Passing the Salt

[PrinceMyshkin]

PASSING THE SALT


The thing is, we've none of us found the stranger yet,
with whom to open the perfect conversation.
Faces we take to be unknown, glide
into sly familiarity, the warmth of once particular skin,
phrases that appeal to us now
because they did then.

There are things we still haven't said.
That we are frightened sometimes,
though there's no reason for it--because
there's no reason for it. And,
in a certain tone of voice, "I love you."

It takes everything to say "I love you"
in just that way, as if it were nothing
--'Please pass the salt,'
or a belch in easy company.

Again and again, behind some face
that pretends to be new to us
there lies hidden that other
to which we answered dutifully once,
"I love you,
too." The face of an aunt who died young
of self-pity or an uncle
who rested his hand on your shoulder
and left it damp to the bone.

Or a lover, known, who became unknown.
But still we believe in him or in her
and whisper, "Come. Feel free. Speak,"
in voices that haven't yet grown familiar even to us.
We believe in the stranger's inarticulateness
as we believe in our own.

Which of us has learned already to speak?


J. Newman Sudden Proclamations

[PrinceMyshkin]

Death is a kind of love
suspended, an afternoon withdrawn
before it began. Hope
leans out over the irresistible pool
a little further, a little

further.
Nothing we know
will sufficiently grieve
that fall into the self.




J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992

[Pendragon]

I loved the first one up until these lines:


Again and again, behind some face
that pretends to be new to us
there lies hidden that other
to which we answered dutifully once,
"I love you,
too." The face of an aunt who died young
of self-pity or an uncle
who rested his hand on your shoulder
and left it damp to the bone.

Or a lover, known, who became unknown.
But still we believe in him or in her
and whisper, "Come. Feel free. Speak,"
in voices that haven't yet grown familiar even to us.
We believe in the stranger's inarticulateness
as we believe in our own.


I think they would be better if restructred. Maybe this way, but only change if YOU feel it helps.


Again and again, behind some face
that pretends to be new to us
there lies hidden that other
to which we answered dutifully once,
"I love you, too."
The face of an aunt who died young of self-pity;
or an uncle who rested his hand on your shoulder,
and left it damp to the bone.

Or a lover, known,
who became unknown.
But still we believe
in him or in her and whisper,
"Come. Feel free. Speak,"
in voices that haven't yet grown familiar to us.
We believe in the stranger's inarticulateness
as we believe in our own.



The second poem is great as is!

Pen

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/PuppyLove.gif

[PrinceMyshkin]

I loved the first one up until these lines:



I think they would be better if restructred. Maybe this way, but only change if YOU feel it helps.


Again and again, behind some face
that pretends to be new to us
there lies hidden that other
to which we answered dutifully once,
"I love you, too."
The face of an aunt who died young
of self-pity or an uncle who rested his hand
on your shoulder
and left it damp to the bone.

Or a lover, known,
who became unknown.
But still we believe
in him or in her and whisper,
"Come. Feel free. Speak,"
in voices that haven't yet grown familiar to us.
We believe in the stranger's inarticulateness
as we believe in our own.



The second poem is great as is!

Pen

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/PuppyLove.gif

The changes you propose are interesting but alas the poem is already on record as it was part of a book of my poems... But surely you wouldn't want me to do without that last line:

Which of us has learned already to speak?

There's a directness to it that I cherish. Many thanks for your attention.

[PrinceMyshkin]

ANNE SEXTON


She's trying to skip herself
like a wrong-sided pebble
across the wide water,
she's taut
on her mind's thin edge,
slicing,
and calling on everyone to save her.


What did she do
until she discovered poetry
which, she said, would save her
(it didn't) or before she wrote letters
all day, her hand held out in front of her?


Poetry? It's a shirt that has to be turned
and turned again, a hand
flung hard as you can
away from the heart. She stands
at the shore of white sound, surveying the waves,


but the pebble skips back on itself,
and the castaway hand
strikes back, twice as fast,
at the heart, that unskippable stone.
J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992

[Pendragon]

The changes you propose are interesting but alas the poem is already on record as it was part of a book of my poems... But surely you wouldn't want me to do without that last line:

Which of us has learned already to speak?

There's a directness to it that I cherish. Many thanks for your attention.
No, No. I wouldn't have you do without that line! LOL! Nor would I change anything that the poet wouldn't find as an improvement. Since you have published already, then it is a done deal.

