Originally posted by setaside2
EARTH’S SHADOW/debate
Your voice could shatter glass
You’d rage about the room
You’d say
“I’m tired of this black eye
I’m tired of all the shame,”
You’d say:
That you might bend the rules
You might tie the noose
But it would be love.
If it’s clean
If it’s dirty
It’s me
With all this black and white around
The logic and restraint
Fade away…
Your voice could shatter glass
The eclipse fell from the night
You’d say:
“This collar’s a little loose
Too much freedom hurts,”
You’d say
That I can’t let you go
You had dreamed I’d stay
And it would be love.
If it’s clean
If it’s dirty
It’s me
With all this black and white around
The scissors have gone dull
The rope begins to fray…
Your screams they shattered glass
My heart fell to the floor
You said:
“that eclipse last night was mine
I stole it from the sun,”
You said
That the light had made you blind
The fire burned you up
And it had been love.
With all this black and white around
My logic and restraint
Fade away…
My voice:
It shattered glass.
I always was fond of this one. I like that it was supposed to be a song, I think. So, you got to singing yet, there, seta?
"Your screams they shattered glass
My heart fell to the floor
You said:
“that eclipse last night was mine
I stole it from the sun,”
You said
That the light had made you blind
The fire burned you up
And it had been love.
With all this black and white around
My logic and restraint
Fade away…
My voice:
It shattered glass." --- The ending is the best!!!!
And I know I don't always comment on how wonderful your schtuff is seta, but I hope you know in your heart that I love it, because I do, my friend!
Forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. - Leonard Cohen
Originally posted by setaside2
And isn’t it Autumn so Suddenly…
and she falls
a gliding lily now upon the wave carried away
a ferocious and unforseen pace
the rest of us sit in silence grouped by nations
breathing the last of her air and wondering upon a soul so far ashore
NOT to dissect and say this or that...
just to say that THIS part really speaks to me, personally....
It's never stuffy in here. I just like to read this great thread rather than contribute. I enjoy your work immensely, seta. Just thought I'd let you know.
It is good to remember passion of that level, no matter how altruistic, because without it we really won't appreciate the moments when we really feel alive amongst those we feel utterly dead.
words...reasons..truth...lies
"discovery brings questions" sometimes I wonder it it's better not knowing at all...
I loved this piece, just quoted the end because it was quite long
Originally posted by setaside2 okay... another one... and I'll let this lie for a day or so...
words of a man walking slowly past
[...]
Have I lied?
Discovery brings questions. Ask any religious scholar fighting to believe. Or any scientist struggling for proof. And even they must ask:
Have I been lied to?
Truth is a colorful perspective and like those fabled issues of love, happiness, etc… I suspect that adding the word “true”(adj.) to such nouns causes them to become hypothetical gestures; things only attainable by degrees or measured by degrees, much like burning paper (urban fires are also rated by the amount of destruction they cause, as are tornadoes, but that is a whole other ball of wax)......
Everytime I read this one I get this vision of a man gesturing in slow motion as we pass each other on the sidewalk at midday. he is repeating this diatribe to himself as I turn to watch him fade on by. In all of these visions the actual scenario is silent and yet I can hear him in my head as if his thoughts were my own and as if I hadn't just borrowed them for a moment or two to put them down.
There have been rumors of this man being Diogenes. I do not think so; it is a good rumor but I don't see myself as one who would run into somebody so ascetic these days. Look at me, I'm surrounded by material b.s. I don't know that he'd approve of my situation whatsoever LOL.
Still... perhaps he would occasionally approve of what I think. LOL Maybe.
"Call no man happy until he is dead." Herodotus.
Buru, I love you dearly for wading your way. Much thanks to you.
I am hoping that the rest of you know my gratitude as well? lol please?
seta
cheesy but I always liked this one:
"story to story, building to building, street to street: we pass each other on the stairs."
I'm stepping in front of the gushing hydrant in a hurricane. I'd like to see the traction I keep.
