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Of peace and sway
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Of peace and sway |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855
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Throw these ashes off the pier. Suffused smoky gray and light. Watch them wash away the waves. No, that's arrogant. A curling outreach of dark dust pulling back against the wind, falling down within the rain, landing like an ended note. Watch the waves scatter in shapes. Flowers -- hours -- twenty-four. Curling rose-soft peel of lips. Kissing daylight's peace and sway. Watch the waves disintegrate and remake. Watch them remake. Sinking down, pressed out to depth. No. There may be more to say. |
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Cpat Hair
since 2001-06-05
Posts 11793 |
hey squirrel dude... you wanted to get honest feedback here right? may be it is intentional on your part to not follow a sequence of event or maybe the symbolism you chose is just over my head, but it looks to be mixed..the second verse not relating to the first of those following... continuity... abstract I like, but even abstration to be understood fully needs a continuity... Just my humble opinion... I like the thoughts in here by the way...and your use of word is excellent... later |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
Hey, Ron. What's up? The poem's about someone throwing your ashes off a pier, inspired by the movie Last Orders. I know, how obtuse.  Mike |
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Local Parasite
since 2001-11-05
Posts 2527Transylconia, Winnipeg |
There are three things I love about this poem. Allow me to list them... 1st and foremost... call me shallow, but... the METER!!  Yeah baby! Trochees rock... even incomplete ones...2nd, the scenery. Inspired by the end of a movie? That's fine, it takes nothing away from the profound way in which you described the scene. The water... you seem to be pretty good with water, from what I remember in your poetry. For this kind of reflective poem, gazing out at the waves is definitely a perfect scene. Especially when the waves are analyzed and used symbolically in the meaning and feeling of the poem. Beautifully done. 3rd, the way you described the character's mindframe. Such subtle things, like instructing him to do something and then contradicting it, "no, that's arrogant." Makes the poem feel less absolute and more thoughtful, more ponderous. As much as I love the meter, you could have tweaked it a bit more nicely in some places (I'm thinking the second line of the very first stanza). But the only reason that sticks out at me is because I loved the meter so much... See? It doesn't hurt to write about something other than music once in a while. Excellent work, Mike. Parasite Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. ~Aldous Huxley [This message has been edited by Local Parasite (11-26-2002 01:59 PM).] |
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Cpat Hair
since 2001-06-05
Posts 11793 |
yeah mikey I got the ashes off the pier idea... would never have put it together with the movie though.. my point is more the second verse could almost preceed the first and be tied into a sequence of events that follow a chronological order... you pull the images and feel off as well as ever..I (perhaps because I am so linear) just find I struggle at times with your sequencing of ideas as if struggling in a flash back.... Again... probably more my issue than anyone elses.... always look forward to reading what ever it is you share with us dude... |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
No, Ron, I understand. I can be notoriously difficult sometimes. Well, the thing is, I actually have really simple ideas that spark these things ... I just go at the poem with no entry point for the reader. It's sort of self-enclosed bubbles, with a little bit of the outside world leaking in to give color and contrast.Art to me is almost always a selfish act. A creative one, but a selfish one. It's taking the fundamentally unknowableness (sheesh, I'm fired  ) of the world and trying to fashion it into some sort of order -- or last order in this case.To tell you the truth, this poem was first inspired by my girlfriend's essay Rose Petal Confessions (it's posted in Passions in Prose, this morning). She is a much more truthful and honest writer than myself. Much of my humor, after all, is a way of masking the place where emotions connect, where you'll feel and maybe be angry or sad or afraid or happy. My poems are a bit of a mask in that regard, too. The reason I'm so stubborn with giving a reader an easy entry point is because, once you get through the "hard" shell, there is nothing but a gooey inside pretending to be flinty, and it's scary to share some of the things I feel and know. But enough of that. Let me give you the chronology. The first verse originally started "Throw my ashes off the pier," which I hastily changed. Still, the poem is about the narrator's ashes being thrown. You can tell by the line "No, that's arrogant." Because he aspires that he can "wash away the waves" -- an illusion of immortality -- when in actuality, the waves will simply wash him away. The second verse is simply the ashes actually being thrown. In the movie Last Orders, a band of friends/family throws an old man's ashes off of Margate. The wind blows a lot of the ashes back in their face, and the rain makes gray puddles of them near the pier's edge. The third is explicitly linked to Lori's essay. She says in it that she doesn't understand symbolism and metaphor. And I would be a fool to say that I do, either, on anything other than a gut level. But, strangely, when the poem began, suddenly the two dozen roses became 24 roses, which I realized is the hours in a day. A simplistic surface narrative on mortality, in other words. But I like the idea of piles of ash sort of flowering out in the waves as they sink. The final verse is about whether or not there is an after life. The ashes won't answer, the waves simply die and are reborn again and again, and the narrator holds his tongue from a solution. So that's the poem. And Parasite, thank you for your congratulations on my use of meter. Truthfully, that is inherent, too. Before you identified what form I was using, I would never have known its name, or its properties. I guess years of music lessons sort of pounded the idea of meter into me, even when it lapses here and there. Thanks everyone. And those who just read through this entire thing -- wow. Mike |