I write book reviews, mostly on Sherlock Holmes books for amazon.com. I am sometimes rather caustic. But I was vindicated when one author put out a new addition of his book, and personally e-mailed me to let me know he had edited the story I had pointed out as being out of line with the Holmes character. We still write from time to time, as I do with two other authors who received my criticism and worked with it. Others have told me flat out to shut up. That is fine as well. A writer must learn to stick to a story or poem if that's what one feels is right, and tell the critic to go hang.

On this thread you will find a couple poems: Old Tom and the Tractor and Letter to the Editor. They are by me. You may get a laugh out of them, but also a lesson: Never give in to the editor without a fight, and even then it may be useless!

Good luck, mon ami!

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/PuppyLove.gif

[PrinceMyshkin]

No, No. I wouldn't have you do without that line! LOL! Nor would I change anything that the poet wouldn't find as an improvement. Since you have published already, then it is a done deal.

I write book reviews, mostly on Sherlock Holmes books for amazon.com. I am sometimes rather caustic. But I was vindicated when one author put out a new addition of his book, and personally e-mailed me to let me know he had edited the story I had pointed out as being out of line with the Holmes character. We still write from time to time, as I do with two other authors who received my criticism and worked with it. Others have told me flat out to shut up. That is fine as well. A writer must learn to stick to a story or poem if that's what one feels is right, and tell the critic to go hang.

On this thread you will find a couple poems: Old Tom and the Tractor and Letter to the Editor. They are by me. You may get a laugh out of them, but also a lesson: Never give in to the editor without a fight, and even then it may be useless!

Good luck, mon ami!

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/PuppyLove.gif

Tell you what, Dude: I don't remember what specifically I had in mind when I joined Lit Net but assuredly I did NOT expect to find such an amiable as you appear to be. I don't doubt you can be a curmudgeon if you put your mind to it, but so far I've quite enjoyed your responses.

Here's another of my poems you might care to comment on:

MEDITATION


The earth is a beach in space
we cross at an angle to the sea.
There is no walking parallel


with it. Or with ourselves. Spiral
to the root, we travel
crooked at the source. Without


and within, these eyes, this beach,
this skin--the elements puddle
and, for all we know, hold firm.

J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992


Jer

[apples of gold]

Tell you what, Dude: I don't remember what specifically I had in mind when I joined Lit Net but assuredly I did NOT expect to find such an amiable as you appear to be. I don't doubt you can be a curmudgeon if you put your mind to it, but so far I've quite enjoyed your responses.




Pendragon, I've also enjoyed your responses. And wait 'til you find out what a curmudgeon Jerry can be without having to put his mind to it. LOL.

Jer, I enjoyed reading Meditation as well as the others ... glad to see you posting your poetry here.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Pendragon, I've also enjoyed your responses. And wait 'til you find out what a curmudgeon Jerry can be without having to put his mind to it. LOL.


Ah, how characteristically female to set Pendragon and me to a battle for the Curmudgeon Cup!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Beyond these paroxysms, of grief
or envy, is the rule of love
in an unruly heart: the world in rage
beyond the house, and somewhere, past that,
a model of peace as steep as a dream.


Trees leap in place against the placid mountains,
the sky is fixed to itself, and the sea
is like the opening of one of those suites
by Bach, that tell us:


'Peace is more troubled
than you know. Love
is just the prelude to loving,
and what you know best
is what you are always
just about to forget...'


Everything is immersed
and unmerged: single, serial and simultaneous.
A solitary line wanders the universe,
conversing with itself,
mischievous, contemplative:


Passionately unaware of being overheard.
J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992

[Pendragon]

Ah, how characteristically female to set Pendragon and me to a battle for the Curmudgeon Cup!

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/ROFL.gif Well, they called me “Resident Troubadour” in a recent issue of the monthly newsletter. I liked Meditation wery much, a well-balanced poem. Beyond These Paroxysms is a very thought-envolking poem as well, I must adjust to the style of your form is all.

At least you published a book, mine have only been magazine credits, about 120+, I lost count. And finally quit submitting due to postal costs and the growing mound of rejection slips!

