Darkness (R-rated)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Why are there no precipices
when you need one?
Or they’re all occupied,
people doing cartwheels
in mid-descent.

I hear they plan to make suicide
an Olympic event

[paperleaves]

Holy hell. This was a moment of clarity, a snippet of truth, unabashed and uncensored...I appreciate poems like this, I appreciate you, for having the honesty and bravery to appease your quest to defend this thought in your memory--
thank you! thank you for not being afraid to show us REAL, living, breathing, thriving poetry amongst the suffering and desperation of the human condition.


love
kate

[PrinceMyshkin]

Holy hell. This was a moment of clarity, a snippet of truth, unabashed and uncensored...I appreciate poems like this, I appreciate you, for having the honesty and bravery to appease your quest to defend this thought in your memory--
thank you! thank you for not being afraid to show us REAL, living, breathing, thriving poetry amongst the suffering and desperation of the human condition.


love
kate

Thank you, my loving friend. In fact I hesitated to post this poem (and still review the rightness of having done so). It seemed even more bleak than I intended.

[Sampson]

jesus...

as kate said, there's a level of honesty in this blunt little poem that belongs in the pages of the volumes of a prolific writer. i am blown away, seriously...

though i do have one question; why have you labelled it as r-rated?

[PrinceMyshkin]

jesus...

as kate said, there's a level of honesty in this blunt little poem that belongs in the pages of the volumes of a prolific writer. i am blown away, seriously...

though i do have one question; why have you labelled it as r-rated?

I borrowed that rating from the habit of so-designated films... It was my way of apologizing in advance for a poem that was so bleak!

[Sampson]

Ah, I see... However I don't think a poet of your calibre has to apologise for bleakness. I think everyone can relate to your poem on some level; the subject may be bleak but it is so well penned, with such an inspired last stanza, that it is not in any sense depressing.

I've noticed in other works of yours that you have a real talent for taking very large and complex subjects and writing beautiful and brief pieces. I find that quite uplifting

[PrinceMyshkin]

Ah, I see... However I don't think a poet of your calibre has to apologise for bleakness. I think everyone can relate to your poem on some level; the subject may be bleak but it is so well penned, with such an inspired last stanza, that it is not in any sense depressing.

I've noticed in other works of yours that you have a real talent for taking very large and complex subjects and writing beautiful and brief pieces. I find that quite uplifting

There's an interesting example of synchronicity in regard to these very generous remarks of yours. Just prior to receiving it I was having a skypeversation with a friend of mine who is compliment-phobic, and we tried to get at the root of what made each of us uneasy at receiving praise.

I don't like - or rather I'm uneasy - thinking of myself of a poet of any "calibre." If I fully accepted that, it might become a millstone round my neck... I'm just a guy with a certain degree of facility with words and (I hope) the tactics of poetry and with relatively open access to his feelings.

Did I forget to say Thank you? Thank you!

[Bar22do]

R-rated, sure; this perfect poem could inspire adolescent hearts... still, it puts one at the boundary between the light and darkness parallels, under the (not so) Almighty's perpendicular... it's hard to say of it - beautiful, but it is a great poem indeed. And the last two lines - only as if casual... Thank you!

[cogs]

it's at least good that we can descend into the bleakness of expression in poetry and art. i give it two r's, and leave the double x's for the dead. 'don't try this at home'.

[DanielBenoit]

Quite some bleak and haunting imagery there. Even though "people doing cartwheels /
in mid-descent" is a rather Fellinesque, it just adds to the discomforting atmosphere of the poem. Strange, unlike many of your other poems, I don't exactly know which side of the coin I'm on, but it is certainly effective in being so short and yet conveying such a disquieting atmosphere.

[Bar22do]

Daniel Benoit's: "I don't exactly know which side of the coin I'm on" -- "of the coin" or - of the pebble...
Hopefully not on that wrong-sided "unskippable stone" of Prince's "Anne Sexton"...

