Beginning to Be Unfinished
Shape, line, form,
Dying plants and biography…
What is hidden in a poem?
The lines come from yesterday,
Measured in confusion.
Someone else’s this time.
Can you see the empty room?
The windows closed,
The papers fade away.
Hear the radio turned down, not off.
Every poem a mood, a mode,
A way into human temperament,
Into the matrix of language…
Particular, historic.
San Francisco 2009,
Sunday morning before the blues.
The warmth of my own body
After a bath,
The ocean in my ears
Before her voice.
Take another sip of coffee.
Listen to the radiator.
Make no footnotes.
Return to the easel.
I enjoyed this tremendously , Peter, from "beginning" to its "Unfinshed" end!
K.Q.
Someone peeled an orange in the middle of the parking lot
I'm just sayin'
Thanks both for visiting and commenting, I think.
amo,
Peter
Johnny, I like your particular here.
SFO 2009 has to be less trouble than SFO 1906. If it is unfinished, how do you know how long it's gonna be? Remember, you can stay in front of a firing squad until someone says "fire".
I think the medicine has an effect that I hadn't noticed until I tried to type sensible like, perhaps I should not drive until the a.m.
Ironically, Merc, the brain doctor told me yesterday, she was going to make it possible for the state to keep me from driving, with one word, which I will not repeat, lest I add to her dark magic, knowing the power of repeating a word out loud.
Cheers,
Peter
p.s.,
It never seems to me that the end of the runway is the end of the flight.
People are convicted with forenics, and sentenced to death with words. My least favorite word is cancer.
Don't care much for puce either, but that is a personal opinion.
Peter, I really like this. Perhaps you could tell me a little more about it?
Aaron,
Shape, line, form,
Dying plants and biography…
What is hidden in a poem?
--I am always meditating on what can be put into a poem, what a poem is made of....
And I am fascinated that poems are indirect expressions of our experience, not direct expressions, hence 'hidden'...I am not a fan of simple biography as a source of a poem, though I refuse to exclude any source....
The lines come from yesterday,
Measured in confusion.
Someone else’s this time.
Mr Pound tutor in undergraduate school, Ann E. Berthoff, ['forming thinking writing: The Composing Imagination'] used to always direct me toward what she called 'creative confusion,''mess' that precedes orderly creativity.
Can you see the empty room?
The windows closed,
The papers fade away.
Hear the radio turned down, not off.
--This is the imaginary setting for the meditation.
Every poem a mood, a mode,
A way into human temperament,
Into the matrix of language…
Particular, historic.
--Here is the greater context for poetry: language and history --that lets every poem reach beyond the personal, the individual poet's experiencee, through the roots of language -- at least as far in English to the Indo-European proto-language -- that is all available through the least word, etc.
San Francisco 2009,
Sunday morning before the blues.
The warmth of my own body
After a bath,
The ocean in my ears
Before her voice.
Here we are brought right back into the poet's personal, particular situation, before he speaks to his friend on the phone in the morning.
Take another sip of coffee.
Listen to the radiator.
Make no footnotes.
Return to the easel.
--And we end with the metaphorical:
Return to the easel
The easel is the location, the place, IN THE IMAGINATION, whether there is an easel in my room or not...it represents the imaginative space, the matrix, out of which creativity itself originates, not merely the world of the poet, the place he goes to create.
I will leave the title for you to fill in with your meaning.
I hope this is a little help, Aaron,
amo,
Peter
Nice bit of picture painting. I like the teaching and insight too Peter. You are generous man.
As to the title. Too many years ago I worked in a rural woodworking factory. The place where the real people worked in that day. Old Eugene from Alabama was a mentor to the younger guys, and his favorite line when he would walk behind my machine and see I was finishing a box of parts was:
"Y'all 'bout finished up bein' done."
That summed it up.
Steevo,
Got to listen to them 'Old Eugenes' of the world -- there's much to be learn from hands-on knowledge. Thanks for stopping by.
Peter
Peter:
You were born to teach.
Joe
Thanks, Joseph...I forgot that that was what I was doing.
Cheers,
Peter
Thank you Peter, you have given me much to think about. So it seems to me like this particular poem is not particular or historical at all, but an exploration of the creative process?
As for the title, I'm still workin on it
Cheers
Aaron, every poem is "an exploration of the creative process."
Cheers,
Peter
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2009 09:31PM by petersz.
Again, I like it a lot Peter, but you got one thing wrong. You gotta
"Turn up your radio...
Turn it up...so you know, its got soul"
Cheers
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2009 01:46AM by aaron.
There's them times too, Aaron...though my soul cry for quietude at time, at times.
amo,
Peter
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2009 01:25AM by petersz.