you dismiss all prominent apocalypse theories where saints prevail and shove the dining room in the closet.

I know your restlessness, the tangled scent of red. there's nothing heroic about this.

you're irresistible amongst flat tires, and the minutia of a daytime half-moon.

(12-17-2011, 01:36 AM)rbl Wrote:  you dismiss all prominent apocalypse theories where saints prevail and shove the dining room in the closet.

I know your restlessness, the tangled scent of red. there's nothing heroic about this.

you're irresistible amongst flat tires, and the minutia of a daytime half-moon.

another spit poem
i like the title though am lost to it's meaning. the triplet; all i can do is take it as a personal short. the last line i love but i'd like to see the piece tied down to something i can know. at first, i thought with the red, we were on about periods. think is i do like it; i'd just like to see more of it and know why the spit is there.
thanks for the read.

(12-17-2011, 01:36 AM)rbl Wrote:  you dismiss all prominent apocalypse theories where saints prevail and shove the dining room in the closet.

I know your restlessness, the tangled scent of red. there's nothing heroic about this.

you're irresistible amongst flat tires, and the minutia of a daytime half-moon.

Assuming my interpretation is close (ha!), maybe consider some of this:

You dismiss all theories where the saints prevail,
you shove your kitchen in the closet.

Your restlessness,
your tangled scent of red reduced to pride.

"In the land of the blind", I start to say then realize
your routine is contagious.

(12-17-2011, 01:36 AM)rbl Wrote:  you dismiss all prominent apocalypse theories where saints prevail and shove the dining room in the closet.-- I like the idea of jumping straight into an accusation, but due to the grammar I'm not sure whether it's the saints who "prevail and shove the dining room in the closet" or it's "you... shove the dining room in the closet"

I know your restlessness, the tangled scent of red. there's nothing heroic about this. -- a desire for rebellion, or anarchy? Or just an incurable cynicism?

you're irresistible amongst flat tires, and the minutia of a daytime half-moon. -- it's not heroic, nothing one would consider a great thing to do, but the mundane really could do with a shake-up if only to add a bit of interest

Some really interesting ideas here. Your presentation is quite well handled other than that ambiguity of the first line -- I enjoyed the read, thank you.

This is a statement, or rant. It must therefore having meaning, not just a mood. If I then say I totally agree, will anyone, writer included, be any the wiser, or believe me?

The mixing of senses, though common, and a thing I may well have done, has a superficial attraction -- but colours do not smell, and so it is devoid of meaning. I would go on, but it seems foolish to do so, as I have already written more than did the writer. Good luck, just the same.

"but colours do not smell"

Yes, but sometimes colours can be smelled:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

Sometimes, just sometimes I feel I'm living on a different planet to other poets. My poetry, and the poetry I enjoy reading speaks to me using unusual, unique, exciting, mind-boggling words and images - but the poetry which cloaks its meaning so deeply that I cannot reach it....I cannot relate to.

So, I give up trying. Am I at fault or is it the poet?

"Am I at fault or is it the poet? "

Not to be mean, but I would say it is the poets fault. It is the poets job to take something unknown, and make it known, or to show a different or fresh perspective of something that is mundane, not to make something obscure to imply depth when there isn't any. The problem for me with a piece like this, and this is not the only one, is, I do not know if there is a worthy idea that the writer can't make clear, or if it is an attempt to appear deep through obfuscation. I think in many cases, it is unintentionally the latter, because that is what people are lead to believe poetry is. I'm all for stripping away the extraneous verbiage, but when one is done there should be something of meaning left. It is the job of the poet to make difficult ideas more accessible, not less; nor is abandoning grammar, punctuation, and capitalization in an ad hoc manner the way to get there. Leanne extracts more meaning from this than I would ever get, as I am more in line with abu nuwas thinking on this. I think the question isn't whether colors can have a scent (colors do not smell, noses do), but does a line like "the tangled scent of red" convey any meaning, or is it the attempt to appear to be saying something profound when there is nothing profound about it?