"Strike me, Antisthenes, but you will never find a stick sufficiently hard to remove me from your presence, while you speak anything worth hearing." - Diogenes
shove the past on deep into the oceon
and let the pain just seep on outside
cast the spell now onto the abysmal
your soggy heart sinks into the tide
go ahead be a critic
Well THAT's a loaded statement.
LOL.
Well first off, let me congratulate you for doing something that most people hereabouts claim that I cannot: writing a poem in under 5 lines.
But I guess for me these little things, unless they are formulaic like Haiku, seem so incomplete. I want to know the why and how.
I like this piece. It is very visual and keeps its metaphor clear and concise. It is soft and dark, but difficult to warm. It is a four line blanket under which none of us would be comfortable but under which we have all tried to sleep.
i'd say to the subject of this piece that floating on the waves gives a far better view and I would encourage them to not give up.
But then there are times when the lightest of us shall sink.
Thanks for adding on. It is always good.
seta
I'm stepping in front of the gushing hydrant in a hurricane. I'd like to see the traction I keep.
Originally posted by setaside2 30 Miles, Light Speed, and a Peach
The peach solidified sweet and dripping
oh so sailing on this summer wind
the eyes-closed-flavor the sin the acidic sugar again
the gate closed behind so clackety clack the lock off track and the broken latch
no more can be given to this escape than the winged feet as they dust down the thatched and brambled pathway
limestone bricks your fort with sad fossils in its walls and cracked upon its fireplace spirits of space at millenium's pace
so be it: the fashion stead
the roaring fire sorely controlled engulfs
its obsessive and oxygenated oratory silently snapping and subtle through three a.m.
these lives catscradled and entwined fingertip to fingertip
one may rock and creak and while away the hours
culling the past from some endless well of dream and depth and polished chrome
sipping from the pail that fine wine crystal clear
-strange how this tincture stains so carmine once spilled-
while a sun streaks double and tripled exposed across the sky
the whispers that come as the harbingers of one storm or another
argue and debate the blessings of the arcing moon
how fast is fleet
these details and ripples of the world ironed by high speed
is there a curve to flee; the horizon lines seem so straightened
the cheeks and shoulders scathed and sewn
passing branches carelessly wrought and reaching
hands flown
damn the rainbow
for it continues to move just slightly out of sight to the upper right
and this 30 mile trail has stretched to infinity
the abilities of light speed notwithstanding
time moves onward in its themes of utter disregard
as these footprints merely wear canyons in the crust
the glacial flow silently follows
buried
the peach pit left in dust
struggles desperate in this dry tundra
for the air
its thirst divine
tinted red by a fading sun insinuating itself behind the foothills at the end of a breathless day
kneeling
the sapling is cradled away in velvet grace
to the side greener and the pasture sweeter
so small its sky 7 inches high and trembles at the slightest breath
it needs worry not: with love it will grow and provide the shade and sweet
children will carve hearts and initials into its pageless papyrus bark
its lifespan catscradled and penned in
oh silent verification as it drops again
the peach will tumble the canyon walls
and begin its life anew in the shifting sands and the footsteps at the river shore
the rain continues unabated though not so frigid and ruthless
as night falls the rainbow fervently sought fades and the mists roll in with permanence
the trail fey and changed in such gray, drab and humid comfort
ghosts sway in the gullies and sing of the lost souls upon the road
now not so alone as another has joined, has showed,
the infinite trek has had its summit peaked
and the only thing left to do
is take one step off the trail and soar
nothing more
the colors have haloed the moon
it's funny, you know? my take on this now is so much more sober than at last read.... "culling the past from some endless well of dream"... that's really beautiful... i am not sure if it's meant to be sad... it seems it might, but so much the thing so many of us do.
