Empty Cave (Revision 3)

[Todd]

It is not the dark,
the slick wet,
cold chain,
pictures on the wall.

It is not the game,
face-fixed, calling out:
horse, pig, soldier--in flickers
like a fever 

dream. It is not 
the echo,
the lisp from the fire,
but life that passes
from behind—a life
of outlines.

It is the scream of the eyes
beyond the mouth.
It is the horse. 
Yes! The horse, then the release

and the return
beneath the dividing line, 
the separation, 
with shadows coalescing. 


~~~

Something I did about 3 years ago, but bena's thread made me think of it. I cut a line, adjusted some line breaks, and wanted to see if it worked. I would have posted the earlier thread but trying to do the update there messed up the fonts of the poem and added a ton of spaces between the stanza breaks rather than mess with it I reposted.

~~~
Latest Edit, I decided to try some changes suggested by Mercedes. I cut the last line, a few "the"s in S1, and made some minor word changes.

[Brownlie]

It is not the dark,
the slick wet,
the cold chain,
the pictures
on the wall.

It is not the game,
face-fixed, calling out:
horse, pig, soldier--in flickers
like a fever 

dream. It is not 
the echo,
the lisp from the fire,
but life that passes
from behind—a life
of outlines.

It is the scream of the eyes
beyond the mouth.
It is the horse. 
Yes! The horse, then the release

and the return
beneath the dividing line, 
the separation, 
shadows coalescing, 
to know and be fully known.

~~~

Something I did about 3 years ago, but bena's thread made me think of it. I cut a line, adjusted some line breaks, and wanted to see if it worked. I would have posted the earlier thread but trying to do the update there messed up the fonts of the poem and added a ton of spaces between the stanza breaks rather than mess with it I reposted.

First of all, Plato probably wouldn't like this. Fever dream seems good if that is a change. Overall, this is quite compelling. There is a parallelism with what it isn't then what it is and the whole thing is thought provoking. When I think of empty, the following ideas come to mind: Darkness, negative meaning stripped of its opposing force, chaos, and much more (which is probably a stones throw away on Wikipedia). I think there may be some good description of a blinding sun somewhere in Plato.

[bena]

I loved it, who the hell cares what Plato thinks. I think we should all strive to piss him off. I wouldn't change a thing, dear.

[just mercedes]

It is not the dark,
the slick wet,
the cold chain,
the pictures
on the wall. I think too many 'the' here.

It is not the game,
face-fixed, calling out:
horse, pig, soldier--in flickers
like a fever  I really like the effect of this stanza break - the form echoes the content


dream. It is not 
the echo,
the lisp from the fire, great imagery!
but life that passes
from behind—a life 'passes from behind' made me pause, not sure what you intended though  the near rhyme with outlines' is nice
of outlines.

It is the scream of the eyes
beyond the mouth. good!
It is the horse. 
Yes! The horse, then the release The horse from Guernica? That's what I saw. I like the Yes! too.

and the return
beneath the dividing line, 
the separation, 
shadows coalescing, 
to know and be fully known. I want to take this last line out, end with the shadows coalescing.

~~~

Something I did about 3 years ago, but bena's thread made me think of it. I cut a line, adjusted some line breaks, and wanted to see if it worked. I would have posted the earlier thread but trying to do the update there messed up the fonts of the poem and added a ton of spaces between the stanza breaks rather than mess with it I reposted.

I enjoyed the read of your poem - thanks for posting!

[Todd]

Brownlie, Thank you. I appreciate the comments and agree with you Plato would hate this on a few levels.

[Todd]

Thanks Bena. You made me consider resurrecting this thing. I'm glad you liked it.

[Todd]

Hi Mercedes,

Thanks for the read and comments. I could see possibly cutting the "the" before cold and the one before pictures without losing much. I will consider that on the next revision. And yes, I was thinking of the same horse. Despite the epistemological idea of knowing, I worried that the last line might be a bit too pat or possibly trite. I'll consider the cut you mention.

Thanks again,

Todd