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Poetry Magnum Opus

road


eclipse

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On a highway I passed five ghosts

of Adam all hitching a lift the last

incarnation was pregnant with the nascent

Earth. The spirit of Mary expectant

with child held out her thumb. I drove

through the phantom of Jesus with a

clock in his throat he stopped the car

and Mary passed through Adam and Jesus

making the world turn and the clock tick.

The Christ raised his arms, an owl hovered

with it's wings outspread echoing the hands

of the clock.

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Larsen M. Callirhoe

eclipse i chuckled reading this. i don't understand the last line about the clock tho. i followed completely till the last line.this is something frank would like,

 

victor

Larsen M. Callirhoe

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David W. Parsley

Barry, please be patient, my friend. Some of us don't get around to things until the weekend. And as usual with your more ambitious stuff, I request the luxury of sleeping on it, turning it in my mind a few times. Gee, you might not see something worth reading from me until next week. Your work is worth it. So please hide the razor blades and give us all a chance. We like what you do.

 

Take Care and Keep Writing,

- Dave

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Larsen M. Callirhoe

because of the fact of how many people claim to be biblical patriarchs reincarnated. it had nothing really to do with the poem at all. just other stuff i have read correlating with the subject matter of your poem and the opening line. after rereading your poem again after reading it a 4th time i see it differently. while i love poetry i am slow at intepreting the drift of poems away from strictly the romance genre, and i read almost everything when i am around. this is a good poem. i enjoyed reading it or i wouldnt comment. about frank likeing this poem he doesn't believe that this person existed as a human from my understanding.

 

i also hope that you didnt assume i was laughing at you. i apoligize if it looked that way. looking at what i wrote i should of hinted i thought you were being sarcastic. i am a gnostic orthodox sophian mormon wiccain christian in my personal belief system values.

 

as for your poem i think u r being witty in irony about jesus christ return.

 

victor

Larsen M. Callirhoe

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I think this presents the universe as a well-oiled machine. The title, road, taken together with the unexpected owl (a more commonplace image would have been a dove), mixes in some North American/Native American elements and almost gives the poem a vision quest feel. I enjoyed this delve into the spritual.

 

Tony

Here is a link to an index of my works on this site: tonyv's Member Archive topic

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I didn't understand the connection between 'five ghosts of Adam' and 'the spirit of Mary' and 'the phantom of Jesus'. However, the images are startling.

 

badge

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Larsen M. Callirhoe

ok i slept on this and came back to it and i have the same questions as badger. what does five ghosts of adam insinuate?

 

victor

Larsen M. Callirhoe

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  • 2 weeks later...
David W. Parsley

Hi eclipse, another provokative work, with a little more mystery (and an arithmetic story problem!) than usual. As badger says, the images are startling, a justposition of the sacredly familiar with the mundane. Renews a couple of recurrent themes in your work, such as the coexistence of large spiritual issues and forces with daily living and the need to make choices in such context. These forces work in unexpected ways in the midst of such choices and tangle at what could appear to be cross-purposed junctions, while sustaining the suspicion that they all are part of the same "well-oiled machine" (thank, Tony), the workings of which escape us.

 

So let me try my hand at the arithmetic problem:

  • Adam Ghost #1 = Adam himself
  • Adam Ghost #2 = Jesus (the Second Man Adam of scripture)
  • Adam Ghost #3 = Mary, His Mother
  • Adam Ghost #4 = the mysterious Last Incarnation
  • Adam Ghost #5 = hanged if I know, I'm just hoping for partial credit with grades on the curve - best guess = Nascent Earth, but not submitting if points are docked for wrong answers

I agree with Tony's assessment of the owl and credit the original substitution of the owl for the dove, opening the question of how the Great Spirit may be common to that other great Spirit amplified in the Gospels and their subsequent letter writers. As I say: provokative!

 

 

That clock in the throat thing crosses the line from startling to disturbing. I have not made up my mind if that is a good thing or not, but you need something to "organically" (sorry for the pun, but that is the word for it) bring the insidious influence of Order, or at least the appearance of Order, into the piece. The timing (another one of those puns) is right for the poem's progession.

 

Finally, let me applaud the one-click turn down on the musicality, settling for a more subtle tone, allowing image and action to dominate the scene. Great use of symbol to bring home the sense of uncertainty (these daunting figures are searching for a ride themselves!) in the midst of glancing traces of that grand order most of us hope is there, and believe we glimpse from time to time.

 

Thanks,

- Dave

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