Day 22 - "to a diamond"

Greetings and salutations everyone, on this spookiest of holidays!

It's been a busy year, to put it extremely lightly, but once again I've found myself in the comfortable, lazy bosom of one of my favorite days - Halloween. A time for scares, chills, and all things nightmarish. Besides that, it's also a day I have off from work, so that's a plus, and it's also the reason why I've actually got a little time to myself to do some blogging and post up a new poem for my dedicated readers out there in the digital world of pleasing procrastination.

I was going to post one of my more frightening pieces today in honor of the holiday, but there's a certain poem I'd written recently that I'd really wanted to post for a while and, in it's own way, is a pretty scary one itself.

I wrote this poem in a very Thomas Hardy "Convergence of the Twain" sort of mood. Often in my life, my mind will drift into a sort of state where it doesn't see an object on its own - whatever it may be - instead, I tend to see beyond the object and everything it's been through to get there and become what it is - the beautiful erosion of experience carving into the limestone block of primordial forms. In this case, I'd recently watched a movie called "Lord of War" starring Nicholas Cage, and one of the last scenes in the movie really struck me - where his brother died trying to save a small village of Africans who were doomed to die regardless of their actions, and the price of this genocide was a pile of glittering stones on a makeshift tabletop set on top of several boxes of grenades.

That such small things - such strange little objects - could be the cause of such misery and drama millions of years later after their formation - the only thing setting them aside from the rest of the dirt and stones around them being the value placed on them by our imaginations; the thought of it really struck me deeply. What is a diamond, really, besides what we make it? What is anything, really, when it comes down to it? Our economy itself, for all intents and purposes, is a widely accepted fabrication. Things of this world carry worth because it is we who deem them worthy - we dream the majesty of kings and, in our minds, if we, the creations, did not know of our Creator, who would be there to know of him and offer him glory?

Anyway, these are just the ramblings of an overstuffed brain that's been reading too much Joseph Campbell and Jack Kerouac, but I digress. I leave you all to the poem and hope you enjoy the late-Victorian style that I am a very large fan of. Perhaps as well you'll grasp the desperate scariness of it that I did slightly while writing it but, like all good horror stories, I believe the weight of its horror is one that slowly sinks in over time after considering the cryptic lines in cold-sweat recollections... insidious little bastard, ain't I? haha

To all of you out there, my fabulous readership: I wish you a wonderful, spine-chilling, and safe Halloween this year!


"to a diamond"


Had you an inkling, little stone -
The value of your translucent hide?

In eons, waiting in the ground
Did gambits ever cleave your mind?

Knew you then of silk white hands?
Of tribal wars and sanguine desires?

Did then you grasp your catalyst
To tender man’s soul unto hellfires?

Or were you innocent; unknown to this?
Name given to that which flows through veins -

Damned then and forever a Helen of Troy
To witness thousands of witless aims.

Yet perhaps you knew nothing of this all along
And ‘tis useless still to question urns:

Where nothing’s held but echoed sound;
Who’d stare in silence as we’d burn.

But if not for thee, what would we be
Without a muses’ sheen to prize?

In yielding to thee, cold, lifeless stone
You’ve granted purpose to our lives.


- Josh Clarke

Day 21 - "what a ferryman's gleaned"

Hey everyone,

Yeah, I know it's been a while since I put a poem up - there's been a lot going on, especially with getting the book published and getting the funds together to purchase an ISBN and all that, but I ran into some readers of my blog recently who were wondering when I was going to start posting again, so I decided to throw something new up there for anyone who's been craving a new poem recently. This one's for you - you know who you are. :)

This is a poem I just finished the other day actually and it's one of those few poems that I've written that after it's finished I can honestly sit back and say to myself "I don't care what anyone else thinks of this work - this is a good poem exactly how it's written, and there's no way I can see it any differently." I don't say this very often, as many of you know - I'm definitely my harshest critic, but I don't totally abandon the propensity to appreciate my own style and ability as a poet.

Something I've been knocked for a lot in the past is my tendency to be "in love with rhyme" and also my "archaic sound and diction." At one point I did consider this to be something I felt I needed to get away from and work on, but the more and more I've paroused a recent book I purchased titled The 100 Greatest Poems of All Time, the more I find that the style of writing that I currently embody is, for the most part, eerily similar to most of the poems in that book that have stood the test of time to become truly memorable and powerful pieces of literary history.

I suppose, then, I'm a bit proud to be considered archaic, and am definitely proud to be who I am as a poet. :)

My next book, which I'm already about 1/4 of the way into, is entitled "Faux Show" and is a composition dedicated to 'abandoning' the pretenses of life and getting down to the real, honest, meaningful meat-and-potatoes of existence. Gritty truth, real emotion, and none of it getting lost in translation, worrying about the semicolons and such. Thus, it will likely end up including a lot of things I once thought were inappropriate in poetry or things I thought I was unable to do properly or well enough to be considered objectively "good." It's a bold move, but I think it's worthy experiment and I hope you will all enjoy it once it's finally done.

But, I digress. Getting back to the poem for today, it's a poem that started out in a similar fashion to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. Much like his epic mythology started out with a single line - "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit." - this poem was gestating within me for months on end, beginning seminally with the line - "Drifting twixt thy gutter and stars." Though those exact lines didn't actually make it into the final draft, the general feeling of the piece remained the same, and from that feeling grew the poem that eventually became "what a ferryman's gleaned".

