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Prince and Virgil, both of your comments are valid, as it's always a good policy not to take things at face value. We
have a tendency to think that others have the same motivation as we do, or think the same way we do.
The worst enemy of art is not a critical audience, but a complacent one. It's better for the artist to take risks than wallow in the same old, same old comfort zones.
Solid poem Auntie. I would normally wince at the word "morph" in a poem, I think it's great. Evening morphing into morning, wow, what a great image.Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
God bless the grace of this. I was especially taken with:
That sings!Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
“The whole earth is our hospital”
–T. S. Eliot
Condition: Human
From first gasp to final sigh
we claim we owe everything to the Divine,
the source of all existence, in Whom
we place our awe and lay our care.
At what ill-starred point in history
did Mammon’s blinding light
deflect our turn to gold – or
at least its lesser, yet all-consuming, ores? (1)
Amid fatigue we drive ourselves sick and sore,
devoted to the chronic, pecuniary chase.
Our sights veer from sheer survival to comfort, then
back, since relapse always stalks the cure.
Eros grabs our temporary interest,
a long desire not quite fully quenched
with quickly-quaffed, febrile doses.
We aim to love eternally, but we don’t.
For a time we delight in scions of ourselves,
reaching farther out toward deep posterity,
each of us a little Achilles, ever-striving
for legendary status, settling for ersatz fame. (2)
We do not concern ourselves with why,
preferring to act and direct the pain
of an inward gaze away. We’d rather sit
than stand, and rather move than think.
We aspire to live perfectly,
but we fail.
We never really want to die,
but we do.
(1) Matthew 6:24; Paradise Lost, I, 674
(2) Lines near the conclusion of The Iliad suggest that Achilles will achieve immortality from the stories which future ages will tell about him.
This is so glum, Aunty! but if only for "relapse always stalks the cure," I value it.
It is deep true wise... and beautifully written!
And yes:
We aspire to live perfectly,
but we fail.
We never really want to die,
but we do.
as simple as that.
Thank you Auntie's
Condition
This speaks of us truthfully as both foresaken and foresaking, nothing sure but failure and death ultimately.
In the last four lines though, it seems to say in the end there is something noble in the ways we fail in the face of death.
Thank you for all three comments.
I don't know about "glum," though. Should we only write happy stuff? Wasn't meant to be glum, merely realistic, although I am sorry, Prince, if it lowered your mood. To quote Eliot again: "Humankind cannot stand much reality." (Forgive me if I didn't quote him exactly.)
“And Nietzsche, with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said the life we've lived we're gonna live over the same way for eternity. Great. That means I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again."
--Woody Allen
Zombies on Ice
The Zeitgeist’s lately been a blasé mix:
sensual lust chilled with a zesty twist
of fear and morbid curiosity.
The juggernaut rumbling through each zone,
which mesmerized erstwhile lighter souls,
draws zealots from Zurich to Kalamazoo.
Here hosted by our humble civic center–
which taxes built and named for the county czar
(despite bamboozling embezzlement)--
the snaky skaters to our public plaza came.
The crowd, prepared for fright but not for shock,
gasped as a zzzt-zzzt buzzed the collective spine.
Upon their entrance to the frozen floor,
as if just roused from a lazy snooze,
the stars appeared altogether in parts:
here an upward arm, there a shaky leg.
Haphazard moves belied the graceful glaze
as sheer stupor themed the choreography.
Or so it seemed. Meanwhile the denizens
of the mezzanine in the ziggurat above
steered their homage toward spicy pretzels,
their zinfandel kept warm and safe in zarfs.
A sudden subtlety caught strong gaze
as zircon-studded costumes swished a swirl.
Attention switched away from schlock to awe
as silver blades put down a zany waltz,
segueing into steps set to Zydeco,
now solving a rebus puzzle, then a maze
across a zeugma of complexity with
some to zig, others to zag.
At the climactic zenith of the act
all Hell ascended through the icy stage.
With Zen-like detachment backs climbed
up bumps of others, a Ponzi scheme of souls.
Against the bold frieze body parts flew,
but fortunately no one fell.
Whole-handed cheers and roaring claps
sent the zapped-out stars to resume their sleep
upon a stack of z’s and cash, while in advance
of next week’s arrival of the pole-vaulting vampires
(who wowed SRO venues from Vegas to Valdez),
the Zamboni swept up splintered chips
and bits and crystalline shavings--
and various sundries unknown.
LOL I enjoyed z-poem.
Also, wonderful quote from Woody Allen; quite apropos.
You (and this poem) are amazzzing, Aunty! Do you constantly search for things that no one one else could do or would even contemplate attempting?
The folks stacked up on each other like a Ponzi scheme was just one piece of wit among so many.
Assuredly NOT chopped-liver (although why chopped-liver should ever be spoken of in a derogatory way beats me. I just wish that any one of my poems were as good as the chopped liver at Moishe's or the Snowdon Deli)!
No, indeed! Hardly chopped or hardly liver!
I liked this stanza best:
"At the climactic zenith of the act
all Hell ascended through the icy stage.
With Zen-like detachment backs climbed
up bumps of others, a Ponzi scheme of souls.
Against the bold frieze body parts flew,
but fortunately no one fell."
As Prince said of "a Ponzi scheme of souls...", brilliant!
You do zombies proud, Aunty!:)
Thank you, q! and. . .
This webpageQuote:
Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_b...sages/558.html
says that "chopped liver is always served as a side dish, never a main dish. It therefore makes a good metaphor for someone who is being treated as unimportant or dispensable" (thus an appropriate phrase for your ol' sad-sacky Auntie.)
On the other hand, when one goes to a fancy-schmanzy restaurant --so I'm told -- and orders one of the most expensive appetizers on the menu, he or she will be brought a dish called "paté"-- but it's really chopped liver.
Aha! so you are pate passing yourself off as chopped liver! For shame, Aunty! :)