Belfast
cassia
Posts: 277
BELFAST
Jaded, she wears
a soft black coat
over a great ache.
Why do good men
die, or horses
run wild?
The dim light
of a distant star
reaches down.
It's the unluck
of the Irish
to kiss the stone
so much like skull
and know
that green
is the loneliest color
this close to the bone.
Jaded, she wears
a soft black coat
over a great ache.
Why do good men
die, or horses
run wild?
The dim light
of a distant star
reaches down.
It's the unluck
of the Irish
to kiss the stone
so much like skull
and know
that green
is the loneliest color
this close to the bone.
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Like "the dim light of a distant star"?
Those quiet walkers
And sideways talkers
Shoaling out of his lane
To the respectable
Purring of the hearse...
They move in equal pace
With the habitual
Slow consolation
Of a dawdling engine,
The line lifted, hand
Over fist, cold sunshine
On the water, the land
Banked under fog..."
Green sod,
& lonely no more, now
but the stone keeps
getting turned over with
old sod burying the fallen,
bombs bursting over Belfast,
not unlike
the same we detonate
or others on us
for scourge religion, governments,
the ego of kings,
flags draping on the coffins of the innocents.
Let us carve us up
some new jade rings,
circle the palaces with songs and poems,
let them fall
(as they surely will)
under the weight
of their
own folly.
Come, now,
all of us,
who put Beauty
first, arise,
write poems,
sing songs,
make love,
give them no more credance.
We are the future.
We are now.
P.
phishgod
I'm still in the laboratory; I might fail....
but I've got to try.
It's always interesting to see Ireland written about from the outside, just as, being second-generation Irish diaspora in England I'm curious about the construction of an ethnocentric literary Irishness: for me, Yeats's best poetry registers his own senses of cultural and social ambivalence (1916, for example); Heaney's strength is in his ability to "code-switch" between sectarian constructions of experience in formulating a poetry that tries to transcend ideological models. many of the old images and symbols turn up again in poetry from Ireland, some of it of the "natural" landscape, much of it steeped in historical connotation and import. TS Eliot used to talk about the "Auditory imagination", but I've been wary of this....CAN poets express a sense of identity without recourse to the same worn tropes?
not new language but something surpassing language.
cleaving to the field, protecting her. THE REAL THING and not the metaphor of the thing.
come with me to the top of the hill. I Will show you.
the pen at rest, the stars coming out.
yes, the "dangerous myths" irish/catholic--the terms Kavanagh might have avoided as simplicities, coiled in exaggeration.
To name a thing is to kill it, as Rilke told us.
And how is one to unwrap from the glorious tendrilly vines of aestheticism--rooted in beauty/pastoral enchantments?
Ideal Ireland....Plato out from the allegory of the cave, and always a better Tree, a better homeland/ the Ideal of the Mind, yes, at Inniskeen
and clay--well that's a metapoetic substance, itself a pottery-raw essence, as the myth of man was shaped from clay
and what more pure beauty as K found in
"stones, clay, grass, the sunlight coming through the privet hedge"
Alas, we are but green hungry fools, perhaps.
ah, but 'tis good to be green, to feel the belly growl of desire telling you you're still alive.
The mental Emerald, the untouchable courage of dream.
as if the poem itself already "existed" and was just waiting for the right bard to discern the notes//
ciao
Night, all.
logistical schematics overcome when vast atlantics evaporate and tectonic plates collide: burnsian solution in distantial devotions singing"so deep in luve am i...till all the seas gang dry."
all that red hair no doubt, a bunch of carrots, squigglegiggles.
in form or old, metaphor or exclamation point, and powerful in their own right.
I am all for creating new symbols,
but those old true ones still have their own intrinsic power and can be reshaped, reformed, morphed into the new
by new eyes,
Beauty renewed
(as it were)
over the continous course of Being & Becoming.
so it is not necessarily
a retro view
to return again
to old themes, old symbols
recast them in the new Light of new Days mottled with new experiences
and through the retelling, giving them a new flavor of their own legacy.
