Only Two Things Are Really Important in This World
I’ve given up
On The Interpretation of Dreams
As a Guide to Enlightenment.
Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle
And Enos Slaughter
Can all find their own way to hell.
Pizza and peanut butter
Are still mainstays of my midnight diet
And I’ll accept a hug from anyone,
Despite what the late, great local poet says.
There must be a second verse
But I lost the tune in the traffic
And the telephone keeps interrupting
With someone else’s fine, latest work.
I feel like I am about to lose the rhythm
And I’ve been thrown out of bed too often
Because I’m just plain ugly, too often.
The redevelopment company that’s bilking the city
Is whining about not having a big enough profit margin
And the beans I was reheating in the kitchen are overflowing.
The darkness is sweltering in my room as I type
But my visions are still radiant and pure.
That just means they really belong to some Ethiopian waitress
Who couldn’t hold back her tears
At the restaurant we stumbled into last night
Trying to find our way from there to here.
This is the state of my affairs in a late October rain
When the animals are hiding from the bright lights on the road
And the highway itself doesn’t seem to know where it is going.
My body, my country and my love life don’t seem to be relevant
In the face of the big news, the forever news, that I just don’t get.
I have to remind myself that this is just a speck of dirt I live on
And that other people’s feelings really do mean more
Than my theories on why the doctors can’t seem to figure out
Why everybody complains about their handwriting.
Peter,
I liked reading this, but not sure I can articulate why at this moment. I've always thought you could write an excellent book of prose, and this is exactly the style...the voice...(or however I could explain it to you) that I think is so eloquent for such.
Mary
Thanks,
Mary. That is exactly how I feel about the voice in this poem...not a voice I can sustain for very long, which is why I don't write novels.
amo,
Peter
Peter,
It's hard to fathom that this voice is one that requires effort on your part. I'm not disbelieving or disregarding what you are telling me. It's just that it reads seamlessly and flows as if being poured out. It figures that the voice I can read with the least effort and enjoy the most, is the very one that gives you the most trouble. Story of my life. I'm feeling sorry for myself tonight, can you tell?
Mary
mary,
writing a coherent sentence has been a monumental task for me since I was 20 years old. It just don't come easy. I tell people English is my second language, and I've forgotten my first.
take care of yourself. you are a real gem to those of us who have become your fans,
Peter
Lessons of life lost on the living...sometimes a rose is more important than the universe.
A good read, Peter.
Les
Thanks for commenting, Les. Though the piece is complex, that is the central point.
amo,
Peter
Peter:
One of your best, although I'm not entirely sure why I think this way. To me, this is very intricately structured from what on the surface seems to be a collection of random and spontaneous thoughts. I enjoy reading this time and again, especially the last four lines.
Well done!
Joe
I love the flow of this, Peter. It sounds like it is just pouring out of your mind into mine.
I agree with the sense of flow people get from this. That is, it did seem to flow of its own when I made it. I am thankful it did reach people...
I was happy to get ot the point wherein I could say:
I have to remind myself that this is just a speck of dirt I live on
And that other people’s feelings really do mean more
Than my theories
and I was happy with the way I got there.
Cheers,
Peter
Peter;
Ever better and better. I've missed a lot but am glad I came back to read this.
The only thing is that it hurt most when I got the last Stanza and touched the line about the feelings of others. It is my personal struggle to choose never to let the feelings of others mean more than anything I want for me. I know that's not what you meant, but it lit me up anyway. I hope we do have the right to project our own stuff onto a poem, even such a beautifully written one as this.
Steevo
Steevo,
There is the trick of the process. No author can determine everything a poem implies.
The philosopher Michael Polanyi wrote a little book titled 'The Tacit Dimension' that explores this aspect of language a little bit. Worth reading. And postmodern thinking depends very heavily on the interaction and participation that takes place in the act of reading. But their is a big but to this process, because it turns out that it is not the case that ANYTHING GOES. The reading process and the writing process both require that there must be wrong interpretations, bad reading, just plain mistakes that are outside what makes a rich, productive reading of a given text. The problem is that there are no hard and fast RULES to decide in every case. Actually, I depend on that as a writer. The reader must be able sometimes to understand something about a piece that the author has no way of knowing from his/her perspective. Paul DeMan wrote a great series of books exploring this, including 'Blindness and Insight' and 'Allegories of Reading.'
I thrive on ambiguity in my work, so I am happy when a reader find something in my poem that I did not know was there.
So my response to your 'I hope we do have the right to project our own stuff onto a poem...' is: SOMETIMES.
amo,
Peter
This is the state of my affairs in a late October rain
When the animals are hiding from the bright lights on the road
And the highway itself doesn’t seem to know where it is going.
these are my favorites.
Peter, I am enjoying your writing more all of the time...and I started off loving it to begin with.
Thanks, Sherry, I am the kind of writer who thrives on praise and on affirmation of my experimental side. The more that readers are willing to allow my poems room, the stronger I get as a writer...it's not that critique and criticism don't also help, but I just need a little encouragement once in a while.
Thanks again,
Peter
you're certainly welcome.