read objective correlative not correlation. Sorry.

Thank you for your observations, Amergin. I won't respond further yet as Nora indicated she had something to say about that poem (it's a subverted sonnet) in due course and in the light of your comments, I'd like to read that first.

I was carried to that shabby pub by your Duggan poem! I had two thoughts: this would work even better (to my mind) in present tense. I tried it and it works. You may argue that too much poetry is written in the present tense, but a vignette like this asks for it, I think. That would enable you to use a more water-flowing word for the apologies 'copious as the Liffey'.

I hope the first of your poems isn't autobiographical, GenesForLife! Would I be right in thinking you an admirer of Yeats? I got echoes of him in there - which is not an accusation that you're being derivative, but rather an observation that you're being intertextual. In the second piece, I was thrown a bit by the use of 't' for 'the': may I ask what your motive was for that device?

j.mills, I'm still wrestling with 'Other Goose'. I like it very much and I'm trying to get the full meaning out of it. I'll come back to it when I think I'm getting there.

I hope the first of your poems isn't autobiographical, GenesForLife!

It very much is, this followed a period in adolescence where I had cycles of repeating disputes , acrimony and sadness with friends and parents and cousins.

Would I be right in thinking you an admirer of Yeats? I got echoes of him in there - which is not an accusation that you're being derivative, but rather an observation that you're being intertextual.

I may have read one or two of Yeat's poems as part of the literature curriculum at Uni, but that poem was written before I had any exposure to his work at all, you might be looking at a case of convergent evolution

In the second piece, I was thrown a bit by the use of 't' for 'the': may I ask what your motive was for that device?

I have no idea, I rarely write poems, but when I do they are written down spontaneously and without much conscious thought going into the act of writing, and I usually write poems when I'm really shaken up and upset.

One more piece, this was written when I was going through a period of intense stress at Pre-Uni college, and was an exercise in self delusion and an attempt to convince myself to keep going.

A frightened squeal sounds across the hall
Before descending into silence again
Stuff of horrors taking birth…
But in reality, nothing more than a figment
Of imagination, a frightful fancy.

That awakens one from the depths of slumber
All sweaty and flushing with heat
Nightmares are a part of life
And you can run, but you can’t hide,
So you must face your fears, come what may.

Indications of strife,anxiety running amok
As you wake up from one nightmare
To be faced by another,leaving you needing to cling on
To every ounce of mental fortitude
To avoid being consumed by insanity.

Too many men gave up without a fight
Surrendering life just to get away
From recurring nightmares and their
Inherent horrors, but why should the brave ‘uns
With their nerves of steel,do likewise?

Blip wrote:I'm a tiny wee bit tipsy and will respond properly tomorrow but meanwhile, here's one of mine that Nora asked me to post:

The Mind in the Cave

Deep in his cave, the shaman sighs;
he feeds the fragrant flickering flames;
sips slowly from his sacred draught.
The pounding hooves are faint at first,
but as the shadows buck and spin
the wall between the worlds dissolves.
Borne through the herds on beating wings
he soars into the ecstasy of flight.

***

The harsh bright light reflects from steel and glass.
I walk the gauntlet of false lipstick smiles,
watch as the heavy door is closed and locked.
With panic drumming in my ears, my visceral fear’s
diminished, not controlled, by drugs.
I slump into the agony of flight.

I'm still having a difficult time catching up with RL, still sluggish with jetlag, but I wanted to comment on this one at least.

Firstly, let me say a bit about where I'm coming from. I did a PhD in anatomy at St Andrews University, and during the last year I started to dream of death, repeatedly, and dead and smothered infants (which, it turned out, represented my smothered creativity). I had insomnia, I developed psoriasis. Basically I ground to a halt, although I did finish my PhD.

But then I turned my back on that life and started to read about Jung and dreams and religion (because a lot of my dreams were quite 'visionary' and I was even having visions in a waking state) and finally realised that the things I was reading about shamanism hit the deepest chord.

And to sum up what I mean when I use the term shaman in a modern sense (in whatever culture with whatever name they're given) is someone who goes into craziness and comes out with a broader world view, and with strength and the power to 'heal', whether through art, or song or whatever. I don't mean those folk who go to psychic fairs and drum and chant and try to get you to have a journey quest—although I can believe that in the hands of some that could work as well.

And by 'healing' I mean causing another person to open up to their possibilities, not to shut them down with mean criticism and spoiling.

That's all I want to say at this point. That's just background to what I want to say about Blip's poem, how it struck me.