while there remains nothing we can harvest from our endless well of future dream, nothing tangible, nothing that is not smoke and mirror to our immediate eye, it is satisfying to know directly that possibilities exist. it is stepping off the trail... given to soar
Today I grabbed the sapling twig of an oak and snapped it twain, seeking the utensil in which to instill a personal mind and the divining rod that may yet quench a drying thirst so intense my skin cracks at the mere discussion. The arm strength necessary to write these letters on the beach a body high, wanes. While the temporary low-level reprieve allows this brief outpouring of my devotion, I must let it be known that my weakness may never permit its permanence. It is my desire that keeps me awake, keeps the knees from locking in faint, keeps the idea of pulse-conscience ever conscious. Never mind that I know not what it is that I want, never mind that it is perhaps you, never mind the fact that these stars cut me deeply at distances so cold the knives sharpen when they hit the atmosphere. Never mind the radiance in my retina, the cadence in the spiraling patina of color, Orion meeting the water at the horizon… I shall ponder my language in the killing twilight:
Listless lies the grass, and pale
Side by side boardwalk by and by
Keep the day at bay, veiled
The hand in hand set warm and exclusive
Two lives and loves with something to prove on the run
The more dynamic of the two, the one
Parting fingers as waves weave an untied tide that carries a missive
Far-flung and ornately hung jewels that state semiprecious permanence
Mercy and grace the mead the sustenance
A pact of compassion made one stormy night now torn away
The seas too rough, the souls slight and quaking under the pounding insistence
Air thickening while alcohol thins,
A settled side by side and a leveled sin.
Tonight we travel, disheartened and alone,
Your level of color fidelity may sound home
An evening pondered and given away.
Seething
So full of self and moment and time
The dust never settles in this whirling and tornadic prime
A heart may pound its way through a chest in the effort to show itself
Lungs releasing a breath held for so many years
Where the fingers grab and caress, glide and undress, seek and sink
Where the mind may sense and seem amiss, dream and drink
Listless lies this grass, the dew, the tears…
And pale the frosty stare of the waxing moon settling on the two shifting shadows in the limelight of love. No incredulity, no shame, no fear of the coming rain, they undulate: the grounded tails of a thousand kites in a tempest. Little do they know that this message they mar is my uplifted prayer to those scything blades above and now I have to wonder if this is my answer sounding off in the sand: these two lovers in oblivion. I have to wonder at the way they live and breathe so intensely connected. I have to wonder why it is that I shall end up home alone this night after my long and coarsely ground walk down the beach, up the road 3 miles and to the east. I have to question why the lovers there have their moment and I forever live in mine… and as the radio kicks on and the caffeine kicks in, the steam from the bath I have begun to run reveals the soapy secret sig on my mirror left all those months back, when this tub was blessedly smaller and filled with infinitely more emotion. My toothbrush halfway in and out, the rings under my eyes forgotten just for a moment, this letter of letters pushes all things out from the mind, and the eye absorbs with left to right notation:
See you soon, love you, love this soap, love you.
Soon… it echoes. I had forgotten why I had never cleaned my mirror.
I step into the bath and spit the brush across the room as I realize that I am out of Dove and that causes the thought: I’m not able to write you back. I… of the lettered sand of the lover’s beach. I… so powerless to hold the pen and tab/nib these things to you or to anyone else.
My tiles are cracked or cracking and so am I. Soon is never and these 7 years of soon have not ended soon enough.
The house trembles as the hurricane washes ashore, the tub overflows, and I am left to cry myself to sleep another night.
I suppose that, after the storm passes, I’ll return to write you again tomorrow. I hid that oak twig in the impression left by the last boardwalk to collapse under rotting driftwood. I suppose that, when I’m done, I will steal a little more of that driftwood and add the deck to my house.
Sooner or later the ocean will have to come to me.
And I am now willing to wait.
I won’t cry anymore.
If you won’t.
I'm stepping in front of the gushing hydrant in a hurricane. I'd like to see the traction I keep.
"Parting fingers as waves weave an untied tide that carries "
...it's lovely, Seta... thank you for sharing... you should read these things aloud more, the presentation adds where one might close the eyes and let the words flow by, wrap around and move on. leaving no room between the next passing, impressing, like winds at ocean's side... leaving no room where one might obsess on the particular meaning of this passage or that, but allowing it rather, to be whole and in its own, right
Originally posted by Amaterasu posted the post of my life and the computer made it
disappear. Hours of work suffice to say blinked out
like a 182.
I'm bent, I don't think I can suscribe to your thread anymore.
