Sometimes, life

[PrinceMyshkin]

Sometimes, life doesn’t quite measure up
to the happiness one feels,
as if what we call “life”
were just a pale projection
of some inner Tahitian riot,

a gesture or series of gestures
thrown off by an over-full heart.

[Pendragon]

Absolutely fabulous wording here, it is breathtaking!

as if what we call “life”
were just a pale projection
of some inner Tahitian riot,

Love it!

[Virgil]

I like the simile too Prince, but it just seems to need more for me. Unless you count this as one of your snapshots. It feels like it could be the conclusion of a longer work.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I like the simile too Prince, but it just seems to need more for me. Unless you count this as one of your snapshots. It feels like it could be the conclusion of a longer work.

The suggestion that I treat this poem and others like it as "snapshots" is an interesting one, though I would put it in a separate thread under a heading that signified mental or interior snapshots, maybe using the name of that procedure that scans one's brain?

It never occured to me to treat this as the conclusion of a longer work though I'd probably have rejected the idea on the same grounds as I ended the poem where I did: that I wanted to get the essence of an experience that had no "objective correlatives" in the real or exterior world. I understand that is our experience that poems should provide examples or justifications of emotional/aesthetic assertions that they make, and that if RL Stevenson had presented us with


The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings

and left it at that, we might all have felt deprived, but do the examples he provides offer us anything more than the opportunity to nod and say un hun! Yes, that too... rather than trusting or obliging us to fill out the sentiment with our own experiences?

I'm often aware that my shorter poems are sort of take it or leave it offerings, and will continue to hope that what I provide provides a diving-board for my readers' imaginations.

[qimissung]

I'm diving and swimming in the Tahitian riot. o glory!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Absolutely fabulous wording here, it is breathtaking!

as if what we call “life”
were just a pale projection
of some inner Tahitian riot,

Love it!

Coming from one who chooses his own words with care and respect for them, this is deeply appreciated.

[firefangled]

What this compact poem makes me do is immediately project what it has compacted as if I had been reading it before I reached this part.

It is a lot of statement for seven lines and not in a bad way and I would not change its length. I just felt like giving it more space.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I'm diving and swimming in the Tahitian riot. o glory!

Dive in, my friend, the water's fine and there is is surely more than enough of it for you.

[PrinceMyshkin]

What this compact poem makes me do is immediately project what it has compacted as if I had been reading it before I reached this part.

It is a lot of statement for seven lines and not in a bad way and I would not change its length. I just felt like giving it more space.

Am not sure what you meant by "this part." I'm guessing you meant the line space before the last two lines.

[firefangled]

Originally Posted by firefangled
What this compact poem makes me do is immediately project what it has compacted as if I had been reading it before I reached this part.

It is a lot of statement for seven lines and not in a bad way and I would not change its length. I just felt like giving it more space.



Am not sure what you meant by "this part." I'm guessing you meant the line space before the last two lines.

Reading this again, it wasn't very clear what I meant. However, it was along the lines of Virgil's comment. "this part" meant as if it were part of a longer poem. What you wrote carried with it this sense of something coming before.

I believe the first line was responsible for this feeling. For me it added rather than detracted from the poem. The reader is free to agree with you based on their own private circumstances.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Reading this again, it wasn't very clear what I meant. However, it was along the lines of Virgil's comment. "this part" meant as if it were part of a longer poem. What you wrote carried with it this sense of something coming before.

I believe the first line was responsible for this feeling. For me it added rather than detracted from the poem. The reader is free to agree with you based on their own private circumstances.

Oh, thanks. I understand better what you meant and that you were to some degree agreeing with Virgil's feeling that what I presented was a fragment rather than a whole poem. I'm aware that that might be the response to several of my recent poems, that sort of take it or leave it quality they might have, but I'm guided (or forewarned) by my own earlier poem, which began:



After the poem
comes the verbiage...

In theory there's no reason I shouldn't try to avoid or delete the "verbiage" but so many of my poems come as (pardon the expression) inspirations, and I don't believe that one - or I at least - can compel inspiration.

[firefangled]

...that you were to some degree agreeing with Virgil's feeling that what I presented was a fragment rather than a whole poem.

Not to prolong explaining myself, I really did not view it so much as a fragment. I thought it was whole as is.


After the poem
comes the verbiage...

Think of my comment as saying the reverse of the above is also true in retrospect. After the poem verbiage surrounds it.