Green grow the rushes, ho!
bye for now
phishgod
(paraphrased)
before, mountains were mountains, trees were trees.
while i studied zen, mountains were no longer mountains,
trees no longer trees.
now, being enlightened, mountains are mountains and
trees are trees.
***
it's as though once we break through the old surface cliches we can have mystic revelation and then go wow OK now I see
like
Everything is everything (one) and illusion , albeit Pretty illusion/no true separation ...all particles beaming One and then
oh
the symbols, the old symbols are just as good.
Perhaps it the Passion the energy we Bring to the word.
A gifted passionate poet can use the SAME WORDS,
but through art skill craft Ikebanetic arrangement and haiku surfeits can draw out birth forth a bright bouquet of stark lushness...................ooh did i say that
GLOWBEAMS
"You see them on the low hills of Barbados
bracing like windbreaks, needles for hurricanes,
trailing, like masts, the cirrus of torn sails;
when I was green like them, I used to think
those cypresses, leaning against the sea,
that take the sea noise up into their branches,
are not real cypresses but casuarinas.
Now captain just call them Canadian cedars.
But cedars, cypresses or casuarinas,
whoever called them so had a good cause,
watching their bending bodies wail like women
after a storm, when some schooner came home
with news of one more sailor drowned again.
Once the sound "cypress" used to make more sense
than the green "casuarinas", though, to the wind
whatever grief bent them was all the same,
since they were trees with nothing else in mind
but heavenly leaping or to guard a grave;
but we live like our names and you would have
to be colonial to know the difference,
to know the pain of history words contain,
to love those trees with an inferior love,
and to believe: "Those casuarinas bend
like cypresses, their hair hangs down in rain
like sailors' wives. They're classic trees, and we,
if we live like the names our masters please,
by careful mimicry might become men."
DEREK WALCOTT IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY GUY
oh mygod ohmygod ohmygod
SMILES ERRATICALLY SPILLING GLADNESS EVERYWHERE
OVER THE TABLE
breathlessly regaining a modicum of composure
ohmyfrickin god
he is SO my guy. goodgod ilovehim. and his yummy watercolors and his luscious caribbean accent and the fact that he lives sometimes in boston and that he is quintessentially
elegant formal gentle rhythmic king of my stlucia heartman!
(so that = thanks for making mah day)
i just reread OMEROS (his work on homeresque Seven Seas/)
and ohmygod
He is so drippingly redundantly beautifull
oh
beauty-full, my bluegreen angel canoeing in the mango groves...
he is so "in the mix."
and, isn't the Best Beauty ...Redundant
the lush cliches
LOVE SUNSETS LETTUCE
things
that quickly Perish
quickly, faithfully come again...like Rainbows redundant
after a softly falling hawaiian rain..........ahhh Bliss
and oh ilovehim and he uses pretties over and over
like
lemon
rose
wood
blue
tea
kettle
and those wonderful symbols infused with fragrance and eye-delight and he is a word-painter
and that's what i striveglide to do ohmygod he is mint and mentor to my soul and so apropos you select him/quink
utterly wow. and how i like to "paint" and in
ORANGES where frank o'hara says he is not a painter he is a poet and like his friend the artist who paints Sardines without sardine sign in it anymore...frank and i write ORANGES only we know it's the essence
of Oranges
orange is the thing implicit in the poem, the painting, the poem about painting and oranges and ohmy im dizzy and Schooning
imagine an octagonal candy apple red STOP sign here...
one of DW firsts
and from Wallace Stevens, "The Candle as Saint"
"Green is the night and out of madness woven,
The self-same madness of the astronomers...
...the image at its source,
The abstract, the archaic queen. Green is the night."
****
Green think rain
cypress
leaning
into the sea
real branches
of cedar’s
imaginary kin
sound & sense
leafing through
the wind
into a
mind made of trees
***
yes, “we live like our names”
as Derek Walcott wrote,
cedars, cypresses or casuarinas...