That used to happen to me...it's always good to write your poems on Wordpad or as a Word document, then copy and paste, my friend. It saves a lot of frustration and disappointment.
Did you ever hear about when Hendrix had just about completed his LP "Axis: Bold as Love", he decided one night to take the masters of the album with him to a party, and lost the entire B-side in a taxi on the way back...
What's intriguing about this poem is that its form says much about its content. In the first section, the first person speaker seems dissociated from his body...and little lines such as
"The arm strength necessary to write these letters on the beach a body high, wanes"
convey that sense of defamiliarization with sense perspective. Note the absence of self reference, and this is something which will return as a formal and thematic feature of the piece. The speaker does, however, attempt to re-assert centralised and sentient control over his feelings, to prove he has not been ontologically engulfed by the numbing pains of past relationships and weariness with feeling the world intensely for so long. He knows of a murmur of capacity for love (is it an ember or a phoenix?), and he says
"It is my desire that keeps me awake, keeps the knees from locking in faint, keeps the idea of pulse-conscience ever conscious".
But the painful glare of romantic intensity is for him encapsulated in the searing image of starlight knives.
The middle section again emphasises the notion of engulfment and loss of autonomy or even self-possession of desire, because tokens and gestures of love are described imagistically almost as if surveyed with the dispassionate eye of a camera focusing in on selective aspects of the scene,
"The hand in hand set warm and exclusive
Two lives and loves with something to prove on the run
The more dynamic of the two, the one
Parting fingers as waves weave an untied tide that carries a missive
Far-flung and ornately hung jewels that state semiprecious permanence
Mercy and grace the mead the sustenance
A pact of compassion made one stormy night now torn away
The seas too rough, the souls slight and quaking under the pounding insistence"
Note the dissociative effect of such phrases as "The hand in hand" rather than the expected "my hand in yours"...the effect is to offset the description of lovemaking's "quaking" and "pounding insistence" and construct a formal conflict between passion and reticence, agency and removal that is central to the poem's thematic preoccupations. Strikingly, uses of the first person plural are placed not in the context of togetherness but separation:
"Tonight we travel, disheartened and alone"
One wonders for an instant whether actually, the speaker has been describing two lovers he passes on a beach and not his own experience, when he says
"I have to wonder at the way they live and breathe so intensely connected. I have to wonder why it is that I shall end up home alone this night after my long and coarsely ground walk down the beach, up the road 3 miles and to the east. I have to question why the lovers there have their moment and I forever live in mine…"
These lines sum up the gist of the piece excellently: the speaker is aware of an echo of desire which proves his existence, and he also is aware of his other self as a lover, but he ponders the relationship between his two selves...the stirrings of desire problematise his attempts either to immerse himself in or distance himself from the tempestuous celebration of union with oceans of engulfing....love?
The stick image seems an ambiguous metaphor, and because I like its openness I shan't wager my take on it.
Fins, thanks for taking the time to take a look and let it drip. I will now attempt to work my way through the thesis themes here and shed light where I may.
and AmaT... I am a beat poet and if you ever happen to speak to any of them (there aren't many of them left) they all spelled it P O M E. LOL. And I prefer it. so THERE, :P:P
love,
seta
Originally posted by FinsburyParkCarrots
What's intriguing about this poem is that its form says much about its content. In the first section, the first person speaker seems dissociated from his body...and little lines such as
"The arm strength necessary to write these letters on the beach a body high, wanes"
convey that sense of defamiliarization with sense perspective. Note the absence of self reference, and this is something which will return as a formal and thematic feature of the piece. The speaker does, however, attempt to re-assert centralised and sentient control over his feelings, to prove he has not been ontologically engulfed by the numbing pains of past relationships and weariness with feeling the world intensely for so long. He knows of a murmur of capacity for love (is it an ember or a phoenix?), and he says
"It is my desire that keeps me awake, keeps the knees from locking in faint, keeps the idea of pulse-conscience ever conscious".
But the painful glare of romantic intensity is for him encapsulated in the searing image of starlight knives.