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/PuppyLove.gif

[blp]

Gorgeous stuff, Mr Myshkin. or Newman.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Gorgeous stuff, Mr Myshkin. or Newman.

Wonder if you realize what a rush it gives me to hear something like that?
May I add you to my list of Uncommonly Perceptive Readers of Poetry?

[blp]

Be my guest.

I think I can imagine the feeling, yes. ;)

[apples of gold]

Beyond these paroxysms, of grief
or envy, is the rule of love ......

Lovely imagery in this poem.

I especially like these lines:



Everything is immersed
and unmerged: single, serial and simultaneous.
A solitary line wanders the universe,
conversing with itself,
mischievous, contemplative:


Passionately unaware of being overheard.
J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992

[apples of gold]

Beyond these paroxysms, of grief
or envy, is the rule of love ......

Lovely imagery in this poem.

I especially like these lines:



Everything is immersed
and unmerged: single, serial and simultaneous.
A solitary line wanders the universe,
conversing with itself,
mischievous, contemplative:

Passionately unaware of being overheard.
J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992

[Moira]

'Peace is more troubled
than you know. Love
is just the prelude to loving,
and what you know best
is what you are always
just about to forget...'

I loved these lines.

Beautiful poems PrinceM, i've enjoyed them all very much.

[PrinceMyshkin]

for Rafael


My two boys lie dreaming
in their rooms at either end of the house.
Between them they've captured the night
with their sleep.

For them, I would like to create dragons
they might slay without pain.
(But how will this come out?)

They are dreaming their ages,
their present, their birth--so near
it touches them still. They are dreaming,
perhaps, of me and of Frances,
whom they made whole. They touched me alive
with drops that blossomed, they bloomed her,
they wombed her, without from within.
They bind us, they wind us
with days and with hours.
With the real, with the now.
With their dreams,
which are actual, actual now.

For them, I would like to make dragons
they might slay without pain,
whose blood will be actual,
but will not stain.

(But how will it come out?)

*

My older son stirred
in his room across the hall. Just now,
Rafael stirred. I note this that history,
which will be full of so many,
and lesser events, should know

that my son,

in his sleep,

just now,

stirred.


J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992

[jon1jt]

i noticed early on your remark to Pen that you are not very interested in critical feedback as the poems are published and so with that i just wanted to say i read through them and enjoyed them very much.

thanks for sharing.

[ktd222]

PASSING THE SALT


The thing is, we've none of us found the stranger yet,
with whom to open the perfect conversation.
Faces we take to be unknown, glide
into sly familiarity, the warmth of once particular skin,
phrases that appeal to us now
because they did then.

There are things we still haven't said.
That we are frightened sometimes,
though there's no reason for it--because
there's no reason for it. And,
in a certain tone of voice, "I love you."

It takes everything to say "I love you"
in just that way, as if it were nothing
--'Please pass the salt,'
or a belch in easy company.

Again and again, behind some face
that pretends to be new to us
there lies hidden that other
to which we answered dutifully once,
"I love you,
too." The face of an aunt who died young
of self-pity or an uncle
who rested his hand on your shoulder
and left it damp to the bone.

Or a lover, known, who became unknown.
But still we believe in him or in her
and whisper, "Come. Feel free. Speak,"
in voices that haven't yet grown familiar even to us.
We believe in the stranger's inarticulateness
as we believe in our own.

Which of us has learned already to speak?


J. Newman Sudden Proclamations

I just had to comment and say this is a fine poem. With many illogical moments and a moment or two of logical candor, I couldn’t help chuckling at the language in your poem because it’s like I see what you’re doing. The line “we’ve none of us…” is weird because the lack of a comma made me read it as “of us, we have none.” The separation of us from us is achieved right in the first line. We have not learned to speak because none of us have spoken for ourselves. I really liked this part of your poem best:


That we are frightened sometimes,
though there's no reason for it--because
there's no reason for it.

because I feel it is one place where the reason is not drawn from the past…mainly because there was no reason. The tense for the word “there’s” is present right, so nothing about these lines are drawn from some past?

How wonderfully articulate that last line is.