And how it struck me, this reader, was this. That the creative imagination—the visionary imagination—was fairly well developed, as symbolised by the shaman in the cave, who was able to summon the reindeer for his ecstatic flight. But the integration of this visionary side has not yet taken place. In my mind the woman in the second piece was being locked away as insane (whether literally or metaphorically), that the drugs (whatever they might be) were just pushing the visions to a distance, not really helping.

In other words, the integration and healing has not yet taken place. And there seems sadness on both sides: "deep in the cave the shaman sighs..." Is he sighing because he keeps trying to get through to her? And the drugged state of the woman is an 'agonised flight' because it's a flight away from, rather than towards, the source of creativity.

Of course the panic drumming in the second section again brings in shamanism, or rather the tradition of using drumming to put one in the state of mind where the ego loses it's tight grip and the creative imagination can take control.

Again, please let me reiterate that this is MY reading of the poem, this is what I see and feel when I read it.

The poetry of words I liked very much. The lipstick smiles kind of threw me, because they didn't quite fit in with the image of a mental hospital. Because in a mental hospital, especially where people are locked up, you wouldn't expect nurses to be all prettied up.

Of course I could have the setting of the second part wrong, i.e. it could be a social setting where the woman is trying to fit in but finds herself being inexorably locked away from her true self.

A state divided from within itself
Cannot survive for long, as history shows,
For all must row together lest the ship
Be riven through its keel and bubbling sink.
A doleful warning here unfolds for those
With ears to hear and ruth to tolerate
My song. Uneasy lay the laurelled head
That ruled a fair estate, and from his throne
Came rumblings as he brooded on the scene,
In dark preoccupation deep absorbed,
And summoning his Son from out the throng
Which knelt about the throne, to him began.

Great are the deeds, dear Son, and great thine arts
Of hyper-text; in image-pasting lore
I know thy sapience to reign supreme.
My nobler thoughts, arcane to common ear,
Thou hast set forth upon the Internet
With eager hand, enraptured to obey,
Displayed for all with means to understand.
Thus unto thee this task I here entrust,
In confidence sublime that thou art he
Best fitted and enthused to make it so.
Behold yon rabble at our gates, give ear
Unto their drivelling fatuity.
Why do the heathen rage? It boots not us
To waste our energies on asking why.
Why doth the virus, splitting of its cell,
Decide or not to overwhelm its host?
All-merciful, I let them here remain,
Not unaware that we must co-exist
With those less fortunate than we whose fate
Is learned, comfortable sobriety.
I let them in, and how did they repay
My magnanimity? They filled my site
With lolcats and with threads concerning beer.
The finer points of science mattered not
Beside their urge for pictures of themselves.
Vain creatures! Fit to post? No, not to live.
In pity, hoping that their ignorance
Might yet be brought to drink at wisdom’s fount
I let them stay and be as one with us.
But now I do repent me that I did.
Thus Son, in whom I am well pleased, now turn
Upon that rout thy dreadful countenance.
Evict the vermin from their foetid holes,
And let it be as if they never were.
Delete, de-activate, besmear and ban
The worst, and with them punish all the rest,
Destroy the wheat while razing out the chaff,
Cast innocent and guilty to the winds,
And drive the lot into the awful deep.

He spake, and at his words the puissant Son,
Effulgent in reflected glory’s robes,
Rode forth to render all as he had said.
As Nimrod, hunting with resistless ire,
The mildest innuendoes swift removed
And labelled ‘troll’ (most ignominious name
For those ‘til recently among the blessed),
In terror lest the wider world espy
His timorous ineptitude, and laugh;
As who would not, who was not close involved?



To be continued...

Nora, I'm too overwhelmed by your reaction to respond fittingly but wanted to acknowledge it.

You will be interested to know that I have written a whole series of poems called, collectively, Shaman and featuring the same character.

Nora_Leonard wrote:The lipstick smiles kind of threw me, because they didn't quite fit in with the image of a mental hospital. Because in a mental hospital, especially where people are locked up, you wouldn't expect nurses to be all prettied up.

Of course I could have the setting of the second part wrong, i.e. it could be a social setting where the woman is trying to fit in but finds herself being inexorably locked away from her true self.

If I were to tell you that the lipstick smiles are on air stewardesses...

My usual critical reader knows that, having at one time flown regularly all around the world, I now hate it, so for her there was no doubt about my intention. In the light of the comments here I am wondering whether to redraft the second stanza or to leave the ambiguity.

ETA having re-read Nora's heartfelt commentary, I'm struck by the idea that my own feelings about flying these days resonate with Nora's feelings about the suppression of creativity and that one can be locked up in a number of places (for a number of reasons) not just an aeroplane. We are both referencing extreme mental stress.