Dale

rbl, sorry to sort of hijack your thread, but both Abu Nuwas and Erthona bring up a topic that bears a little further discussion in relation to this poem and to reading poetry in general.

(12-20-2011, 05:16 AM)abu nuwas Wrote:  colours do not smell, and so it is devoid of meaning

(12-20-2011, 05:13 PM)Erthona Wrote:  does a line like "the tangled scent of red" convey any meaning, or is it the attempt to appear to be saying something profound when there is nothing profound about it?

To my reading, which is not authoritative, "red" is used here less as a colour (though the synaesthesia that Ray mentions was first to my mind also) than as a metonym, using an accepted effect as substitute for an outright statement. Red is often a motif for danger, destruction, anger, blood, passion, heat -- it's rarely a quiet thing, at least in our Western culture. Thus the "tangled scent" becomes a symbol of chaos, or rather I'd say mischief given it's only a scent, not a full-on stench

Words have a great deal of weight, and it's not always apparent in a surface reading.

Thank you Dale. I do try, honest I do...to 'get' what the poet is trying to say...but, if nothing appears, I give up. As you say, maybe that is because there isn't anything there to find.


Thanks, Leanne, I will give what you say some thought, too.

---

This may interest you. I wrote this many years ago and posted it on line. It received countless responses praising it and reading all kinds of meaning into it.

There is no meaning. I used a Dylan Thomas poem for style, although I had only read the first verse of his poem, and proceeded to write all sorts of rubbish which fitted.

The wind that steals the wine
from hanging cups
Steals my breath; that slows the
quickened pulse
Stays my heart
And I am dumb to tell the spirit
How the force of life is stilled.

The fist that beats against the cold
casement panes
Shatters the rainbow; that girdles the
embracing sky
Breaks the spell
And I am dumb to tell what colours fall
Or how dull remains the earth and heaven.

The power that deals the world
a tabled path
Transcends the minutia; but forms the
fist of fate
Destiny calls the tune
And I am dumb to tell the knave
How the punchless joke is made

And I am dumb to tell the infant
How eternity is filled with countless graves.

Ok, to get literal and all, this is what it meant to me:

Original:
you dismiss all prominent apocalypse theories where saints prevail and shove the dining room in the closet.

I know your restlessness, the tangled scent of red. there's nothing heroic about this.

you're irresistible amongst flat tires, and the minutia of a daytime half-moon.

Translation:
1. you don't think 'good' will prevail, you repress the conventional/the common consensus

2. I understand your urge to use violence as a solution, the
irrational/confused/delusional instinct for war, there is nothing heroic about this.
(and to continue what Leanne started: "scent of red" is a direct reference
to the smell of blood, "restlessness" to the lust for it, "tangled"
to the illogic necessary to 'justify' it.
[red also connotes: Mars, god of war, all that stuff...]

3. You are only appealing when compared to the least significant of things.

----------------

Of the lines in the original, I thought the middle ones:

"I know your restlessness, the tangled scent of red. there's nothing heroic about this."

were excellent.

----------------


Erthona: "but does a line like "the tangled scent of red" convey any meaning"

"Meaning" is created in the act of reading, NOT writing. The extent of what
is communicated depends on how much the writer and reader agree on the meaning
of the terms the reader is interpreting.

Also: If I write a poem dealing with nuclear physics to a group of physicists,
my success involves my communicating to that audience, not to
someone who doesn't know (or care) about nuclear physics.
(There's no "fault" involved for either party should the poem fall into the wrong hands.)
It's a question of audience. But if I get my physics wrong (or confuse one mythological god
with another) well, that's another matter...

I remember when I read Wallace Stevens' "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" for the
first time. It seemed like complete nonsense. But, it turned out, it was
reasonably straight-forward, I just didn't know the terms.