I sincerely hope you enjoy reading it as much I enjoyed writing it.


"what a ferryman's gleaned"


Charon, bear us in a little while
Across your brown and dirtied creek
But first come sun upon thy shore
And tarry with us for a week

Pray tell us of your thoughts and dreams
That sailed these twilight beams of doom
And show us your collections of
The coins you earned this afternoon

Come share with us the many songs
You’ve overheard upon your rides
The warbles of the heaven-sents;
The moanings of the hellish tides

But most of all, please offer us
This chance before we make our trip:
To know why all this happened so;
Why others climbed while some did slip?

(A ferryman ought know much of this
For middlemen prove the victors more
In truth, the ones that sold the guns
Claimed hefty sums; survived the war)

We doubt it due to forces grand
‘Twas we who learned to fall and fear
We taught ourselves to kill and hate
Despising each short-passing year

We’ve seen, as much as wisdom gains,
That downfalls rise; are born anew
And here, by Styx, we’d all but beg
You’d spare us with a word or two

‘Tis far too late to make amends
Our final payment’s left us broke
But crueler still would be our fate
To die before we got the joke

We know you’ve not much time to waste
Yet before you bear us on your way
Pray tell us what a ferryman’s gleaned
As critic to our tragic play

Sing lullabies of last regrets
Like pennies dropped in empty jars
And we’ll listen as yon river flows,
Slow-drifting twixt the silent stars


- Josh Clarke

red team, hold this position... (book update)

Hello all,

I know I haven't been posting very often lately. It's because I'm finishing up the editing of my book that's going to be published in the very near future.

Good enough of an excuse? I hope so - it's going to have to do for the moment.

I will, of course, keep you all updated as it goes into its final stages and is posted for purchase on different websites. Currently I have some people looking over the draft and getting some other eyes on it to check for mistakes and other typo-errors before I convert it into an Epub format.

And there you have it - for the time being my posting of new poems will be on a somewhat indefinite hold, but rest assured that during this time I will continue writing and have already started working on my next book. There'll be plenty more coming down the line in the future for all of you die-hard readers, so stay tuned and keep experiencing life, my friends.

I'll be back before you know it. :)

And get ready for my Ebook!!!

- Josh

Day 20 - "I know you in your poetry"

Wow.

This is certainly turning into the month that took a year, isn't it?

Interesting concept. I like it.

Today is a big day for me. I'm expecting this weekend will be a major life change for me. My fiancee and I will be reconciling our situation face-to-face for the first time - we haven't seen each other since early June. We've both gone through major shifts in our personality and attitude towards the world as well as incredible amounts of personal suffering and sadness over this decision.

To be honest, I have no idea what will happen. Que sera, sera I suppose.

This is also one of the last few days that I will be living at my family farm. It will be auctioned off soon and it's hard for me to bear thinking of it being totally gone. It's finally starting to hit me hard now that it's so close - I tried to ignore it for so long, but now it's time has come to stand up and refuse to be ignored any longer.

I'll be taking a long walk today along the land, remembering - storing images in my mind that I'll hopefully be able to hold onto for years to come.

Enough of this, though. It's too much to dwell on.

I wanted to post a poem today after last night's New Mystics meeting in Fairmont, which I heartily enjoyed and thank everyone for coming out and inspiring each other with their works.

Somewhat spontaneously, I had written a poem two nights ago based on something that Ted Webb had mentioned at one of our Morgantown Poets meetings earlier this month. It's something I've felt for quite a long time and had been unable to give it words, but thanks to Ted it was eventually able to make its way into ink. It's about listening to each others' work - something I'm able to do much more often these days given that I'm now a member of two poets' societies - and, more so, being able to know more about a person than most people ever get to know, just by hearing their hearts poured out upon the page in the way that they have chosen to craft their meaning; in the way that they personally adorn their emotions; how they choose to be and view the world; who they really are, inside. It has always fascinated me that whenever I read something that someone has written that means a lot to them or was written in secret or in confidence, I feel like, as I read those lines, I've never really, truly known that person until that moment, hearing those words. It's almost supernatural, the kind of link that is created when things like that are shared. It's a faith and a trust that exists in those instances. Maybe that's why it's so powerful... I'm not quite sure.

Anyway, I'd like to dedicate this poem to Ted, and I admit I'm secretly probably one of his biggest fans. Every one of his poems I've heard thus far seems to hit the mark precisely - he is easily one of the most talented poets I've had the privilege to share with between the two groups.

Also, before I get to the poem I would just like to 'shout out' to my old friend Micah Plante up in VT who has been constantly inspiring me with his music lately. Each one of his songs seems to just pop into my head from time to time and I find myself thinking, "what's that tune from?" and then I realize, "oh! that's right! that's micah!" It's funny - his songs tend to stick in my mind even more than all the catchy pop songs I unfortunately hear over the radio a bit too often, and that's really saying something, believe me. I know way too many bad songs and bad lyrics for no good reason. That's the double-edge of a poetic mind, though, isn't it? Whether you like it or not, your brain is forced to suck it up just the same. :)

If you're interested in good folksy singer/songwriter music, I'd give his stuff a try - you just might love it. His website is http://micahplante.bandcamp.com/ and his four song EP is only 5 bucks. Definitely worth a listen.

There, now that I've shamelessly plugged my friend, I present to you my latest work, and I hope that you all, as always, enjoy.


