...part one.

Seems like a paean to the good old days that you're not sure existed. But faith is strong there, if allowed at all. And some insults to the uptight well fed minds with your archaic metal but eternally correct turns of phrase: ensuing to contrast, beholding but the beauty, [dub thee unforgiven]. And I think it works on those levels. But with poetry, funnily enough, sometimes the less levels the better. Which is nothing bad either way, if you can make it. That's me for both praise and advice.

Hey nothing-

Smells like a sonnet, looks like a sonnet, reads like a sonnet, so it must be a sonnet regarding the Lord's Prayer.

That said, I am dense enough that I don't see the relation between your poem and the prayer.

Perhaps a forthcoming PART 2 will help connect the poem and the prayer.

Time's evoking memory…once…there at last,This stanza is a bit too abstract to relate to the prayer, and I fell like I must make that connection, due to the title.
The substance and the movement of a dream
Born of forlorn space, ensuing to contrast
One sentimental moment to redeem

Of a father…enthralled in ecstasy"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name--- a bit of a connection here, I suppose
Beholding but the beauty of the gift, Thy kingdom come, they will be done,
Itself…only distinct in recognition
Of this relation: responding harmonies. " ...on earth as it is in heaven ???"

Free…beyond the obscuring condition, "give this day, our daily bread"
Unending image, wherewithal of myth,[b]and forgive us our trespasses
Nature…awe inspiring composition,as we forgive those who trespass against us
Aesthetically unerring labyrinth...lead us not into temptation, but deliver from evil

This…the sweetest sorrow…could never beliefor thine is the kingdom ,and the power, and the glory
The creation in the remembrance of why.forever and ever, amen

Perhaps this is your interpretation of the prayer, because when I line it up it doesn't fall into place (for me). Perhaps my big mistake was thinking the title had any resemblance to the prayer. If so, my bad. Or maybe a different title would have kept me from trying so hard to make things "match up".

At any rate, it made me think, and if nothing else, your poem succeeded on that level. Thanks,
... Mark

^^^My bad, I guess.     By the title of the poem "Our Father"  I was merely referring to the masculine creative energy/persona/mythos of the universe.  I was born and raised Catholic (am no longer), thus the title of the poem.  It was basically conceived and written from a Gnostic and Kabbalahistic perspective, the idea that the creation and the fall were a single event, an event taking place in the mind of God beyond time, space, and materiality, an event in which some entire past was concluded at precisely the moment some entire future was being conceived, as if one was entirely dependent upon the other.  Obviously, the theme of eternal recurrence comes into play at such a moment.  

What I was fascinated by was the idea of putting an anthropomorphic spin upon the idea of "creation ex nihilo" (in the purest, post Enlightenment, scientific sense of the term), or, put another way, to attempt to express such a thing within a psychological context.  That's what drew me to both the Kabbalah and Gnostic scripture in the first place, the only mythic systems that I know of that truly grant God an internal psychological complexity worthy of an entity attributed with the full weight and gravity of "initial cause" (and consequence).  I mean, let's face it, from an anthropomorphic perspective, this God really fucked up, had to be "asleep-at-the-wheel" to have conceived of such an improbable and precarious sequence of events that led to the dawn of human consciousness in the first place, this before we even get into all necessary contingencies for the cultural development of our species to something approximating rationality, and all the ignorance, suffering and cruelty along our stumbling and bumbling productive and destructive ways.  Yes, what could have possibly blinded such a creator God at that most eternally and universally significant moment a mind could possibly imagine or conceive?  It's a puzzling bewilderment of wonder when you think about it in such a way.

It was then that I had that stunning moment of realization.  I saw it.  It was "otherness", perfect otherness that blinded such a God at such an eternally and universally significant moment...

Beholding but the beauty of the gift...

I never imagined that it could be so simple.  What weakens us.  What inspires us.  What we most want to escape.  What we most want to create.  The past...

One sentimental moment to redeem...

The exact price that was paid.

This was a God I could resurrect.  This was a God I could forgive.  This was a God I could understand.  This was a God just like me.  

Carl Jung was fascinated by depth psychology, which of course brought him to the Gnostics.  I'm not sure if he delved into the mystical musings of one Isaac Luria, but my guess was that he did.  It's so hard to dive so deep.  Everything starts to melt, to dissipate, and you know not whether you will have the one remaining "wit" to see, to behold, to grasp.  

That's what I love about poetry.  The best shit goes after those moments down to the last remaining wit.  I love that quality in poets.

Anyway...just babbling...don't mind me.

I don't think there's anything complex about God's creation. I don't believe he fucked up or was asleep at the wheel. The complexity is there, later. I believe in God, a god that created a perfect world. I make sense of this through a formula-statement I ascribe to Dostoevsky but which I might have thought up while I was drunk or dreamed one time and forgot about that goes If everything in the universe made sense nothing would happen. And as for a creator not great ''because'' beyond any comparison, as to better or worse, I believe that's a sensible human system. As for me, I'm easily inspired religiously after guessing the next song that's played on the radio. I guess that's why God lets me go as long as I want to without eating and drink several gas tanks full of liquor a day without consequence. The Devil lays paw prints of boredom.

if it's a sonnet it needs the rhyme and meter working on a bit better.
in genral it felt too generic and because of this also felt weaker than i would expect.

while all the right words and phrases are there, there only there as far as the words are there. they give me little but a forced monologue.

while i say the right words and phrase have been used, there's nothing in the poem that speaks top me the reader.  the title makes the poem religious not matter what is stated in the poem. i wanted to like it more but struggled to connect with it.

