PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Appreciated: I am torn on this philosophy. On one hand, we should be understanding when people make mistakes, or not assume the worst when people hold views that we deem ignorant. Of course, if we're being honest, we are sometimes in those shoes, ourselves. On the other hand, life requires usually the same skillset that other animals in nature use: we must sometimes judge conditions and make determinations around us for the sake of both survival and having a meaningful life. Sometimes, it seems, that does require making judgements about people based upon their actions. Caution to judgement, and flexibilty in judgement, might be the better approach than being completely non-judgemental.

I think this is one of the: I think this is one of the wisest poems ever posted to this site.

As I read this poem, it is: As I read this poem, it is describing or naming three locations, two related and one opposed to them.  The two that are related are the temple of stars and the softer universe.  The other place is a dislocation, an absence (geographical or spiritual) from the temple and the soft universe that contains it.  In that dislocation (which is how I will refer to it for the rest of this comment), the Earth has no heart, roses look menacing, and romantic strawberries become smirking strangers.  The Poet names this dislocation as the screaming vacuum.      But, in the softer universe, we see more comfortable processes resuming:  streaming galaxies in slow-brewing ages become our mirror---not a mirror of our collective or individual egos, but a mirror of existence; that, existing on this small planet orbiting a relative insignifcant star, we can see the galaxies streaming in the grandeur and largesse of their existence.  But in this cosmic process, of which we are part (whether we are aware of it or not), joy and spirit, being one, bring small miracles into our small mortal world (which blossoms into much more if we keep in mind the great cosmic proccesses going on around us, processes which are such much more visible to us with the use of the Hubble and the Webb telescopes); and it is through our knowledge of thoe processess, which is extended and confirmed by those telescopes, that allowus us---in joy and spirit---to hold sizzling stars in our grasp.    The poem is, ultimately and in summary, a warning:  when we enter the dislocation, our vision becomes skewed.  When we seek the temple of the stars, in the soft universe, we draw closer to the grandeur of the cosmos and participate in it.  This poem proceeds very much like an aspect of Orthodox theology that I particularly like, and that theological aspect suggests that, in this life, and in Heaven, believers become immersed, so to speak, in a partaking of God's nature (and a Scripture in the New Testament actually suggests this, although in the West it is not emphasized).  This does not mean that we appropriate God's nature, which, always, remains God; but that God allows us to "dive into it," so to speak, and begin to explore whatever of its depths or volume attracts us.  The metaphor given is a sword forged out of steel, which is then plunged into a flame to become tempered.  The sword does not appropriate the nature of the flame; but, being immersed in the flame, the sword begins to glow, and its molecular structure tempers and becomes more cohesive, given the entire object a greater strength and usefulness.  The poem suggests that this process also applies to the cosmos, which allows us to observe and, perhaps someday, participate in its simmering eons, its slow-brewing ages.  When we choose the dislocation, and craft our viewpoint from that perspective, we have a much more negative response to the cosmos.  Bur if we choose the soft universe, expressed in the temple of stars, we participate in the grandeur---not that we are deserving, because we are the most undeserving---but because the Maker of that cosmos has given us the gift of participation . . . if we will graap the gift and accept it.

Thank you for your kind: Thank you for your kind acknowledgement, and what a thrilling payoff to read your final draft. I'm assuming it's final because, from where I'm sitting, it's a stunning success! Of course, it's your success and your prerogative to change it as you please.     I found myself falling through a rush of dark and delicious wordcrafting, impeccably arranged, and a galloping rhyme scheme that carried it with graceful excitement from beginning to end.   I have to quote Starward in his opinion that a poem, particularly one in your accessible and compelling style, "both compresses and energizes both time and space". He goes on to explain that it "strikes me as a better venue for a haunted tale."     So true! And you pulled off this daunting task with cyclonic power and engaging poignancy.   I was pleased that you kept the best lines, the real showstoppers, such as:   "Ancient Velveteen skies Glisten in your brooding eyes"   and:   "I am here but you are there stuck in the yesteryear of her atmosphere"   It also turned out to be a wise choice to forgo stanza breaks and punctuation. For this kind of tumultuous expression, the clean and uninhibited form added a breathless intensity that illustrates the emotional storm.   A pleasure and an honor to watch your genius at work. And play!   Your raving fan, Patricia.    

This is a very astute: This is a very astute response to the poem.

But there's fools on high: But there's fools on high horses in many a glory-striken mural.

Wow!  What a reading: Wow!  What a reading experience.  I cannot speak to the situation that inspired this poem, rather its provenance is real or fictive, or if it expresses obliquely truths circumstances that are known only to the Poet.  Therefore, I can only respond as an ordinary reader, and my comments are meant with the utmost respect as I proceed.    I love eerie poems.  I think T. S. Eliot's great eerie poem, The Hollow Men, probably awakened that tendency in me.  I get bogged down in prose ghost stories, especially the Britishm because they move so slowly; hence a poem, which both compresses and enegrizes both time and space, strikes me as a better venue for a haunted tale.  And this poem, this magnificent "The Re-do.  Misplaced," compresses and enegrizes time and space perfectly.  And the title itself has a very eerie implication to it, compelling the reader to begin to enter the poem.     And with all the elegance of a British ghost story, this poem proceeds with ordinary language which one would hear at any dinner gathering, or a visit with friends, or perhaps echoing through a bus or train in public transporation.  The grammar is not broken, or wrenched, or convoluted.  The mounting eerieness appears in the way the lines are phrased,  I will not quote them all because, if you are reading this, you have already read them; so I will cite just one example, the second line "glisten in your brooding eyes."  That line refers to the previous line, a description of skies, and skies do glisten (and I love it when they do, rather that is in my window, or in a poem I am reading).  But these skies glisten in "brooding eyes," and brooding is word freighted with the potential to become either haunted or haunting.  This is how so many of the Poet's words in this poem operate.  Ordinary words, perfectly set in ordinary grammar, and yet, the Poet has put just a little sharper edge on them than would be ordinarily heard.       But what, after all, is a haunted house?  It is an ordinary building, sturdy, a structure built as well as its architect could design or its construction crew could raise up.  Yet, there is something else in there.  This poem is like a haunted house.  It is built very well, it has a inviting format, it reproduces ordinary human conversation.  The best poems always do that:  one could describe Vergil's great epic, The Aeneid, like that.  Or The Hollow Men.  Yet, there is something in those poems, as in this poem, that is "other," and, as the poem proceeds, not only "other" but "eerie," even "horrific."        To me, the two greatest British ghost stories are Bram Stoker's "The Judge's House," and Robert Aickman's "Pages From A Young Girl's Journal."  In each of them, the language proceeds according to the common elegances of well written English, and, rather than the gross splatter and noisy chaos of American horror movies, the language itself becomes electrified with the very negative (but heavily compelling) charge or power that leads to the final horrific shock.  This poem that Ssmoothie has give us takes its place righfully and successfully with those two pillars of eerie language.      I applaud the accomplishment demonstrated in this poem.