The middle section again emphasises the notion of engulfment and loss of autonomy or even self-possession of desire, because tokens and gestures of love are described imagistically almost as if surveyed with the dispassionate eye of a camera focusing in on selective aspects of the scene,
"The hand in hand set warm and exclusive
Two lives and loves with something to prove on the run
The more dynamic of the two, the one
Parting fingers as waves weave an untied tide that carries a missive
Far-flung and ornately hung jewels that state semiprecious permanence
Mercy and grace the mead the sustenance
A pact of compassion made one stormy night now torn away
The seas too rough, the souls slight and quaking under the pounding insistence"
Note the dissociative effect of such phrases as "The hand in hand" rather than the expected "my hand in yours"...the effect is to offset the description of lovemaking's "quaking" and "pounding insistence" and construct a formal conflict between passion and reticence, agency and removal that is central to the poem's thematic preoccupations. Strikingly, uses of the first person plural are placed not in the context of togetherness but separation:
"Tonight we travel, disheartened and alone"
One wonders for an instant whether actually, the speaker has been describing two lovers he passes on a beach and not his own experience, when he says
"I have to wonder at the way they live and breathe so intensely connected. I have to wonder why it is that I shall end up home alone this night after my long and coarsely ground walk down the beach, up the road 3 miles and to the east. I have to question why the lovers there have their moment and I forever live in mine…"
These lines sum up the gist of the piece excellently: the speaker is aware of an echo of desire which proves his existence, and he also is aware of his other self as a lover, but he ponders the relationship between his two selves...the stirrings of desire problematise his attempts either to immerse himself in or distance himself from the tempestuous celebration of union with oceans of engulfing....love?
The stick image seems an ambiguous metaphor, and because I like its openness I shan't wager my take on it.
I liked it, seta. I think you can tell that.
alrighty... let's start with the dissociative thematic. In actuality for me, the arm strength waning and all that is merely my writing style. A forced third person perspective yes, but upon the reader, not upon the subject or the primary character. In many instances it may seem that the protagonist here is actually speaking to himself, and you may allow yourself to believe so because it would be quite natural for this particular individual to do so. The fact of the matter is that the character is well aware of his limitations and is in fact UNable to dissociate himself from them. Also, in many ways, the lack of reference to self was to keep the passage from becoming TOO one sided and too self absorbed. In short, it was a quick decision by the other to scissor two words as well as an ability of the character to situate himself as one with whom we may sympathize.
There is indeed the romantic intensity, but there is also the question of beyond, and is the only time this comes into play here but he is often wondering if the gods, should there be any, have anything to do with his inabilities and/or his lacking love. The stars are his reminders of his failures, those dreams for which he has reached. Stab it with those steely knives...
again the hand in hand perspective: words chosen for flow and not for dissociation.. that's my kick. but I can definitely see what you mean and it really puts an interesting spin on the whole thing. For sure.
Now there is no doubt that he verifies self through his emotions and above all what he feels for and in, love.
To put a bit of perspective on this: the stick is no metaphor, it really is a writing utensil, this is an open mantra. He really is writing the pome that makes up the second group of stanzas into the sand. There really ARE two lovers on the beach who roll out and intimately proceed to mar his work, his undying declarations of low tide and low slung memory. The pome that he writes speaks of his own experiences, the lovers so current and real and so much more than he is able to be at this given moment, overpower his mere memory and his hollow words of glory blossom and pain. I view this individual as one who is entirely attached to what was and as one who is entirely clueless in what to do about what will be. I believe that the biggest dissociation that takes place in here is the fact that the trip home means nothing more than a quick set of directions and holds no more meaning than his nightly trip to the w.c. Home is entirely dissociated from this piece because for this man, home is hollow.
The only time that home is NOT dissociated is when he refers to it as a metaphor for self, that he and the house are of one minded destinies.
hmmm now I'm putting mySELF to sleep LOL... I shall finish this soon.
seta
I'm stepping in front of the gushing hydrant in a hurricane. I'd like to see the traction I keep.
Comments
I always was fond of this one. I like that it was supposed to be a song, I think. So, you got to singing yet, there, seta?
