What is the most lost you’ve ever been?

[PrinceMyshkin]

Was it thousands of miles
from home, around the corner,
or there in your very own kitchen or bedroom?

The furniture was familiar, as if you’d just seen it
in a vivid dream. Those pictures on the wall,
aren’t they your children--how adorable, how sweet
and yet, how far away, immersed in their own lives.

And isn’t there something just a bit strange
about their eyes? From the window, you see
an upended lawn-chair lying on the grass.






Jerry Newman © 07Nov07

[Sweets America]

What a sad poem, Jerry.
I know loneliness very well. I manage with it. I have been lost around the corner, lost within myself and lost in the middle of crowds.
What you say about the pictures of your kids sounds sad.
The last line concludes the poem perfectly.

[Granny5]

Was it thousands of miles
from home, around the corner,
or there in your very own kitchen or bedroom?

The furniture was familiar, as if you’d just seen it
in a vivid dream. Those pictures on the wall,
aren’t they your children--how adorable, how sweet
and yet, how far away, immersed in their own lives.

And isn’t there something just a bit strange
about their eyes? From the window, you see
an upended lawn-chair lying on the grass.






Jerry Newman © 07Nov07

If it wasn't so beautifully written, I'd say it was a stroke.

[PrinceMyshkin]

If it wasn't so beautifully written, I'd say it was a stroke.

On the other hand if it hadn't been a stroke it might have been beautifully written!

[PrinceMyshkin]

What a sad poem, Jerry.
I know loneliness very well. I manage with it. I have been lost around the corner, lost within myself and lost in the middle of crowds.
What you say about the pictures of your kids sounds sad.
The last line concludes the poem perfectly.

How deeply I appreciate your final sentence because it wasn't the last line originally. There was one more after it, which was of the tucking the baby into bed sort that I invariably object to in the poems of others. And after I eliminated that other line, I worried if the existing one would work in the surrealist way it needed to - and DID, for at least one reader.

For those who don't know that English is not your first language I would like to take this opportunity to salute your command of it. As we all know, humour and poetry are the most difficult things to grasp in a second language, and I have had abundant experience of your sure-footedness in both.

[Sweets America]

How deeply I appreciate your final sentence because it wasn't the last line originally. There was one more after it, which was of the tucking the baby into bed sort that I invariably object to in the poems of others. And after I eliminated that other line, I worried if the existing one would work in the surrealist way it needed to - and DID, for at least one reader.

For those who don't know that English is not your first language I would like to take this opportunity to salute your command of it. As we all know, humour and poetry are the most difficult things to grasp in a second language, and I have had abundant experience of your sure-footedness in both.

What a nice comment!! Yes I particularly like the last sentence because there is something of the loneliness in it, you know, something of the emptiness communicated through the object, as if it were abandoned there.
By 'tucking the baby into bed', you mean 'putting the extra last nail on the coffin'? I remember this phrase that you had used when you had told me that I could have removed the last lines of one of my poems. I like the image of 'tucking the baby into bed', and you know why.;)
Thanks for what you said about my command of English. :blush: Ah, Jerry Newman!:p

[PrinceMyshkin]

What a nice comment!! Yes I particularly like the last sentence because there is something of the loneliness in it, you know, something of the emptiness communicated through the object, as if it were abandoned there.
By 'tucking the baby into bed', you mean 'putting the extra last nail on the coffin'? I remember this phrase that you had used when you had told me that I could have removed the last lines of one of my poems. I like the image of 'tucking the baby into bed', and you know why.;)
Thanks for what you said about my command of English. :blush: Ah, Jerry Newman!:p

Another favourite expression of mine when I was commenting on certain students' poetry was that they had steered the boat back into the harbour, by which I meant that that they really had not taken their poem out into dangerous waters but had played it safe.

Then there was a line by Keats that I loved: "We hate poetry that has a palpable design on us."

Or of poems that began with a rhetorical question I would say that it was like a tennis ball thrown up in the air to be served: we had no choice but to watch, knowing that it would be whacked!

[symphony]

Was it thousands of miles
from home, around the corner,
or there in your very own kitchen or bedroom?

The furniture was familiar, as if you’d just seen it
in a vivid dream. Those pictures on the wall,
aren’t they your children--how adorable, how sweet
and yet, how far away, immersed in their own lives.