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Cpat Hair
since 2001-06-05
Posts 11793 |
Mikey.... Thanks for the blow by blow. I could not attach the poem to the film as I have not seen it. I understood a great deal from the read of your poem and even without the explanations would have found it very saitisfying and rewarding to read. Tough at times to seperate the bubbles into an idea that is concrete enough for my feeble brain to wrap itself around and embrace, but an understanding is usually there on the first read. Partially the gut you talk about. I know at a gut level what it makes me feel or understand without having to know the particulars...still the delving deeper than the surface is where the bubbles begin to be a challenge... If you think an easy entry into your poems would reveal them as you said, then mine indeed must be a mass of slime to wallow through ( chuckling) I find nothing in your words to say there is not thought or feeling behind them, and that it is presented in an honest fashion... you mask alright...but is it out of fear of being obvious or that you have nothing new to add to the subject? You write em dude..I'll read em... and if I don't get them..I'll ask.. |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
I mask because that's what I've done all my life. Oh lord, get out the couch. And crack open a cold one. And hit me on the back of a head with a hammer. Well, I sort of became closed off when I was young because kids are cruel (and so was I, come to think of it). Due to my height. It's strange things like that can be such a stumbling block when you're young. It's so ... nothing. Anyway, if you were to ever meet me in person, you would either catch me in an open and smiling mood; or, if I was at a loss for words, I'd be quite awkward and quiet; or, finally, if you annoyed the hell out of me, I would close down completely and do my best to ignore you. I admit that I am a badly wired person. I have trouble initiating a conversation, and basically, if you don't speak to me first, I will never speak to you, even on a whim. There are some exceptions, but that's usually only after meeting up with you a few times previous. I'm a hard nut to crack. Hence the hammer. Mikey |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
One note: When I was giving examples of "I would never talk to you, even on a whim," that's assuming I didn't already know you through conversation previously. The way I wrote this makes it sound like I can't even talk to friends, and that's innaccurate and wrong. Just people who have the potential to be friends -- if they do not catch my eye and try to speak to me, I won't speak back to them. And, this is arrogant, but I don't suffer fools gladly. I basically, kinda *choose* who I talk to. Which is awful, I know... Mike |
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Cpat Hair
since 2001-06-05
Posts 11793 |
ah I see..well lie down here on the couch and relax... tell me why you give such importance now to what was in the past.. as for being wired strangely... you described my reactions to people almost to a T. I'm older.. old enough to be your father for that matter...and with age has come some mellowing of the things you talk about. Still...one will not get inside of you unless you want them in..and today..at this place in your life... you do not want them in. Exceptions exist it seems for all statements made as rule...so their are people I am sure you let in to varying degrees. I am by nature a quiet person..and you would find it hard to get me to talk in person to the extent I talk by typing. face to face..you would find me perhaps appearing to be distant and uncaring in many ways but in truth I am shy and like you protective of what lies underneath... It's a shame isn't it...to feel so much inside that you don't trust yourself to express it without the ability to edit it before it is shown. Then again to hide it is even easier...except when you have to write... or when writing becomes your mistress... you may be complex Mike.... but you are surprisingly human... don't forget the last word... human. ( smiling) |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
Always good talking to you Ron. Thanks for the insights, truths, and the friendship. And now, sadly, work rears its head again. It was a nice moment of quiet, though. Mike |
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Janet Marie Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554 |
A curling outreach of dark dust pulling back against the wind, falling down within the rain, landing like an ended note. ===================================== Watch the waves disintegrate and remake. Watch them remake. Sinking down, pressed out to depth. No. There may be more to say. ==================================== damn I love the way your mind works...so needless to say the exchanges and the explinations here are so very cool and add the the magic of the poem....but most of all, it allows us to see and know you in the distance...beyond the poetry...and thats as fascinating as your poetry.... (you too Capt) I just love walking thru a poets mind barefoot thank you for sharing so much of you  |
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Anvrill Senior Member
since 2002-06-21
Posts 710in the interzone now |
Hate t' sneak in, baby (don't expect this to happen again), but since my attention was momentarily back here, I had to appear to throw my arms around you and murmur my devotions of love over and over...but also to chastise you. You promised not at work. I have spoken. remember the sound |
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