"I know you in your poetry"


I do not know your name

Or what you are,
How you came to be

I do not know your touch or smile

But I know you in your poetry

I have swam within your ocean
I have dug the earth you’ve made
I have heard the voice inside of you

That bold and fiery bursting sound
The one that booms
Like Krakatoa
Deafening the world around

Though whenever I have seen your face
My exterior says
It has nothing to say -
Nothing to you
To your well-stitched puppet
To your flesh disguise
And its enterprise

By this I mean
To cause no strife

But my button eyes
They have looked beyond your button eyes
And have seen each and every
Nook and cranny
Each rip and tear
Each nom de guerre
Each naked secret of your life

And now they cannot help
But know
Behind this
Punch and Judy show
Lie sunlit gardens
Of your soul

And when they find these
To be more real

They cannot bear
To view you as
That dangling, awkward marionette
Still hanging from
This old vignette

I ask you then
To whisper to me
Another private minuet;
Perform a scene behind your skin

And I will journey there
With you again -
Our artful hands at rest once more
In rich, familiar fantasies

But please, no names -
They mean nothing here

No more characters, acts, or revelry

Here
Your everything is plain to me

Let nothing else escape your tongue

I know you in your poetry


- Joshua Clarke

Day 19 - "Pallas Athene"

Good afternoon, all ye blog-absorbers of the world.

It's a blisteringly hot 94-degree day outside and now that I've watered my garden and gone back inside for some mild relief from the heat, I thought maybe it would be an appropriate time to post a new poem for the day.

In other news, however, the book itself is really coming along. Only about 10 more pages to go and I'm going to start formatting it for Ebook standards which should only take oh about a century or so, considering I'm pretty rusty on my html skills - they were at their height my senior year of high school. Since then, I don't think I've written over one or two pages of html code in total. That's pretty sad. Well, perhaps not - I've since made up for it with other interesting life skills, I'd like to think, and have spent much less time in front of a computer screen. :)

Anyway, back to the poem for today: It's one I'd had on the backburner for a while in my mind, and when an opportunity finally presented itself while reading a book of Greek myths I seized on it and let the two moments collide in Pallas Athene - the goddess Athena's 'extra' name.

The conversation between the children in the poem is one of my favorite little trinkets of life I've picked up over the last few years. The lines are almost taken verbatim from a conversation I overheard on a New York subway train a few years back between a couple of 4-6 year olds. It was so priceless - so perfect - I could never forget it. And then when I came upon the story of the relationship between the goddess Athena and her mortal friend Pallas, I finally knew I'd found the perfect fit to bring the pregnant meaning in those words to life in poetic form.

There are many things we must come to grips with in our time on this earth and some of us, it seems, are almost obsessed with the "awful black spears" of this life. Somehow, I believe, it is our duty to shun these things - to shun them proudly and live as if they shall never pierce us. To exist and enjoy the happiness in every moment, and to find in ourselves not an ignorance of those facts, but a full and cheerful embracement of them, as if to say to death itself: "You're quick... but you'll have to be quicker to catch someone like me when it's time."

This we must do, if we do not wish to forever carry Pallas's skin upon each of our aegises to remind us of our careless sins. It's something I still struggle with, but this poem always comes back to remind me in the end.

And without further ado... enjoy the poem! And if you have the means, read up on some Greek mythology in your spare time. It truly captures the imagination, in so many ways.


"Pallas Athene"


A very young girl, named Athene, said to her friend,
“We are all of us going to die someday.”
And the other young girl, named Pallas, replied,
“No we are not, that’s a lie.”
And the first spoke again, saying,
“I was told by my father,
And he said that we are all of us going to die,
And that we are all of us going to die just the same
No matter what -
Even if we don’t do anything wrong.”
And the young girl named Pallas looked askance,
And then down,
And said to her friend,
“I don’t want to play with you anymore.”

And, after many long years, the girl named Pallas did die,
And old Athene bent down
And took up her name
To honor her end.

And never, ‘til then,
Was she filled with such contempt
For the ways of this world;
For the mortal delight
In carelessly revealing
The foolhardy knowledge
Of its awful, black spear.


- Joshua Clarke

Day 18 - "We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust."

Happy Independence Day everyone!

As some of you might know, the fourth of July is my favorite holiday, bar none. I don't know exactly why, though I have some reason to believe it has to do with warm weather, charcoal-grilled picnic food, swimming, and, probably more than anything else, beautiful explosions of light to top it all off at the end of the day. These are what I associate with this holiday - a day off to enjoy the summer for what it truly is: family, friends, and a good time.

This year things have changed, and not so much for the better I'm afraid. It will not be the same fourth of July that it has been for years and years on end. Still, I have at least 22 or 23 happy memories of this day throughout my life and the one thing that still gets to me, more than anything else, are those fireworks. They never seem to fade or mean anything less to me - they are forever, and the feeling never changes. When I see them pop and glow in the summer night sky I am instantly four years old again. They are simply beautiful, and nothing can take that away for some reason - no pain, no sadness, no regret or loss that I am experiencing. That is why they are special to me, and in honor of that feeling I wrote this poem. The title is a direct quote from Rumi, a 13th-century Muslim poet - he is one of my favorites and I have always loved his views on the transformation of things and the experiences and vital processes of our lives. The quote itself actually seemed almost too appropriate for the subject matter - one wonders if Rumi was looking at a display of fireworks himself when he composed that line in his mind so many centuries ago?

