just

[dr_con]

just

 

We forgive old men their ignorance

knowing their search began in a different world

One infinitely clever and resourceful the disembodied-

light had fewer paths to go down (on summer solstice

I went with a friend early in the morning to buy one rooster

two hens and a baker’s dozen of doves both white and colored)

Family tribe religion place and no-place the branches available to

 

hang (when i first found the diaspora-spirits a Big dream came)

Now our thoughts are nomadic photons rediscovering home

Infinite paths (on the Moon we grew marijuana a blight has

come) constrained by topography not real geography

map-makers the new gods of what we will think (

someone suggests we kill a chicken dressed

all in white beads the only color on the dark

side) and how we will do it while mathe-

maticians and sceptics hold mirrors

and reflections as realer than real

( I don’t kill to wash away sins-

sound hollow in the industrial

space of our devising)

 

It is hard to forgive the young

(On Earth you don’t need too)

who mouth ancient curses built

(all the ground is soaked in blood)

by ancestors responding to a need

to survive and its logic of fear and soil

( i refuse a sound of escaping air carries

my spirit beyond organic caring) Children

believe it has always been this way digital-

knots replace traditional submissions of joy

to your betters inventing shinier simulations

of why the right to your ecstasy no longer

matters before the power of me mine

But beneath these tended palms

beside the middle school play

shadow and light the only

right and just thing

that matters.

[tonyv]

Reads like a Santería ritual, from market to altar. The speaker neither condemns nor condones; it is what it is, the way it has always been.

 

Tony

[badger11]

Gives me the feeling that reality/meaning is all a matter of belief.

 

badge

[dr_con]

Thanks guys! And yes, I would say that both interpretations were insightful and true! Appreciate the comments...

 

Many Thanks,

 

Dr. Con

[Aleksandra]

The truth is the truth, but many people have their own way of seeing the truth. That's why we say that everyone has his own version of the truth and that the truth has two faces.

 

I like this poem, Juris.

 

Aleksandra

[waxwings]

Love the philosophy. A bit of nihilism, perhaps. (Yes, I am of the old men whose search began in a world more "infinitely clever and resourceful".) Our ancestors, Juris, did go for that black rooster bit, obviously not exclusive. And for aleks, who knows cyirilic script, the Russians have a saying that "each one of us goes 'nuts' in a most private way".

 

I am missing the poetry part, however. The outer shape of the 'poem' is too obviously forced, but the worst is that many line breaks are pointless to an extent that I cannot get a smooth subvocalized reading. That could be the cause for me missing the poetry. But then, I am the old man.

Edited July 12, 2010 by waxwings

[dr_con]

Thanks Aleks and Ikars for your generous comments- much appreciated- as to the poetics of this piece- Is it or is it not a poem- I'm OK with either interpretation ;-) I simply may have a bad ear or am just too darn lazy to learn proper forms :D but I've gotten to a point where I'm getting more content with the direction of my work and less defensive about my untenable position on what constitutes poetry...

 

Many, many thanks all for continuing to put up with me!

 

 

DC&J

[waxwings]

It is refreshing to know you absorb all kinds of reactions to your work, including mine that is rather different from mere praise for your imaginative stand.

 

I fail to see why you think you hold an untenable position re poetry. You 'shape' your compositions in a way that suggests the genre. Clearly, these are not prose poems, for your lines are notably shorter than that avenue would call for. That seems to say you are in the open form mode. I am driven to wonder whether you are searching for an individual way, esp. what its raison d’etre might be. The outer shape is repeated, among your poems,reminding me of a mantra, and it is a curiosity to me what you wish this approach to tell, beyond the contextual message, to your reader(s).