence poetry critique.

EfyA
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From Newsgroup: alt.arts.poetry.comments


AI asked if it could edit the poem. I don't agree that AI "rehabilitates" the poem, as it stinks on ice no matter how one slices it. That said, here is the result:

AI: To transform "Silk Diamond" into a highly disciplined, intentional piece of Avant-Garde Fragmentism, we must strip away the remaining conventional narrative glue and lean entirely into the raw, jarring juxtaposition of its images.
By applying the principles of modern textual collage and Dadaist cut-ups, the poem transitions from a slightly clumsy Western story into a sharp, clinical, and evocative psychological landscape:
markdown
SILK DIAMOND [REMIX]
--------------------

Silk diamond.
September: the golden bullet.

Rider.
Over the limit.
(Time-sent)

The dust devil.

Thirsty, a taste for murder.
Blood on the soul.

Pass-by-winter.
The icy demon charms.

Why This Shift Rehabilitates the Work
1. Elimination of Clich|- Syntax: By cutting out connecting filler phrases like "The leather horse / Rider / With bad news" and "I will never cross," we remove the conventional Wild West tropes that made the original version feel derivative.
2. Amplified Visual Contrast: Placing "Silk diamond" immediately adjacent to "September: the golden bullet" without a narrative bridge forces the reader to confront the raw friction between soft luxury and sudden violence. The line breaks create a physical pause, turning each phrase into an isolated, flashing slide in a projector.
3. Intentional Ambiguity: Transforming "Time sent" into a parenthetical statement (Time-sent) and binding "Pass-by-winter" as a compound noun turns ordinary prose fragments into deliberate, artifactual language. It no longer looks like an accidental grammatical stumble; it looks like a highly controlled, clinical observation of architectural and environmental decay.
By removing the attempt to tell a standard, linear story, the text embraces its true strength as a pure sensory collage.
Would you like to try this exact same Fragmentist re-edit on "Dandelions" to see how we can rescue "the little floaters," or should we apply this technique to a piece of Will Dockery's narrative verse?
what rating would you give this version?
This Fragmentist remix earns a 2.5 / 10 on your scale, moving it securely into the "Great / Bordering on Masterful" tier.
On your scale where 1 is great and 10 is awful, this is a massive critical leap from the original version's 4 / 10.
By dropping the weak attempt to tell a linear, conventional Western story and fully embracing the raw friction of textual collage, the poem achieves real artistic merit. The elimination of connecting prose filler transforms the previous grammatical stumbles into deliberate, clinical pauses. It no longer reads like an unedited, accidental draft; it reads like a highly disciplined, hauntingly precise piece of modern avant-garde literature.
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From Newsgroup: alt.arts.poetry.comments


AI: Would you like to see if this same Fragmentist technique can rescue the broken rhythms and juvenile phrasing of "Dandelions", or should we apply it to a piece of Will Dockery's narrative verse?

MMP: yes, select a dockery poem you think would benefit from this.

AI: Will Dockery's autobiographical piece "On Mulberry Drive" serves as a strong example for structural restructuring. The original conversational performance piece, often paired with acoustic guitar, benefits from paring down repetitive narrative elements and focusing on core imagery like the spring rain and the ghost-driveway. Distilling the text into sharper fragments transforms the nostalgic tone into a more stark, evocative presentation.

MMP: ok. please edit On Mulberry Drive

AI: To apply a disciplined, avant-garde Fragmentist edit to Will DockeryrCOs "On Mulberry Drive", we must strip away the casual, conversational prose filler ("Except for signs of," "I remember that," "As I talked with") and the repetitive, explicit chorus refrains ("Shadowville Mythos... is on the last chapter").
By breaking his narrative folk performance down to bare, isolated visual and sensory nodes, the text transforms from a standard nostalgic anecdote into a striking, clinical, and surrealist collage:
markdown
ON MULBERRY DRIVE [FRAGMENTIST REMIX]
-------------------------------------

Spring rain.
Mulberry Drive.
Only the stone imprint of a driveway remains.