I wish you all a wonderfully happy and colorful fourth of July this year. May it build upon your many other priceless memories of this most perfect of holidays. :)


“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.”


Instinctively

the chest is clutched by the hand

and joyfully seized by memories of grinning childhood wonder.

The bursts of multicolored lights in the great divide

drive away all thoughts;
all words;
all of all that is, or was, or will be;

everything;
everything except the biding dark above.

We gaze up at the nothingness
in tender expectation,

and in those sudden, glorious, booming illuminations

the young one inside of us clutches at our chest with excitement.

And yet we cannot tear our eyes away
to consider what this means,

for our eyes have become the unyielding conductors of our soul.

And through the tiny keyholes in each of those doors

it crouches and stares intently, and smiles, instinctively,

in sweet, sublime puerility,

like nothing else ever was

or mattered

as much as this

skyful of enchanting fulminations.


Perhaps nothing does, or ever has, or ever will.


- Joshua Clarke

the fruits of the 6-27-11 poetry workshop led by Joe Limer

You likely don't know who Joe Limer is. He's an associate professor at Palomar College in Escondido, California. That's on the surface. Beyond that he is an extremely talented performance artist - his speciality: def poetry. I was fortunate enough to attend a quickly thrown together workshop he hosted before he returned to California this week and it produced a lot in me to think about and consider with my new and existing works - good fuel to push me over the finish line with this current book of poetry I'm finishing up in the near future.

Anyway, the first exercise was in speed writing haikus - just getting an emotion onto the paper as raw and unadulterated - and fast - as possible. I was able to grind out six in the 10 minutes we were given. I thought I'd go ahead and share them with you all - a little hors d'oeuvre for you all until my next post.

All in all, it was a great experience, and I can't wait to do something like it again. Thanks Joe - and keep up the amazing work!


'workshop haikus 6-27-11'


This is not a gift
Or perhaps there are no gifts
Until we learn to take

Hops twine up the lines
The season jogs so swiftly
I really must catch up

The morning car ride
Screams out to invite the song
I never turn one on

I pen the never
I dream the past that once was
I grasp what must be

Gain the upper hand
Shrug the weight of atlas now
Stomp upon the rest

Thou art in a glass
Color, texture, flavor, smell
Drunk on every part


- Joshua Clarke

Day 17 - "Losing the Cord"

Aye, here we all are again, say true. See us now - see us very well - restin' upon the precipice of a new poem for a new day dawning in an old world. 'Tis a feelin' that comes often, but not often enough for the likes of my own. But that's just me, I 'spose. For all the drawl of this lonely walk to the gallows, there are a few moments worth taking the time to truly enjoy, if ye find ye're well able to enjoy them, that is - do ya kennit?

Yes, as some of you might have guessed I'm being drawn in, once again, by the tales of Roland and his ka-tet in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It's one of my absolute favorite series of novels I've ever read and continues to be - it's an extremely rich mythos with an almost insurmountable mystery behind it all to contend with. That's probably what I love about it the most - that and its overall message one reaches when they finish the seventh book, especially if they decide to follow Roland all the way to the top of the Tower itself, which Mr. King cleverly and importantly gives you the choice of and elaborates on before that final chapter. He asks the reader, considering all they have read, what would it mean to take that final step alongside him? What would it mean to finally acquire the goal that we've been hankering for for over six volumes? What was it that truly stood out as meaningful, after all - the end, or the journey to the end, and what we sacrificed to get there along the way?

It's interesting, beautiful, tragic, and poetic - all rolled into one. And I obviously can't get enough of it. :) I would advise anyone who's a fan of grand, enticing, suspenseful adventure that gives even the Lord of the Rings a huge run for its money to pick up the Gunslinger and see where it leads you. Then again, that's for ka to decide.

In any case, I started this post today with the intention of actually posting a poem, so I'm going to do just that. However, the preface above actually does play a part in the poem I chose to post today. I wrote this piece when I was outside of Nags Head, North Carolina on the shoreside in the early morning, about 4:30 AM, with my friend Nick, waiting for the sun to rise on the beach. I had been reading the series at the time and had just finished the second book, The Drawing of the Three, and was starting on the third. Strangely enough, the bulk of the second book takes place on a beach near the Great Sea in Mid-World and it inspired me, coupled with the events of the book, to compose a poem right there in the dim light of the newborn day while Nick sat beside me in his beach chair having a cigarette and sipping on a bottle of some recently-purchased liquor.

I thought about the paths we take in life, the places we go, and what binds it all together. It brought back symbols and ideas I had gleaned from high school AP English class while reading and examining Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. In our analysis the character of Lucie is said to weave the "golden thread" through the rest of the characters in the novel, binding them to a better destiny and community as a whole. This idea of a "golden thread" pervading different experiences and people in life has always piqued my interest and I have since thought about it often. It's something I pull into consideration in just about every narrative literary work I come across these days, and in a way it was the main inspiration for this work. In that moment I suppose I was attempting to grasp - however unattainably - for my own "golden thread" woven by God and the fates that has since chosen who and what I am to meet in this world and why - again, another echo of the Dark Tower series. :)

So take it for what it is - it was written in passion and shall remain so - probably never to be explained fully, though I would likely be displeased with it if I was ever able to fully embrace every thought I put into it. It's the mystery of the thing with me, I guess - that's what I love about it. So take of it what enjoyment and fascination you will, and share this bit of khef with me, will ya? Long days and pleasant nights, sai Reader. See you further along down the Path of the Beam.


