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Wednesday, July 02, 2003
posted by gbarto at 2:47 PM:
With apologies...The other day I happened to pick up a poetry notebook - a journal of sorts with suggestions on themes, versecraft, etc. It seemed to me just the thing for getting in shape when my writing was going from bad to verse ([drumroll] Thank you, folks. I'll be here all week...) Finding myself altogether too sleepy to achieve anything suggestive of coherence, I felt this morning a perfect opportunity to toss down a few lines. A study of the modern poets, particularly those in English faculties, convinces me this is common practice.
One of the exercises suggests turning to a favorite poem or poet for inspiration and, more importantly, for models to imitate or build upon. The book did not say whether to choose a living poet and risk a defamation lawsuit or pick someone who's gone to the beyond and risk offending the memory of the dead, but since the latter carries smaller risk for incarceration, this was the path I chose.
I apologize for harranguing the noble readers of this humble little blog with bad verse, but in these days of intellectual (and all other sorts!) exhibitionism, those who maintain what we once called me-zines can hardly be called upon to serve as models in restraint when even models of propriety such as Sec. Rumsfeld have their names appear on collections of verse.
What does the poem mean? Nothing. And it isn't a poem. It's verse. The former is the product of an artist, a superior soul who can turn his manifest competence in a craft toward the creation of something beautiful and meaningful in an associated medium. The latter is the result of versecraft - form rather than function. Until I can find a loftier way of saying, "Free markets and democratic capitalism maximize both wealth and social equity while creating the only socio-economic context in which man can be truly free," I shall confine my most deeply felt sentiments to prose. My verse, at this point, goes in the direction the form takes it in much the way a beginning carpenter will make a set of shelves after bunging up what were supposed to be the doors of a curio cabinet. If, therefore, you are offended, or even touched, by the sentiment of the poem, you may trust that you found it in your own heart. But do write and let me know; I'd be most curious.
In any case, I have at least bothered about the versecraft, which is more than you can say about most people who have Masters degrees and do this sort of thing. It's always delightful how they renounce stifling conventions before publishing a grocery list that reminds them of when they went shopping with mother. Milton did the same thing, vis-à-vis rhyme, for the Paradise Lost, but somehow I put more stock by him than the creators of blather like
Potato salad,I am sad to say that there is actually a poem in existence that I am parodying - to the extent such poems can be parodied, anyway. But here's my real effort, and may whatever ghosts afflicted Coleridge forgive it:
hot dog buns,
hot dogs,
hamburgers,
buns for them too...
and so I lead the quiet life of desperation
of the oppressed
in George W. Bush's America
as the Fourth of July approaches
(should I have capitalized that?)
Too Much Coleridge, Not Enough Sleep
or
Delusional Meditations of the Lyrically Challenged
On the morrow I shall seek
A newer Xanadu;
Of caves of Ice I do not speak
But castles carved in morning dew:
What man has wrought can be,
There is no doubt, quite fine.
And yet our industry
Prefers to make things we can see
Since the unseen is divine.
What's the special atom
That makes the dew drop shine?
Where's that special photon
That makes it gleam so fine?
As I one day walked through a field,
I chanced to see a drop of dew
Whose delicate form would not yield
To any tool we could wield
To understand its blue.
So I thought on its azure glimmer,
While the breeze made it to shimmer,
And the blade of grass where it sat began to twitch,
Making both flow through time and space and through light.
The dew drop's blue shifted and in the switch
I espied a rainbow to my delight.
A dew drop on a blade of grass
In this moment I saw there.
The dew was lovely on the blade
As the sunlight on it played
Taking away all my care.
This moment shall I retrieve -
It's joy and majesty -
And nevermore then must I grieve,
But needs must I only believe
In its simple verity.
I will now relate my tale
Will tell a world I have known
And all who hear shall stare, agog,
And wonder, was he in a fog?
These words can't be his own!
Give it the name of God; call it physical law -
A miracle either way sure to inspire awe.
Looking at the rainbow, I closed my eyes, was small,
With my reduced perspective, finally I saw all:
I danced inside a spinning atom
And turned into a probability;
I chatted with lonely photon
On why it chose to be.
And all the world around me
Was sparkling energy.
And no more was there must or should
As I thought on what I'd be;
Everything was simply could
And I knew what I would be!
Roaming round my dew drop,
I saw crystals sparkle as ne'er before;
Watched a proton spin, then stop!
Could this be known to Planck or Bohr?
And till the looming sunlight scattered us,
We of the dew drop danced and sang -
In carefully made routines -
Physical laws? Oh, beans! -
'Tis a lovely dance once you get the hang!
So sing, my friends, a song of glory!
For God made us not with a toss of the dice;
We've all got our parts in this little story
Of dew drops and caverns of ice.
And Life! - Forget not Life!
The world's a living creation!
So no need to feel large or small;
Perspective is nil; all's part of all;
And size a figment of imagination.
The smallest part of the universe
Is a miracle about to unfold;
The biggest part of the universe
Just a story waiting to be told;
And so I feel, though it may seem perverse,
With such a wonder to behold:
I do not want to know the lesson
Of the wonders that I saw,
But just to meld with it, gazing on,
Rapt with wonder and with awe.
post scriptum
... And all who read may say, "Oh dear!"
Or "Goodness me, that's not quite clear!...
"The whole thing's rather steep!"
And yet these lines have truth to tell,
Though I confess it's hidden well,
When one writes poesy in one's sleep!
7/2/2003
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