| How do you tell the difference
Posted: 9/20/2009 5:17:03 AM |
This afternoon of quiet
my face against my arm
held by a windowsill, my eye
is seeking nothing....then
out of the corner of my eye
a leaf slightly quivers
the world opens shockingly
ecstasy without notice.
Children know that leaves are their mothers.
I'm not sure that I like the didactic nature of the last line (the observation re children) but the last line of the body of the poem beautifully sums up this picture of a lived moment. | |
|
| How do you tell the difference
Posted: 9/21/2009 9:34:44 PM | | Is didactic compulsory and closed? Children do know that leaves will do when mothers and fathers don't. lol. you are right my friend. Leave all interpretation open. | |
|
| How do you tell the difference
Posted: 9/22/2009 8:51:21 AM |
you are right my friend. Leave all interpretation open.
Although I sometimes fear that I leave too much to the reader, I'd rather do that than tie my poems up with a ribbon, but it's parallel with the everyday social experience of understanding what is enough to facilitate a genuine conversation and what might overwhelm or drown it. | |
|
| How do you tell the difference
Posted: 9/23/2009 9:34:13 PM | | You could not define the nature of conversation better. I agree. At times though a pungent and strict end is also acceptable. | |
|
| |
| How do you tell the difference
Posted: 9/27/2009 6:46:53 PM | One day I had a conversation
with this man who is always in my life
I listened, I like what you say. You need an agent.
People beyond me need to know your saying.
won't happen, this man holds close to himself.
when you are gone, you will live, if I live beyond you. | |
|
| How do you tell the difference
Posted: 9/28/2009 5:12:09 AM |
One day I had a conversation
with this man who is always in my life
I listened, I like what you say. You need an agent.
People beyond me need to know your saying.
won't happen, this man holds close to himself.
when you are gone, you will live, if I live beyond you.
Whomever this is for, I'm sure he thanks you.... heartily! | |
|
| Learning from words
Posted: 10/4/2009 9:35:18 AM | Language
is bred in our bones
and musculature, in our skin.
.
It is the smudge on our fingers
after a hard day’s work,
the cheek that is laid so softly
on a child’s or a lover’s cheek
that they barely touch.
It is the air that circulates
in our leathery lungs
as we inhale hope
and exhale longing... Language
is the way we create ourselves.
We were born speechless
and, without speech, knew only
need or fear. Words
gave us everything
and we can but try
to give them everything in return. . | |
|
| Learning from words
Posted: 10/4/2009 2:29:44 PM |
we inhale hope
and exhale longing... Language
is the way we create ourselves.
We were born speechless
and, without speech, knew only
need or fear
very nice, professor....
| |
|
| Learning apart from words
Posted: 10/4/2009 8:00:07 PM | Then what is the child that stands and cries silently?
This is beyond need or fear.
This could indeed be the call of despair.
How do you truthfully address
a child crying silently.. and... so very still. | |
|
| Learning apart from words
Posted: 10/4/2009 9:18:56 PM | That is good....but natural history shows that children of other species can mime out, whether their cries are heard and acknowledge or not is elementary
as Rappaport demonstrates: many species display ritual and other forms of sense
there are only 4 ways
enactment
relation
contact
The feminine is the principle of 'carnal light' [the principle here is not pure] and is only contrasted with the masculine principle by being known as 'touch' and 'sight'. Everything that light brings to light is 'carnal' or feminine, of the flesh, has texture. It is what appears as creation, the manifest out of nothingness, out of primal darkness, since light is invisible and the source of light, the sun is too brialliant to be life itself, since it is energy or a new emphasis of matter completely, recognized as a different state....
sorry I forgot to mention one sense
si jah
this is what a small perceptive boy understands and conceives
from his beatnik mother | |
|
| Learning apart from words
Posted: 10/4/2009 10:21:51 PM | If you have the opportunity to be "carnal"
You touch the child gently, with care intended
If the child accepts your ministrations, you gather this child
male or female into your arms, then you ride the despair together. | |
|
| Learning apart from words
Posted: 10/4/2009 11:59:29 PM | no all I said was that children "of other species can mime out"
I said nothing about humans
Other species act without speach and english or otherwise | |
|
| On Bacon Street
Posted: 10/7/2009 5:07:10 AM | On Bacon Street corner of Main
there’s a store
that doesn’t sell anything
new or used,
but you’re welcome
to drop in any time and spend
a dollar or ten.