"Losing the Cord"


The witness nears the ocean
The sights and sounds of grandeur creep inside
Extending the vital climate of the magician’s sleight of hand
This harness grants him motion
And evergreen breezes fade as his spirit glides
Out of reach and into the breach that lies beyond the sand

and in the flash of a fire-igniting blaze
in the first gasp ever taken by the dust-becomes-man
the horizon splits
and life-becomes-death
and death-becomes-life
an awakening hits

Where we wiped the dew from our new skin
To find the narrative stretched to the brink
Encased in the milky glass, still seized by the mechanical demon’s grin
Like clockwork, slowly seeping down the sink

Therein lies the traitor
In a red-ribbed, vitriolic, patriotic stride
Confusion given preference, delusion made as powerful as wrath
No questions of war, now or later
To begin to adore the creature and choose sides
Corrupts the convolution of the institution that controls who walks its path

and in the fiercest of the billowing nights
that harbor hordes borne ready as the man-becomes-dust
the curtain rips
and tragedy-becomes-realization
and realization-becomes-tragedy
a sickness grips

Where the instant stings the witness to the senses
Of a weary traveler nearing a mass too great to explore
Suddenly reaching for the strand, now caught between past and present tenses
And finally losing the cord – finally, losing the cord


- Joshua Clarke

Day 16 - "Matar as Saudades, Or How To Write With a Broken Heart"

Good morning everyone,

I do intend to be genial and genuinely happy today in my post, though I feel I cannot post very much personal explanation for the piece. So much has occurred in my life lately - so much that is painful and difficult to mention - that I don't wish to recount it all here once again (which is why I haven't posted in a while, if any of you have been wondering why). Instead, I will let the poem speak for itself, as it is the first poem I have been able to pen since the event that has forever changed my life recently. At the very least, before I set it upon you, I will offer insight into the poem's title as well as the epigraph.

The poem's first title, "matar as saudades" is a common Portuguese phrase and means, simply, "to kill the saudades." Saudades is a beautiful Portuguese word for which there is no English translation, nor in any other language, and I will not rob you of the opportunity to discover what the word means on your own.

The epigraph is one written by a famous Portuguese 'saudadismo' and, in essence, it states:

"In reality
A man only finds himself in what he looses,
Because he embraces the space and the eternity."

I couldn't have found more perfect words. Enjoy the poem.


"Matar as Saudades, Or How To Write With a Broken Heart"


"Na verdade
Um homem só se encontra no que perde,
Porque ele abrange o espaço e a eternidade."
- TEIXEIRA DE PASCOAES

There is no instruction

No sling to hold it
No cloth to bear tears
No drink to quick-dissolve the ache

Only this, for sure: that we will sit with our pens
And think of things like,
“What strange little markings on these pages we’ve made.
And what do they mean, after all?
Fragments of ourselves -
Pieces of our hearts -
etched into tombstones of dead, bleached wood;
Epitaphs of bygone feelings, cut into manageable strips.
Distributed.
Given away to others, to take of as they will.

And this, we think,
this is what we ultimately wanted.
To have part of ourselves forever given to others,
And, to an extent, forever taken from us.”

The essence of true love
is sacrifice.

Like Adam, forced out of Eden, knew:
‘From now on, we must strive for our happiness.
It will not be given freely - never again.’

To dress our shrapnelled wounds and
Stumble through the crowds outside the Garden
We call forth lithic words of wisdom;
Capture the voices of friends within our ears;
Stitch the gifts of suffering upon our hearts;


And sit.


Just sit.

For hours, in the land of Nod.


Praying to understand the lot we cast.

Listening to the birds crying out, speaking in tongues
Through the stillness of the bleak morning air.
They sow not, reap not, nor gather in barns,
yet are fed.

The world still exists,
and will carry the birds and broken hearts along with it
Through each and every revolution.

But again, there is no instruction
This earth will turn
And you shall walk upon it, exiled
A wanderer
Without shoulder to lean on
Nor hand to clasp
Silently uttering horrible truths to your soul
You hoped you never would,
To which it shall respond, harmlessly enough,
“This pain, dear friend, is the price to be paid.”

It is then that one learns,
If we faint not at this,
That our pens still have ink to sacrifice
If our hearts can bear our hands to write
And carve new words into the dead, bleached wood
Of the generous tree, ‘neath whose shade we would slumber
In times we would die to see once more,
With a rough, mended smile, proclaiming therein, in vain:

“Set me once more upon your mantle, love;
I should be glad to be broken by your hands again.”


For Joe

- Joshua Clarke

Day 15 - "Paintings"

'Allo, all.

Today, being the last day I will see my fiancee until one or two days before the wedding in July, is a somber one for me. What I have to look forward to for the next two weeks is basically a sort of solitary confinement to my job and my bank account as well as a walk to the gallows in a sense - it is the beginning of the last few weeks I will be living in this state near my family; probably for the rest of my life. It's a lot to prepare for, and I don't feel in the least bit prepared.

I sit here in the dim kitchen this morning, wondering what it will be like to think back on this time of my life - thinking back on this place that has meant so much to me in the past - a place that I will never be able to visit again. Sometimes... it almost seems better not to think of it. Life is change. Life is growth. Life is a cycle, and the wheel must turn. Nothing will remain forever.

