Delete
Printable View
Delete
Two very, very good poems, Jack. I take it the repetition of running creek is entirely intentional. Did you consider an alternative? I also wonder what your thinking was in omitting "the" in the first reference.
Your poetry was always good, but there seems to be a new confidence and fluidity in your writing. It's impressive.
Live and be well - H
Both these poems are excellent. What did you leave on the far side of sleep? How can one not be entranced from that point onwards? Every line captures a perfect image for the reader to do with as they please while you still convey the flow of the poem itself. I agree wholeheartedly with Hawk. Very impressive JoH.
Thanks for reading and the encouragement, you two. Of course, everything is open to revision...
J
Such a wonderfully powerful image in the first poem. I see quick small hands grasping and little mouths gobbling up the pastry.
But the second poem for me... wow! What a lightning flash! There's the sound/sense pairing of 'creek' and 'sheet' here, so powerful! This poem is like a Zen experience. Are the sheets the mirror-panes of the river's skin or those that you pull over you in bed? Is the bed the bed of the river, for sleeping in, or for resting in at the end of life?
You've made me think of two things with this poem. The first is Zhuangzi's 'who dreams the dreamer of the dream' question, when a man wakes up after he has a dream of a butterfly and doesn't know whether he is a butterfly dreaming that he is a man, or a man dreaming that was a butterfly. The second is Heraclitus's statement about the impossibility of stepping into a river twice, because it's not the same river, and you are not the same either. It could also be about reincarnation, or even about throwing a river-worn stone. Words are wondrous things, thanks for these. :)
Anyway, the second poem gives me more questions than answers. Sometimes questions are the best things there are.
baleet
Quote:
Originally Posted by Silas Thorne
Useful things, too! They elicit answers and provoke thought, or, in this case, help one imagine tender (childish? feminine?) responses. The tenderness and dreaminess of the voice in "River and Flow" is reminiscent of a previous offering of yours, Jack, "Sleeping in Your Bed".
This is accomplished poetry, in my humble view, tenderly evocative.
Many thanks for sharing, dear friend.
Regards,
DH
Ugh that poem still haunts this reader. We can't talk about it.Quote:
The tenderness and dreaminess of the voice in "River and Flow" is reminiscent of a previous offering of yours, Jack, "Sleeping in Your Bed".
Thank you for the encouragement, Doc. It's really appreciated.
J