[kiobe]

I dug the first one a lot.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I just had to comment and say this is a fine poem. With many illogical moments and a moment or two of logical candor, I couldn’t help chuckling at the language in your poem because it’s like I see what you’re doing. The line “we’ve none of us…” is weird because the lack of a comma made me read it as “of us, we have none.” The separation of us from us is achieved right in the first line. We have not learned to speak because none of us have spoken for ourselves. I really liked this part of your poem best:



because I feel it is one place where the reason is not drawn from the past…mainly because there was no reason. The tense for the word “there’s” is present right, so nothing about these lines are drawn from some past?

How wonderfully articulate that last line is.

Every now and then someone reads one of your poems and it is as if the poem has found its perfect reader, as if the poem had been written with him or her in mind. So many years after I wrote it I feel as if my poem has found a home, with you! Your appreciation of the last line is especially dear to me, because it is a line that sprang from my deepest yearning, my deepest sense of being solitary. After the fact I wondered if it should not have been the more grammatically 'natural' "which of us has already learned..." but the awkwardness of "has learned already" seems to me more appropriate even if not consciously composed with that in mind. Thank you,

[ktd222]

Every now and then someone reads one of your poems and it is as if the poem has found its perfect reader, as if the poem had been written with him or her in mind. So many years after I wrote it I feel as if my poem has found a home, with you! Your appreciation of the last line is especially dear to me, because it is a line that sprang from my deepest yearning, my deepest sense of being solitary. After the fact I wondered if it should not have been the more grammatically 'natural' "which of us has already learned..." but the awkwardness of "has learned already" seems to me more appropriate even if not consciously composed with that in mind. Thank you,

Thanks for the kind comments, Prince. I actually love many lines in the first poem you posted. I can also appreciate poets who understand the array of ways in which syntax plays in conveying information. The first thing I thought when reading that last line was why it read as “learned already” instead of “already learned.” That “awkwardness,” that subtle dislocation caused by the way words are usually arranged in sentences was exactly the way the last line of your poem needed to end, because it ends with your own way of saying something.

[ampoule]

PASSING THE SALT


The thing is, we've none of us found the stranger yet,
with whom to open the perfect conversation.
Faces we take to be unknown, glide
into sly familiarity, the warmth of once particular skin,
phrases that appeal to us now
because they did then.

There are things we still haven't said.
That we are frightened sometimes,
though there's no reason for it--because
there's no reason for it. And,
in a certain tone of voice, "I love you."

It takes everything to say "I love you"
in just that way, as if it were nothing
--'Please pass the salt,'
or a belch in easy company.

Again and again, behind some face
that pretends to be new to us
there lies hidden that other
to which we answered dutifully once,
"I love you,
too." The face of an aunt who died young
of self-pity or an uncle
who rested his hand on your shoulder
and left it damp to the bone.

Or a lover, known, who became unknown.
But still we believe in him or in her
and whisper, "Come. Feel free. Speak,"
in voices that haven't yet grown familiar even to us.
We believe in the stranger's inarticulateness
as we believe in our own.

Which of us has learned already to speak?


J. Newman Sudden Proclamations

Oh, how I do love this.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh, how I do love this.

How do you love this? Let me count the ways:
1, 2, 3... Yes, three ways, I guess. And thank you very much!

[ampoule]

How do you love this? Let me count the ways:
1, 2, 3... Yes, three ways, I guess. And thank you very much!

"See me, feel me, touch me...." from the rock opera Tommy. I saw it, I felt it and it touched me.

[PrinceMyshkin]

"See me, feel me, touch me...." from the rock opera Tommy. I saw it, I felt it and it touched me.

Phew! Considering your probable age, I'm lucky I don't get charged with statutory you-know-what!

[PrinceMyshkin]

This morning,
at the café,
two skinny kids,
imagining that they were in love,
stood nuzzling each other
at the counter
while they waited
for their cold fruit drink to go.
And I,
half-pitying them,
pretended to imagine
that the world was not at war.



Jerry Newman © July 6, 2007

[ampoule]

Truly, when I first read this, I know it said, half-envying them. Isn't it funny how we read ourselves into other people's poems? And then I read it again and the darn thing said half-pitying them. And then, of course, ostrich that I am, I 'pretend' the last line is not even there. Should I now go to my corner? Gladly, if I know there will be more poems like this to read.!.! Dang...thinking on Sunday morn.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Truly, when I first read this, I know it said, half-envying them. Isn't it funny how we read ourselves into other people's poems? And then I read it again and the darn thing said half-pitying them. And then, of course, ostrich that I am, I 'pretend' the last line is not even there. Should I now go to my corner? Gladly, if I know there will be more poems like this to read.!.! Dang...thinking on Sunday morn.

