PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Like intricate lace and: Like intricate lace and sumptuous music, your deep reflections on the rarest, highly evolved love takes more than casual appreciation. You analyze, contemplate, then articulate something that most mere mortals cannot do justice to, being the unifying force of all creation, or as you immortalized it in astonishing poetics:   "Their wine and their bread are a true sacrament, Lending sanction to the world's existence. Each caress stimulates a world lying in rubble"   And:   "The earth sings at each embrace, rivers flow Into valleys-from the chambers of their hearts."   And finally, practically unparalleled in its artistic agility:   " . . . their blood Is an infusion for a world in perpetual requiem"   It doesn't seem necessary to add more ornaments of praise to this wonder. Its towering worth speaks for itself.  

I cannot resist making a: I cannot resist making a second comment.  This is the kind of poem one reads, and then re-reads again and again, for several reasons:  the beauty and elegance of its conversational tone, which has a very subtle swerve into the evocative; sheer admiration for the Poet who can write such verse; the originality and very unusual uniqueness of the various phrase of which the poem is constructed.  Because I am an old man, in ppor health, I have to take afternoon naps; and having awakened, I wanted to visit this again just to make sure I had not dreamed it; and, most blessedly, I did not dream it---it is a real poem (perhaps I should write that as REAL POEM), and really has been posted to the best poem site on the entire internet.

Thank you for those kind: Thank you for those kind words.  I am, in some ways, ashamed to realize that I, in my adolescence, was wholy unable to enter into the kind of maturity that djtj obviously demonstrated by retaining her notebook of adolescent poems.  I was too full of myself to understand that any Poet has natural enemies---time, circumstances not conducive to poems---and also, as in my case, a couple of loved ones (in my case, my parents, first and foremost) intent on sabotoging ot undermining the effort.  And when, at college, a very pleasantly provocative voice advised me to throw away my first two bundles of poems because "you can do better," I was so flattered that I did not consider that the loss was greater than the gain.  (That same voice attempted, later, to persuade me to abandon my then identity as Starwatcher for a more mundane and conformable name.)  So, paradoxically, the advise I have offered to young Poets is advise I was not smart enough to come up with when I needed it.  Thinking that some young person might be in the same situation that i was, I hoped that perhaps these ten points might give a useful intervention to Poets, like I was---whose immaturity is a pitfall to their aspirations.   Wallace Stevens once wrote---I forget where---that, in his old age, he took more comfort in the poems he didn't finish, or even begin, than the poems that he had published.  And I believe he said this after the double triumph of the Colleced Poems and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.  The poems I allowed to be destroyed comfort me because their DNA (if I may make the metaphor) is in the poems I have posted here.  In 1978, when I tossed two hundred or so pages down the interior dumpster at my dorimtory, North Hall, I would never have imagined the five thousand poems that Jason and PostPoems have allowed me to post here.   There is a real paradox about mistakes:  they seem embarrassing (or worse); they have made me look a fool (or worse); and they intrude at the most inopportune time.  Yet, like some of my college professors with whom I did not get along (gosh, imagine that!), they still did their best to teach me something. OK, I am getting full of myself again, so I will close this with my sincere thanks and appreciation for your time to read the poem and to comment upon it.  Over three years ago, random browsing brought me to your Poetry, and you are amd have been a tremendous blessing, and a very splendid example, in my life.

Patricia is blessed with all: Patricia is blessed with all around versatility. And thank youi for your input which is always welcome and always coveted.

Of these I have of many been: Of these I have of many been remiss - 1 - failed. Hardly any of my 'juvenalia' has been preserved 2 - ever streamlining the process, the mountain of revisions, drafts and prior amendments have also been done away with 3 - mixed bag of tricks that still needs to be improved 4 - began doing this after the fact but a large portion of the archive was destroyed by natural disaster 5 - easier said than done, but doable 6 - no skin off my nose 7 - there is so much work to do on my own thinking to be bothered by others 8 - ah yes 9 - the curriculum is ongoing and expanding 10 - this is very much like driving under the influence and for one I am glad it isn't a physical thoroughfare for fear of mishaps on the highway.

I could see this fabulous: I could see this fabulous ending play out in my mind and I wanted to applaud. Your exceptional ability to craft, with impressive brevity, characters with gravity and believability and scenes that showcase our humanity as well as theirs, brought it all into focus.   Engaging, endearing, brilliant. Truly, this is worth cheering for. Bravo!