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