This post is from September 2006. I posted a link last night, but I'm bumping it up by itself because I think people should see the comments. I think this is one of the most i9nteresting things that has happened on this blog and exemplifies an outstanding feature of the internet.
... Inquiry(with apologies to Wallace Stevens)
Presume the poem to be
A ripened fruit upon a page,
Like a pear upon a plate,
Sliced and splayed,
Seeds discarded.
Beads of nectar
Grace its flesh.
The poem remains
Intact and seedless.
Stem and blossom,
Leaf and root
Precede the pear.
What precedes the poem?
A ripened fruit upon a page,
Like a pear upon a plate,
Sliced and splayed,
Seeds discarded.
Beads of nectar
Grace its flesh.
The poem remains
Intact and seedless.
Stem and blossom,
Leaf and root
Precede the pear.
What precedes the poem?
Comments in verse preferred, but not required.
Update: I thought I should make it explicit that I was thinking of Wallace Stevens when I wrote the above. As for comments, a good but modest start. Come one, Internet poets, weigh in.
Update II: Now we're startin' to roll. Keep 'em comin'.
An image,
ReplyDeleteplanted in the brain;
fruit perfume,
activated by rain.
An itch,
to close the gaps
between dense orb in hand
and tingling synapse.
--i timed it: a 47 second poem. took me longer to type it here. And my son ate the last pear we had... Damn.
I can't write in verse
ReplyDeleteBut what I thought would come first
Before the poem,
Would be the thought
Heat and thirst, the perfect
ReplyDeleteshade, a ramshackle
ladder propped, the drone of bees, waiting.
Carelessly discarded, a seed may find
ReplyDeletefertile earth, germinate, mature
over time into the flourishing
tree that gives forth fruit—
a pear, plucked with wonder
by the knowing hand.
When a poet's cut,
ReplyDeletehe bleeds in verse;
drops lines of words
upon the page.
What event precedes
this purgative verseletting?
Why, that which cuts
the poet's brain.
sometimes the merest
ReplyDeletelittle seeds lies soaking
unnoticed in loamy mud
having wintered
leaf fall, snow,
the hunger of finches,
we are no more aware of it
than the husks of old grass
even the germination itself
is invisible in layers
of life among weeds
until one morning
we see the full golden blossom
and are awed at a miracle
of sponteneity
My bad poetic thought of the day:
ReplyDeleteBefore the Word
An hour's not enough, nor two.
A thought, the seed, the fruit
should stew.
Careless seasoning makes
naught but sticky jam
or transforms the sweet
into pickled ham.
Gardens grow, flourish
with tender hand and soil.
The fruit, the food, the flower
zenith over scientific toil.
The ferment of the poet's fruit
relieves itself of sugar and haste.
Better than the flesh, the taste
of a perfectly aged brew.
All that Abel bled into the earth,
ReplyDeletethe secrets and dreams
our dead took with them,
the transforming, once more,
of the soul in the earth--
visions of what should have been,
signs to follow,
apportioned up through roots and vines,
what kings thought they killed
and tyrants tortured to death,
and paradigms shifted away from--
back like mystic weeds,
for another shared taste.
on the plate
ReplyDeletepip called seed called stone called pit
shadow hulled to calyxed heart
dare and dares this skin to split
fruitless care from prickling start
further: peel the morning's dry
juice the midhours for what they're
worth - maraudering nearby
midday masks a thankless pair
skin so like flesh it barely
misses handling; sink teeth to wishes
lips cannot trust a scarcely
bitten truth. Sweet! You are semi- smitten
by being turned outside in - all ruse
where softer men would risk to loose
Rain and rot,
ReplyDeletenot
too little or too much sun,
a seed blown
from another hill,
shat from a sparrow's vent, or shed
by a ground-rolling dog,
black loam, streaked sand
and hardpan clay,
and time, a season or two,
a life,
a century, an age,
a day.
Before the poem was
ReplyDeletethe darkness,
a cold underskin of pear,
a softness so dense
the uncreated light
took its hard edge
elsewhere,
hovering on a word
until the word begat
a taste, and taste begat
a mood, and mood begat
a poem, and the poem
was the pear, but now
different from before.
A poet
ReplyDeletetastes an apple
in words,
a painter
in colors,
a composer
in sound.
"Bite me,"
says the apple
just by being.
What precedes the poem?
ReplyDeleteThe chicken
precedes the poem
to chickens.
The pear seed
follows the egg
about seeds.
The poem
brings a chicken
to the seeds.
Even the egg
or chicken.
