poem

[donjuaninhell]

nature is a fine thing--
[tab][/tab]let me recreate it for you:
7000 light years from nowhere breathes
[tab][/tab]a single nightshade flower
[tab][/tab][tab][/tab] blushing in the dark and
everywhere you are without everywhere absent from me.

i like to think you remember me fondly 6 feet

the dirt covering up your face all bones, and the worms crawling through eyesockets and you know the world hasn't changed
[tab][/tab] much only there's more debt and indebtedness to land and country and father

(and dreams
are not the only thing)

while
17 corpses in white tattered clothes stare at me in a white room red eyes and blue faces unfeeling ones that want nothing but
[tab][/tab] perhaps sleep or finally not to exist at all--
and i'm waiting for someone to come, or perhaps i'm supposed to go--

but who knows what will happen if something moves

[donjuaninhell]

feer so ronery . . . oh so ronery.

is the title just this uncompelling? the writing? have i fallen off the great tree of poetic enlightenment and decayed into watery garbage?

stupefying butterscotch?

[camus]

djh,

the indents are messed up!

Can't see the wood for trees and such like!

[Lia]

perhaps the indents are intentional? In which case I'm really liking the rhyme and timing of..

'[indent10][/indent10] blushing in the dark and'

I'm sorry Don, it's just awfully quiet in here tonight. Please sort out those indents and I can have a better look at the poem. For what I can make out so far, it doesn't look like you've decayed into watery garbage at all.

LIa

[donjuaninhell]

all fixed. the code for indenting changed from two indents, 5 and 10, to just "tab." so all better.

[Wabznasm]

Sorry about not picking up on this, but the title is about as exciting Gardener's World (apologies to you horticultural types). And that's a shame, because it hides quite an exciting, passionate poem.

So, let's see what we can do about that dodgy door number.

7000 Light Years from Nowhere has a ring, don't you think? Or perhaps something a little more guided perhaps, to give the reader a clue as to where the light switch is?

I think that's the problem with this at the mo - I can't find the light switch. So I'm following some of your clues, like the opener, the twists and turns, and while it sort of makes sense as a imaginary whole, I can't locate the images anywhere specifically. Because of that the poem feels loose, it's allusions are too drastic and violent, and the ship doesn't have an anchor.

I think you could write more after the first stanza. It's all pretty comprehensible until the last line of that. So am I meant to believe that was all just a build up to introducing a love poem? No, there's more to this poem than that. But I'd like to see it.

Beyond that, if I concentrate, shapes start to appear. I can see how you're fully not on the literal level of the dead; you and your companion feel yourselves both dead and being watched by something else (in fact, I do like that autopsy table image)? That's fair enough.

So I've found the light switch. In that context, I quite like it. It's obviously written passionately, and that's something that can be appreciated. Some of the images are very nice:

7000 light years from nowhere breathes
a single nightshade flower
blushing in the dark and

i like to think you remember me fondly 6 feet

(and dreams
are not the only thing)

But I'm still left feeling slightly cold after reading this. Whilst the ending line is a really good one, I don't feel satisfied by this poem. I think that is because of what you address. You're basically tackling the big one, aren't you? I'm just not quite sure whether I can empathise or fully appreciate it, since summarising the earth, life, etc in quite a small poem feels a bit ingenuous. Know what I mean? It's the eternal question, and it's been dealt with eternally. And with sonnet sequences, life-times of work, mountains of philosophy; call me incredulous, but this is a bit grand for such a small poem is it not?

But saying all of that, you give it a nice spin. Death and whatnot is in the back of all writing. And you shine the coin in an individual way; I like your take on it. But I think you're focusing on the wrong things. It's difficult to educate people with this sort of thing these days with poetry because most readers know that life can be a bit meaningless (plus, one poem is so often up against some of the greatest books of all time). It's not surprising or shocking anymore. In my personal opinion, the only way to address such a grand theme today is by writing a tome of a novel or epic poem. I think only those can resonate still.

I don't want to be prescriptive, but I would personally suggest taking the world in jigsaw pieces. And perhaps, by the end of your written career, you'll have enough metaphors, similes, objects and delineations to convince someone. But right now, I can't say I buy it.

