Brother

I blurted, "Frost
Is Boring!
Corny?!
No, Boring!"
And his eyes widened, up
And glowing, maybe not,
And I was left to Explain.
But I was stumped
Between sound and meaning
And opening-up.

No,
There'll be no day
There'll be no day
When "... ich, ich..."
Or Irish Blues
Are news to him
No, no
There'll be no day.

I had urge

i had an urge
to take the
point of pen and
jam it straight into eye
my heart raised in slight
Panic
Hope of restraint
i have not done so
the eye still sees clearly
as far as I am allowed--
the cherry of
Sanity.
If i let go
the Fall
into sweet juice
will allow
for a laughable state
i will be drenched--
Insanity.

Because, Because

Your youth stays so long with you,
You grow out certain things and wardrobe,
But style bends to old character.
And we all know
Just a perfect sense from a certain book
As fleeting as midnight dreams
And as when you took your first lovers hand.
We have broken interiors
Which some detail in full oratory of mouth
And others leave for dying leaves at the cemetary.
There's always that fond togetherness.
That some years tell more than others,
It's true
Because forgetfulness lives near the truth tellers
But are often lonely
Because the forgetful live nearest these tellers
But reign in loneliness.

IN my dream

with a nocturne
embedded in my eyes,
Fire burns and
Reason dies.

Adrienne Rich's 'At a Bach Concert"

Coming by evening through the wintry city

We said that art is out of love with life.

Here we approach a love that is not pity.

This antique discipline, tenderly severe,

Renews belief in love yet masters feeling,

Asking of us a grace in what we bear.

Form is the ultimate gift that love can offer -

The vital union of necessity

With all that we desire, all that we suffer.

A too-compassionate art is half an art.

Only such proud restraining purity

Restores the else-betrayed, too-human heart.

This poem’s last two lines invite a discussion about the sublime integrity of the artist. Rich speaks of an all too real notion of “too-compassionate art”, giving light to her awareness that for artists, emotions can restrain the artist’s conscious and slow the juices of delibrate creation.

Shakespeare as reminder

Of some several poems running word for word in my mind, Shakespeare's Sonnet 121, very old I know, carries much weight. I've commited it to memory and have found a comfort in resighting, even muttering it, to myself.

'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,

When not to be receives reproach of being,

And the just pleasure lost which is so deemed

Not by our feeling but by others' seeing.

For why should others' false adulterate eyes

Give salutation to my sportive blood?

Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

Which in their wills count bad what I think good?

No, I am that I am, and they that level

At my abuses reckon up their own;

I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel.

By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown,

Unless this general evil they maintain:

All men are bad, and in their badness reign.

If you choose to write about a poem like this, I was advised to write the poem in your own words; listen to the words, so read it outloud; then, consider the message you believe it is trying to convey. Don't take words for granted. Shakespeare was a master with diction, so look words up, consider their meanings and return to the poem asking what he meant.

I memorize the poem in hopes to generate a reminder of what value I have of being human, what consequences my actions hold, the measure of responsibilty my actions generate and the subtle politics, regarding varying degrees of 'badness' we succumb to, existing in the social arena.