And isn’t there something just a bit strange
about their eyes? From the window, you see
an upended lawn-chair lying on the grass.






Jerry Newman © 07Nov07

This is so very moving, Uncle Jer. U did it again.

[CdnReader]

.

Once upon a time
I was lost on a grey-misted shore
where the surf touched my eyes
and the seabirds called my name,
beckoning me on.

I stretched out my empty arms
beyond the grey-misted shore
that cradled my footsteps,
reaching for the grey-misted shore
still beyond my reach.

Once upon a time
I was lost in a whiteness
of indefinable life
with invisible edges,
destined to wander from
centre to centre,
listening to the whispers
of the dead.

.
cdn/08nov07
.

[PrinceMyshkin]

.

Once upon a time
I was lost on a grey-misted shore
where the surf touched my eyes
and the seabirds called my name,
beckoning me on.

I stretched out my empty arms
beyond the grey-misted shore
that cradled my footsteps,
reaching for the grey-misted shore
still beyond my reach.

Once upon a time
I was lost in a whiteness
of indefinable life
with invisible edges,
destined to wander from
centre to centre,
listening to the whispers
of the dead.

.
cdn/08nov07
.


Oh my God, this is good! This is SO GOOD!

[firefangled]

It could have been Sunday night; they had been dancing slow,
in some Chapel St. dive, maybe feeling a highball —
my father had just come home from two years in Fiji,
and with her face burning from whiskey and waiting,
she pressed into him, arms around his neck,
her perfume saturating the humid air of his breathing.
There would have been no guilty hesitation, no thought
but what they shared as they awkwardly loved each other,
and then lingered for hours in the chimerical sweetness
of touching, the light of nakedness pouring into dilated eyes.
They would have smiled like sleepy children and then slept
in the twisted singularity of forgetting they were two.

Somewhere outside the time of 1945, I was waiting that evening,
and some say then I made the choice knowing both of them —
that his hearing for a child’s voice lay on the anvil of sand,
silenced slowly by the hammering of tread under the steel guns;
and he would carry unknown for his life the incessant
shock and recoil of the firing, aiming into his spot of light.
I knew, they say, and regardless, went to her tenderness
that would petrify in the harsh desert of his fatherless anger,
I wanted to arrive, captured in the tangled net of Rome,
where they played out their duty in a different kind of story
than I can now imagine would have served them better.
And though I can imagine remembering the music of their dance,
I am lost forever between that waltz and early Monday morning.

[PrinceMyshkin]

It could have been Sunday night; they had been dancing slow,
in some Chapel St. dive, maybe feeling a highball —
my father had just come home from two years in Fiji,
and with her face burning from whiskey and waiting,
she pressed into him, arms around his neck,
her perfume saturating the humid air of his breathing.
There would have been no guilty hesitation, no thought
but what they shared as they awkwardly loved each other,
and then lingered for hours in the chimerical sweetness
of touching, the light of nakedness pouring into dilated eyes.
They would have smiled like sleepy children and then slept
in the twisted singularity of forgetting they were two.

Somewhere outside the time of 1945, I was waiting that evening,
and some say then I made the choice knowing both of them —
that his hearing for a child’s voice lay on the anvil of sand,
silenced slowly by the hammering of tread under the steel guns;
and he would carry unknown for his life the incessant
shock and recoil of the firing, aiming into his spot of light.
I knew, they say, and regardless, went to her tenderness
that would petrify in the harsh desert of his fatherless anger,
I wanted to arrive, captured in the tangled net of Rome,
where they played out their duty in a different kind of story
than I can now imagine would have served them better.
And though I can imagine remembering the music of their dance,
I am lost forever between that waltz and early Monday morning.


Oh joy! How glorious! - but surely off-topic? Waiting to be found is surely not the same as being lost, is in fact some way the opposite of it? But do you really subscribe to that cracked new age theory that we choose the parents we're to be born to?