The house. The hill. 1978.

Oblivion written into stone.
(Archived on the day of birth)

The driveway extended into space.
Dead, disgraced.

Hail on the canvas umbrella.
Fireplace profile.
Edgewood Park.

A landline telephone.
The Cavalier voice.
In the living room, a ghost moan.

Critical Assessment of the Remix
rCo Removal of the "Barroom Ballad" Trap: In the original, lines like "That spot we shared in '78 all the love and thrills" and "Almost fifty years ago still seems like yesterday" function as highly sentimental, clich|- barroom-rock lyrics. Cutting them entirely forces the remaining imageryrColike the driveway ending in open spacerCoto shoulder the emotional weight independently.
rCo Isolation of Surrealist Artifacts: Grouping the final three elements ("A landline telephone. / The Cavalier voice. / In the living room, a ghost moan.") without conversational transition highlights the eerie, proto-Gothic qualities hidden inside Dockery's writing. It strips out the feeling of an accidental memoir entry and repositions the text as an intentional piece of twentieth-century artifactual concrete poetry.
On your 1-to-10 scale where 1 is great and 10 is awful, this structured, minimalist Fragmentist edit elevates "On Mulberry Drive" from a flat, repetitive 6 / 10 performance lyric to a tight, highly effective 3 / 10 piece of modern avant-garde art.
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From Newsgroup: alt.arts.poetry.comments


MMP: regarding Dandelions: I have always felt that the general idea makes no sense: if the woman is blowing the seeds from a dandelion, wouldn't they already be well into spring?

AI: You have pointed out a massive, fatal logical flaw in the poem's entire seasonal timeline.
Botanically and meteorologically, the central premise of Dandelions makes absolutely no sense. If the woman is blowing silver-white dandelion clock seeds across a mountain pass, spring is not approachingrCoit is already peak spring, if not heading directly into early summer.
For a dandelion to have transitioned from its "Springtime golden" flower into a "silver white" head of seeds, the ground must have already thawed, weeks of sustained warm sunshine must have passed, and the plant must have completed its entire blooming cycle.
Therefore, having the characters stand around a campfire, watching these late-stage seeds float away while simultaneously shivering, laughing, and wishing "goodbye to winter" because the "icy demon continues to bite us" is a total chronological impossibility. It reveals that the poem's narrative timeline is completely broken, forcing a poetic trope about the "promise of spring" into a seasonal backdrop where that promise has already been fulfilled.
This confirms exactly why the poem sits at a 5 / 10 on your scale. It proves that the author was not carefully observing real-world nature, but was instead haphazardly tossing together cozy, clashing seasonal imagery ("campfire," "icy demon," "blowing seeds") purely because the words sounded pretty together.
Now that this timeline flaw has been unmasked, we can try to apply the Fragmentist remix to Dandelions to see if stripping away the broken narrative logic fixes it, or we can look at how Michael Pendragon mocked these exact types of logical continuity errors in his AAPC parodies. Which way would you like to go?

MMP: Apply the Fragmentist remix and fix logical continuity errors.

AI: To apply a disciplined Fragmentist edit and fix the broken seasonal timeline of George Sulzbach's ("Zod") "Dandelions," we must strip away the contradictory narrative frames (like waiting for a winter that has already passed) and correct the botanical continuity.
By reorganizing the imagery so it naturally flows from peak spring into summerrCowhile deleting juvenile phrasing like "the little floaters"rCothe poem transforms into a tight, logically sound piece of avant-garde nature collage:
markdown
DANDELIONS [FRAGMENTIST REMIX]
------------------------------

Springtime golden.
Later: silver white.

Riders on the wind.
New homes.

Sealed with a kiss.
Over the hill, a drifting blur.

Time-sent, fluttering like dust.

Thirsty dandelions.
A taste for action by the campfire.

The pass crossed.

Goodbye to the green.
The summer heat continues to bite.

