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Earthbound Supernova
Feeling crampt in a
kingdom without end,
starving in the illusion
of want,
crouched in time's box
while you own forever,
right down to the
last star writhing
in the crumbling dawn.
You forgot your identity,
that's all.
Sleek sail of moon
slashing through the
tunneling void of our
fears . . .
Take it, it's yours:
this strength you found at the
lotus feet of pain,
take it though the past weeps
like a stringed instrument
behind you,
but you don't turn around
because you know now,
you know they don't
own you:
these fossilized stories;
these keychain gods and monsters
on your way to Ithica;
all these unnerving, rattling
things, almost forgotten,
like spare change;
all your gawking
shadow selves dissolving
in a gold-infused new day,
finally untangled from your
sobbing yesterdays
when love was a lute played
in garnet and dreams.
So much better now
that it's real
and not wailing for more
and you're joyfully empty
as that moment
when the dozing world
receives the universe like
a net.
Open your eyes now
and see that you
are Light.
Patricia Joan Jones
Just WOW! Hugss
Just WOW!
Hugss
Don't let any one shake your dream stars from your eyes, lest your soul Come away with them! -SS
"Well, it's love, but not as we know it."
Thank you for the hugss and
Thank you for the hugss and encouragement. They are a bright spot in my day.
In this poem, Patricia has
In this poem, Patricia has given us an epyllion, a poem that feels like an epic, and yet does not require the large space that most epics occupy, or the verbosity that most epics present. I figured this out when I reached the poem's center of gravity, which is the line "on your way to Ithica." This is allusive not only to Homer, but to Constantine Cavafy's poem, Ithica. The poem's implied speaker is advising the poem's reader, almost as if Homer had written the Odyssey in the second person voice in order to help Odysseus on his journey. (I am not a big fan of Odysseus, so I am glad he is actually not the primary character in Patricia's poem,) "Fossilized stories" and "keychain gods and monsters" will be met on the way to Ithica; thus forewarned, the reader will know how to deal with, or to avoid, them while moving toward Ithica.
The poem has two different mechanisms that work very smoothely together, and very efficiently, to convey the poem's message: the use of metaphor and simile; and the sense of forward motion which is maintained by an unfolding catalog of descriptors (which is where the metaphors and similes function). Momentum is also maintained by the shortness of her lines. During my reading of the poem---and I was certainly bedazzled by it---I thought of the images moving upon the screen like a kind of kalaidoscope.
Here I must confess something: although I admire Cavafy enthusiastically, and many of his poems have touched my life exquisitely, I do not enjoy his poem, "Ithica." I think----and I am not writing this simply to curry favor---that Patricia handles the same sort of poem with much more success. Cavafy's poem sounds like an invocation; Patricia's is, instead, a conversation. This makes the poem more credible and more grounded in the quotidian experience that each of its readers bring to it.
Starward
I'm ecstatic that you
I'm ecstatic that you perceived an epic quality in my journey, that you appreciated the accessible style I chose and that you took the time to deeply, and I mean deeply, analyze my vision.
I often break rules with impunity, so it's greatly satisfying and vindicating when you interpret a poem's intent with precision and acceptance, then define it with such contemplative brilliance.
Your encyclopedic knowledge applied to my expressions is a great honor and a treasure.
Thanks for that reply. This
Thanks for that reply. This afternoon was a little rough for my health (or what's left of it, lol), but I was so excited by reading this poem that I wanted to get my comments onscreen as they formed in my head. You brough to your poem quite an ancestry: Homer, for the epic quality; Catullus (whom I failed to mention earlier) for the epyllionic form; and Cavafy for the use of Ithaca as a journey metaphor. This, alone, is quite an achievement; but then, with the precision of your metaphors and similes (your word combinations never fail to amaze me), you knocked it out of the park and into the realm of High Literature. I am glad to have seen this poem in the short term; and, in the long term, many others will see it, and respond to it, and talk or write about it---of that, I am confident.
Starward
I'm deeply troubled by your
I'm deeply troubled by your discomfort, yet amazed that you continue to bring so much positive energy and ravishing poetry to this site in spite of it. My prayers go out to you in your time of distress.
Your illuminating comments remain a lifeline to my slowly emerging collection. Sometimes I have no motivation to write, but persuasive feedback like this reminds me that poetry is a calling as vital as any other.
Thank you kindly for enabling my writing habit. God bless you always and in all ways.