[Pendragon]

Lost and Found

I came back around with a start—
First thing I felt was the beating of my heart—
And the pain in my head.
This my bedroom so I knew I was at home—
But who is that in the mirror with a beard fully grown?
Something has happened here—something bad…

There’s a lot more books on the shelf than I can recall.
Matter of fact, I don’t remember a bookshelf on that wall.
And since when did we paint the bedroom blue?
My bare feet swung down and contacted with the floor—
Linoleum? We had brown carpet in here before—
Something going on here, Mr. Jones, I don’t know, do you?

Wife was waiting for me in the living room on the sofa,
But it’s changed colors too; it’s green instead of aqua
Since when did her hair turn so white?
She seemed just a little bit afraid when she talked to me,
I’m might not know what’s going on, but that instinct you see—
Got this really bad feeling that something just isn’t right.

Last I recall we were on our way to see a doctor about some things,
All the rest is just a blur of outtakes from fuzzy dreams—
I think I know who I am now anyway.
Come to find out it had been a long hard four tough years,
She didn’t want to tell me about much, but there were the tears—
You ought to try waking up and finding you’ve been lost that many days…
Gives you a whole new outlook on living for today…

Dale Harris
© 11/8/07

[firefangled]

Oh joy! How glorious! - but surely off-topic? Waiting to be found is surely not the same as being lost, is in fact some way the opposite of it? But do you really subscribe to that cracked new age theory that we choose the parents we're to be born to?

I am lost forever between that waltz and early Monday morning.

Forever lost is pretty damn lost.

Actually that "new age theory" is older that both our great-great-great-great-great-great-great (x10) grandparents put together.

Ever since I was very young, I actually like getting lost. It sharpens the senses.

[firefangled]

Lost and Found

I came back around with a start—
First thing I felt was the beating of my heart—
And the pain in my head.
This my bedroom so I knew I was at home—
But who is that in the mirror with a beard fully grown?
Something has happened here—something bad…

There’s a lot more books on the shelf than I can recall.
Matter of fact, I don’t remember a bookshelf on that wall.
And since when did we paint the bedroom blue?
My bare feet swung down and contacted with the floor—
Linoleum? We had brown carpet in here before—
Something going on here, Mr. Jones, I don’t know, do you?

Wife was waiting for me in the living room on the sofa,
But it’s changed colors too; it’s green instead of aqua
Since when did her hair turn so white?
She seemed just a little bit afraid when she talked to me,
I’m might not know what’s going on, but that instinct you see—
Got this really bad feeling that something just isn’t right.

Last I recall we were on our way to see a doctor about some things,
All the rest is just a blur of outtakes from fuzzy dreams—
I think I know who I am now anyway.
Come to find out it had been a long hard four tough years,
She didn’t want to tell me about much, but there were the tears—
You ought to try waking up and finding you’ve been lost that many days…
Gives you a whole new outlook on living for today…

Dale Harris
© 11/8/07

Here, here! Pen. I hope this is not something you had to go through. If so, i'm glad you found your way back. Good poem, i enjoyed it.

[TheFifthElement]

Enclosed within my lover’s arms,
entranced by the mystery
of a new world unfolding.
We become explorers;
lost without a map,
just our senses
to guide us
over mountains,
through valleys,
across the oceans,
beyond the reach
of the deserts
and great plains.
Your fingers are the rain
washing over this virgin territory;
your breath the wind
rippling through the fields,
bending trees.
Earthquakes rend the land,
stirring the ocean.
Forests burn.
I am lost
without a compass;
send me spinning,
spinning into space.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Enclosed within my lover’s arms,
entranced by the mystery
of a new world unfolding.
We become explorers;
lost without a map,
just our senses
to guide us
over mountains,
through valleys,
across the oceans,
beyond the reach
of the deserts
and great plains.
Your fingers are the rain
washing over this virgin territory;
your breath the wind
rippling through the fields,
bending trees.
Earthquakes rend the land,
stirring the ocean.
Forests burn.
I am lost
without a compass;
send me spinning,
spinning into space.


We should all be so lost! I'm reminded by this of an aphorism I composed: A map will only get you to where others have already been.

Please forgive the intrusion of a bit of ego here, but if you wrote this wonderful poem prompted by the theme of this thread, then I am proud, proud! But even if not I am proud to share this cyberspace with you and others!

Thank you.

