antidote

[billl]

antidote

tradition-taught
man sits on a hill, elevated
looks past my passions and pains
because he's seen it all
and he knows more love, he knows love more
but i don't know

tradition-taught
a theme snakes through, everlasting
collects my discovery and gently poisons
a life with room for all
respecting different visions-respecting-different-visions
because no one knows

[miyako73]

I like it but I can't tell you clearly why. I like how you play with the positioning of words. We'll it's poetry.

"and he knows more love, he knows love more" this is the line to die for. It reminds me of Neruda's love poems on how he played with the word love in several ways.

"respecting different visions-respecting-different-visions" this is different, but it ruins the flow and the structure and besides, a little bit preachy. I like poems that show me beauty not the ones that tell me what is beautiful.

I find it hard to totally understand your poem. Considering my background, I can analyze it according to my views on Buddhist thoughts. Your poem sounds more like Thitch Nhat Hanh's (not sure of the spelling)-- about freeing thoughts.

Maybe you have a different vision/interpretation in mind. For instance, "man sits on a hill" Maybe to you it's just a tired man taking a rest under a shady tree, but to me it could be a meditating monk or a learned man.

Hills and mountains in Chinese poetry are usually used to symbolize tranquility and stillness.

Maybe if you will give me a hint what it is all about, then I can fully understand.

It's really hard to critique poetry. Apple to some is a fruit, but to me, it's a poison. Right there, where the problem lies.

[billl]

You got the guy on the hill right (a monk or wise man), but as i wrote it, i realized it could be other types of people who have sort of settled in their ways, and found an almost reflexive response to passion. It's about realizing that the systemization and/or universalization of human experience (spiritual or otherwise) can rob us of our selves sometimes, to make room for agreed upon habits. Sometimes they gradually shepherd us into certain ideas, or themes, by controlling how we look at experiences.

But the lack of punctuation allowed some other meanings, too.

The respecting-different-visions thing seemed cliche to me, but it came from me trying to match the 'repetition' in the same line in the first stanza--and since it meant exactly what i wanted to stay (the golden rule), i quit looking. The whole thing was like about 15 minutes, eight or more of which were me trying to find the phrase "looks past" on an online thesaurus.

Well, I don't write much poetry, so thanks for commenting. I probably shouldn't have spoiled the mystery (of what I intended to say) like that, but what the heck.

[miyako73]

Then I understood your poetry right--about freeing thoughts :)

I got your unconstrained play with the punctuations. It fit actually.

You are right. The use of dashes in poetry seems cliche such as red-white-blue or stem-flower-leaf.

cliche ruins a poem, as what they say. I don't mind saying "roses are red" because they are, but I will add maybe... "from my blood."

[ezawislak22]

billl, i think it's an interesting poem, esp since written in 15 minutes! i like the repetition in the line:

and he knows more love, he knows love more

Because of the slight reordering of words, the meaning changes a bit, however when you use repetition again in the second to last line, the word order stays the same. i don't think you necessarily have to pick up the thread of repetition again in the second stanza just to match the first. Just a thought...

[billl]

Thanks, I appreciate you reading and thinking about it--and letting me know!

Yeah, it just looks like repeating the same thing exactly in the second part, the hyphens don't work so well. I actually intended for it just be 3 words in that line (technically not repetition), ie.

1 respecting
2 different
3 visions-respecting-different-visions

where the third word is a compound word, like "self-propelled" or "sister-in-law". A little too gimmicky, tho...

Oh, well. Thanks again for commenting again, Miyako, and thanks a lot for commenting too, ezawislak!

[blazeofglory]

I feel as if some primordial truths have been expressed.