Posts tagged ‘poetry from voices’
Fragments
Fragments
1.
The joy that you gave me
has all become remembrance,
sorrowed.
2.
Duck mirrored in the lake:
his hoarse call.
“Freedom.”
3.
The desert madman…
they called him wise.
He starved to death.
4.
This face recalled: surface’
reflection.
So bright, so sharp.
5.
And to truth?–silence
or a laugh.
Surfaces.
6.
After the word, silence.
After birth, death.
And after singing noise.
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All for tonite methinks.
Journey to the West
Journey to the West
this sightly, seemly road
we’ve
set out upon: at times
most
bewitching, at others merely
a dull trudging, day
to similar day, no new thing done nor mountain known,
one unrefreshed, thirsting
for some unnameable liquid. (let us state, for the
record, that Lamb’s blood and milk left only that
thirst)
at times, to the side
of our path,
or before, we can see
shapes,
vague intimations of some goal, or ending-place.
…Shapes that sway
in the fog of a moonless night; peripheral phantoms,
never quite visible, straight on.
At times i think the journey means more than its end.
Without this shifting, dimly-seen path–where would we
go?
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I remember writing this quite clearly for a number of reasons. A Dr. Runner (of Dordt University) was visiting at the Canadian border–I don’t remember which side–and on the strength of my comprehension of a very funny joke before he’d actually finished telling it, told me I had a scholarship awaiting me, all the way through to doctorate. This fitted in well with my first acquaintance with Nikos Kazantkis, a growing feeling of a need to do something (it sounded, from the way they described it, like a ‘call’ except that particular thing was supposedly devoted to be devoted to one of the ministering professions whereas mine had to do with some particular task, not yet known and I just didn’t want to try gambling since I was positive I’d suck at trying it; I kept ‘ignoring’ it with more and more difficulty as it grew toward compulsion.) The exact parallel was when I discovered poetry and realized I was a poet, although I still don’t claim I’m good. That’s for others to consider; I strive to produce art that most of all is an ongoing examination of what “reality” might be and where the source of it could lie but with a first concern of striving toward beauty while concentrating secondly on ‘truth’ or at least a painstaking attempt to convey exactly what is sensed. [One of the keys to determinism (behavioral psychology, Pavlovian psychology) is; ‘What is the source of the various criteria employed in defining the environment?’ In many respects behavioral psychology is learning theory–especially when it comes to things like rigged tests, rigged so the test-taker will fail because of wilful lack of consistency on the part of the test-giver.
moments
moments
another spring day
suddenly filled with driving rain: a gentle knock,
from
the timid, silly girl i hardly know.
she is full of the day, the driving
moment, complaining
of her uninvited houseguests and their unfortunate
habits (i sigh, yawn, offer
the peaceful pipe, sensing
the impending flood of words meant
to express inchoate thoughts)
and life
in general, past and future.
she wants something, i imagine:
chattering, combing her too-long bangs
up, waiting for a response
i can scarcely imagine.
finally, she leaves, asking
me to examine her car, her
house, perhaps her life.
…
i walk away, grateful
for silence.
silence, and the spring rain…
shapes
shapes
the meanings you seek
i think died long ago. silence
can bear many freights. i speak not,
expecting no listener; my words
are uttered only to the void. some understandings
are hard to bear,
can’t be forgotten.
the shape a gesture makes
remains, i think; i’m not sure.
certainly, at times, i’ve
withheld my self. to not care…
i watch you watching me,
and say nothing. what could i tell you
you don’t already know?–
you do not hear
my unspoken words. but then,
you never heard when i spoke.
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Yes, this has a lot to do with my evaluation of human relationships and the ability to communicate outside of assigned roles–which have generally been presented as ‘truth’, and thus any disagreement must be lies. The implication I just made was not at all incidental.
some flights
some flights
in this silent, ending
moment, i survey
(passionless)
your scar-marked passage
through and past me
and wonder where
the meaning’s gone.
i’ve kissed the blade,
i’ve tasted blood, made
my last sacrifice
to the image
i made of you;
i can make no more.
you heard my song
unhearing;
my touch unfelt,
my name unknown…
i can make no answer
to the wind, the rain–
nor you.
i bend, pick up a stone
and throw it
upward.
i do not see
it land, nor care to:
i only wanted
flight.
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Allegory or not it’s also true. Pardon me, “true”.
perception and preception
perception
caught in a sudden moment
suspended
like some feather’s
paused flight, or an amber-
trapped fly
for one moment, passionless, you merely
perceive her and yourself. in some ways
you know the woman well: the pouting
curve of lip when she concentrates
on a book, or perhaps one of your
poems, or rambling letters: that breathy high
chuckle, which still strikes
your heart’s strings…as if she were
some sounding strum on soul’s lute,
or were desire’s summing…
have thought, i say, to know her
(and yet guessed
that lurking stranger, hidden
‘neath the skin)
and been astounded by a revelation
of the image’s illusiveness, Maya slyly for one
moment removing
the mask, the lent facade…
but then knowing your folly
you recoil from the knowledge,
and hide it away again, returning
to that dear stranger, your lover.
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I haven’t modified this, although the main presumptions are both banal and egocentric. The writer ‘perceives [his] self’, with the presumption that it’s rarely true especially but for the writer it’s simply evident that he can examine his self dispassionately while busily engaged in proving the reverse–unless the abstraction per se lends truth.
In retrospect this is written by someone totally self-absorbed, to the extent that his feelings are (literally) absolutely correct. There’s no trace of even an attempt to understand what she feels or thinks; the thoughts and even the passion he feels is generated by her, and not his perception of her.
false perspectives
false perspectives
i have known ire,
and its following rue.
i have known passion
–and its waning.
i have felt what i knew
as love, and known the bitter
aftermath…
known, too,
unknowledge. (at times words
can’t suffice.)
wisdom is not
necessarily joyful.
–your fleeting touch
and the fleeting yet undying
pain which followed.
(but if the antithesis
isn’t followed by
synthesis?) these patterns
form no clear mark
nor line: there is
no staying point.
(standing on a hill once
i thought to know
the world.) false perspectives
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Very true and more painful than said here.