"Your screams they shattered glass
My heart fell to the floor
You said:
“that eclipse last night was mine
I stole it from the sun,”
You said
That the light had made you blind
The fire burned you up
And it had been love.
With all this black and white around
My logic and restraint
Fade away…
My voice:
It shattered glass." --- The ending is the best!!!!
And I know I don't always comment on how wonderful your schtuff is seta, but I hope you know in your heart that I love it, because I do, my friend!
NOT to dissect and say this or that...
just to say that THIS part really speaks to me, personally....
thank you for writing, setaside2
I am currently working on a new version of that piece in song. I don't know if it will work but I'm giving it a shot.
thanks for reading all.
i hope it's not too stuffy in here.
seta
hear here
"discovery brings questions" sometimes I wonder it it's better not knowing at all...
I loved this piece, just quoted the end because it was quite long
There have been rumors of this man being Diogenes. I do not think so; it is a good rumor but I don't see myself as one who would run into somebody so ascetic these days. Look at me, I'm surrounded by material b.s. I don't know that he'd approve of my situation whatsoever LOL.
Still... perhaps he would occasionally approve of what I think. LOL Maybe.
"Call no man happy until he is dead." Herodotus.
Buru, I love you dearly for wading your way. Much thanks to you.
I am hoping that the rest of you know my gratitude as well? lol please?
seta
cheesy but I always liked this one:
"story to story, building to building, street to street: we pass each other on the stairs."
The masochist cries, "Beat me! BEAT ME!"
The sadist looks at the masochist and says: "No."
shove the past on deep into the oceon
and let the pain just seep on outside
cast the spell now onto the abysmal
your soggy heart sinks into the tide
go ahead be a critic
Well THAT's a loaded statement.
LOL.
Well first off, let me congratulate you for doing something that most people hereabouts claim that I cannot: writing a poem in under 5 lines.
But I guess for me these little things, unless they are formulaic like Haiku, seem so incomplete. I want to know the why and how.
I like this piece. It is very visual and keeps its metaphor clear and concise. It is soft and dark, but difficult to warm. It is a four line blanket under which none of us would be comfortable but under which we have all tried to sleep.
i'd say to the subject of this piece that floating on the waves gives a far better view and I would encourage them to not give up.
But then there are times when the lightest of us shall sink.
Thanks for adding on. It is always good.
seta
Poems: "The Trees," by Philip Larkin, from Collected Poems (Noonday Press).
The Trees
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
time for some spring cleaning, no?
muy bueno s's, ese
the s's are just a part of what's under the hood, if you get me drift, lassie.
Glad you love the word of the...
how's that go again?
it's funny, you know? my take on this now is so much more sober than at last read.... "culling the past from some endless well of dream"... that's really beautiful... i am not sure if it's meant to be sad... it seems it might, but so much the thing so many of us do.
while there remains nothing we can harvest from our endless well of future dream, nothing tangible, nothing that is not smoke and mirror to our immediate eye, it is satisfying to know directly that possibilities exist. it is stepping off the trail... given to soar
Today I grabbed the sapling twig of an oak and snapped it twain, seeking the utensil in which to instill a personal mind and the divining rod that may yet quench a drying thirst so intense my skin cracks at the mere discussion. The arm strength necessary to write these letters on the beach a body high, wanes. While the temporary low-level reprieve allows this brief outpouring of my devotion, I must let it be known that my weakness may never permit its permanence. It is my desire that keeps me awake, keeps the knees from locking in faint, keeps the idea of pulse-conscience ever conscious. Never mind that I know not what it is that I want, never mind that it is perhaps you, never mind the fact that these stars cut me deeply at distances so cold the knives sharpen when they hit the atmosphere. Never mind the radiance in my retina, the cadence in the spiraling patina of color, Orion meeting the water at the horizon… I shall ponder my language in the killing twilight:
Listless lies the grass, and pale
Side by side boardwalk by and by
Keep the day at bay, veiled
The hand in hand set warm and exclusive
Two lives and loves with something to prove on the run
The more dynamic of the two, the one
Parting fingers as waves weave an untied tide that carries a missive
Far-flung and ornately hung jewels that state semiprecious permanence
Mercy and grace the mead the sustenance
A pact of compassion made one stormy night now torn away
The seas too rough, the souls slight and quaking under the pounding insistence
Air thickening while alcohol thins,
A settled side by side and a leveled sin.
