My eyes catch every word to lose the story
They glide through currents, while never getting wet
Each ebb and flow of the wine-dark sea
Becomes a chance merely for me
To attempt to train my skill
In casting a net, roughly-wrought and pulling in
All manner of fish, tugging and struggling to free themselves
But only a couple breaking free
So too, I turn to capture figments and phrases
While Homer lays unread.
My sterile lab of thought sits safe from strife
So therapeutic, at least that was the plan
I might avoid the sloppiness of life,
And ban lack of controls wherever I can
With care, into the stove I set my flask
To bake off residues of idiocy
And drop by dripping drop I start my task
To titrate baseness and acidity
And indeed I left the politics alone
Of crude, corrupt, confused contaminants
But their culture likewise took this tone
And grew without allowing me to dance
However poor the follow for the groove,
The only way to move is to be moved
(I’m not sure about the switch of metaphors at the end – it kind of just happened, to get the rhyme to work. I also don’t like the switch of tone. But whether or not it makes the best poetry, I think the switch from science to dance does provide the necessary shift in thinking to get out of the predicament of the first three stanzas.
Though I’m also thinking about the Aristotelian unmoved mover or the Chinese sage, who moves others simply through existing; that is, precisely through not getting mixed up in matters and being moved by them. The power of attraction can be greater than any applied force, which in some ways seems to be the theme of “Reluctance” below. Thoughts?)
(I never can write poetry about emotions effectively it seems – it always seems so cloying and emo. But I like some of the images I thought up for this one, at any rate, and I can’t pass up the challenge to make myself do what I can’t do yet).
My love is like a red, red rose, indeed,
This thief of blood could have no other shade
You bloom in graceless gardens as you feed
Their grey forgotten now that you’re displayed
Perhaps Bach wrote down lesser melodies
To sometime quit my mind, in his respect
You, pearl of iridescent harmonies
Are what calls forth the imitating speck
My angel, what other being can, for me,
In sheer existing be so beautiful?
My Azrael, why is this sword for me?
Why bring this terror down upon my soul?
Oblivious to this, you turn and smile,
And we chat of mundane things a while
I chanced upon a cherry grove that day
The wind had sent a fragrant message then
Inviting me to smell what flowers say
Their living petals secret in that glen
I spent my time among the flowers there
The petals touching softly on my face
Their zest for life had raised my from my care
Lost in the whispers that their branches trace
But silently the blossoms start to fall
Their bursts of pink and white begin to fade
I watch as all the beauty shrinks so small
Mere shadows of the former joys displayed
Although in time the moments can’t survive
Each one, eternal, always stands revived
(Still in progress)
Oh rose, why must you steal my life away
Although you will not let me near your fire?
All other so-called flowers in your rays
Have been reduced to greying briers
But very well, if life is forfeit, then
I take a thorn to kill this false identity
Undoing plots of narrowed vision from
Attachments to this stubborn sense of “me”
But none of this can numb away the pain
Though it can clear a space to live tonight
And I know, after seeing you again
All else will fade while you are in my sight
Such silly circumstances matter forms
And makes itself into such raging storms
Stretching rubber band
Nothing it can catch onto
Slipping, it snaps back
To lay sleepily in bed, languishing contentedly,
Head on a pillow in a ray of sweet sun,
Half-dreaming and putting off living,
Seems so inviting.
But the cold, harsh day awaits,
With driving, sleeting rains and an exhausting journey
To some unknown end.
These dreams will be torn
As the roses beside the path nourish themselves,
Feeding from thorn-spilt blood.
In time the wet, wretched night clouds the senses,
And to every Layla is her Majnun.
Yet this and this alone gives me stories.
I willingly arise and set out,
Escaping the slumber of comfort’s mausoleum.
(Rough draft – just trying to practice a more descriptive account for a change)
Curious child
You see the flame dance to and fro
The brilliant hues with steady glow
The waxy smoke in its wavy flow
It calls
Curious child
You reach your hand into the light
So warm and inviting in your sight
You pull back quickly from its might
Slightly stung
Curious child
More slowly now, but still entranced
You can’t escape the burning dance
Shackled in fire from that first glance
Foolish child
Start. Step. Concentrate. Step and . . . where does that foot go again?
Stop. Breathe. Feel the beat. Push, turn, chill a bit.
Smooth now, take your time, relax and have a little fun.
Twist, turn, follow through, turn and twist,
Look, smile, here’s the dance, here’s her grace.
Let go, feel the flow; here, now, take it in.
Slide into adding a bit of a flourish and
Dip.
