This Is the Land

[PrinceMyshkin]

This is the land where everything we touch
or see or feel we know to be almost real
--this desk, these fingers on these keys,
the kid on the skateboard
outside my window, these twitches
in my mind or groin,
the clatter of my unquiet heart...

We hunger at times for the real:
would kill for it, but even killing,
these days, seems not quite real.
It’s all “collateral damage...”.
We live collateral lives
in collateral houses with
collateral hearts...

My dreams, though, at times
seem to be more real than the bread
I put in my mouth. But the heart
needs more than bread, more,
even, than blood or oxygen.
I do what I need to do or what
I’m compelled to do, try to be
a decent man, give blow for blow
when I am hurt and kindness
for kindness among friends.

But the heart keeps clattering, clattering.

[ampoule]

For some strange reason I am reminded of The Velveteen Rabbit, a children's story about a rabbit that becomes real when it is loved. Love makes us feel real so I'm glad the heart keeps clattering, drawing attention to itself.
Your poem has made my heart clatter. :)

[a_little_wisp]

Agreed, ampoule - I was reminded of the Velveteen Rabbit too.

The real, especially what is real for the heart, is hard to come by, isn't it? Sometimes we work so hard to keep something precious, but find in the end that what we gained was only a shadow of what it could be - and we're back to yearning for that which we sought to find in the first place.

o.O If that makes ANY sense.

You're right. The heart does need more than just dreams.

Beautiful, Prince. Achingly so.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Agreed, ampoule - I was reminded of the Velveteen Rabbit too.

The real, especially what is real for the heart, is hard to come by, isn't it? Sometimes we work so hard to keep something precious, but find in the end that what we gained was only a shadow of what it could be - and we're back to yearning for that which we sought to find in the first place.

o.O If that makes ANY sense.

I dare you - no, I double-dare you - to write something that makes NO sense at all.

[a_little_wisp]

The space in which Einstein ate jell-o haplessly peanut butter.

[PrinceMyshkin]

The space in which Einstein ate jell-o haplessly peanut butter.

Interesting! I was just reading an article on Saul Kripke & the development of Kripke Semantics and his formulations of Modal Logic.

And can you do a didgeridoo while riding backwards on a donkey?

[Silas Thorne]

I cannot speak of velvet rabbits, but this was raw and pulsing. It reminded me of my thoughts yesterday on cellphones when I thought whether these flashes of emotion while staring at ones hands are real emotions, and whether in the present world we are more emotional, or whether emotion is losing its power with the space between the subject and the object.

Is this the clattering of your skateboard heart?

Forgive me if the bolts of my mind have come unloosed somewhat, slight fever and all. ;)

[PrinceMyshkin]

I cannot speak of velvet rabbits, but this was raw and pulsing. It reminded me of my thoughts yesterday on cellphones when I thought whether these flashes of emotion while staring at ones hands are real emotions, and whether in the present world we are more emotional, or whether emotion is losing its power with the space between the subject and the object.

Is this the clattering of your skateboard heart?

Forgive me if the bolts of my mind have come unloosed somewhat, slight fever and all. ;)

Have never used a skateboard, Silas, but the clattering was more or less an everyday thing. Thanks.

[Silas Thorne]

Thank you for writing this poem. :) I loved the whole thing, but these lines:

We hunger at times for the real:
would kill for it, but even killing,
these days, seems not quite real.

...really sparked for me though.