So much food for thought. What an excellent idea this thread was, Nora

??

If you have nothing to hide
then you have nothing to fear
well, that once held true at least
so when the C.C.T.V.
stares blindly into your face
do you turn away in shame
or return that scrutiny

when the guardians of law
apply their temporal whim
do we then believe their pleas
that we have nothing to fear
when they have something to hide
do they not cower with shame
at their own hypocrisy

draft 1.0: 14.12.10

Blip wrote:
If I were to tell you that the lipstick smiles are on air stewardesses...

My usual critical reader knows that, having at one time flown regularly all around the world, I now hate it, so for her there was no doubt about my intention. In the light of the comments here I am wondering whether to redraft the second stanza or to leave the ambiguity.

ETA having re-read Nora's heartfelt commentary, I'm struck by the idea that my own feelings about flying these days resonate with Nora's feelings about the suppression of creativity and that one can be locked up in a number of places (for a number of reasons) not just an aeroplane. We are both referencing extreme mental stress.

I'd actually make the aeroplane setting more specific. Or give the reader a clue...maybe just a "strap myself in"...

In which case, if I'd know it was an aeroplane flight I'd say that the 'fear' is fear of the flight into the unknown.

That's part of the journey into the unconscious. There can be enormous dread around it because we often have to face all the things we've shoved down there. And a person's creativity can seem monstrous as well, especially if one has ever had anyone undermine your creative efforts because they, themselves were envious.

So even with that, the conclusion I reached still (i.e.from my POV) stands, the woman still can't express that creative ecstasy and the shaman is left sighing in the cave.

Just to add, the reindeer is a hugely significant animal for me. I used to dream about a 'reindeer beloved' that I had to free. This reindeer was both human and reindeer and, of course with the association to Santa Claus (or should I say that's vice versa, Santa got his flying reindeer from shamanistic lore) and had the power of flight.

I did, eventually, free him!

Amergin wrote:Moth

Alone and deep in the equatorial bush
I write by the golden light of a kerosene lamp.

A moth beats its delicate wings
against the mesh that covers my windows;
knocks and strums reverberate.
Compelled by light, its gargoyle head
and furred antennae butt the barrier,
with soft thuds and thrums;

dazed with foiled effort
it still persists;
again and again,
the whirr of ineffectual wings.

I return to my words
to butt my head and bruise my wing
for the ecstasy of light within.

Arthur, even though you kind of really pissed me off by writing what you did about poetry and images (which, eventually I got your point and realised it had nothing to do with why Thwoth and I wrote what we did and posted the images that we did) I just want to say that I love this poem. I totally get it. I totally SEE it. Very well done.

THWOTH wrote:And so, in light of the comments and helps...

Who would have thought
that such a mighty waistband
could encircle the sturdy bowels
of a true Hero's chief?

Who would have guessed
that behind such soft and rosy cheeks
sat the sound wooden teeth
of a Grinder of Frenchies?

And who could have known
that beneath such a plumpened hand
would falter on a tiller tugged by storm
and so many hands be lost afore Texel?

How many did suffer likewise
though without the dignity of oils
absent to the knowledge of their children's quiet tears?
and while a few grew fat, many more were washed away
by high winds and even higher words
leaving not a stain of their sweat and toil
upon the rented canvas of history

draft 1.5:5 12.12.10 (Just got to arrive at a title now)

<P> I think a poem like this actually needs a bit of intro, e.g. the picture and your musings on it, and a bit of history for those who have no clue as to who the person is or what the history is?

I don't think such a preamble takes away from the poetry, rather I think it prepares the reader FOR the poetry. Amergin's poem about the moth needs no such introduction, yours does. At least in my opinion. So, I'd like to see it again, with picture, and with a brief italicised introduction, so I can judge the whole?

BTW, for an American, the term Frenchie implies a condom and I don't quite think that's what you're aiming for?

As for the wooden teeth, I've actually seen in a museum (possibly Mount Vernon) an array of George Washington's wooden and ivory sets of false teeth.

Blip's second stanza there springs into sense with the Aeroplane Revelation (new from Robert Ludlum? ); but actually I liked it being puzzling - a bit David-Lynchy.

For me that poem confronted how modernity imprisons our minds and our potential in ceaseless concerns, conventions and ramifications, in a way that (perhaps) was not true for the 'primitive'; that the busyness of our lives may conceal from us our own passions and possibilities.

Nora_Leonard wrote:

THWOTH wrote:And so, in light of the comments and helps...

Who would have thought
that such a mighty waistband
could encircle the sturdy bowels
of a true Hero's chief?

