This has been, as they say, a fucking terrible week.
With that, I bring you half-baked, unedited crap! Because if I can't be an example, I may as well be a horrible warning.
know, reader:
every time I carve through the page
to reach your eyes,
I do not aim.
I have not isolated parts
of your anatomy
to pluck out and
turn over in my hand;
I will not be the surgeon
and make my poetry an art
of dissecting the immediate
and observably real.
I do not speak to your ears.
I do not write well
or, indeed, prettily.
I do not reach, I grab.
I do not cauterize, I burn.
I do not say, I shout
far across
arboreal distances
to send hearts flying
like a thousand frightened birds
into a sky I have thrown up
like a tent--no,
not to keep you from starlight
but to show you the
undissected world above.
4 comments:
Kind of bitter. I like it.
I like it! It has an unedited feel - like you're spitting in the face of poetic pretension while proving that poetry can be beautiful without it. It's bold and bitter, everything is so blunt and in-your-face.
I LOVE the second stanza. The image of furiously carving the page compared to the delicate (or shall I say dainty?) study of small parts...awesome. I agree that there are too many flowery poems that nitpick trivialities.
"to send hearts flying
like a thousand frightened birds
into a sky I have thrown up
like a tent"
Such a crisp image. You're stomping around, making people frantic. I like.
I loved this, and didn't find it sounded felt unedited. i thought it was beautiful and maybe a bit raw in this wonderful pure way.
I really loved the ending. (maybe the strongest part of the piece?)
to send hearts flying
like a thousand frightened birds
into a sky I have thrown up
like a tent--no,
not to keep you from starlight
but to show you the
undissected world above.
woah, that is just such an amazing image. I read this poem again and again Bernard, how could you think it was horrible.
another excellent image/analogy was
I have not isolated parts
of your anatomy
to pluck out and
turn over in my hand;
I will not be the surgeon
and make my poetry an art
of dissecting the immediate
and observably real.
though my favorite image is still the end. maybe one of my favorite works of yours...
ASMC. Honestly, this is a really good poem I don't know what you're talking about! Half-baked pffft. The unedited feeling truly lends to the piece and makes it so much better than if it were all polished and refined.
I love the idea of the writer reaching through the page to physically take the reader into their own hands. It's such an interesting idea to play with, empowering the writer and putting the reader at the mercy of the hand behind the words. I think you captured the images perfectly in that respect. It has a sense of madness, which could be the madness of the inexperienced writer not knowing the power of their own words, or, even better, the madness that the words have driven the writer to because they themselves are the power and manipulate both writer and reader once they have been written. Fascinating.
I like the juxtaposition of reason and emotion as well - science and art pushed together, working against and yet with each other in that divide, perhaps unwittingly. There is a sense of methodical logic behind a lot of the words, in the blunt statement of fact ("I do not", "I have not" "I will not"), so it's the purest art form being shown through a logical filter. There's no room for deviation or lying. It is what it is and it tries to be nothing else - and it is brilliant for that fact.
I love too many lines in this, but I have to say I love the end maybe the most of all. Particularly the last ten lines. Such beautiful concrete images - hearts flying up, tents being thrown up - all so that it's possible to see the beauty of the untainted regions of space while still being enveloped by the violence and taint of the ground level they are on. God this is good.
Bernard. I love this poem. I am in love with it.
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