Tonight we travel, disheartened and alone,
Your level of color fidelity may sound home
An evening pondered and given away.
Seething
So full of self and moment and time
The dust never settles in this whirling and tornadic prime
A heart may pound its way through a chest in the effort to show itself
Lungs releasing a breath held for so many years
Where the fingers grab and caress, glide and undress, seek and sink
Where the mind may sense and seem amiss, dream and drink
Listless lies this grass, the dew, the tears…
And pale the frosty stare of the waxing moon settling on the two shifting shadows in the limelight of love. No incredulity, no shame, no fear of the coming rain, they undulate: the grounded tails of a thousand kites in a tempest. Little do they know that this message they mar is my uplifted prayer to those scything blades above and now I have to wonder if this is my answer sounding off in the sand: these two lovers in oblivion. I have to wonder at the way they live and breathe so intensely connected. I have to wonder why it is that I shall end up home alone this night after my long and coarsely ground walk down the beach, up the road 3 miles and to the east. I have to question why the lovers there have their moment and I forever live in mine… and as the radio kicks on and the caffeine kicks in, the steam from the bath I have begun to run reveals the soapy secret sig on my mirror left all those months back, when this tub was blessedly smaller and filled with infinitely more emotion. My toothbrush halfway in and out, the rings under my eyes forgotten just for a moment, this letter of letters pushes all things out from the mind, and the eye absorbs with left to right notation:
See you soon, love you, love this soap, love you.
Soon… it echoes. I had forgotten why I had never cleaned my mirror.
I step into the bath and spit the brush across the room as I realize that I am out of Dove and that causes the thought: I’m not able to write you back. I… of the lettered sand of the lover’s beach. I… so powerless to hold the pen and tab/nib these things to you or to anyone else.
My tiles are cracked or cracking and so am I. Soon is never and these 7 years of soon have not ended soon enough.
The house trembles as the hurricane washes ashore, the tub overflows, and I am left to cry myself to sleep another night.
I suppose that, after the storm passes, I’ll return to write you again tomorrow. I hid that oak twig in the impression left by the last boardwalk to collapse under rotting driftwood. I suppose that, when I’m done, I will steal a little more of that driftwood and add the deck to my house.
Sooner or later the ocean will have to come to me.
And I am now willing to wait.
I won’t cry anymore.
If you won’t.
...it's lovely, Seta... thank you for sharing... you should read these things aloud more, the presentation adds where one might close the eyes and let the words flow by, wrap around and move on. leaving no room between the next passing, impressing, like winds at ocean's side... leaving no room where one might obsess on the particular meaning of this passage or that, but allowing it rather, to be whole and in its own, right
i like the colors, too
That used to happen to me...it's always good to write your poems on Wordpad or as a Word document, then copy and paste, my friend. It saves a lot of frustration and disappointment.
Did you ever hear about when Hendrix had just about completed his LP "Axis: Bold as Love", he decided one night to take the masters of the album with him to a party, and lost the entire B-side in a taxi on the way back...
:eek:
This particular pome comes from so far inside that it was like ripping a scab off my left ventricle.
i cried while writing it...
not that that should matter.
seta
"The arm strength necessary to write these letters on the beach a body high, wanes"
convey that sense of defamiliarization with sense perspective. Note the absence of self reference, and this is something which will return as a formal and thematic feature of the piece. The speaker does, however, attempt to re-assert centralised and sentient control over his feelings, to prove he has not been ontologically engulfed by the numbing pains of past relationships and weariness with feeling the world intensely for so long. He knows of a murmur of capacity for love (is it an ember or a phoenix?), and he says
"It is my desire that keeps me awake, keeps the knees from locking in faint, keeps the idea of pulse-conscience ever conscious".
But the painful glare of romantic intensity is for him encapsulated in the searing image of starlight knives.