That is, except pictures - pictures either in our minds or on our shelves. Already I've posted another poem, "If to see such again," about that same idea. However, there is another one I have written that is similar, but with a much different tone and interpretation. Much more like a cross-section of the thought - a studied examination and hypothesis. It's about the grip of the moment - the peculiarity of making something immutable in a mutable world. It goes back to a conversation I had a while ago with a family member about an old painting in our home, and I believe it presents something very interesting about art within its lines. It is also a concrete poem - something I don't take up very often, but as a poem written about an image I thought it an appropriate choice in this circumstance; it also presents some interesting enjambment that adds to the impact of the piece in my opinion which is something I had intended from the beginning, even before I decided to make it a concrete work (Eat your heart out, Heaney and Carson). However, the spacing of the concrete-ness of the poem doesn't show up in this page's formatting, unfortunately, so you won't have to worry about it until you buy my book when it's finally published, right? :) So here it is, the fifteenth poem - the halfway mark - of our thirty days of poetry marathon. We've made it this far; may as well shove on, eh? Enjoy.


"Paintings"


Paintings
Are so much better than stories,
...you know?

Everything left to the
Dark
of your imagination.

you never know
what’s happened just before
or what’s going to happen
you don’t know
anything of anyone in it
or what they’ve gone through
to be there.

In that pose.

The world in the frame is a
Mystery
To us.

We’ll never hear their thoughts
as they stare at us and at each other.
We’ll never see their welling tears fall
to the floor from their faces.

And they’ll always be there in that moment,
...you know?

Constantly living
in that glimpse of beauty
that either
Compels them
or
Kills them
...forever.

Captured in their light.

It’s a
Lovely medium,
...don’t you think?


- Joshua Clarke

Day 14 - "Memory of a Lucid dream"

Guten Morgen, mein friends. And what a morning it is.

I feel more tired today than if I'd been out drinking all night and I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe it's the weather - muggy and supremely foggy outside as the sun continues its late-spring work of slicing through it to proclaim its daily majesty. It's triumphant return. But enough garnishment... I'm too tired for excessive verbiage at the moment.

In any sense, given this over-grogginess I'm feeling I've decided to post a poem from another time in my life when I was stuck tight in the grip of sleepiness and had a strange and interesting experience that eventually became poem-worthy. I remember it occurring at one of my old workplaces - one of those things that happens out of nowhere, in the dim, mindless hours of the early morning. Something that occurs in the twilight of consciousness that cannot be explained, as we fully wake ourselves later, wondering again and again if that was actually real or merely a dream. Whatever the case, I let it be and eventually ended up chronicling it in this work and expanding upon the feelings and thoughts it produced in me. I hope you all enjoy it for what it's worth, for now I must bid you all a fond adieu until tomorrow... alas, I'm going back to bed for a while to visit those charming kingdoms once more. :)


Memory of a Lucid dream


I opened my heavy eyes from
Sleep, or so I believed.
And what therein I
Perceived
Was some bright incandescent, and a face
Mild, yet pleasant
That turned and stole a brief moment’s
Pure, desirous essence
That I have since
Longed for to keep.

Will we remember this
One dream of a life
When our eyes are
Glazed over
With eternity’s light?

One cannot tell, but
If it be so
May we sleepers forego the
Infernal beams of lunar glow;

For the fancies we seek
are but the heathenish lore
Of Morpheus, Phantasos, and Phobetor
Who tend those charming kingdoms
For evermore.


- Joshua Clarke

Day 13 - "Fables Ex Vivo"

A good Sunday morning to you all!

Today's a bit of a busy day for me, and in keeping with my schedule I decided to post a poem that's probably something more desirable in terms of today's social climate. Something fast - something easily digestible. Something you can take one or two glances at and still receive a nugget of golden understanding. I suppose they're fairly haiku-like in nature, really, but their format is of my own invention, I assure you (unless this is some sort of poetic style I am currently unaware of). The poem in itself is six little observations I've made over time and condensed into bits that, together, form a whole. The Latin term "ex vivo" literally translates as "out of the living" or 'that which takes place out of an organism'. This is what I sought to document and raise to a level of observation far above the ordinary - ideas attached to mere moments; things to be considered in a far more aesthetic sense. All in all, I suppose that's just poetry in general. So be it. I've created poetry. Ha, think of that!

Here it is. I hope you all enjoy and have a wonderful, restful Sunday.


"Fables Ex Vivo"


1
The child gazed at a brochure in the soaking rain
And wondered
How did they make the sky so blue?


2
When it turned straight ahead to watch them
The statue’s glare
Met the salt pillars’ and wouldn’t speak their names


3
Mumbled prophecies dropped from the hand
Into the paper cup
And the suit felt death was a great idea


4
There was no reason for the markings on the stone
But in time
Their silence would evolve and breed lonely horrors


5
Younglings stroll uncertainly about the streets and
Attempt to embrace
The worth of bottles and the rattle-songs of scavenging


6
Muscled steaming animas gutted the groaning age
Shuddering through fevers
They had contracted from the coughs of golden calves


- Joshua Clarke

Day 12 - "The Curio-cart man"

Good day, eh, and welcome to day 12.
(a little Bob & Doug McKenzie for you this morning.)

