Starlight

I wish

I were made of starlight

Barreling across the cosmos

I would graze the surface of earth

Like a flesh wound and

All the people in their big

Cities and fancy cars

Would finally move

Slowly like glacial fragments

Complimenting their

Arctic personalities and I would

Walk amongst them with a

Spectral presence like a shard of the sun

Refracted by the gaze of a few

Warm enough to notice me like

Déjà vu appearing twice

Within the same nanosecond

Before moving on.

Of Rained on Reason & Cloudy Eyes

Buildings wear fog

Like hats on their heads &

Each breath floats like
Ghosts in the cold

Crumpled expressions

On people who pass

That these street lamps
Unmask with their glow

Waterlogged traffic

Whines as it creeps

Along the sleek ribbon road &

The air has been steeped in

The grayest of grays; but

My, what a beautiful day.

Softly the dragging

On sagging eye lids

Edgeless and easy

The weightless mind is

Simple and sated and

Full and inflated with

Bliss

Blue Grass

The grass isn’t greener 

On the 

Other 

Side. 

It’s bluer 

Because 

You aren’t 

There 

Yet. 

Figurative Food

Once upon a time

My mind became a mashed potato

And I fell asleep in peanut butter

Only to dream of bacon bits

(The non-artificial kind)

And my greasy fingers failed to grasp

The passing powdered donut

That rolled on in a rather relaxed manner

Only to disappear behind the oxtail soup,

Which wafted the delicious odor of onions

Through the

Abnormally arbitrary airspace

Where adverbs and adjectives

Had use and meaning

and relevance and reason.

So I found myself using words
Like volant and volubly

Until the overproduction

Of thoughts

Distilled a decadent mental vodka

Which I poured out of my
eye sockets
into shot glasses for myself

and the powdered donut which

I had intended to find and befriend

For further adventures in this

Autonomous airspace

Poetry response dump 2

Unfortunately I feel the same way about X.J. Kennedy’s piece as I do about Hirsch’s. Except this time its worse. The piece is much shorter but also much more convoluted. The words are so roundabout that the image offers a restful alternative. And unlike the previous poem, there is no obvious insight about the painter and his relation. It is purely imagistic which almost seems like a redundancy when there is an actual image not two inches from the words. The immediate context is too much a competitor for the poem because after reading it a second time while covering the image, I find it quite nice. The title alone is enough to provide the context.

My favorite part about Robert Kelly’s Love Songs was the way he expressed a penchant for the ordinary. I find the counterintuitive nature of it to be appealing. The ordinary is overlooked, but Kelly calls us to revisit and even rediscover that which we take for granted. I could have done without the first two lines though. Not knowing at first what grunions are, I read on to find the poem open to interpretation. However after looking this word up the poem dulled ever so slightly and I moved on to “Love Song 2.” I didn’t like it as much as the first sans the grunions, but it was the same idea expressed in a more familiar way; more easily identifiable.

I’m at a loss for Wallace Stevens’ poem. I have no idea what its about and find nothing particularly interesting about it save the tigers and baboons. The accompanying video, although I do not like supplemental stimuli in addition to poetry, does shed some light on it, suggesting the piece is about dreaming. However this is only a suggestion and a slight one at that. Because even if this were the case that would lead me to assume that the title is implying disappointment that people are all the same in their dreams and only this one old drunk guy has interesting dreams or ideas about his head. I don’t feel like them poem stands on its own.

I feel like I should apologize to Mr. Williams, as I lost interest after the first line. His poem offered nothing the painting did not already have. It seemed more like a literary exercise for himself than an actual poem. I wish he had given his own parable of the blind for us readers to take something new from. The poem directly references the painting more so that the other poems and without the painting there you don’t know what he’s talking about but tragically with the painting there, you have no use for the poem. All his words have already been composed into brush strokes. I would normally expect words to overpower an image but this case is the opposite.