From what I read in your marvellous "Penance" poem you might be in the habit of spending a lot of (too much?) time in that corner! If you do decide to send yourself there again, might I suggest you take along with you a glass of red - and your notebook and pen?

That line, "imagining that they were in love," is one in which you'd be perfectly right to read envy... after all, how can the speaker know that they are only "imagining" that they're in love? By whose or what standard does he presume to judge whether their love is real or not? It must be a projection and if so, born of his own experience, of a certain world-weariness and cynicism on his part. And I believe in the aphorism: "Scratch a cynic and you'll find an idealist".

[firefangled]

for Rafael


My two boys lie dreaming
in their rooms at either end of the house.
Between them they've captured the night
with their sleep.

For them, I would like to create dragons
they might slay without pain.
(But how will this come out?)

They are dreaming their ages,
their present, their birth--so near
it touches them still. They are dreaming,
perhaps, of me and of Frances,
whom they made whole. They touched me alive
with drops that blossomed, they bloomed her,
they wombed her, without from within.
They bind us, they wind us
with days and with hours.
With the real, with the now.
With their dreams,
which are actual, actual now.

For them, I would like to make dragons
they might slay without pain,
whose blood will be actual,
but will not stain.

(But how will it come out?)

*

My older son stirred
in his room across the hall. Just now,
Rafael stirred. I note this that history,
which will be full of so many,
and lesser events, should know

that my son,

in his sleep,

just now,

stirred.


J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992

This is the way a poet wraps their words around my soul. A poem that says this belongs to us all. I keep thinking I have found my favorite poem by you and then there is another and I can't choose.

In this time of mankind, within this moment you have held up to us and said This Is Holy, there is for me, with your words still stirring in my head, no greater event.

Your poems, though truly original, remind me of Michael Ondaatje's poems in The Cinnamon Peeler.

[PrinceMyshkin]

This is the way a poet wraps their words around my soul. A poem that says this belongs to us all. I keep thinking I have found my favorite poem by you and then there is another and I can't choose.

In this time of mankind, within this moment you have held up to us and said This Is Holy, there is for me, with your words still stirring in my head, no greater event.

Your poems, though truly original, remind me of Michael Ondaatje's poems in The Cinnamon Peeler.


"To be is a blessing; to live is holy." A.J. Heschel

Thank you. Hardly familiar with Ondaatje's work except for this little aphorism:

"I have taught you that the sky in all its zones is mortal... Let me now re-emphasize the extreme looseness of the structure of all objects." quoted in In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje (pg 135), from the journals of Anne Wilkinson

[PrinceMyshkin]

The long day darkens. Soon, the night
will pulp over all of us
a plump berry of unlight.


J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992

[PrinceMyshkin]

PASSING THE SALT


The thing is, we've none of us found the stranger yet,
with whom to open the perfect conversation.
Faces we take to be unknown, glide
into sly familiarity, the warmth of once particular skin,
phrases that appeal to us now
because they did then.

There are things we still haven't said.
That we are frightened sometimes,
though there's no reason for it--because
there's no reason for it. And,
in a certain tone of voice, "I love you."

It takes everything to say "I love you"
in just that way, as if it were nothing
--'Please pass the salt,'
or a belch in easy company.

Again and again, behind some face
that pretends to be new to us
there lies hidden that other
to which we answered dutifully once,
"I love you,
too." The face of an aunt who died young
of self-pity or an uncle
who rested his hand on your shoulder
and left it damp to the bone.

Or a lover, known, who became unknown.
But still we believe in him or in her
and whisper, "Come. Feel free. Speak,"
in voices that haven't yet grown familiar even to us.
We believe in the stranger's inarticulateness
as we believe in our own.

Which of us has learned already to speak?


J. Newman Sudden Proclamations


I was reminded of a parody of this that a woman named Tina posted on another site:



I love you, she said.
please pass the salt, he said.
i love you.she said.
i love you too, he said. just not right now.
just pass the salt .

[PrinceMyshkin]

GENTLY AS THOUGH


Gently as though
through a needle's eye
the code will wither
the seed will die.




J. Newman Sudden Proclamations copyright 1992