Today, I'm in a pretty good poetic mood. Things are rough at the moment, but of course there are diamonds to be found nonetheless. At my new job my shift doesn't start until 10:30 so I get a little bit of free time in the morning to compose myself and kind of gear-into the work-day. True, it's pretty disgusting to have to work from 10:30 AM til 8:00 PM on a beautiful Saturday, but this is the price we pay, I suppose, for our extremely modest lifestyle. C'est la vie, eh?

Nevertheless, I've even started a new poem this morning based on some conversations I had yesterday and I am feeling rather spritely in terms of what poem I'd like to post this morning - something new, unexpected, and out of the ordinary for what this blog is used to. A real 'wake up call' this morning, as it were. :)

The second half of my book is appropriately called "Whims" and these are the poems which have more of a fantastic, fable-like, nursery rhyme-based formula to them (which is what most of my favorite kinds of poems possess in some form or another - Ray Bradbury is great at this, even in his more serious works!) This particular poem is a sweet little narrative that had taken me quite a long time to write given the strictures of the rhyme scheme and format I adopted, but in the end I think it turned out quite well. It's a poem for everyone who has ever, regrettably, become a responsible person in this life and has given way to duty and toil where childish happiness and wonder used to roam free. It reminds us that no matter how old we are or how long-lost that part of our lives feels it is still there, somewhere down inside, still patiently waiting to emerge in hopes that someday we'll realize that maybe it was the right way to be all along. Enjoy.


"The Curio-cart man"


Whatever became of the Curio-cart man
The peddler of charms in his colorful stand
Full of wares and wee trinkets
Disappeared?
Who could think it?
For his market was once high in demand

O how the young ones chased him so
And followed his wagon wherever he’d go
Begging toys and sweet vittles
While he’d tell
Them all riddles
And make their minds swim to and fro

He was glad to oblige, out parading his mart
Spouting off jolly figaries and whittling darts
Playing games like a child
While the aged
All the while
Were most eager to see him depart

Still he’d swell up the dreams of the children he met
And believe in their fancies; every one of them set
Like bright jewels in his crown
As the old ones
Would frown
On most frivolous waste they would come to regret

For what use could there be in the tending of naught
That could ever be useful beyond idle thought?
So at night they would scorn
That man had
Ever been born
And the curio-cart man had since sensed them distraught

So with most heavy heart, like many times come before
He prepared all his trappings and locked up his store
And though the children would pout
He knew time
Had run out
That if he was to bide he’d be thrown out the door

But there was part of him yearned to be there one more day
To tell just one more tale or to join in their play
To give last bits of joy
To each girl
And each boy
Who would spend most their lives in a miserable way

For he’d seen it was so in his journeys’ great stride
That men’s souls become trapped in a net they provide
Made of duties and chores
And the rest
Of life’s bores
And not long do they have to enjoy what’s inside

But from hence he did turn, and on down that old road -
The pike that leads forth from the ones we well know -
With a tune and a laugh
He’d gone on
With his path
For ‘twas never his aim to remain fixed so

Yet he’d left late in evening; a strange act to some
Though the antsy clerk knew it the best time to run
As all hopes and dear wishes
Are best left
Quite fictitious
If there’s naught left to wonder, then his craft is undone

And while most have forgotten that Curio-cart man
The peddler of charms in his colorful stand
There are old ones whose dreams
Are still within
Their means
But all hopes of their growth have long gone from this land

Though surely it wasn’t the cart and its things
That had ever been what made the youthful ones spring
It was something their own
As the man
Had well known
Though his song had been sung, he knew they could still sing

And whatever became of that silly old fool
Made no difference to those who had younglings to school
But at night in their beds
They’d still dance
In their heads
With that bright laughing fellow under mystical rule

Of a kind that’s not bounded by simplest fate -
That can never be caged by mere toils that may wait -
For deep down in our hearts
There’s a man
And his cart
Who knows that it’s never, quite ever too late

To be simple again, and live happy and free
As the child once before could now return to be
But if only in sleep
Is where he
Seems to keep
Then each night we’ll return to his sweet memory

For now we know sure what became of our dreams
And the rusty old cart on which every one leans
As we await its return
In hopes that
We might learn
That the child deep inside is wiser than he seems


- Joshua Clarke

Day 11 - "truth lives in brief moments"

I realized today, before fully finishing the title of today's blog, that I'm still following the 30 days of poetry format I started about a year ago. Obviously that failed due to lack of internet access, but for some reason I still feel like keeping up with it. In my heart, sitting here now around the same time of year as the last, I feel like I never really left off on that pursuit for some reason - that I was only detained for a while. So bear with me, folks - I promise this 30 days of poetry will come to an end this year. And hopefully within a timely fashion, so you'll be able to enjoy new poems posted nearly every day to make up for my long leave of absence.

When I was considering which poem I ought to post today, I decided to turn to something that's been on my mind very heavily lately - the auctioning-off of my family's farm. I helped build part of the house in my youth, and for the last year I've been living in it out in the country on 270 acres of meadow and forest land. I've loved it, I've worked it, I've felt it - it's become almost a brother to me, this land. To have to leave it by the end of July nearly breaks my heart, as I look out on the garden I've started and know that I will never be able to harvest it and enjoy it again. I suppose it's maybe something similar to a mother losing their child, though not as extreme of course.