The money doesn’t go
to charity, to combat climate change
or anything like that
and you won’t get a lottery ticket.
They’re open late on Fridays
and people come in,
drop a two or a five or a ten dollar bill
and go out, satisfied. | |
|
| On Bacon Street
Posted: 10/12/2009 12:26:44 AM | | Hey Alyosha...no more two dollar bills but the peace and order and security of this poem is so wonderful. There is more to this poem than simple simplicity. Yes. I said that. I love this poem. A great deal. I love the basic decency and implied democracy of what is said in the poem. good stuff A. | |
|
| On Bacon Street
Posted: 10/12/2009 4:56:01 AM |
Hey Alyosha...no more two dollar bills but the peace and order and security of this poem is so wonderful. There is more to this poem than simple simplicity. Yes. I said that. I love this poem. A great deal. I love the basic decency and implied democracy of what is said in the poem. good stuff A.
I'm not at all sure that I read it (or meant it to be read) the way you do, but don't we all make our own poems anyway out of the drafts the authors leave us?
I was thinking more along the lines of (Wordsworth's?) "Getting and spending we lay waste our lives..." In my poem, that spending money had become for us a self-affirming activity in itself. We got what we wanted simply by spending money (or, alas, love I suppose). | |
|
| On Bacon Street
Posted: 10/13/2009 9:21:16 PM | | Alyosha... Wordsworth's words may be right but my work your finger to the bone mother also cautioned me not to save..."all my pennies" and to..."enjoy what you have in a sensible manner." amen. Thats the genesis of my reaction. Write more! | |
|
| Spend money, my child
Posted: 10/15/2009 1:38:14 PM | Thanks 60. I haven't been writing much & I might have posted this before but it seems to fit the theme of the preceding:
Spend money, my child,
and grow strong,
eat moderately
but well, exercise
and think, as much as you can,
with clarity.
Spend money, my child,
and grow wise
studying the words and work
of those whose light
held back the ever-encroaching dark.
Spend money, my child,
and love,
for love is the only coin
that returns
even as it leaves the hand
that offers it.
Spend money, my child,
and age,
for spending and loving and aging
and death
is the duty of all of us
and the privilege of some | |
|
| Spend money, my child
Posted: 10/15/2009 7:46:57 PM | | The final words kick...hard. The rest of the poem is serene and wise. Yep. | |
|
| The Kabbalist
Posted: 10/30/2009 6:43:24 AM | He fiddles with words
as if they were sweetmeats
offered by or pilferred from
the Kabbalah: milk,
dates, loneliness.
In each word
there is the husky after-breath
of God, a whisper
containing a world. | |
|
| In another room
Posted: 11/8/2009 12:28:19 PM | In another room, in another house,
on another street, on another continent
a man stares out the window
facing north.
In another room, in another house,
on another street, on another continent
a woman puts down her book
and reaches for a cigarette,
her third in the last hour.
In another room, in another house,
on another street, on another continent
a child wakes up
and realizes that the dark
has a scent all its own. | |
|
| In another room
Posted: 11/8/2009 3:04:34 PM | Jer....
WHERE does this come from?????
Its effing effing fooking brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 | |
|
| In another room
Posted: 11/8/2009 7:40:34 PM | | You finished it Jer. I agree with pickles and second her opinion. Yep. | |
|
| In another room
Posted: 11/9/2009 4:49:00 AM | Thank you 60 & Pickles. In fact, though, I've made some structural changes:
In another room, in another house,
on another street, on another continent
a man stares out the window
facing north.
A woman puts down her book
and reaches for a cigarette,
her third in the last hour.
A child wakes up
and realizes that the dark
has a scent all its own
In another room, in another house,
on another street, on another continent. | |
|
| In another room
Posted: 11/10/2009 7:37:53 PM | | Streamlining did the poem justice but I still like the play of the words in the first rendition. A matter of opinion. And opinions can be divided. The sharing of life in this poem is wonderful. Yep. Carry on. | |
|
Home
login 
