(First Light over Canaan Valley, WV - where I grew up)

(First Light over Canaan Valley, WV - where I grew up)

Saturday, July 30, 2011

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

Monday, July 11, 2011

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

Monday, July 4, 2011

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