The middle section again emphasises the notion of engulfment and loss of autonomy or even self-possession of desire, because tokens and gestures of love are described imagistically almost as if surveyed with the dispassionate eye of a camera focusing in on selective aspects of the scene,
"The hand in hand set warm and exclusive
Two lives and loves with something to prove on the run
The more dynamic of the two, the one
Parting fingers as waves weave an untied tide that carries a missive
Far-flung and ornately hung jewels that state semiprecious permanence
Mercy and grace the mead the sustenance
A pact of compassion made one stormy night now torn away
The seas too rough, the souls slight and quaking under the pounding insistence"
Note the dissociative effect of such phrases as "The hand in hand" rather than the expected "my hand in yours"...the effect is to offset the description of lovemaking's "quaking" and "pounding insistence" and construct a formal conflict between passion and reticence, agency and removal that is central to the poem's thematic preoccupations. Strikingly, uses of the first person plural are placed not in the context of togetherness but separation:
"Tonight we travel, disheartened and alone"
One wonders for an instant whether actually, the speaker has been describing two lovers he passes on a beach and not his own experience, when he says
"I have to wonder at the way they live and breathe so intensely connected. I have to wonder why it is that I shall end up home alone this night after my long and coarsely ground walk down the beach, up the road 3 miles and to the east. I have to question why the lovers there have their moment and I forever live in mine…"
These lines sum up the gist of the piece excellently: the speaker is aware of an echo of desire which proves his existence, and he also is aware of his other self as a lover, but he ponders the relationship between his two selves...the stirrings of desire problematise his attempts either to immerse himself in or distance himself from the tempestuous celebration of union with oceans of engulfing....love?
The stick image seems an ambiguous metaphor, and because I like its openness I shan't wager my take on it.
I liked it, seta. I think you can tell that.
and AmaT... I am a beat poet and if you ever happen to speak to any of them (there aren't many of them left) they all spelled it P O M E. LOL. And I prefer it. so THERE, :P:P
love,
seta
alrighty... let's start with the dissociative thematic. In actuality for me, the arm strength waning and all that is merely my writing style. A forced third person perspective yes, but upon the reader, not upon the subject or the primary character. In many instances it may seem that the protagonist here is actually speaking to himself, and you may allow yourself to believe so because it would be quite natural for this particular individual to do so. The fact of the matter is that the character is well aware of his limitations and is in fact UNable to dissociate himself from them. Also, in many ways, the lack of reference to self was to keep the passage from becoming TOO one sided and too self absorbed. In short, it was a quick decision by the other to scissor two words as well as an ability of the character to situate himself as one with whom we may sympathize.
There is indeed the romantic intensity, but there is also the question of beyond, and is the only time this comes into play here but he is often wondering if the gods, should there be any, have anything to do with his inabilities and/or his lacking love. The stars are his reminders of his failures, those dreams for which he has reached. Stab it with those steely knives...
again the hand in hand perspective: words chosen for flow and not for dissociation.. that's my kick. but I can definitely see what you mean and it really puts an interesting spin on the whole thing. For sure.
Now there is no doubt that he verifies self through his emotions and above all what he feels for and in, love.
To put a bit of perspective on this: the stick is no metaphor, it really is a writing utensil, this is an open mantra. He really is writing the pome that makes up the second group of stanzas into the sand. There really ARE two lovers on the beach who roll out and intimately proceed to mar his work, his undying declarations of low tide and low slung memory. The pome that he writes speaks of his own experiences, the lovers so current and real and so much more than he is able to be at this given moment, overpower his mere memory and his hollow words of glory blossom and pain. I view this individual as one who is entirely attached to what was and as one who is entirely clueless in what to do about what will be. I believe that the biggest dissociation that takes place in here is the fact that the trip home means nothing more than a quick set of directions and holds no more meaning than his nightly trip to the w.c. Home is entirely dissociated from this piece because for this man, home is hollow.
The only time that home is NOT dissociated is when he refers to it as a metaphor for self, that he and the house are of one minded destinies.
hmmm now I'm putting mySELF to sleep LOL... I shall finish this soon.
seta