[DanielBenoit]

Daniel Benoit's: "I don't exactly know which side of the coin I'm on" -- "of the coin" or - of the pebble...
Hopefully not on that wrong-sided "unskippable stone" of Prince's "Anne Sexton"...

Lol no, what I meant was that I didn't know if I actually enjoyed it is all. It has some haunting and discomforting imagery, and as a result I had mixed feelings towards my reaction. In other words, I don't know if I like it or not overall. It certainly is effective though and I comend Prince's incredible ability to have so much in one poem.

[AuntShecky]

In an age in which personal poetry is nearly synonymous with
navel-gazing, it's refreshing to read a short piece that bites with
sardonic humor. Well done!

[qimissung]

Bitter, biting, witty, sardonic, that's our Prince. You've gone and done it again, I see.I like, it, unequivocally.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Lol no, what I meant was that I didn't know if I actually enjoyed it is all. It has some haunting and discomforting imagery, and as a result I had mixed feelings towards my reaction. In other words, I don't know if I like it or not overall. It certainly is effective though and I comend Prince's incredible ability to have so much in one poem.

I'm not in the least put off by your uncertainty whether you "like" this poem or not - I had something like the same uncertainty whether or not to post it, whether it was in any coherent sense a poem...

And I frankly don't know from what depth of morbidity I derived the final lines. And I deeply regret a degree of mordant self-pity in them.

[qimissung]

e-e-e-esh, are you feeling more your usual self today, Prince? Life can crowd around us, but will, after awhile, back off, too.I hope your head is above water, that's all.

Upon a second reading I like it even better, a brilliant dark little poem about those not so brilliant but very dark moments that occasionally (thank God it's only occasional) occur.

[firefangled]

This entire piece is as open-ended as its first sentence. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The vision you present is simultaneously macabre and absurd and you give the reader no way out.

I had the same question as Sampson. This is such a vivid and lurid scene that apology is ineffective. As a warning, (R-rated) is unnecessary, given the title, which serves the same as Dante's inscription All hope abandon ye who enter here at the gates of hell.

Writing this, your title Darkness makes me think of Mark Strand's Seven Poems, the last of which goes:

I have a key
so I open the door and walk in
It is dark and I walk in
It is darker and I walk in.

The poem on the page is the key. We are warned by the title. You owe the reader nothing else.

[PrinceMyshkin]

In an age in which personal poetry is nearly synonymous with
navel-gazing, it's refreshing to read a short piece that bites with
sardonic humor. Well done!

Many thanks, Aunty, but do I really deserve this praise?


Bitter, biting, witty, sardonic, that's our Prince. You've gone and done it again, I see.I like, it, unequivocally.

Thank you, dear friend.

[Bar22do]

"a degree of mordant self-pity" in the last lines of your poem? I would rather expect you said "a degree of mordancy" tout court.. but whatever, there is nothing to regret - rather, as DanielBenoit put it: "I commend Prince's incredible ability to have so much in one poem." - much to be proud of... and --- to set sail for a new poem...

[Virgil]

I think the title is brilliant, I think that first stanza is interesting and very good, but those closing lines leave me flat. It's just too close to a comic joke. I can almost hear the drum ba-dum. So I'm of mixed emotion here.

[MorpheusSandman]

All of the glowing criticism hasn't left me with much to say except I completely agree. This is definitely one of my favorite pieces of yours, Prince. Just absolute and utterly perfect; every line, every thought, the emotional and tonal complexity you imagine to evoke with so few lines is astounding. I can write 10 times as much without achieving half that effect. Just superb.

[PrinceMyshkin]

e-e-e-esh, are you feeling more your usual self today, Prince? Life can crowd around us, but will, after awhile, back off, too.I hope your head is above water, that's all.

Upon a second reading I like it even better, a brilliant dark little poem about those not so brilliant but very dark moments that occasionally (thank God it's only occasional) occur.

Many thanks, my very dear friend. My "usual self" is not something I could define but it certainly heightens my mood to get responses such as this one.