A sea rose is sea rose
by any other....
and I see walcott saying
“to know the pain of history words contain”
and etymologically, I’m feeling his exile
& his frustration re:colonialization
and the re-conquest of Words
in the victor’s tongue,
I am frequently haunted by one of Dws
lines “all day hemorrhaging poems”
he bled his poems. Some of the
beautiful pieces I adore in Midsummer
collection, such gorgeous gentle sorrow.
I was listening to Incubus, once, while
reading him.
So I turn to Brandon Boyd and see-hear
a symphony of HAPPY and starsparks
and magical wordchoices and think
Poet/and so multitalented with artwork
and his book White Fluffy Clouds.
And musical QUINK the first season I was
obsessed with Oranges
I go into this record shoppe, and find
a used Porno for Pyros cd...and on the cover
WOW, a girl dressed, uh undressed
like east indian goddess chick
COVERED WITH SLICED ORANGES/way
the lyrics on goodgod’s urge are spectacular
tiny magics./ so im a rambling sea rose....L
i think so, no, in fact i know so...
and the C- phishgod posted is beautiful...
and, ok... so... just so you know... cassia, phishgod and fins...
reading this thread makes me feel like a little leaguer at the world series
and so i want to know what y'all's favorite PJ song is
i see this
poetry pins something down, a tangent of thought though it might be, and sometimes a reader connects with it, though it doesn't always make the reader see the same thing...
and so...
we may kill "it" for ourselves
but it's death might cause the birth of all kinds of little thought-babies ...
and well, you can't pick your kin
what's interesting is in how often reading makes me want to write it my way... to paraphrase from my own palette
ya know?
Those Righties over on A Moving Train might not like this, but I've been listening to Bu$hleaguer a lot recently.
It'd be really good if PJ could find the time to play England at some point: the Bush mask routine would be must less controversial here!
I also like the song "Off he Goes." There's that line "It seems my preconceptions all should have been burned", which implies the alternative "It seems my preconceptive texts all should have been burned" and "It seems my preconceptions all should be unlearned" in one phrase. Mr Ved is major league by anyone's reckoning.
major major major
plaque on the wall says that
no one's slept here
it's rare
to come upon a bridge that has not been around
or been stepped on
oh man...
I always somehow in the background think of that bridge, for some reason, when I hear that song!
All poets bleed, that is the standard by which we all follow. If we did not, it would be a false statement, a miscolored dream, and we would be lying to ourselves and our fellow man. When I write is not the pain that drives me, it is the level of conscious nirvana on the other side. Lucid dreaming by ballpoint and blue, iconoclastic typeset by Mac.
I will admit that I can never and that I never will be able to quote the great writs of the human genome. I have read many and have incorporated many, but I am not a classicist by any stretch of the imagination. I prefer the dirt of common language mixed with the albino molasses of dream. On a good day, I may refer to my writings as the Poor Man's Neil Gaiman's Pet Allen Ginsberg. aka Kerouac Dakota Burroughs. If you will. I admit to striving for grace but not as any other does but merely to prove to myself that I do, infact, have something to say and that, perhaps, if it affects me in such an unearthly manner, it should be passed on to others for spiritual consumption. Like any good child with something to share.
Such is the Tao of poetry. However I have always laughed at the thought of having to study for enlightenment. How saddeningly human that we must understand our material selves first before we may understand our spiritual. How tragically backwards. The modern human takes classes for natural childbirth because they are unsure that perhaps instinct may or may not take over and it is that primal feeling that scares them so.
A mountain is indeed a mountain and a tree a tree and they all have their roles and their place in our minds and on this mother earth. To me it is no leap of faith to take them as they are and I will never be able to do otherwise. The issue is not noticing them around you daily as you flail your way through the material routine. It would the height of pretentious ignorance if we did not notice ourselves ignoring others. Also, the height of the poisoned persona.
Your poetry above is beauty in all it's lingual glory. Take that as it is and breathe life into more words as you go. Painting is merely another word for creation and it is creation that is the larger than life term that will allow the greater freedom. Painters require brushes and paint and a canvas, they are extraordinarily high maintenance. Creators, on the other hand, merely require the air to breath and a little thought. Much easier to deal with. And while the name is placed as an identifier I am pleased to report that the name Creator implies infinite possibilities so this is one area where a name may not limit at all, and such is the greatest gift given to any one human being.