I think truisms are also always a problem in writing, since you really have to tip-toe over them. there's more debt and indebtedness to land and country and father - I don't live in the Uk anymore, and I don't feel indebted to it. I'm sure some people hate their parents. Know what I mean? If you really feel strongly about this, go down the confessional route. Show yourself yo-yoing back to your country, land and father at the end of every poem. Show us, don't tell us.

Sorry if that all seems dis-heartening, but I suggest you try not to find it so. You can write. I thought, ignoring the background and whatnot, the last two lines were a wonderful conclusion. Just keep reading and writing and seeing what people say (I'd like to see what others say about this poem).
Perhaps you can show us more of a jigsaw of the world? You never know, you might even get confused along the way.

Dave

[donjuaninhell]

thank you so much for your thoughts, i'll try to respond to some of the main points.

as for the title, the absolute simplicity and uninterestingness of it is everything, because it seems to say that something's name is also unimportant, just as none of the people in the poem have a name: they are corpses, numbers, you, me: as though we were to call everyone person, or sir or somesuch. as though names have been forgotten.

if it leaves you cold, isn't that a good thing? because the entire poem is cold.

I'm really glad you liked the last line, it took me some finagling to get the right meaning and phrasing, to keep it as short as possible and separate it from the lengthy lines of the rest of the poem.

i hadn't thought of the autopsy image, but it has a real punch to it . . . i was thinking something of a hospital waiting room where everyone is already dead, zombie like, so the narrator and the flower are the only things that are alive. in this case, there's really no point for the corpses to be waiting for a doctor b/c they're already dead, or perhaps they've just seen the doctor and he's killed them, i don't know. but i like the autopsy idea.

speaking from an american perspective, the line more debt and indebtedness makes a bit more sense: we have the largest national and individual debt in the world; and it seems to me that no one has any idea what's really happening outside the us or even care, because we're #1.

you're right about one poem [being] up against some of the greatest books; it makes it somehow hollow to write a single poem, because who sees it? who others with one poem? only poets. and there aren't very many poets in the world.

again, thanks for your comments. they're very insightful and honest

[twoleftfeet]

Don,

I enjoyed the opening.
Why 7000? The Rolling Stones only used 2,000 I know, but even 7000 is miniscule on the scale of the cosmos...

I think
everywhere you are without everywhere absent from me.
comes across as a little bit garbled. Maybe I'm missing something that could be made clear by some punctuation.

The reference, at the end, to the corpses put me in mind of a mortuary, so perhaps you could use
Jane (or John) Doe as a title? (Just a suggestion)

Good ending
Geoff

[J.R.Pearson]

Hey Donjaun : have to tell u i loved this poem. I didn't have any trouble with the line breaks or timing or form at all...i thouht it fit the content rather well. The images were stand out and so vivid/simplistic that i wonder how many times u edited this BEFORE posting. In a world f wordsmiths this was well struck.

nature is a fine thing--
let me recreate it for you:
7000 light years from nowhere breathes----is this refering to 7000 years of human existence in biblical form
a single nightshade flower
blushing in the dark and ----i like the way u switch gears here and from personification to actual person w/ the next line
everywhere you are without everywhere absent from me.-----this was minutely confounding because of twice everywheres...needs "is"...sry

i like to think you remember me fondly 6 feet--- this is a great image six feet looking up from the grave!

the dirt covering up your face all bones, and the worms crawling through eyesockets and you know the world hasn't changed
much only there's more debt and indebtedness to land and country and father----a lil corney

(and dreams
are not the only thing)---this was ingenoius, the() become the dream

while
17 corpses in white tattered clothes stare at me in a white room red eyes and blue faces unfeeling ones that want nothing but
perhaps sleep or finally not to exist at all-- ..........i saw this a autopsy image as well ...and was crazy about it.....not exist at all...classic!
and i'm waiting for someone to come, or perhaps i'm supposed to go-- .......the line turns inward! This is a sonnet gone crazy

but who knows what will happen if something moves

-------leaves it deadly open!



This was a from fit content clinic...nicely done.