[ampoule]

Lost

Looking through a thick glass window,
the tiny thing with flailing arms, not crying,
but looking for birthday parties, proms,
a college diploma, a long white gown,
a baby shower and life;
the lost one held her breath, looking down,
wondering where the tears were, why she
didn't pound the window, here I am, here I am.
But the thing in her hand, she didn't know it
was a map, she tossed it into the wind saying,
we will find our ways, but neither did.
They said it is for the best, stay on that road,
take the well-lit exit and always turn to the right
but she was always lost and they would take
her hands and hold her for awhile but letting go,
she would drift away to those dark, back roads.

amp, November Eighth, TwoThousandSeven

[CdnReader]

It could have been Sunday night; they had been dancing slow,
in some Chapel St. dive, maybe feeling a highball —
my father had just come home from two years in Fiji,
and with her face burning from whiskey and waiting,
she pressed into him, arms around his neck,
her perfume saturating the humid air of his breathing.
There would have been no guilty hesitation, no thought
but what they shared as they awkwardly loved each other,
and then lingered for hours in the chimerical sweetness
of touching, the light of nakedness pouring into dilated eyes.
They would have smiled like sleepy children and then slept
in the twisted singularity of forgetting they were two.

Somewhere outside the time of 1945, I was waiting that evening,
and some say then I made the choice knowing both of them —
that his hearing for a child’s voice lay on the anvil of sand,
silenced slowly by the hammering of tread under the steel guns;
and he would carry unknown for his life the incessant
shock and recoil of the firing, aiming into his spot of light.
I knew, they say, and regardless, went to her tenderness
that would petrify in the harsh desert of his fatherless anger,
I wanted to arrive, captured in the tangled net of Rome,
where they played out their duty in a different kind of story
than I can now imagine would have served them better.
And though I can imagine remembering the music of their dance,
I am lost forever between that waltz and early Monday morning.

This is an amazing piece, Fire. Alive with details, filled with passion and wonder. I especially love "the twisted singularity of forgetting they were two." Thank you for all of this. It's beautiful.

[CdnReader]

Enclosed within my lover’s arms,
entranced by the mystery
of a new world unfolding.
We become explorers;
lost without a map,
just our senses
to guide us
over mountains,
through valleys,
across the oceans,
beyond the reach
of the deserts
and great plains.
Your fingers are the rain
washing over this virgin territory;
your breath the wind
rippling through the fields,
bending trees.
Earthquakes rend the land,
stirring the ocean.
Forests burn.
I am lost
without a compass;
send me spinning,
spinning into space.

Jer took the words right out of my mouth. We should all be so lost, indeed! Utterly fabulous poem, Fifth.

[CdnReader]

Lost

Looking through a thick glass window,
the tiny thing with flailing arms, not crying,
but looking for birthday parties, proms,
a college diploma, a long white gown,
a baby shower and life;
the lost one held her breath, looking down,
wondering where the tears were, why she
didn't pound the window, here I am, here I am.
But the thing in her hand, she didn't know it
was a map, she tossed it into the wind saying,
we will find our ways, but neither did.
They said it is for the best, stay on that road,
take the well-lit exit and always turn to the right
but she was always lost and they would take
her hands and hold her for awhile but letting go,
she would drift away to those dark, back roads.

amp, November Eighth, TwoThousandSeven

Ooooo..... such an eerie ending. I like it!! :) Your distinctive voice comes through loud and clear in this one, as always, Amp. Great piece!

[firefangled]

Fifth, this is another amazing poem. There are so many great lines and sounds that compliment the moment you are describing. I liked


Your fingers are the rain
washing over this virgin territory;
your breath the wind
rippling through the fields,
bending trees.

[firefangled]

Lost

Looking through a thick glass window,
the tiny thing with flailing arms, not crying,
but looking for birthday parties, proms,
a college diploma, a long white gown,
a baby shower and life;
the lost one held her breath, looking down,
wondering where the tears were, why she
didn't pound the window, here I am, here I am.
But the thing in her hand, she didn't know it
was a map, she tossed it into the wind saying,
we will find our ways, but neither did.
They said it is for the best, stay on that road,
take the well-lit exit and always turn to the right
but she was always lost and they would take
her hands and hold her for awhile but letting go,
she would drift away to those dark, back roads.

amp, November Eighth, TwoThousandSeven

I like the point of view in this, and the lack of self pity in the words. You are telling the story for the story's sake, even to the abrupt ending, which simply says and here is where I am.