Thank you for sharing your love of words, it is most refreshing and I most certainly feel blessed that you chose to share your work here. Ironically, I liked the poem Belfast and phish's C- better than the whole of Omeros. I often feel that lack of structure gives far more life and color to a single sentence than an entire novel may contain.
seta
Also, British and American NOVELS are so vastly different in conception these days. The US still in many respects strives toward the Great American Novel (just as the Victorian British did for their time), whereas the UK is preoccupied with the irony and understatement of post-imperial, local themes of suburban tristesse.
seta~incredible thought-spin, and energy-infused reply. I super appreciate the concision of your responsive intellect, and the experience you bring to the table. I think where I enjoy Walcott is at the level of pure word (maybe i might even agree with you as to novel/poetic voluminous ongoingness....)
but sometimes in just the word, words, clusters, i get off rhapsodizing on the beauty, but yes, i can see where it can get "old" after awhile, too.
And i loved your lines about creating, just breathing.
I AM SO THERE WITH YOU ON THAT.
awesome. yes, lucid dreaming. Dreamers, creators,
SKY PAINTING oxygen brushing H 2 Om.
as to the Tao of poetry, yes,
the free-blossoming wu wei gentleness of yielding to the essence of .....
and....so much more Fun! so that all things Are, and that's pretty much ok and yes, we have Everything we need right now:
AIR, love, some good pearl tunes....
Awesome you: saying: you "prefer the dirt of common language mixed with the albino molasses of dream."
such wonderful juxtaposing. ooh la. thanks again for the close read and precision of creatorly application. Truly inspiring~peace
so if any reading could suggest fav poets, let me know.
I enjoy Atwoods so much. and when joyce carol oates returns from the north, she always brings back such story gems.
fins Re: name change...how bout Richmond, or Richfield....
chuckles R.T. is classy, too.....
in no particular order....
Seta--what a wonderful and thoughtful response to this thread, the Tao of Poetry indeed, wonderful, & I know for a fact you just made Cassia's night by favoring her post over Walcott (and sacrilegious as it may be for me, to say of one of her top fives, I agree with you!), but your post was truly one of the best yet and deserves high praise for its depth, breadth and creative understanding. I have now read it three times and just love all the gems you have embedded in there, from the sentiment, to the words, to the insightfulness with which you have scribed it.
Fins--another high mark on the quink zone for you, since C. just discovered Henri amongst my some 600 volume poetry library and has been raving over him for the last few weeks, and since I do not know McGough (think I have heard of Patten, but not read him), I am now likely to go trudging off to my favorite bookstore again this weekendb to drop another 100 bones on lit if they are even half a good a read as Henri.
It seems that bridge by you is a lot like like the ones we have over on this side of the pond, the ones where the bricks and mortar keep crashing through some poor chap's windshield during rush hour--some times either the Ved-man's tunes, or the poems and words have a greater purpose than that brick at waking folks up & by the way--yes yes Mr. Ved is indeed major league, but over here in Michigan, we don't call da prez a BushLeaguer, we call him "Shrub" since he's just the baby son of a Bush.
--Yellow, not to leave anybody out of course, and yes the thoughtbabies thing is right with it-- keep painting those things that move you with your own palette, and if you are as lucky as I have been to be able to come across peeps (like C. has been for me) who can expand your palette with all the sparkly colors of the universe, you will certainly be a creative force in your own "write' for other thoughtbabies to follow.
Regards, all..../
phishgod
Roger McGough was also in a band called The Scaffold; he wrote the song Lily The Pink. The lead singer of that band was Paul McCartney's brother Mike.
McGough has been a "canonical" popular poet, on British secondary school syllabuses since the eighties, but he's been around since the sixties. He knew Ginsberg et al, and took part in those legendary Royal Festival Hall poetry-ins in the mid-sixties. Lots of sugarcubes consumed, apparently.