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![[Image: StaringSister.jpg]](http://wordbiscuit.com/im3/StaringSister.jpg)
< a window on whose other side is everything >
( a chant to be read aloud or while moving your lips )
and in your journal
as i look inside your journal
in your journal
where you say:
"a week from yesterday today
two days until tomorrow
monday
monday's when it happened
it will happen
happened on a monday
monday
that is now this monday
on this monday
down this hall
this hall so deep within our house
(or what we call a house)
this hall which started dark
and faded into light
a window there
unseen by me
a window in a room
a window on whose other side is everything"
you said:
"another trick"
you said:
"another trick"
i didn't know
the window wasn't there
the window wasn't there as yet
not really there
not down the hall
and all i heard was you
that light
that light was all i saw
"i see this light that comes from down the hall" i'd say
and then you'd say
and then you said:
"a trick, a little trick they play, i know their tricks,
this light
it comes from down the hall
there is a room
a window there
a light
there is a window there
a window on whose other side is everything
except this hall
except this room you've never seen
except for you
except for me"
and there you stopped
you stopped
you never said again
again
again that monday
monday
that is now this monday
on this monday
monday
when it happened
monday
this is now that monday was
and is
a trick you told me of
and then you said:
"that day, this day, a house, a hall, a light, a room,
a window on whose other side
a window on whose other side is everything
is everything
a window on whose other side another world exists
a week from yesterday today
two days until tomorrow"
- - -
Image: "Staring Sister" - a photograph by me of my younger sister - its profound artsy-fartsyness was
obtained by separating the flesh-tones into groups and then averaging each group to a single color.
You're from deep mania aren't you! Eternal blessings to y'all for wackwebing my poems.
i used to know a lotta stuff, but i still have eight cats
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09-21-2015, 06:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-21-2015, 06:01 PM by billy.)
the pic has a look of obama 
i didn't think
and as you say
you say this i
i feel your breath
so close
i feel your breath
so warm
you say:
add enough as a stanza though it doesn't kill the poem; i see the journal as the window, a window within a window. it has a spiritual feel to it though not enough to complicate the main picture i see. i see a window through the journal into the window of someone's mind, or thought process. the window also feels like an explanation, maybe of adulthood, or what it's like to not be a child. the carry-on repeats work well in dragging the reader into the piece. it gives the reader [me]the impression they are part of the window and the journal. i'd struggle to do a line by line because of the style of the thing. each line/phrase runs into the next and even gets carried on a few phrases down. to change anything would probably destroy the heart of the poem and possibly smash the window. the poem takes me back to some secret i had as a child. it has a childish ambiguity woven through each line. i liked it a lot.
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(09-21-2015, 06:01 PM)billy Wrote: the pic has a look of obama
i didn't think
and as you say
you say this i
i feel your breath
so close
i feel your breath
so warm
you say:
add enough as a stanza though it doesn't kill the poem; i see the journal as the window, a window within a window. it has a spiritual feel to it though not enough to complicate the main picture i see. i see a window through the journal into the window of someone's mind, or thought process. the window also feels like an explanation, maybe of adulthood, or what it's like to not be a child. the carry-on repeats work well in dragging the reader into the piece. it gives the reader [me]the impression they are part of the window and the journal. i'd struggle to do a line by line because of the style of the thing. each line/phrase runs into the next and even gets carried on a few phrases down. to change anything would probably destroy the heart of the poem and possibly smash the window. the poem takes me back to some secret i had as a child. it has a childish ambiguity woven through each line. i liked it a lot. Damn, you're SO right. It not only interrupts the flow, it's really not in keeping with the
predominantly dissociative core of the poem.
I just ripped it out. Thanks.
ray
P.S. I never thought my sister looked like Pres. Obama; but yes, now that you mention it, she does.
Maybe she has a shot at the presidency? Though probably not as she's a bit too hippy-left-wing
for the main-stream and her documented use of drugs strongly parallels mine.
P.P.S. billy said: "feels like an explanation, maybe of adulthood, or what it's like to not be a child" ... "some secret i had as a child. it has a childish ambiguity" ...
Yes, the poem's metaphor works well with those interpretations. I think it's because they are quite similar to the world (mine) that inspired < a visit to the park >
i used to know a lotta stuff, but i still have eight cats
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I liked this. Liked mumbling it beneath my breath to myself. These kinds of poems are hard to pull off. I've tried and failed before.
On another note...I remember when we were discussing Borges...his labyrinths of time and recurrence...somehow this poem brought me into one of those...one of your own.
Me like. 
You can't hate me more than I hate myself. I win.
"When the spirit of justice eloped on the wings
Of a quivering vibrato's bittersweet sting."
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i remember the poem you linked to. and in doing so revisited it. you have a pattern of driving home the main theme of some of your poetry with lots of repetition. that it works well on all the occasions i've seen it can act as comfort of those who try it and fail....
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Moving piece, the combination of confusion and clarity comes through. I feel like I've walked the hall and come up empty. Good one, ray.
billy wrote:welcome to the site. make it your own, wear it like a well loved slipper and wear it out. ella pleads:please click forum titles for posting guidelines, important threads. New poet? Try Poetic DevicesandWard's Tips
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This sounds like midnight. And yet, I didn't have quite the courage to read this aloud -- it's quite spiritual, but in a way completely devoid of it, like a really solid pop song. Which isn't a negative, since I suspect the intent was not to discuss anything particularly profound -- rather, and this is where this piece becomes a poem instead of your run-of-the-mill sermon, the piece lets its form speak for itself. There might be a little gem here about the eternally recursive formlessness of existence, how all these objects seem to circle around meaningful somethings yet really circle around meaningless somethings, and yet with the piece's emphasis on time is derived the statement that all these objects are what gives us meaning, and that the life to be lived is a life that is living --- that, sure, life, particularly modern life, seems like a life to be viewed, rather than to be experienced, but that viewing is in and of itself that experiencing --- but I feel like that would be silly, as if it's what the owner of the journal didn't quite say (also silly: more mathematical elaborations on physics, considering the piece's focus on the relationship of time and light?), so instead on something particular (and perhaps more peculiar): ( a chant to be read aloud or while moving your lips ). Since I have to read this on a limited screen (window...), I have to scroll from top to bottom to move past the image and continue on to the poem, thus putting an emphasis on the image's lips right where the quoted appears. I mean, I'm pretty sure if I tried to extrapolate from that any meaning, I'll end up with something as silly as before (something something meaning making), but the point is, for a part that I assume isn't meant to be a proper part of the poem, it sure fits perfectly with the poem. Maybe remove those parentheses?
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loved to read this, it's a little confusing but profound.
the hall could be the tunnel (the one with the light at its end).. the house could be a metaphor for our lives.. the window shows whatever we want to believe i'd guess. and the only thing sure (or maybe almost sure) is that whatever is beyond the window, it excludes the things inside the house..
...
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