This is your life,
this eight-shaped thing.
You thought it would be
a Corn Doll, but it's turned out to be
more like Raggedy Ann.
Stitches are burst or frayed
intricate threads disarrayed,
connect or end flapping loose.
With partial patterns as
priorities have changed.
The charcoal stick of memory
has worked with you, and through you
to make this scruffy whole.
But it needs no remolding.
No tidying.
It is your life which has been lived
and eventually comes to this:
On that day, on that beach
watching your kids play,
you thought "This truth."
"This is enough."
Thursday, September 30, 2010
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16 comments:
Moving in an interesting direction there.
It is your life which has been lived
and eventually comes to this:
On that day, on that beach
watching your kids play,
you thought "This truth."
"This is enough."
A very nice frame of a universal truth. But it is emotionally inexpensive to see it through the narrative of your kids on that beach.
It is just as true to note:
On that day, bitter smoke and terror
When you discovered the pointlessness and fragility of life
you thought "This truth."
"This is enough."
I mean, it's your work. I don't mean to screw around with it. It touches on truths, but it sort of skitters away. Or maybe you don't dwell in the darkness. Either way, you have a way of speaking truth here, it's just, I suppose, not everyone's truth...
Nothing exists in everyone's truth. There is the Some People tribe, head of which is Some Body, I never seen him, he steals my car space, cuts me off on highways and plays with my oblivion...and he may be me.
Yeah. You're right. I'm having second thoughts about this.
Kiwi, I'm sorry. Your poem is your truth. I haven't walked in your shoes, I have no right to screw around with your words.
Sometimes I think darkness is the same as truth, and it's hard, sometimes, to remember that my truth has no elevated position from which to determine another's truth.
You are honest, and you put your honesty on display. You have heart and courage. And if none of us is "right", you sure as hell ain't "wrong"...
mikey
Mikey, you are so cool to read and think, for most poets this is an honour you bestow on them and I salute you, and I love Kiwi's words because they are truth to me and afterall, the ancient Greek root (heh) for Poetry is Making...darkness holds within itself truth, you are right in my experience and also, to me, poetry heals.
And the corn doll isn't even upset about not investing in Google.
~
Mikey I am very honoured that you thought enough to comment. It is valid and well made criticism and I really do welcome it. I am trying to get more meaningful and your suggestion is very timely. I worry that I don't have enough contact with the dark...idea has arisen.
Thanks,man
Every night and every morn,
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night,
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
William Blake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endless_Night
So much fertile ground springs from within this darkness, or as Durer said, melancholia is the bringer of poetry.
some truths speak to certain folks more than others, and there are times when some truths speak more loudly.
Earlier this year, I saw the Joy Division biopic, and it resonated with me in extreme ways; prior to that, I never really clicked with JD. But for a couple of months Ian Curtis and I were fellow travelers.
In the last couple of weeks, itunes has served up some JD songs, and while I still like them quite a bit, there was not the same kind of terrifying resonance. I suppose that is a good thing.
Sometimes darkness calls out, and sometimes we respond. While it may be a universal truth, it is not a constant one, if you see what I mean.
I'm having second thoughts about this.
OK, this is what I like about hanging with liberals over the intertrons and in real life. The willingness to acknowledge we have been wrong, accept that change is hard but necessary, and to ask our friends to accept us as flawed, but trying to be better.... It's a hard thing to do, to openly admit you were wrong. I struggle with it. Kudos to Mr. M to put it out there nakedly (shut up, Smut).
I'm going with Kurt Vonnegut's image, that a keyhole opens for life to view itself; and 70 years later (or 20, or 50, or 90) it closes again. During that interval [this is now my own philosophy, trying to build on Uncle Kurt's], during that interval our job and our responsibility is to provide a slightly different perspective from all the other keyholes concurrently open. Otherwise we're just a waste of skin.
If we can pass on to other people some of what we see through that keyhole, then that's a definite bonus.
On that day, on that beach
watching your kids play,
you thought "This truth."
"This is enough."
Offer is not restricted to having your own kids. Others will do.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
All this time I was crediting Jim Morrison with writing these lines.
Thanks Kiwi. I love it.
I love the poem and the conversation it engendered, a good seed sown in fertile ground. Thanks.
Brilliant stuff, Blake to me is unique in that he embodied so many impossibilities. Nietzsche came close to poet philosopher...no others did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marriage_of_Heaven_and_Hell
I can't help but hear the title being sung to the tune of "Hard Knock Life".
Again, a luverly poem, sir.
Yeah.
Goddam right.
Some are born to endless night.
And some have endless night thrust upon them...
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