"The Emperor of Ice-Cream"

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

literal "meaning":

I went, as a neighbor, to a house to help lay out the corpse of an old woman who had died alone; I was helping to prepare for the home wake. I entered, familiarly, not by the front door but by the kitchen door. I was shocked and repelled as I went into the kitchen by the disorderly festival going on inside: a big muscular neighbor who worked at the cigar-factory had been called in to crank the ice-cream machine, various neighbors had sent over their scullery-girls to help out and their yard-boys bearing newspaper-wrapped flowers from their yards to decorate the house and the bier: the scullery-girls were taking advantage of the occasion to dawdle around the kitchen and flirt with the yard-boys, and they were all waiting around to have a taste of the ice cream when it was finished. It all seemed to me crude and boisterous and squalid and unfeeling in the house of the dead – all that appetite, all that concupiscence.

Then I left the sexuality and gluttony of the kitchen, and went in to the death in the bedroom. The corpse of the old woman was lying exposed on the bed. My first impulse was to find a sheet to cover the corpse; I went to the cheap old pine dresser, but it was hard to get the sheet out of it because each of the three drawers was lacking a drawer-pull; she must have been too infirm to get to the store to get new glass knobs. But I got a sheet out, noticing that she had hand-embroidered a fantail border on it; she wanted to make it beautiful, even though she was so poor that she made her own sheets, and cut them as minimally as she could so as to get as many as possible out of a length of cloth. She cut them so short, in fact, that when I pulled the sheet up far enough to cover her face, it was too short to cover her feet. It was almost worse to have to look at her old calloused feet than to look at her face; somehow her feet were more dead, more mute, than her face had been

She is dead, and the fact cannot be hidden by any sheet. What remains after death, in the cold light of reality, is life – all of that life, with its coarse muscularity and crude hunger and greedy concupiscence, that is going on in the kitchen. The only god of this world is the cold god of persistent life and appetite; and I must look steadily at this repellent but true tableau – the animal life in the kitchen, the corpse in the back bedroom. Life offers no other tableaus of reality, once we pierce beneath appearances.

[font=Courier New][size=1]
this above was taken from:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poe...mperor.htm

Actually, I think physics and poetry have a lot in common. Physics, in order to be something more than mental fun, has to be connected to reality in some way, through some sort of testing. In physics, for a theory to be valid, it has to be testable. In poetry, for a metaphor to be valid, it must be describing something real, thus there must be a context created wherein the metaphor is in some way connected with something real and specific.
In the poem

restlessness = the tangled scent of red

That is "the tangled scent of red" is a metaphor for restlessness.

Leanne points out that red can be many things. "danger, destruction, anger, blood, passion, heat", but it can also represent life, love, excitement. Obviously you mean something specific since you use the definite article "the". The problem is that because there is nothing that clues the reader as to what you mean by "the tangled scent of red", it can mean hundreds of things. When a metaphor can have so many possible interpretations, it ceases to convey meaning. Sorry, but I cannot agree that a poem can be a Tabula Rasa. When something can mean anything, it ceases to have meaning. If that is all poetry is, we might as well just post ink blots, and then we should certainly do away with critiquing poetry, as there is no standard, it's all just what whoever gets from it. At that point we all become Shakespeare. Epicycles anyone?

Dale

    Erthona said:

    "In the poem

     restlessness = the tangled scent of red

     That is 'the tangled scent of red' is a metaphor for restlessness. "


No, Erthona, those were never equated.

The line:
"I know your restlessness, the tangled scent of red. there's nothing heroic about this."

Using the "=" sign simplification, it would be:

restlessness = eagerness for violence/war
tangled = confusing/illogical/deceptive
scent of red = promise of war/appeal of violence as a solution

Erthona equation:
It doesn't make sense to Erthona = It doesn't make sense to anyone else.

Each individual will come to a piece of poetry with their own ideals, life experiences, and cultural memories. What immediately tugs at one reader may appear to be nonsense to another. While I do agree that proper spelling is necessary, grammar and punctuation are tools not all poets embrace. It does not necessarily make them bad poets.

