Like all of your poems in: Like all of your poems in this form, the brevity does not, in any way, detract from the immense power of your words and phrases.
Old time pieces and a fellow: Old time pieces and a fellow Poet's poem came together within your soul to launch this beautiful and significant poem. To me, that proves you are an authentic Poet. My favorite Poet, Wallace Stevens, found inspiration in all sorts of items (comparable to the old time pieces you mentioned, or overheard conversations) that then, being processed within his soul, became wonderful poems, with the most whimsical titles. His Collected Poems can be read just for the beauty of the titles alone. (Two of my favorites: "Mountain Covered With Cats," and "No Possum, No Sop, No Taters").
I also like the way the poem begins, immediately and forthrightly asserting that the hearts are the tiny gears that move the hands of time, and move us through it flow. Just like the power in tiny, invisible atoms which, when released through fusion, causes a star to release light and warmth---the rays of which can travel millions of light years to be received in our souls through our eyes.
This poem is both profound and beautiful, and only a real Poet can achieve that combination.
Minutes and hours are such: Minutes and hours are such arbitrary markers of time, but your concept has significance, eloquence and validity. The soft pulsing cadence of your poem underscores your theme brilliantly and the romantic aspect glows elegantly.
"You'll lay on my chest
Beneath the stars
Moving at our command -
Listen.."
That could stand alone as a stirring and glorious poem!
A top notch creation on many levels. Loving it!
Thank you, my friend. Very: Thank you, my friend. Very kind.
I was looking at old time pieces in a small antique store earlier in the day, and later on in the day sparked a mingling of thoughts. I'm quite sure that George's poem "The Hands On The Clock Tick Backwards" got me writing, as well.
That is a very interesting: That is a very interesting quote. And I think that drive to enlarge one's knowledge is what poets diverse in the historical eras in which they lived, and their chosen subjects, advised that poetry was most valid when preparation for it has been accomplished. I think Callimachus, John Milton (especially him), Alexander Pope and our late contemporary, J. V. Cunningham would agree tbe poet must be prepared to carry out the vocation, and that is tbe enlargement of knowledge of which Maimonides spoke.
Poems about the metaphysical: Poems about the metaphysical aspects of time are, in my opinion, among the most difficult. Yet this poem seems to move with such verbal agility through some difficult concepts that it seems you invented the very idea of a poem about time. This is an excellent reading experience.
Cheers : Thank you for your comment. It Mamés me recall one of my favourite quotes by Maimonides and resonates deeply with me and my own philosophy of life long learning “May there never develop in me the notion that my education is complete but give me the strength and leisure and zeal continually to enlarge my knowledge."
Like yourself and everyone: Like yourself and everyone else, I've experienced days like this before. It's been so long, though, since I had a day not go racing along that I almost miss the far more sluggish hand of time. Of course, what I know I'm really longing for is something in the middle, because as you so perfectly expressed, "Days like that / seem harmless on the surface / but they really do suck."
You perfectly build the tension and distress, like a person slowly coming to realize that they are sinking into quick sand. Very much a personal favorite of yours, George.
Thank you for this: It's never justified to kill 2 people (or 5, or 10, or a 100) - let alone children - to save 1. But as long as we continue of this way, we will keep impregnating our world with war into the future.
And you do succeed in finding: And you do succeed in finding that Poetry in those moments. One of the great learning experiences of my life was figuring out, while still in middle school, that dismal or stormy days were also as poetic as sunny, summery days---just in a different key, so to speak, and in a different form. And, in that same way, your poems about the mundane moments demonstrate exactly that.
>> View All Comment Activity >>