Who would have guessed
that behind such soft and rosy cheeks
sat the sound wooden teeth
of a Grinder of Frenchies?

And who could have known
that beneath such a plumpened hand
would falter on a tiller tugged by storm
and so many hands be lost afore Texel?

How many did suffer likewise
though without the dignity of oils
absent to the knowledge of their children's quiet tears?
and while a few grew fat, many more were washed away
by high winds and even higher words
leaving not a stain of their sweat and toil
upon the rented canvas of history

draft 1.5:5 12.12.10 (Just got to arrive at a title now)

<P> I think a poem like this actually needs a bit of intro, e.g. the picture and your musings on it, and a bit of history for those who have no clue as to who the person is or what the history is?

I don't think such a preamble takes away from the poetry, rather I think it prepares the reader FOR the poetry. Amergin's poem about the moth needs no such introduction, yours does. At least in my opinion. So, I'd like to see it again, with picture, and with a brief italicised introduction, so I can judge the whole?

BTW, for an American, the term Frenchie implies a condom and I don't quite think that's what you're aiming for?

As for the wooden teeth, I've actually seen in a museum (possibly Mount Vernon) an array of George Washington's wooden and ivory sets of false teeth.

Cheers <N>. No, I agree. It's not exactly biographical but it's social-historical and as such perhaps requires a bit more context than it offers directly. I was interested in the contrast between the portly, wealthy, resplendent and respectable Navy Captain of the painting and the generally appalling condition of the average non-commissioned seaman of the time.

-- I did go on to write such a preamble but I began to think that a poem that required so much historical explanation is probably failing as a poem - so I'll just put that one aside and chalk it up to experience I think.

I'm enjoying this thread immensely btw.

This is one of the three poems I call my 'goddess' poems, that I wrote when I was really wrestling with my religious inheritence.

Black Magnificat

A halting journey—
for the most part uncharted—
fuelled by vine-shrivelled fruit,
by insipid springs
quenching absolutely nothing
while my cup gathers dust.

I’m driven from within,
driven to the edge and beyond
to an abysmal descent:
snaking torch lights
spiral into the canyon
leading me to the den

where—pinned in the dark—
I falter in the heat of
her snarling incense.
Yet this is no hunt;
my stuttering enchantments
seem to soothe the injured beast.

The trust builds slowly,
tangles of wire removed,
sores cleaned and polticed,
as, deep in that dank cave
my own injury risking,
devotedly I serve.

With this dire consequence:
the healing of the Panther.

The sinews of my soul
are taut with her knowing;
when I rise from the canyon,
I am haunted
by her scent, the sudden
pounce of her passion.

In the valley of the shadow
there is fear, and there is no fear.
For again she is with us:

so dark...so magnificent.

I shall return to 'Black Magnificat' very shortly, Nora. I'm doing several re-reads. I also now have some thoughts on j.mills 'Other Goose'.

Following the comments on here, I have redrafted the final stanza of 'Beware Gilead' (j.mills' observation chimed with that of my BF) and also of The Mind in the Cave'. Here they are, respectively, and I would very much welcome feedback.

So what are we to make of them
these others
who walk amongst us cloaked in black
as if in shame
or mourning for our achievement.

And:

The harsh bright light reflects from steel and glass.
I walk the gauntlet of false lipstick smiles,
watch as the heavy door is closed and locked;
panic drumming in my ears, visceral fear
overcomes the drugs. Tightening my belt
I slump into the agony of flight.

THWOTH wrote:??

If you have nothing to hide
then you have nothing to fear
well, that once held true at least
so when the C.C.T.V.
stares blindly into your face
do you turn away in shame
or return that scrutiny

when the guardians of law
apply their temporal whim
do we then believe their pleas
that we have nothing to fear
when they have something to hide
do they not cower with shame
at their own hypocrisy

draft 1.0: 14.12.10

I would perhaps suggest replacing one of the 'shame's with a synonym (I see why you've used it twice though) and I think I would employ a verb other than 'cower'. If it were my poem (always the proviso!) I might have the penultimate line as something like 'don't they shudder with shame'. This piece does sound very angry and was obviously triggered by something you heard or read?

...just showing off here...

Vacanze

un mare
una spiaggia
un caffè
vorrei che fossi qui

una casa
una carta
silenzio
silenzio
"vorrei che fossi qui"

lontani
lontani
vorrei che fossi lì
con te

EDITED to correct typo in second line

My Italian is pretty limited. I understood it all except, crucially, 'vorrei che fossi qui'. Something that something here - translation please, Evolving!