In any case, separation and change in one's life is as common as the rising and setting of the sun. It's something we must expect, no matter how much stock we put in things remaining the same forever. I've found recently, through several events, that the true happiness you find in this world is within yourself, and it is to be found in every new day - every new instant. Appreciating right now - not the future nor the past, because neither of them truly belong to us. I may die tomorrow, but today I smile and I stand in the sunlight. Not always because I feel like it, but because I must. My mother would say, 'fake it till you make it' or 'laugh in spite of'. I never found those sayings appealing. I don't believe in faking, or doing things in spite of. I believe in believing in what you feel because you understand it - not fooling yourself into feeling it. Every day I strive to fully understand and know the way this world functions and to see the beauty of it, even during times that, to others, seem a downfall.

It's tough, but I'm beginning to see the method to what we may call madness is simply the gorgeous, unfathomable, unstoppable mechanism of the universe. A poet that exemplifies this ideal in his work, whom I greatly admire, is Robinson Jeffers. I wrote this poem in memory of him, and since it is in relation to an occurrence on the farm that I will soon be leaving, I thought it appropriate for today's posting. Enjoy the work, readers, and enjoy the truth that exists in the world even in the most minute happenings that we are privileged enough to witness if we but allow ourselves that brief moment of introspection. :)


"truth lives in brief moments"


In the dewy, muggy sunrise of a day in mid June,
I awoke to the sound of a tapping outside.

I then shuffled to the window and so witnessed the sight
Of a diligent young woodpecker knocking away at my porch.

My first thought was to shoo it away from my home,
But before I could move the reasons flew from my mind

For I was shown, in that moment, all the things I would tend
Would one day return to their home in this land.

And so I stood there awhile, and watched the woodpecker tap -
Tap away at my importance, my rashness… my world.

And it became rather pleasing
To see it slowly destroyed.


For Robinson Jeffers


- Joshua Clarke

Day 10 - "is carmen of mei"

Wow... it's been quite a year, ladies and gents.

I say that since my last post on this blog was about a year ago, give or take twenty or so days.

There have been many reasons for my absence - number one, of course, has been planning for my wedding and raising enough money to pay for it by working my ass off constantly at three different jobs. Another has been the Fairmont Homebrewers Club that I started way back in October that has taken a lot of my time as well. And besides that, there have also been family problems, helping my friends start their farm, this and that, on and on ad infinitum. Needless to say, I have been busy, and I do regret that I've neglected this blog for so long. There are two big reasons for that as well, however: one, I didn't have reliable internet out here in the country until about Christmas, and two, I wasn't sure if anyone was really reading this blog anyway.

But it was made clear to me, by some of my close colleagues, that there is still definite interest in this blog, so I've taken it up again and will try - despite all of the craziness that is STILL consuming my life (especially so close to the wedding taking place NEXT MONTH! yikes!) to post as often as I can.

And to be sure, I haven't been dilly-dallying, as they say around here, with my poetry. I have continued reading, and, more importantly, I have continued writing. In fact I've recently finished the introductory poem to my book that I'd been working on for quite some time - trying to find the perfect words (as all poets do, but one means or another) - waiting for them to fall into my lap on some sunny day where I had nothing better to do than abandon all pursuits, sit on my porch, and sweat over a scalding laptop keyboard.

And here are the fruits of those labors, dear friends. I hope you all enjoy the introduction to my upcoming book of poetry: "The Whispers and Whims of a Ha'Penny Bard" It's kind of a nod to poetry in general - at least, poetry that I greatly admire - as well as a mission statement and brief narrative of my journey as an aspiring, and somewhat 'half-assed' poet making his way into the big bad Western tradition of the written word. The Latin title, "is carmen of mei," roughly translates as 'this song of mine.' (Big points to anyone who can name all the references!)

So, cheers to new beginnings, I suppose - how ever many times they must occur before we finish. :)


"is carmen of mei"


I have not claimed my Innisfree
The Abyssinian maid plays not for me
My Grecian Urn has not been thrown
The daffodils have not yet grown

All through the Waste Lands I have tread
Like Don Juan, romping from bed to bed
Yet still, there in the dim, dead throngs around
Prometheus, friend of man, lies bound

But proud laurels are not what I’d wish to have worn
Great things slouching towards Bethlehem to be born
I would far rather be a creature; naked, bestial, apart
And to know why it tastes bitter, because it is my heart

I’ve known that this passion’s been burning so bright
Deep in my soul, in the forests of the night
A dark place wherein I’ve since tasted of desire
For I’ve found I hold with those who favor fire

In poetry, in life, throughout hours and days
Poured out through a pen and then kilned with a glaze
That is something half theirs and half totally ours
Just the same as a door’s not a door when ajar

And I’ve longed to produce this, my own avant-garde -
All these whispers and whims of a ha’penny bard
That span time like Crane’s Bridge, from the sweat of my brow
Though the harvest is past - I am done with apple-picking now

Yet I’ll still grasp for beauty til’ the day that I’m gone
Searching forever, a lost and muttering Endymion
To capture Selene as she seeps through the cracks
In this black and white world, wanting color it lacks

But for the opus you hold - most modest chef-d’oeuvre -
I have strove for the epic, with a bit of blah, blah
And pray that these songs I’ve composed through my youth
Will remind us of Art, so we won’t die of Truth

So go forth, poetic progeny
Run along through this world
Like bright rays of light
Heliotic daybreak unfurled

And do what you may, dear friends, may it please or offend
For at this beginning, I must come to an end
Though no end is forever - still, like dust, we shall rise
While Dickinson calls out, “There is yet another sky.”


- Joshua Clarke