Hear Her?

can't see beyond the season
not just a girl caught in her mode
words I do not understand
intrigue in the late-sleeping abyss
sleepless shapes in long dresses
ankles in red wishing for blood
no redemption
I laid Thanatos beside his brother
breathless
awaiting hot springs of West Phrygia
drowsy and in revolt
tumbling toward the earthy gyre
the hollow taste

Kore lux
parts her dark ether
up the web
forgetful time
corn stripped to husk leaves
can hardly survive a life
yet the cycle survives dust
the grey trimmings of the skirt
by-pass 120 mg of
how do they get that in small ovular tablets?
take two a lifetime
and hold your breath

Pluto's gates spin through
this week's news
as if the accents of the abyss
end where fumes dye the earth
one Roman at a time
we cannot placate the gypsies
gorged the ether of blood
it roils patiently beneath the mirror
bereft of history in its tainted echoes

that cold blanket
below the mountain
not much gets out
gets in
the bull sings scorched with one wind
lost of I cannot say
where I spent the night
but oh the glorious day
approaches
beyond hope
a blanket page
scarred with madmen's scribbles before...

incognito, say,
Ouroboros, and the world-river flows
backward
leaves adrift
two notes ten
regarded as the song of the gods
but left outside the ears of the conch
what more of passion
must we know
than our own?

coda
before getting ready to go home
yellow skies slid out beneath her skirt
that veinous fruit from beneath her teeth
Venus pulp, dried, stretched, vacant
at her feet...waiting for the bull in the foam.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/2013 07:41PM by petersz.

The other title for this is, 'Back to Spring.'

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2013 08:42AM by petersz.

Peter, perhaps one day I will engage in a long exchange with you and Bruce about the academic exercise required by arcane references to works the average reader must know in order to appreciate poems such as this. But this being a Sunday and my lacking sufficient stamina or caffeine to attempt such an encounter let me just posit this:

A poem which cannot stand on its own legs will not get far in the mind's eye of a reader.

Opposing viewpoints welcomed and encouraged.


Les

Old Ezra Pound sd the references in the Cantos were pointers to our history and if you follow those pointers you share that history. When he spoke in Spanish or Chinese or French he was asking his readers to go to those languages [and places] to discover what they could find there for themselves. If he cited an African ritual that raised a city from the air, he was inviting you into the mind of that particular tribe, to expand your sense of what humans had accomplished through their artistry.Poetry for him was a means of expansion.

I took short courses in Provencal, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, purchased Chinese word lists, read some economics, concerned myself with more English history than is fair to a slum kid, and endured the snobbery of professors who would not talk to a student in anything other than French because I want to discover what excited the poets about their discoveries.

Given all that, I still found that any teacher who did not reach out to where the students lived, where they came from in their day-to-day activities, and recognize what they brought to the discussion was just talking to him/herself.

So I am in sympathy with the read of poetry who wants to 'plain language.' To me, stretching their intellectual muscles is not an exercise at all. That stretching of minds [intellectual, emotional, spiritual], that opening of doors to led them outside of themselves was always the primary point of giving and get and education. But I only feel this way on a Sunday morning after I have been dreaming of working in a factory again being told I had to find a way to remove the burs from quarter kinch screws after I'd been seen carrying a big black guitar case following my lover to our next encounter.

But you are right, Les, that perhaps this is not quite the time to engage in this conversation.

Amo et Avanti,

Peter

p.s. I don't usually pass on poems people send me without their permission, but I think it might be appropriate if you saw Ivan's piece which triggered the above poem: so I am going to remove the copy of his poem since he did not give me permission to post it.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2013 01:13AM by petersz.

Thanks for passing along the source of this, Pete, as usual it helps to know the source for your work.

As to your work in academia, it matters a lot, but not to everyone.

I recently saw online a list of the 50 most misspelled words in English. Since my stroke I have some trouble with typos that I never had before. Having taught and tutored some struggling students I discounted the whole list because it did not contain two words a majority of my students would find confusing: their, and its

Weird, huh? It all depends on what side of the street you're standing on. Is it color, or colour?


Les

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2013 09:46PM by les712.

I'm still struggling with its and it's. Go figure. It has been years since my strokes, but I totally empathize.

amo et avanti,

Peter

Mythic! I like it.

Thanks, Bruce.

The author has to write what he/she/it/they feel must be written. It is up to the reader to decide what is behind the door, to learn what is being said. We don't only read what we already know. I like books that make me look things up. Sometimes in poetry I find that I must take a completely different course of thought than I usually can muster to figgure out what is being said. I don't toss the poem until I've exhausted all manner of understanding I can find. I"ve looked up foreign words, and English words that I find in poetry. I may have been happier if I'd studied poetry instead of physics. There is a beauty in both, but no one gets to be the original author of physics.

ha ha ha ha ha. you and me on the same path so often. and, in high school I read every book on physics I could get my hands on In college I ran into a brick way on a book titled, "Quantum Physics," by P.A.M. Dirac. That mathematics let me know my limits as a mathematician [best freshman of the year at my university]. I did not believe in my creativity in that field anymore. It took me forty years to get where I wanted with poetry, but in reading the stuff, Terry, I have the same procedure you have.

Thanks for dropping by.

amo et avanti,

Peter

Ya know Pete, you and I would never vote for the same guy. You would be a gentleman, and I'd spit between my boots in public. I'm more apt to punch some guys light out than disagree with him twice. But, we do walk the same world and often the same path. I'd love to spend a day with you just discussing poetry.

be careful,, I hope you are through with strokes!!

There's a book "Quantam: a Guide for the Perplexed" give it a shot.

Terry,

perplexicity leads to curiousity, which is the first step in any philosophical endeavor, so I'm never sure I want to 'resolve' my perplexities...still, the view is beautiful from the valley. Heard some great flamenco music and watch terrific dancing and playing...told the flautist, 'we are indeed fortunate'...she agreed. The strokes and seizures and that crap don't much phase me no more, since the heart attacks. My spirit is full, so much so that I learned more about logging in the aborigianl sequoia forest here in ton the coast yesterday from a guy who was so out of it that no one else would even look at him, let alone admit that, like most humans, he had something to share and to give. btw, you might be surprised to know that every four of five years I end in the clinker from a fist fight. The slum in the slum kid never really goes away even after all the educating and even if I am indeed 'a gentleman and a scholar.' I never apologize for being human, even to the Zennies at the Temple, since its all I got and all I can be.

And, yes, our voting records are probably divergent, even if neither of us has ever voted for Obama...

amo et avanti,

Peter