If an idea is to be put forth as straightforwardly as possible that is stripped down prose, not poetry. Poetry illicits emotion and instinct while telling a story. There is a huge difference between writing " I smelled a rose" and "the sweet scent of petals caressed my nostrils" or even "flushed bouquets invaded and bedded their angel faces". Angel Face is a type of rose, but not every one knows that.

Literary devices such as metaphor,simile, alliteration, allusion, hyperbole, etc. do not have to be abused cliches. In point of fact, I find pieces more enjoyable that introduce these things in such a manner as to be unconventional. I also think the reader is who gives the poem meaning. The poet expresses themselves, hopefully in a manner others connect with. The reader then infuses their own personality (good and bad) into what they are reading.

While there are certainly guidelines for interpretation and critique, the guidelines will be different for each individual. By experience we are each trained to recognize different things. Personal taste will account for much of what is accepted or rejected. This is true even in the world of publishing.

Although I frequently layer esoteric substances and ideas into my writing, it is not an academic process. I write simply because there is a part of myself that must do so or die. It is hot and passionate and comes at will, not by design. This does not mean I write without intent or concrete ideas. People who know me personally or have read me at length tend to 'get' my way of communicating. Some, like Todd, are uncanny in their abilities to see the layers and grasp the truth beneath. I am generally pleased whenever someone comments back having found something different than what I had intended.

This problem is one I see often. An example I think befitting is one from scripture. Many people have trouble grasping the words of Jesus. This is because they are reading from the viewpoint of a modern western culture. He did not speak in riddles, he simply operated from the fulcrum point in between two tensions. For someone well versed in Kabbalistic principles he makes perfect sense.

If a persons own tastes and preferences limit the scope of understanding that is too bad. It does not have to be projected onto others.

---

(12-17-2011, 01:36 AM)rbl Wrote:  you dismiss all prominent apocalypse theories where saints prevail and shove the dining room in the closet. I find this disturbing. Not because you launched directly into a personal declaration, but because this smacks of aggressive pain. As a woman, I believe this type of sentiment is something my sex knows intimately - how to shove something horrendously painful into submission and shut the door on it (i.e. the dining room into the closet).

I know your restlessness, the tangled scent of red. there's nothing heroic about this. The first impression I had here hit me quite hard, and rang of something aborted, whether it was a child, an idea, a romance, or a life path.

you're irresistible amongst flat tires, and the minutia of a daytime half-moon. I found this to be lovely. After the castigation of your opening line and the destruction of the second, this is the portion of daily grind incidentals which either holds a couple together like mortar, or crumbles their bond to dust.


To me this poem is a healing process.

"No, Erthona, those were never equated."

Actually it means exactly that, for according to you "Meaning" is created in the act of reading, NOT writing", and that is the meaning that is created when I read it. You have no right to tell me what it means or doesn't mean. So how can you justify saying that "those were never equated". By whom? The writer? Sorry, but the writer has no say in the meaning of what he has written, as the meaning is created in the act of reading. At this point you are just another reader, and my interpretation is just as valid as yours. In fact my interpretation is even more valid, as I don't have the misconception of the idea, that because I wrote it, I know better what it means than the reader.

-----------------------------------------------------
Thus we reap what the modernist have sowed.

(12-21-2011, 08:46 PM)Erthona Wrote:  "No, Erthona, those were never equated."

Actually it means exactly that, for according to you "Meaning" is created in the act of reading, NOT writing", and that is the meaning that is created when I read it. You have no right to tell me what it means or doesn't mean. So how can you justify saying that "those were never equated". By whom? The writer? Sorry, but the writer has no say in the meaning of what he has written, as the meaning is created in the act of reading. At this point you are just another reader, and my interpretation is just as valid as yours. In fact my interpretation is even more valid, as I don't have the misconception of the idea, that because I wrote it, I know better what it means than the reader.

When I said "No, Erthona, those were never equated." I was talking about
your interpretation of MY remarks. I have every right to try to get you to
understand my meaning. That a reader creates her/his own meaning doesn't
mean she/he creates "truth". I.e.: What's "valid" is the fact you
have an interpretation, not that your interpretation has anything to do
with reality. Arguing about the nature of that "reality" is a perfectly
reasonable, righteous, and sometimes even a gosh-darn fun pursuit.