The thing that struck me first about “Ghost in the Land of Skeletons” was that it had structure like prose yet was wholly poetic. Although its imagery was not too enticing, the insight and train of thought were beautiful. I am immediately grabbed by the description in the first phrase; “flesh’s pretty paint.” It lends itself to the other ideas in the poem making it seem as if bones are what make us human and the skin is like a vinyl decal. Through the middle of the poem, we stroll through the poet’s thoughts as he leads us to a conclusion that is truly like a punch line. Not so much in that it’s almost like a dark joke but more in the sense that it really has an impact and leaves an impression

Poetry response dump 1

For me, “Jungle” was a “last line poem;” its significance and weight are hinged upon the last line, “A jungle has not heart. The core of it is to be more.” I found the preceding lines a bit confusing in their syntax and spacing. I wasn’t sure how it was supposed to be read or supposed to sound. Perhaps it was to convey the chaotic environment of a jungle, but I think the image could have been simpler or pertained more to the last line. The last line however really resonated with me. It had a very distinct image and feeling about it, likening a jungle to a sort of biological vacuum that consumes its surroundings in order to grow.

The explanation accompanying The Cuban Doctor really helped my understanding of it making it more insightful. I found the mixture and comparison of cultures interesting. The title is ambiguous and the explanation at the bottom does little to elucidate however I suspect the title is the key to understanding the poem. I think the “Cuban doctor” is referring to shaman who induces a spiritual journey resulting in the imagery and insight of the poem itself. The trip opens his mind to the analysis of these concepts and comparison on a poetic platform

Naked girl with a mirror

This poem was one of the most beautiful ones so far. The descriptions in the first stanza grabbed me immediately only to build upon my initial amazement. As it unraveled the insight of the poem really spoke to me. For me, it referenced a few concepts that I myself have been contemplating, such as the separation of or distinction between the body and soul. The variation of emotions within the poem gave it an almost musical quality, between joy and bewilderment, a retrospect on simplicity and a prospect of sadness. The author truly expresses a facet of the human condition

This poem felt pretty anticlimactic. The list structure was a good build up, but there was no release and perhaps it was intended through the wording of its conclusion, but it failed to leave me with a lasting impression. The description of the hand in all its parts was vivid and made me want to look at my own hands in a new way, but which way? The poem failed to strike me with an insight or even entice me towards one. Instead I would like to have seen this poem as pure image. A poem about all the different ways to look at hands rather than the list of what a hand is not leading up to nothing in particular.

I think it would’ve been interesting to read “Edward Hopper and The House by The Railroad” without a visual. I can’t imagine all the other people who happened to read this poem having such a specific and immediate context for it. It’s a bit dampening to the strength of the poem. The visual acts as competition and the poet’s words become arguable. It is unfortunate because the narrative of the poem is quite interesting. It depicts a colorful interpretation of not only the specific elements of the painting, but the painting itself and its relationship to the painter as well. Yet the poem seems lengthy next to the accompanying picture. If all this text is about this picture, why would I want to read all that? Why wouldn’t I just look at the picture and take from it what I will? But alas it is the words I am responding to not the picture.

Spontaneous Combustion

As if I were made

Of cotton fiber flesh

And blood like kerosene,

With Sulfuric skin cells

And phosphorous fingertips

I might explode at any moment.

Comfortably combustible,

I’m a calm collected casualty,

A meandering mishap

With tragic topography.

Friction finds me frequently

And I detonate on cue

Reduced to ashes in a flash

Only to be born anew.

Recurring like a sunset &

Still frighteningly flammable

Looking for a friction fix

To be again intangible.

I’d fight a phoenix for its flame

Then steal its symbolism

And wear it on my chest to

Cauterize my cynicism &

Rise up like the dawn

Freshly bright in bloom

Eternally ascending to

The advent of afternoon

Definitions

Definitions
by logic are boxes &

Ingestion
may prove to be toxic so

Please make your proceedings with caution.

The eardrums beat words
through due process &

The system may make a synopsis but

This knowledge
Is just theory in progress.

Samsara

A fool, a philistine

And a marionette

Tied together with tension twine

Bent nerve endings

Welded and mended

Structural function

Composite contentment

Spur the sentient chordophones

Strung up and cobbled

With chromosomes

Dining out on dopamine

These fancy little figurines

Who dance with dice

The size of life &

Pave their ways with

Broken things

Found poem

Flores?

Flores.

Eu gosto de flores.

I’d be lost

Without my friends

Especially the ones

I’ve never met.

Wavelength like string

Sanctuary on the edge

My brain does not

Feel feebler these days

immediate haiku

Crisp red Flower sails

Past noontide moon’s reflection

Rippling smooth surface

Incense Haiku

Shadow of smoke plumes

That Crawl along the walls like

Fragrant midday ghosts