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Journey

General Poetry - post, comment, review, critique
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Mark
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Journey

Post by Mark » Wed May 27, 2020 4:56 pm

Journey

Mortality is so inevitable and yet thereafter so unknown.
We nod to faith and fill our eyes
with clever ideas of the times.
Life is blindly embroiled in ego
and cold survival of the genes.
But fantastically, it does seem an essence rises to a bliss.


 

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Tracy Mitchell
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Re: Journey

Post by Tracy Mitchell » Wed May 27, 2020 6:00 pm

Mark -- always a treat to grapple with your unique broad-brush, intensely personal and wildly creative poems.

This one scores on all counts.

I am most taken with the reducing line count in each stanza, and the blank space to signify the line absence. Of course the question is begged -- what is the line which is silent -- what is to be said that isn't being said?

One of my first lessons in poetry was to look for what is not being said as well as that which is.

And then there is the philosophical point about the limits of language -- "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must pass over in silence". -- Ludwig Wittgenstein.

So . . . .

In S.1 L.1 -- for my money I'd consider deleting "yet", "invitable" and one of the "so"s.
S.1 L.2 & 5 -- these lines are brilliant.
S.1 L --essence rises to a bliss -- I don't know what this means, have no reference for it.
S.2 -- wonderful stanza. This reader is considering where exactly the missing line might attend, as well as its substance.
S.3 -- this stanza strikes me as purely autobiographical, and the "you" simply means the narrator is cogitating to himself.
S.4 -- too charged for me to unpack it properly. Sorry.
S.5 -- Sorry Mark - I get lost with "that" and "this" -- I don't know to what they refer.
S.6 -- Brilliance. This stanza glows with the unsaid, which has subtly been building to this conclusion.

Love the poem.

I will definitely be back many times. I can tell from this poem that Lee is still with you, as she is with the Narrator in this poem. All of this in a good way, though the Narrator remains in a wistful/nostalgic/melancholy state of mind.

Just my opinion.

Nice to see you posting, Mark.

Cheers.

T

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Colm Roe
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Re: Journey

Post by Colm Roe » Wed May 27, 2020 7:16 pm

But fantastically, it does seem an essence rises to a bliss.
This line doesn't appear to be grammatically correct?

And your pain, the raw totems desolated with sorrow,
Love this line...'sorrow' is a bit telling though.

Other than that it's such a good poem, IMO the best you've posted in a while.
I don't see the reducing stanzas and increasing breaks the way Tracy does; I
read it as life being reduced by time...after all, Time is a big player in the removals business.
I also think the stanzas could be read from 6-1; the smaller breaks simply indicating a running out of time.
Anywho, thanks for posting this, and don't be a stranger :)

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Mark
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Re: Journey

Post by Mark » Thu May 28, 2020 2:39 pm

Mark -- always a treat to grapple with your unique broad-brush, intensely personal and wildly creative poems.
 Why thankee, Ty-man. Whut happened wuz I seen them dang fairy lights up yonder on the back forty agin an’ so I strayed out into them briar weeds an’ all with my good ol’ hound dawg Titus but goldarn it if I didn’t trip over some medical grade turnips on the way and then when I looky-looked up agin, well sirree, them lights wuz all gone. Shee-it.

Thanks for your comments, Colm.

Sorry guys, I wrote a looong reply and now can't bring myself to post it... too damn long.     
 

indar
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Re: Journey

Post by indar » Thu May 28, 2020 6:16 pm

I see the reduction of line and space as the loss of allotted life on this earth as grains of sand through the hourglass in S3. However it does go somewhere. :)
Thus the lower reaches of that world next to us

are now evermore perilous with the evils of this.

This write seems to be saying that how lives are lived on this plane contributes to the collective on the next. I'm on board with that. Appreciate the hourglass analogy used in this creative way
 

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Mark
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Re: Journey

Post by Mark » Fri May 29, 2020 1:56 am

Hi Linda and thank you for commenting. Your premise is correct, that's part of what I said in my un-posted reply but you say it so much more succinctly.  
 

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Tracy Mitchell
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Re: Journey

Post by Tracy Mitchell » Fri May 29, 2020 8:07 am

Dang it, post the unposted!

It is part of your mission, Mark -- you know-- to post what no poster has ever posted before.

Seriously, inquiring minds want to know. :)

Dave
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Re: Journey

Post by Dave » Fri May 29, 2020 9:22 am

Hi Mark
I found the poem really moving from the second stanza onwards. The first seemed quite a long preamble to me and while it adds reflection to the rest I found it less engaging. It is so wonderfully overshadowed by the rest, which is touching and deep and emotional.
Dave
 

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Mark
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Re: Journey

Post by Mark » Fri May 29, 2020 9:42 am

Hi Dave, thanks for looking. Quite right about the first stanza. Typically, it was at first just a standalone quad with 4 separate deadpan lines. It looked this below. But then I thought to expand on the theme and scrambled it into 6 lines, and then went ahead with the rest.

Mortality is so inevitable and yet thereafter so unknown.
We nod to faith and fill our eyes with clever ideas of the times.
Life is blindly embroiled in ego and cold survival of the genes.
But fantastically, it does seem an essence rises to a bliss.

 

User avatar
Mark
Posts: 586
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 4:19 am

Re: Journey

Post by Mark » Fri May 29, 2020 12:29 pm

.
solar return


here in this world beside yours,
your temporary corporeal domain
this plane remains your world too
and we'll soon see you back again

it's lovely here, you'll remember when
your time expires, how sublime to see
the universal order of atoms in harmony
with the synergy and law of light energy

in the brightness of being so vast and pure
in perfect molecules of souls formed in clouds
of constellations dangling ganglia pink and blue
and sparkled with golden radiance, you await you

 

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