Some poems are written in cluttered rooms

[PrinceMyshkin]

Some poems are written in cluttered rooms.
You feel in the lines the presence
of photographs of ex-lovers, of grand-children,
unanswered letters lying helter-skelter,
bills waiting to be paid,
books the writer has been meaning to read
for some long time but which
will never get read, perhaps.
An odour of longing creeps out
from the walls and into the poem.

Others are written in monastic
cells, rough plastered walls,
a loose, single-bulb fixture
dangles from the ceiling
and there is the sense
of someone ready to move out
before he has fully moved in.






Jerry Newman © 02Jan08

[CdnReader]

Mmmm..... I like this very much, Mr. Newman. :)

[Sweets America]

Oh this is a very good poem to me, Schweetie! :)
I love the second stanza more, I think. The single-bulb and the last two lines.

[mazHur]

good but there are many other places/occasions to compose lines, you know it ! lol

[SleepyWitch]

[B]
and there is the sense
of someone ready to move out
before he has fully moved in.


I like these lines :)

[TheFifthElement]

But are all poems written alone? This seems a lonely poem, quietly so. Like Sleepy I love those last lines especially.

[PrinceMyshkin]

But are all poems written alone? This seems a lonely poem, quietly so. Like Sleepy I love those last lines especially.

But surely, even if one wrote in the midst of a clamouring crowd - say the revellers who gather in Times Square to watch the New Year's ball drop - even in such a case, one is writing alone? These days I have something like a Pavlovian reflex: as I head out for my morning visit to my 'synagogue' (The Arts Cafe), lines often begin forming in my head. I carry a scratch-pad in my car & bring it inside with me where, as I wait for my 'usual' to be drawn & set out in front of me, I scribble out the lines I was thinking of.

[ampoule]

I think about this so much, that if I could somehow 'clean' everything up, get all my ducks in a row where there was nothing else cluttering my life, then I could sit down with a beautiful tablet of clean white paper, a sharpened pencil, and write beautiful clean white stuff. But no, there's a fat man who just got on board and he's squeezing himself into the seat squishing everyone. Something's gotta give. Pretty soon some idea is going to pop out of place and make a mess on my paper.

p.s. i love this poem

[downing]

Marvellous poem, marvellous indeed! I love it! I was forced by its beauty to read it, line by line! Gorgeous!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Marvellous poem, marvellous indeed! I love it! I was forced by its beauty to read it, line by line! Gorgeous!

Thank you very much, Downing, thart means a lot to me.

[ampoule]

Thank you very much, Downing, thart means a lot to me.

Harumph! Well! I see where I stand. Jez kiddin'. ;)

[huihuffaker]

The beauty of this poem is pure genius insanity. Its simplicity, yet complex content is very understood. Bravo.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Harumph! Well! I see where I stand. Jez kiddin'. ;)

I NEVER take remarks like that in jest, Mz Amp! Sorry for not responding to your earlier comment. It's just that....the dog ate up your comment.

[Pendragon]

But in the every changing world out there we live in
That you can find a moment when your mind isn't occupied
By the endless stream of information given to the senses:
A radio blares when we desire silence, with music we can't stand...
Our eyes are drawn to other foci when we need to focus on the thing at hand...
Smells remind our foolish stomach that a mealtime is needed, head for the stand...
The taste of tobacco in the air may send desire we thought defeated. Oh Man!
The brush of gentle fingers in the crowd brings memories others don't understand...
And yet you write poetry with all of this and more going on
I name you an Artist, Poet Laureate, My Friend for doing so...

Pen

[PrinceMyshkin]

"Artist, "poet laureate," are not names I would shun, though I would blush a bit to claim them, but "friend" I'm proud to accept!

[TheFifthElement]

But surely, even if one wrote in the midst of a clamouring crowd - say the revellers who gather in Times Square to watch the New Year's ball drop - even in such a case, one is writing alone? These days I have something like a Pavlovian reflex: as I head out for my morning visit to my 'synagogue' (The Arts Cafe), lines often begin forming in my head. I carry a scratch-pad in my car & bring it inside with me where, as I wait for my 'usual' to be drawn & set out in front of me, I scribble out the lines I was thinking of.


Yes we are always alone, I guess. It's a thought that leaves me slightly depressed.

[mazHur]

Yes we are always alone, I guess. It's a thought that leaves me slightly depressed.

Fifth is so right,,,,to be in a crowd doesn't necessarily imply you are not alone

[PrinceMyshkin]

Yes we are always alone, I guess. It's a thought that leaves me slightly depressed.

But my dear Fifth. imagine on the other hand never being alone, never free to listen, undistracted, to your own musings...

And surely there are degrees of being alone and degrees of being connected. Although we can never fully verify this, surely there are moments when we feel we are absolutely connected, with a lover, a friend, one of one's children or - the entire living, breathing universe?

[TheFifthElement]

But my dear Fifth. imagine on the other hand never being alone, never free to listen, undistracted, to your own musings...

And surely there are degrees of being alone and degrees of being connected. Although we can never fully verify this, surely there are moments when we feel we are absolutely connected, with a lover, a friend, one of one's children or - the entire living, breathing universe?

I'm not so sure. Sometimes I think there are times you forget you're alone, and times you don't, and all we have in between is a ever growing desire for connection, for proof that we are not really alone after all. Perhaps that is what God is about, perhaps not.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I'm not so sure. Sometimes I think there are times you forget you're alone, and times you don't, and all we have in between is a ever growing desire for connection, for proof that we are not really alone after all. Perhaps that is what God is about, perhaps not.

Damnit, no! It is all in how one defines "alone." You, for instance, have something less than flesh and blood reality for me, and there are times when nothing less than the embrace of my beloved Sophie can console me, but much of the time, because of your and my correspondence, I do not feel utterly alone. There is a someone (a some thing?) out there in a room I've never seen in a town I've never been to, who never fails to read my PMs, thinks about them and responds articulately and with caring.

[ampoule]

I am alone but I feel extremely connected to many people and many things. I get lonely, I suppose, but I have been known to enjoy wallowing in it. It brings my innards out. Yuck! And much of that is what you poor people have to read.

[firefangled]

To be alone is an act of will difficult to achieve. I think it may be that "place" we have all referred to at one time or another. We write from memory, whether of something that just happened, or something long ago. We cannot write from the now; we must always go there and come back with a memory.

Some memories are living, when with them we are as in a bell jar watching and being watched. Some memories are like the husk of something. There we are alone with whatever remains and when there is nothing but a ghost we invent, in our aloneness, what we would like to remember good or bad.

Somewhere in the distance of awareness, everyone was once alone. When we write it is paradox Rilke expressed, "I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough to make every moment holy."

[PrinceMyshkin]

To be alone is an act of will difficult to achieve. I think it may be that "place" we have all referred to at one time or another. We write from memory, whether of something that just happened, or something long ago. We cannot write from the now; we must always go there and come back with a memory.

Some memories are living, when with them we are as in a bell jar watching and being watched. Some memories are like the husk of something. There we are alone with whatever remains and when there is nothing but a ghost we invent, in our aloneness, what we would like to remember good or bad.

Somewhere in the distance of awareness, everyone was once alone. When we write it is paradox Rilke expressed, "I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough to make every moment holy."

Heaven forfend that I suggest you take even a few minutes away from your magnificent poetry, but what you have written here, man! - or the way you have written it - is poetry!