03-28-2012, 11:17 PM
“The Wall” we thought of self-
absorbed victim-hood the top,
as Waters mutilated his mug
using self pity as a drug:
bemoaning the fact that his father
was not there having died
so that his son might live, to sit
knee deep in fame and money
while crying about social isolation,
depression and despair;
but that narcissistic apex would
have to wait for the coming of
Frida Kahlo's patron saint,
the Madonna of moral taint.
Unfortunately for poor Frida,
a pole rammed through the pelvis
gave validity to her complaint.
Hardly the same as the legions
that adore her (suffering), in effigy
as if a kindred spirit,
though there is not the
slightest hint of any similarity.
Their moaning has more
to do with not getting what they
want, rather than any missing need.
They say their wound’s internal.
I say, let it bleed!"
***********
I know-- a shame upon us.
Poetry has become prose in lines that do not go
all the way across the page. From now on my defi-
nition of poetry is-- 'If it feels like poetry,
it is.'
Your poem feels like poetry. Not finger feeling
that's for lovers in seedy hotel rooms-- crusted
and wet, smelly rooms that feel like seedy hotel
rooms. Dismissing what I considered to be poetry,
I now place my $100 black casino chip on 'feeling.'
It's a feeling. It's a propositional verb-- 'I have
a feel what I just read is poetry." I can't take
it back. I can take back cognitive verbs-- "I heard
the noon whistle." No, it was a firetruck.
"OK, then I take it back."
Can't take back propositionals-- 'feeling' is one.
I just 'thought' of Annabel Leigh dying of Typhus.
No you didn't.
Yes, I did and I wish I could say I ony thought I
thought, but I can't. I can't reverse time and say
I didn't think of her.
So, I can't take back that I 'feel' the poem above
is a genuine poem. How does one 'feel' a poem is a
poem-- in the limbics?--reptilian and mammalian?
Perhaps as epiphany or William James' 'vastation."
or does the feeling come in moments of 'all's
right with the world, Maslow's higher reach?
Don't ask me.
All I know and need to know is that feeling.
It's a poem all right, but nothing of Wordsworth's
simplicity nor Tennyson's sweetness, more the manli-
ness of the Elizabethan poets.
rh
absorbed victim-hood the top,
as Waters mutilated his mug
using self pity as a drug:
bemoaning the fact that his father
was not there having died
so that his son might live, to sit
knee deep in fame and money
while crying about social isolation,
depression and despair;
but that narcissistic apex would
have to wait for the coming of
Frida Kahlo's patron saint,
the Madonna of moral taint.
Unfortunately for poor Frida,
a pole rammed through the pelvis
gave validity to her complaint.
Hardly the same as the legions
that adore her (suffering), in effigy
as if a kindred spirit,
though there is not the
slightest hint of any similarity.
Their moaning has more
to do with not getting what they
want, rather than any missing need.
They say their wound’s internal.
I say, let it bleed!"
***********
I know-- a shame upon us.
Poetry has become prose in lines that do not go
all the way across the page. From now on my defi-
nition of poetry is-- 'If it feels like poetry,
it is.'
Your poem feels like poetry. Not finger feeling
that's for lovers in seedy hotel rooms-- crusted
and wet, smelly rooms that feel like seedy hotel
rooms. Dismissing what I considered to be poetry,
I now place my $100 black casino chip on 'feeling.'
It's a feeling. It's a propositional verb-- 'I have
a feel what I just read is poetry." I can't take
it back. I can take back cognitive verbs-- "I heard
the noon whistle." No, it was a firetruck.
"OK, then I take it back."
Can't take back propositionals-- 'feeling' is one.
I just 'thought' of Annabel Leigh dying of Typhus.
No you didn't.
Yes, I did and I wish I could say I ony thought I
thought, but I can't. I can't reverse time and say
I didn't think of her.
So, I can't take back that I 'feel' the poem above
is a genuine poem. How does one 'feel' a poem is a
poem-- in the limbics?--reptilian and mammalian?
Perhaps as epiphany or William James' 'vastation."
or does the feeling come in moments of 'all's
right with the world, Maslow's higher reach?
Don't ask me.
All I know and need to know is that feeling.
It's a poem all right, but nothing of Wordsworth's
simplicity nor Tennyson's sweetness, more the manli-
ness of the Elizabethan poets.
rh