Author Information
Your Sleepless Shadow
Something maniacal
shrieks from the abyss—
It's just a
barn owl submerged
in the same darkness,
the same secrets,
that encase me and I
decide to sleepwalk in
the neurotic safety
of solitude.
I remember being
annihilated by love,
burned to death by beauty.
Life was distilled
to one note:
just you
and that was enough.
Now Earth and sky are
interchangeable; one
moment a black soup of
clouds, the next,
a blind and aimless grip.
There is no direction
in a world without you.
Still I search
for the signposts
buried in time and
listen, intently, to
your shadow
whenever fragments
of you wash
upon the shore
or doze in your chair
or walk away in the
garish evening light.
Patricia Joan Jones
I felt it all as if every
I felt it all as if every word was my own, only it wasn't I just wish it was because it cam from a greater poetic mind and that is a sign of greatness. So many beautiful and deep lines highly emotional whilst maintaining a coldness or bereft mood that is a very difficult thing to do indeed! My favourite lines :
"I remember being
annihilated by love,
burned to death by beauty.
Life was distilled
to one note:
just you
and that was enough
A reat poem within a great poem! Ah beavis would be proud well as proud as I am surely to know you. What richness and depth distilled so well
I still search for signposts....
Just wow!
When ever fragments of you wash upon the shore or doze in your chair... how well you describe the missing to produce a guttural reaction in the reader...
Just... Wow!
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."
My deepest gratitude for your
My deepest gratitude for your spot on insights, brilliant exploration of my intent and, most of all, your cherished support. It means more than you know. And coming from a gifted Poet with the ability to move readers, sometimes to tears, your comments are treasures to me.
Just not enough ways to say . . . Thank you!
This poem is like a fugue
This poem is like a fugue that develops out of a single key phrase which our Poet, like the great Wallace Stevens, only discloses in the poem's mid-region---the distillation of life to a single note. All the other phrases, approaching that mid-region or moving away from it are, essentially, variations on that key phrase. And in this poem, she particularizes what is, I believe, a universal experience that many cannot or will not articulate for themselves. During the worst year of my life, 1981, a poem like this would have helped deflect some of the emotional agony that I---then a twenty-three year old nerd with an unmarketable degree, a first job that I had failed in already, and a mistaken but dreadful burden of hopelessness---was going through. Stevens said that a chief vocation for Poetry was to help people live their lives. In that aspect, as well as the sense of artiistry, this poem proves that Patricia is a true Poet.
Starward
I am deeply moved and humbled
I am deeply moved and humbled by your thrilling insights into this very personal expression, and it's incredibly encouraging to know that it helped you "live your life". That makes it all worth while.
I'm also gratified by your reference to Stevens. That made my day coming from a gifted word sculptor and scholar such as yourself. Endless gratitude, luminous Poet!
Thanks! At the moment, I
Thanks! At the moment, I have been fretting about the election, but your rely has made me feel better.
Starward