I like it!!

[firefangled]

This is an amazing piece, Fire. Alive with details, filled with passion and wonder. I especially love "the twisted singularity of forgetting they were two." Thank you for all of this. It's beautiful.

Thanks Cdn. I guess it may seem a little off-topic (:rolleyes:), but to me it is the type of lost that is with us so long, it stays in the background, sort of a functioning lostness.

[firefangled]

I know I'm working backwards.

Cdn I can't say to much that hasn't been said at this point, but this is haunting in its tone before we get to the dead. And then there is that last stanza:



Once upon a time
I was lost in a whiteness
of indefinable life
with invisible edges,
destined to wander from
centre to centre,
listening to the whispers
of the dead.

[firefangled]

Was it thousands of miles
from home, around the corner,
or there in your very own kitchen or bedroom?

The furniture was familiar, as if you’d just seen it
in a vivid dream. Those pictures on the wall,
aren’t they your children--how adorable, how sweet
and yet, how far away, immersed in their own lives.

And isn’t there something just a bit strange
about their eyes? From the window, you see
an upended lawn-chair lying on the grass.




Jerry Newman © 07Nov07

And in the beginning....

This never mentions lost, but it perhaps the most lost any of us ever get, among the familiar, lost in time. Excellent

[Granny5]

No Title

When I saw the pain in his eyes
And heard the need in his voice
Then I knew my suspicions were true
I felt the floor fall away
As I started to drift, unfocused
Space surrounded me so fast
I couldn’t catch my breath
Surely my heart had stopped
I prayed it would stop
Please just make it stop
Then the pain would leave
And I would just sleep forever
Unaware of everything that was
But I stood on my own and
I left him there not wanting
Him to see me break into pieces
Don’t let him see me disappear
I lay on the closet floor
For what seemed like days
Waiting for that last bit of air
Hoping it would be soon
Were there tears? I don’t recall
I remember knowing he
Was trying to make it right
I saw him standing at the door
I knew things were being said
I could see his mouth move
See the sorrow in his eyes
The tears on his cheeks
Be over and over in my head
I heard only what he had said
“But she’s my only true friend”

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh Granny! That is SO moving!

[PrinceMyshkin]

And in the beginning....

This never mentions lost, but it perhaps the most lost any of us ever get, among the familiar, lost in time. Excellent

Speaking of lost in time... I believe I've posted this before but it is relevant here:

I had an especially wonderful experience once after smoking quite a bit of mary-jane (maybe laced with hash?). I had driven out to meet my lover at the time for a discussion of some conflict in our relationship. She smoked a lot of the stuff, had several joints with her and we smoked a few. The discussion did not end well. So I'm on my way back home, somewhat dispirited. I get to a T-fork where I have to turn left or right. It's my customary route home but I can't remember which is the right way to turn. Something tells me that if I look to the left, there'll be a cue, and sure enough when I do that I see that the residential street I'm facing turns commercial several blocks to the left! Aha! It's an answer, but what does it mean?

Then my arms seem to take over and I wrench the wheel to the right and resume driving, knowing "I" have made the right choice. But at the top of the hill I'm confronted with another fork and the same damned dilemma: left fork? right fork? Again, after a minute or so, my arms take over and again I realize that I've made the right choice. And now I have a flash-forward: I'm at home, looking back on this trip and thinking, 'I got home, lost all the way!'

[Pendragon]

Here, here! Pen. I hope this is not something you had to go through. If so, i'm glad you found your way back. Good poem, i enjoyed it.Glad you enjoyed it Fire. Felt good to get it off my chest. Yeah, I went through that and more, but I married my best friend and she keeps on proving that every day God sends... http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Four/Worm.gif

[TheFifthElement]

Wow you guys! I've just read through this whole thread and every poem is amazing! I love all of them.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Wow you guys! I've just read through this whole thread and every poem is amazing! I love all of them.

I quite agree. Is it characteristic of us as poets that we feel, or are attracted to the feeling of being lost? Or are we perhaps expressing something that is true of our contemporaries, whether poets or not?