P.S. And excellent remarks Aish. Gott ist mit uns!

Ah, the truth of the poem, as opposed to it's meaning... Yes, it is why I preferred Plato to the Sophist.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, Über alles in der Welt!

"The Germans now too
Have God on their side."

.
Dear Erthona:

I put "truth" in quotes as I meant it ironically. (Notice that I also put
"reality" in quotes as well.) "Truth" is overrated. I guess I might be more
of a Sophist (pun intended) than a Platonist. Though, since I'm non-profit,
I guess I'm more of a Socratic Sophist (no pun intended). Though if you
get right down to it, I'm a dialectical evolutionist/materialist that loves
a good dialectical discussion, but, oddly enough, one who prefers
didactic criticism.


Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, Über alles in der Welt!

Ha, yes! I'm about 7/8's German. The dark cosmic joke, of course, is that half
of them were Nazis or Nazi sympathizers (good Lutheran Christians all) and the
other half were German-Czech Jews. I can just imagine what the family reunions
over on the continent would have been like had any of the latter survived.
(Most of my Jewish relatives came over to the USA between 1860 and 1930.)


"The Germans now too
Have God on their side."

Oddly enough (or maybe the part of your brain that controls Freudian slips is
working overtime), rbl's poem ("August spits and holds") shares a common theme
with Dylan's "With God On Our Side".

Here's a mnemonic for anyone not acquainted:

"I've learned to hate Russians all through my whole life
If another war comes, it's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them, to run and to hide
And accept it all bravely with God on our side"
.
.

(12-21-2011, 11:47 AM)Erthona Wrote:  restlessness = the tangled scent of red

That is "the tangled scent of red" is a metaphor for restlessness.

I agree with Ray, there's no evidence to suggest that either the poem or further interpretation have held the second clause to be equal to the first. That would be repetitive. Rather, it's fair to assume that the comma serves as a list marker or an "and" substitute -- restlessness in addition to the tangled scent of red.

Leanne,

"I agree with Ray, there's no evidence to suggest that either the poem or further interpretation have held the second clause to be equal to the first. That would be repetitive." Actually it could be explanatory, and as it is a dependant clause, that would generally be my assumption.

"and"

That is the problem with leaving words out. It could be "and" or it could be "it is", and if it is not "attached" to restlessness, then to what does it refer? Are you also saying that "the tangled scent of red" is not a metaphor? Also, if it is "and" then it reads as "I know... the tangled scent of red." Thus it reads as though it is referring to a specific thing, like "I know Leanne". Does it make sense to you that I write a sentence saying, "I know your restlessness, and Leanne"? Wouldn't the natural assumption be to find a correlation between restlessness and Leanne, rather than to assume this is a list of unrelated things that I know?

List of things I know:
1. Your restlessness
2. The tangled scent of red
3. A whiter shade of pale
4. Raspberry gobsmootchers
5. Kittens with noses...
6. Comma faults

Still, that we are even having this discussion goes back to the idea of clarity, and why unintended ambiguity is not something one should strive for.

Dale
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ray,

My first ex-mother-in-law was German, although she was from Cologne and everybody thought she was French. I sang the role of "Papageno" in German, she coached me in pronunciation. Evidently she did a good job, as for years after that when I spoke what little German I knew people would always comment on what good pronunciation I had. I suppose I should have, as we spent around 10 hours just learning how to say "ich" properly! She was a young girl during the war, and at the end, as everything was in chaos, she become attached to the fifth panzer division as they were fleeing the allies, and she was there when the Germans surrendered to the allies. Of course like most German's, she was not really aware of what was going on, and as was portrayed so well in the "Sound of Music", to show any resistance was to take your life in your hands. Still, she was as nationalistically prideful as about anyone I have ever met, it was quite an interesting dichotomy.

Dale