(09-23-2015, 11:54 AM)NobodyNothing Wrote:  ...part one.


                OUR FATHER

                          I

Time's evoking memory…once…there at last,
The substance and the movement of a dream
Born of forlorn space, ensuing to contrast
One sentimental moment to redeem

Of a father…enthralled in ecstasy
Beholding but the beauty of the gift,
Itself…only distinct in recognition
Of this relation:  responding harmonies.

Free…beyond the obscuring condition,
Unending image, wherewithal of myth,
Nature…awe inspiring composition,
Aesthetically unerring labyrinth...

This…the sweetest sorrow…could never belie
The creation in the remembrance of why.

(10-02-2015, 09:41 AM)rowens Wrote:  I don't think there's anything complex about God's creation. I don't believe he fucked up or was asleep at the wheel. The complexity is there, later. I believe in God, a god that created a perfect world. I make sense of this through a formula-statement I ascribe to Dostoevsky but which I might have thought up while I was drunk or dreamed one time and forgot about that goes If everything in the universe made sense nothing would happen. And as for a creator not great ''because'' beyond any comparison, as to better or worse, I believe that's a sensible human system. As for me, I'm easily inspired religiously after guessing the next song that's played on the radio. I guess that's why God lets me go as long as I want to without eating and drink several gas tanks full of liquor a day without consequence. The Devil lays paw prints of boredom.

Nice thoughts about the matter, cute and all, but if you're going to put an anthropomorphic twist upon the physical universe and creation, then the idea of God MUST be incredibly subtle and complex.  From the standpoint of human experience and consciousness, how could it not?

I've met a lot of people who were neither subtle nor complex. Maybe someone like that created the world. So human all too human, anthropomorphic isn't a concept considered.

(10-02-2015, 01:17 PM)rowens Wrote:  I've met a lot of people who were neither subtle nor complex. Maybe someone like that created the world. So human all too human, anthropomorphic isn't a concept considered.

I don't know, the more I read and understand of science, what we have learned about this physical universe we dwell in, the more and more subtle and complex of a creation it is to me.  I mean, quantum physics.  Say no more.

---

(10-02-2015, 10:49 AM)billy Wrote:  if it's a sonnet it needs the rhyme and meter working on a bit better.
in genral it felt too generic and because of this also felt weaker than i would expect.

while all the right words and phrases are there, there only there as far as the words are there. they give me little but a forced monologue.

while i say the right words and phrase have been used, there's nothing in the poem that speaks top me the reader.  the title makes the poem religious not matter what is stated in the poem. i wanted to like it more but struggled to connect with it.

(09-23-2015, 11:54 AM)NobodyNothing Wrote:  ...part one.


                OUR FATHER

                          I

Time's evoking memory…once…there at last,
The substance and the movement of a dream
Born of forlorn space, ensuing to contrast
One sentimental moment to redeem

Of a father…enthralled in ecstasy
Beholding but the beauty of the gift,
Itself…only distinct in recognition
Of this relation:  responding harmonies.

Free…beyond the obscuring condition,
Unending image, wherewithal of myth,
Nature…awe inspiring composition,
Aesthetically unerring labyrinth...

This…the sweetest sorrow…could never belie
The creation in the remembrance of why.

Lol.  I wrote that years ago, along with the other three parts.  I don't write poetry anymore.  Of course it sucks.  It's me.  I was just thinking about some of the things I was thinking about those years ago when I wrote it.

The flow of this poem was very intriguing. I really like that way "..." are placed. I felt like the last line was not quite as crisp as the rest of the poem. How about something like 

Creation is obliterated in all it deemed important...by the remembrance of why  

(10-02-2015, 10:49 AM)billy Wrote:  if it's a sonnet it needs the rhyme and meter working on a bit better.
in genral it felt too generic and because of this also felt weaker than i would expect.

while all the right words and phrases are there, there only there as far as the words are there. they give me little but a forced monologue.

while i say the right words and phrase have been used, there's nothing in the poem that speaks top me the reader.  the title makes the poem religious not matter what is stated in the poem. i wanted to like it more but struggled to connect with it.

(09-23-2015, 11:54 AM)NobodyNothing Wrote:  ...part one.


                OUR FATHER

                          I

Time's evoking memory…once…there at last,
The substance and the movement of a dream
Born of forlorn space, ensuing to contrast
One sentimental moment to redeem

Of a father…enthralled in ecstasy
Beholding but the beauty of the gift,
Itself…only distinct in recognition
Of this relation:  responding harmonies.

Free…beyond the obscuring condition,
Unending image, wherewithal of myth,
Nature…awe inspiring composition,
Aesthetically unerring labyrinth...