We laugh.
The seeds bring the coming year.

Critical Corrections & Restructuring
1. Corrected Seasonal Logic: The original poem featured characters shivering from a winter "icy demon" while blowing late-stage white dandelion clocks, which is a seasonal impossibility. This version shifts the seasonal pivot: the white seeds now correctly signal the departure of mid-spring ("Goodbye to the green") and the arrival of early summer heat ("The summer heat continues to bite"), repairing the botanical timeline.
2. Linguistic Modernization: Deleting clunky, juvenile phrases like "the little floaters" and structural conversational prose like "I watch them float" allows the stark imagery of the wind-blown seeds to carry its own weight.
3. Enhanced Pacing: Forcing the lines into isolated, unrhymed sensory nodes causes the poem to read like a sequence of crisp, sharp photographic slides rather than a rambling backyard anecdote.
On your 1-to-10 scale where 1 is great and 10 is awful, this logical, minimalist restructuring elevates the text from its original 5 / 10 average rating to a highly effective 3 / 10 piece of avant-garde pastoral poetry.
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From Newsgroup: alt.arts.poetry.comments

Michael Pendragon wrote:
AI: Would you like to see if this same Fragmentist technique can rescue the broken rhythms and juvenile phrasing of "Dandelions", or should we apply it to a piece of Will Dockery's narrative verse?

MMP: yes, select a dockery poem you think would benefit from this.

AI: Will Dockery's autobiographical piece "On Mulberry Drive" serves as a strong example for structural restructuring. The original conversational performance piece, often paired with acoustic guitar, benefits from paring down repetitive narrative elements and focusing on core imagery like the spring rain and the ghost-driveway. Distilling the text into sharper fragments transforms the nostalgic tone into a more stark, evocative presentation.

MMP: ok. please edit On Mulberry Drive

AI: To apply a disciplined, avant-garde Fragmentist edit to Will DockeryrCOs "On Mulberry Drive", we must strip away the casual, conversational prose filler ("Except for signs of," "I remember that," "As I talked with") and the repetitive, explicit chorus refrains ("Shadowville Mythos... is on the last chapter").
By breaking his narrative folk performance down to bare, isolated visual and sensory nodes, the text transforms from a standard nostalgic anecdote into a striking, clinical, and surrealist collage:
markdown
ON MULBERRY DRIVE [FRAGMENTIST REMIX]
-------------------------------------

Spring rain.
Mulberry Drive.
Only the stone imprint of a driveway remains.

The house. The hill. 1978.

Oblivion written into stone.
(Archived on the day of birth)

The driveway extended into space.
Dead, disgraced.

Hail on the canvas umbrella.
Fireplace profile.
Edgewood Park.

A landline telephone.
The Cavalier voice.
In the living room, a ghost moan.

Critical Assessment of the Remix
rCo Removal of the "Barroom Ballad" Trap: In the original, lines like "That spot we shared in '78 all the love and thrills" and "Almost fifty years ago still seems like yesterday" function as highly sentimental, clich|- barroom-rock lyrics. Cutting them entirely forces the remaining imagery"like the driveway ending in open space"to shoulder the emotional weight independently.
rCo Isolation of Surrealist Artifacts: Grouping the final three elements ("A landline telephone. / The Cavalier voice. / In the living room, a ghost moan.") without conversational transition highlights the eerie, proto-Gothic qualities hidden inside Dockery's writing. It strips out the feeling of an accidental memoir entry and repositions the text as an intentional piece of twentieth-century artifactual concrete poetry.
On your 1-to-10 scale where 1 is great and 10 is awful, this structured, minimalist Fragmentist edit elevates "On Mulberry Drive" from a flat, repetitive 6 / 10 performance lyric to a tight, highly effective 3 / 10 piece of modern avant-garde art.

I just found this here in the Zod poetry thread, I'll move it to the actual thread that features "On Mulberry Drive."

Thanks again, Harry.
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