I wonder too if any of the Believers have that feeling? Other than Pendragon I don't know that any others who have posted here subscribe to a religion. Is it possible that most religious folk have found a balm in Gilead?

[PrinceMyshkin]

One may be lost, of course,
as soon as one shuts the front door behind one
and stands there confronting the street.
What is going on behind all those other
front doors? Who are those people?
Do their lives make sense to them
at all? But on the other hand
one might be returning home,
the front door key in one’s hand
and ask oneself Do I live here?
I mean, do I really live here?
Or am I meant, was I always meant
to be someone else, living in some other house?


[/RIGHT]Jerry Newman © 09Nov07[/RIGHT]

[CdnReader]

one might be returning home,
the front door key in one’s hand
and ask oneself Do I live here?
I mean, do I really live here?
Or am I meant, was I always meant
to be someone else, living in some other house?


Oh, Jer.... This last part is SOOOO "me", especially the "me" of the last year and a half....and so shall it continue, methinks. Thanks for getting in my brain, and saying something that I didn't quite know how to say. :)

[firefangled]

— for Eddie

He remembers being
in the light, even at night,
where he breathes,
inside the pin-holed sky,
looking for the dark gene
that carried this to him,
as bees do on their legs,
the reason for varied flowers.

Paging through our programs
in the dark halls of guilt and hope,
we want a synopsis of the next act, or
playwright's profile, demand
the story's origin.

We strain to see ourselves
in traces of his smile,
in the sunlight where he finds himself,
in our deliberate touch,
out in the safe, bright yard,
far from where the world would harm him,
far from forgetfulness,
far from the routine strip search,
out of lithium's vacancy.

Gone the promise of his childhood art.

Now there are trips home,
we have all had so many homes,
the Diaspora of discontent —
and he has watched the thirty years
of parents, lovers, sisters, brothers,
under a vigilant sky, and the dome of night,
with voices and cricket choirs in ornamental boxes.

[Pendragon]

— for Eddie

He remembers being
in the light, even at night,
where he breathes,
inside the pin-holed sky,
looking for the dark gene
that carried this to him,
as bees do on their legs,
the reason for varied flowers.

Paging through our programs
in the dark halls of guilt and hope,
we want a synopsis of the next act, or
playwright's profile, demand
the story's origin.

We strain to see ourselves
in traces of his smile,
in the sunlight where he finds himself,
in our deliberate touch,
out in the safe, bright yard,
far from where the world would harm him,
far from forgetfulness,
far from the routine strip search,
out of lithium's vacancy.

Gone the promise of his childhood art.

Now there are trips home,
we have all had so many homes,
the Diaspora of discontent —
and he has watched the thirty years
of parents, lovers, sisters, brothers,
under a vigilant sky, and the dome of night,
with voices and cricket choirs in ornamental boxes.Lord, Fire, this one sings! As you may imagine, I have met a couple "Eddies" during hospital stays, and the memory of one in particular comes rushing back with this poem. We are gathered in the common room as I try to coax the paino to cooperate with me, and we're singing. He's got a rich bass voice, much deeper than my lead to baritone. A young girl beside me sings as does others and for a moment, we forget where we are and how sick we all are. My roomate sits down and helps me play, sharing the keyboard. There's magic in this poem, Fire, for me, anyway... http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Paino.gif

[PrinceMyshkin]

Somewhere in each of us
the way is set from which
our straightest paths
diverge a quarter-inch


till we are country miles
from where we started out,
babbling eagerly
in some indecipherable tongue.




J. Newman Sudden Proclamations copyright 1992

[PrinceMyshkin]

Suddenly you have this desire to speak
not just with anyone in particular
but with everyone all at once
--every one you’ve ever known
and misunderstood
or understood all too perfectly.

Someone, somewhere, has written a book
you badly need to read
but the name of it and the theme
are hidden from you.

Where is that book
which has the answers to the questions
you don’t even know to ask?

It occurs to you
you’ve used up your very last friend.
This is a new kind of lost.





Jerry Newman © 01Dec07

[CdnReader]

Yowzas! Good stuff, PM. :)

[firefangled]

This is well done in its sort of downward spiral from the urge to speak to everyone to being lost from everyone whom we've ever known.

This grabbed me:


Where is that book
which has the answers to the questions
you don’t even know to ask?