This…the sweetest sorrow…could never belie
The creation in the remembrance of why.

Who's to say men and women didn't get too smart for their own good, so now God doesn't bother coming around. I think quantum physics is a pretty complex way of looking at things too.

(10-02-2015, 01:31 PM)rowens Wrote:  Who's to say men and women didn't get too smart for their own good, so now God doesn't bother coming around. I think quantum physics is a pretty complex way of looking at things too.

God, at least the monotheistic one, is just an invention of ours, of our psyches.  My thoughts on the matter are that if you're going to invent a God, invent one that is a least equal to what our minds have come to learn of this universe of ours so far.  Such a God deserves at least that much, it seems to me.

That's all we need, some hipster know-it-all god. Who wants to pray to a prick like that?

(10-02-2015, 01:40 PM)rowens Wrote:  That's all we need, some hipster know-it-all god. Who wants to pray to a prick like that?

There is a certain logical and aesthetic perfection to this universe of ours.  It works.  And it is, more or less, understandable.  

As for prayer, to each their own, but such a thing is waste of time to me, personally speaking.  Things are going to happen as they do, as they will, irregardless of prayer.  I will admit that there might be some personal psychological benefits to such a belief in a personal God, some benefits that very well might help to console and adjust people's minds and hearts to this precarious existence of ours.  Life's a bitch at times.  

As to logic and aesthetic perfection: Next thing we know Steve Jobs will be back from the dead handing out flyers for some punk band that records with pro-tools. As for me and my house, we serve the Lord.

(10-02-2015, 02:07 PM)rowens Wrote:  As to logic and aesthetic perfection: Next thing we know Steve Jobs will be back from the dead handing out flyers for some punk band that records with pro-tools.    As for me and my house, we serve the Lord.

Cool.  God bless..

One my favorite reads this past year or so was Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, "Steve Jobs".  I knew probably a little bit more than Average Joe about the information age, it's great inventions, inventors, and entrepreneurial stars, but that book really drove home to me just what an incredible visionary, inventor, entrepreneur Jobs really was.  What a fascinating person he was.  One of the great minds and characters of the past hundred years or so.

I recommend it highly.  I couldn't put it down till I was finished.

(10-02-2015, 02:16 PM)NobodyNothing Wrote:  

(10-02-2015, 02:07 PM)rowens Wrote:  As to logic and aesthetic perfection: Next thing we know Steve Jobs will be back from the dead handing out flyers for some punk band that records with pro-tools.    As for me and my house, we serve the Lord.

Cool.  God bless..

One my favorite reads this past year or so was Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, "Steve Jobs".  I knew probably a little bit more than Average Joe about the information age, it's great inventions, inventors, and entrepreneurial stars, but that book really drove home to me just what an incredible visionary, inventor, entrepreneur Jobs really was.  What a fascinating person he was.  One of the great minds and characters of the past hundred years or so.

I recommend it highly.  I couldn't put it down till I was finished.

There is no way that this thread would be locked...but one more learned comment on god, gravity or ghosts, holy or otherwise, and the whole shebang goes in to discussion

god it seems has spoken sorry people, couldn't help it.

(10-07-2015, 04:20 PM)tectak Wrote:  

(10-02-2015, 02:16 PM)NobodyNothing Wrote:  

(10-02-2015, 02:07 PM)rowens Wrote:  As to logic and aesthetic perfection: Next thing we know Steve Jobs will be back from the dead handing out flyers for some punk band that records with pro-tools.    As for me and my house, we serve the Lord.

Cool.  God bless..

One my favorite reads this past year or so was Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, "Steve Jobs".  I knew probably a little bit more than Average Joe about the information age, it's great inventions, inventors, and entrepreneurial stars, but that book really drove home to me just what an incredible visionary, inventor, entrepreneur Jobs really was.  What a fascinating person he was.  One of the great minds and characters of the past hundred years or so.

I recommend it highly.  I couldn't put it down till I was finished.

There is no way that this thread would be locked...but one more learned comment on god, gravity or ghosts, holy or otherwise, and the whole shebang goes in to discussion

        Jobs was this century's Edison: a sociopath adept at theft, incapable of emotion.

(10-07-2015, 06:47 PM)rayheinrich Wrote:  

(10-07-2015, 04:20 PM)tectak Wrote:  

(10-02-2015, 02:16 PM)NobodyNothing Wrote:  Cool.  God bless..

One my favorite reads this past year or so was Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, "Steve Jobs".  I knew probably a little bit more than Average Joe about the information age, it's great inventions, inventors, and entrepreneurial stars, but that book really drove home to me just what an incredible visionary, inventor, entrepreneur Jobs really was.  What a fascinating person he was.  One of the great minds and characters of the past hundred years or so.

I recommend it highly.  I couldn't put it down till I was finished.

There is no way that this thread would be locked...but one more learned comment on god, gravity or ghosts, holy or otherwise, and the whole shebang goes in to discussion

        Jobs was this century's Edison: a sociopath adept at theft, incapable of emotion.

Having said that, he was a far more interesting, successful and influential of a person than the meager likes of you or I.