In an age in which personal poetry is nearly synonymous with
navel-gazing, it's refreshing to read a short piece that bites with
sardonic humor. Well done!

So happens I was looking at my neighbour's navel at the time. Thanks


"a degree of mordant self-pity" in the last lines of your poem? I would rather expect you said "a degree of mordancy" tout court.. but whatever, there is nothing to regret - rather, as DanielBenoit put it: "I commend Prince's incredible ability to have so much in one poem." - much to be proud of... and --- to set sail for a new poem...

In fact the writing of this one soon inspired a rather more hopeful one, "God, the Comma," soon to be posted.


This entire piece is as open-ended as its first sentence. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Neither did I, frankly. Thank you.

[Bar22do]

"In fact the writing of this one soon inspired a rather more hopeful one, "God, the Comma," soon to be posted."

"soon" is a vague indication of time... or has God gone into coma....? in simple words, we are all hungry for more of your words...

[PrinceMyshkin]

"In fact the writing of this one soon inspired a rather more hopeful one, "God, the Comma," soon to be posted."

"soon" is a vague indication of time... or has God gone into coma....? in simple words, we are all hungry for more of your words...

This is an astonishing vote of confidence! I'd love to post it immediately, but--

But having decided to make another attempt to get some of my poems into print, I'm acting on the assumption that print publications won't accept anything that has been posted on a website.


All of the glowing criticism hasn't left me with much to say except I completely agree. This is definitely one of my favorite pieces of yours, Prince. Just absolute and utterly perfect; every line, every thought, the emotional and tonal complexity you imagine to evoke with so few lines is astounding. I can write 10 times as much without achieving half that effect. Just superb.

Sorry it took me awhile to get around to acknowledging your response, for which I am very grateful.


I think the title is brilliant, I think that first stanza is interesting and very good, but those closing lines leave me flat. It's just too close to a comic joke. I can almost hear the drum ba-dum. So I'm of mixed emotion here.

Did you mean "comic joke" or cosmic joke? It was indeed intended as the blackest of humour, a bit of unbridled self-pity presumptuously projected everywhere, for which reason I had serious reservations about posting it at all.

[Virgil]

Did you mean "comic joke" or cosmic joke? It was indeed intended as the blackest of humour, a bit of unbridled self-pity presumptuously projected everywhere, for which reason I had serious reservations about posting it at all.

No I meant a comedic joke. It was well worth posting and definitely dark. I'm getting fonder of it as I've read it a few more times. Still it seems a bit of a let down after such early brilliance. But perhaps that fits as well. :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

No I meant a comedic joke. It was well worth posting and definitely dark. I'm getting fonder of it as I've read it a few more times. Still it seems a bit of a let down after such early brilliance. But perhaps that fits as well. :)

With me there's often a negotiation between my conscious and subconscious. My subconscious will present a line or lines like the ending of this poem and I don't always immediately or even later understand it. Then I have to go with a semi-conscious (?) gut feeling as to whether the line or lines really belong there. Here, I might have been persuaded by the sheer wickedness of the thought, a not entirely worthy That'll get their attention!

[MGK]

Why are there no precipices
when you need one?
Or they’re all occupied,
people doing cartwheels
in mid-descent.

I hear they plan to make suicide
an Olympic event


Why, is my big question? Why has suicide become prevalent? The idea of your poem stands at odds with the basic survival instinct, so the reader needs to be informed what has caused this fundamental change in human nature.

I understand your poem would be bleak and tragic, but for me the missing reason makes it hard to appreciate.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Why, is my big question? Why has suicide become prevalent? The idea of your poem stands at odds with the basic survival instinct, so the reader needs to be informed what has caused this fundamental change in human nature.

I understand your poem would be bleak and tragic, but for me the missing reason makes it hard to appreciate.

Yes, those last two lines require a large leap of intuition. To me they represent a bitter, self-pitying projection from the persona of the first stanza, a desperate joke that falls flat. And it does so because rather than confronting the cause(s) of his own despair, he visualizes it as a competitive 'sport' that everyone is engaged in.