Poems and pear seeds.
too many have sang
ReplyDeleteverses sweet
of what precedes
in perfect beat
I add no more
a humbled soul
by words that
make the puzzle whole
except to say,
congrats you all
beautifully done
you've heeded the call
What precedes the poem?
ReplyDeleteI think...
A thought from God
an angels tear
pear shaped
as it drops from
heaven
to touch the heart
of the poet
there
so he can
contemplate
the pear
Upon the plate
ReplyDeleteRests my fate
Will I be ate?
Or merely ingested
Without being digested
And from where I sit
It will come out like ………
'Me' said the worm
ReplyDelete'I started the chain
tilling the earth
for inspiring rain'
'Twas I' said the bee
'carrying pollen to invoke the flower
to end with the seed
and give words the power'
'It was me' said the bird
'I carried the seed, small and round
laying ideas upon the ground'
'No' said the sun
'it was surely me
I ripened the thought
that made you see'
'Yes' laughed the wordsmith
'all are true
nothing would happen
if it wasn't for you
my eyes would not see
my fingers stiff
life needs to happen
to receive this gift'
Book Of Days
ReplyDeleteWet land
swallows brown cracks.
Mossy interlopers
tailor through paths of brick and mock
ivy.
Ivy
creeps in twisted
brocade through pointed eaves
and split gutters. Age weaves weathered
shutters
Shutters
wave shingles and
ruffle borders. Moles swell
through sinking plots where chapters lie
scattered.
What precedes the poem?
ReplyDeleteA dry mouthed cry,
spots on the carpeted stairs -
coffee or flea blood -
a girl in camo
waving from the curb,
a girl in camera, thirty-five years
text messaging from her bunker -
plywood doors, canvas shelves -
and where's the loo today,
and the wastebasket
with its sparkling seahorses?
The doula with her warm towels -
she'll remember, yes! Her number
is at the Maple Ridge Cemetery, engraved
beneath the bell-pull. Do do,
la la, the poet and the girl danced
when the man was gone,
left all the lights on, let the dog
into the kitchen where he spread
out over the warm tiles and snorted -
it's all there in the linen books,
acid-free ... it begins
with a cat's rough tongue
licking the writer's cheek.
Emboss the snowflake
ReplyDeletewhile the cold remains,
a verse is as vulnerable --
spreading to all domains.
What precedes a poem?
ReplyDeleteBlossoms begin with seed.
Most seed needs earth, earth water,
warmth and light.
Pre-seed, great heat
forced out - big BANG!
Pre-heat? Is faith
great things are made of plans.
-blue
A memory floods the brain,
ReplyDeletefruit trees, quivering
in the wind and Mama
on the ladder, promising
pies and cakes and jams.
The clean white plate
the paring knife and
my watering mouth make
the picture complete.
And afterward, the words
about all this are found
like the taste that lingers
in my mouth.
I'm posting this for IVOR (poeticpiers from The Waters)
ReplyDeleteFrom whence the inspiration comes.
I neither know nor do I care.
I hear the beat of distant drums
rousing memories hard to bear.
I find writing a therapy.
A private self analysis,
which leads to me becoming free
from guilt ridden paralysis.
Your train of thought contains it all
these words must surely strike a chord
within the hearts of poets:All
then become of one accord.
We can concede that dreams precede.
The pen.the paer and the screed.
If we are permitted more than one...
ReplyDeleteLikened to an earthquake
when magma builds till
the breaking point; until
rocks split from the intense
heat, and lava flows, burning
a path down the mountain.
So words are thrust upward
and rain down upon the page.
My creation comes from feeling
the heat.
Fruition
ReplyDeleteSuck the sweetness
of dried fruit
raisins, apricots, and prunes.
This is the poem.
Smell the new grass,
the citrus sharpness—
this was the idea.
Let it be a seed
ReplyDeleteOK, let it be a seed
or the plum that dropped its thought
onto warming ground, or need
let it be what need has brought
to the plum that dropped its thought
in the orchard with its nests and roots.
Let it be what need has brought
to the plate - the egg that's fruit
from the orchard with its nests and roots
to this room all shadowed and dark
for the plate, the egg that's fruit
and its broken yolk and its yellow heart
There's this room, all shadowed and dark
where the great muse roosts and the ovum sing
of yellow yolk and broken hearts
and the poet gardens beneath its wing.
The great muse roosts and the ovum sing
over warming ground, over need
while the poet gardens beneath its wing
OK then, let it be a seed.
Hunger and thirst.
ReplyDeletethe insatiable yearning
for words,
syllables dripping.
And the grainy taste
of imparted thought
on paper.