Blue

[Hawkman]

Through the square window
I perceive a perfect blue
framed by white plastic.
The other lights,
rectangular,
with disparate views,
reveal I’m in an eye of sky
bounded by milky cataracts of cloud.

I can see the long cast shadows
of a cool and lowering sun,
how the wind berates the trees
and how the moors are shaded
by the banks which float above,
gravid with potential rain.

But that cold and lifeless patch
which fills the square window
is nothing but an area of colour,
waiting for a veil, a bird, a thought
to trespass on its chill precision.

[Jeos]

Hello Hawkman,

why are we portuguese always so emotional?! Why can't we be phlegmatic and cool like John Steed?

I enjoyed the reading but my favorite stance is the last - the more "hearty" one...

[hallaig]

Aye, like this idea, the pure mystical blue of one window and the busyness of the others. Wonder if you might make the contrast more vivid- might be more effective if, for instance, there are (street?) scenes more reminiscent of dull and frantic old life to provide a greater counterpoint to the pure untrammelled blue. The views you describe of moors and trees sound equally calm and still to me.

'perceive' makes the first bit a bit clumsy-through the square qindow/framed in white plastic/is a perfect blue?

'rectangular,/the other lights/reveal..'.i find confusing. Do you mean windows by lights? I would be tempted to tie the 'eye of sky', which is an arresting image, to the pure blue view of the square window

Last verse is v good, though I would drop 'lifeless'

Hope I've made sense. It's a good poem.

[Hawkman]

Jeos: Thanks for reading and I'm glad you got something out of it. Not sure what you mean by "hearty" In English, "hearty" means jovial and up-beat, a "hail fellow and well met" attitude. If you mean, as I think you do, hearty as emotional, I'd still be feeling a little lost, as, to me at least, the whole poem is dry and emotionless - a contemplative meditation of a patch of blue framed like a painting. Still, each to his own, I guess.

hallaig: thanks to you too. I agree about the opening of S2 and I've modified it to improve the syntax. As you obviously determined the meaning of "lights" I don't feel there is much need to alter it. It's an architectural term for windows and works for me.

I see where you're coming from with the idea of contrasts, but the contrast was not so much between stillness and activitiy, it was more about illustrating how the clouds circled the patch of sky above. the reference to eye of sky was more in keeping with the eyewall of cloud in a storm, although perhaps this is a bit obscure. It felt as though the sky above was ringed with cloud. I liked how the eye linked in with the idea of milky cataracts. For the sky to have been more literally likened to an eye would require it to have had a pupil, but alas, there was none :D

I like "lifeless" in context, it denoted how bereft of any living thing the view was. It was waiting to have life imposed upon it by the intrusion of, well, anything really.

Thanks again for reading to both of you, along with my gratitude for your comments.

Live and be well - H

[Jeos]

"as, to me at least, the whole poem is dry and emotionless - a contemplative meditaation of a patch of blue" -for me the vocabulary of your last stance goes beyond that intention...
is one of those cases where the creation escapes the control of the creator. That happens you know...

[qimissung]

Hawkman, I love it! Love the compare/contrast, love the images. An unusual take on an old, old subject.

[Haunted]

Ah, how we covet that human touch, or in lieu of, a birdy presence.

I didn;t get the "white plastic", in my mind it's a window and it's wood. Did I misread? But it works because of the cold artificial nature of plastic, which makes perfect sense for the ending.

Such a great imagery:

I’m in an eye of sky
bounded by milky cataracts of cloud

[Xillus_Xavier]

Excellent poem. I also got tripped up on the "white plastic" mention but that's the only negative I found. Really liked this one.

[Hawkman]

Jeos: the perception of the reader is subjective :D

qim: thanks for gracing this poem with such an appreciative eye. Your enjoyment is my reward :)

Haunted & XX: UPVC double glazing... Hope that puts your minds at rest :D Haunted, yes, I could do with a birdy touch myself ;) Sad to be denied such a simple human pleasure :D

Thank you both for reading and enjoying.

Live and be well - H

[Jeos]

Jeos: the perception of the reader is subjective :D

Live and be well - H



of course as it is also the author's perception...

what makes the last stance more emotional isn't just the vocabulary but also a different rhythm, namely the change from mere description to vision I mean your own images.

[Bar22do]

My preferred S is the third, it flows so perfectly. I would only prefer "latent" instead of "potential", but it's unimportant.

[Hawkman]

Jeos: true, everything is subjective, even intent. I feel I could make a comparison (albeit a loose and possibly disingenuous one) to the ode structure of strophe, antistrophe and epode with regard to this piece, discounting a) metre, and b) the fact that the first two stanzas should really be combined. In fact I'm tempted to do this anyway, as it would make the poem more balanced and improve the flow of the opening.

Bar: Thanks for reading. I'm glad you like S3, but given your stated reason for your preference, I'm surprised that you would prefer "latent" to "potential"' a substitution which would subvert the flow of the line. Not only this but it would change the meaning. Although looking up potential in the dictionary, or even in a Thesaurus, would give latent as an alternative, if you look up latent, the primary meaning is hidden or suppressed. Potential however, has additional nuances of meaning; possible or likely, which latent does not. Word choices are never unimportant.

Live and be well - H

[AuntShecky]

Last week I (for one) found you channelling dramatists of the absurd; this time, it's Picasso (his "blue" period.)

I don't find this piece to be "dry," at all, any more than I would believe modern and contemporary painting to be abstruse and emotionless. I particularly admire your last stanza ( or "strophe" as au courant critics say.)

In real life, though, I have the opposite opinion of the image, agreeing with
Wallace Stevens:

the difficulty of rebellious thought when the sky is blue.
Then again, there's the immortal lyrics of Mr. Irving Berlin:

Blue skies/Shining at Me/Nothing but blue skies/Do I see
The bottom line: unfettered optimism.

Then there was the poetess with the three names, Helen Hunt Jackson, with her praise of "October's bright blue weather." To yours fooly, there's no sight more welcome than an azure Autumn sky.

But as poets, we're told to go against the grain, take risks, offer alternatives to the status quo, and your poem does just that, by looking at a blue sky in a less than positive way. It tells us that only part of the sky is blue; the rest dank and darkening, but nonetheless more interesting than the unrelieved, "cold and lifeless" ( i.e. boring?) blue.

Me sainted mother used to say that if there's a patch of blue sky big enough to hang a pair of pants inside, then you can go ahead and put your laundry on the clothesline. I used to do that all the time, two residences ago. The venue which I recently vacated absolutely forbade clotheslines-- it was against the corporate image, one supposes. But the material in their window frames was white plastic!

[Hawkman]

Hi Auntie,

I once saw a painting by Braque (can't remember the gallery now) which was incredibly striking. It wasn't very big, about 2 feet wide by roughly nine inches, I think. It was in a plain frame of brown wood and it cought my eye from the other end of the gallery. From that distance it merely looked like two bands of complementary colour, blue and yellow, and was so lit that it positively glowed. On closer examination it proved to be a deptiction of a corn filed under a blue sky. Had the painting been of a single colour, just blue, or just yellow, I doubt if I would have noticed it. Variety is the spice of life, they say. The memory of that painting and my discovery of it has been with me for 20 years.

I remember an illustrated children's book from when I was about 3 or 4. Something to do with Topsy and Tim. There was a line in it which said something like, "If there's enough blue in the sky to make a sailor a pair of trousers, it'll be a fine day." I guess it's a reasonably close match to the one your sainted Mum used :D

Thanks for reading Auntie, and for your comments.

Live and be well - H