Steve GannTwo Poems
January 16th 2007 15:02
The Olde Debate
We share something in common
Thomas Stearns and I --
The convenience of whether
Or not to rhyme.
There is no rule
Which we feel we should apply
No determination
Hard or fast
It is more a thing of mood
(which may not last)
Of intensity
Of how best to express a thought
The emotion -- don't y'see?
The length of meter is also up for grabs
'Tho both Thomas and I would sometimes
Apply more rigour to this
And look for ways to point a rhythmic
Emphasis.
But in the end the pattern and the rhyme
Are subject to the womb of mind
Some intriguing wisp of thought
Which escapes unbid
Or so we're taught
To find it's way upon the page
To express a vision, a hope -- a passion
Or a rage! ------------------------------------------------- 23/ 2/06
Quiet Voices
There is an ironic twist
Something I cannot fathom
The reason or the dimension
I only know the voices persist.
The vision and the faces change
Flecked with the permeations of time
Lines flicker, styles are filled
With variation.
Expressions becomes smeared
Unable to survive a closer examination.
In this memory is traitorous and unable
To resist, to find a truer depiction.
The fabric on which the fragments remain
Disdain any rigorous integrity
But rather stipple it with emotion
Intensified with loss and sadness.
But through it all the voices are clear and true
Reflecting the comfort I found then
With them
and now with you. --------------------------------- 16/1/07
We share something in common
Thomas Stearns and I --
The convenience of whether
Or not to rhyme.
There is no rule
Which we feel we should apply
No determination
Hard or fast
It is more a thing of mood
(which may not last)
Of intensity
Of how best to express a thought
The emotion -- don't y'see?
The length of meter is also up for grabs
'Tho both Thomas and I would sometimes
Apply more rigour to this
And look for ways to point a rhythmic
Emphasis.
But in the end the pattern and the rhyme
Some intriguing wisp of thought
Which escapes unbid
Or so we're taught
To find it's way upon the page
To express a vision, a hope -- a passion
Or a rage! ------------------------------------------------- 23/ 2/06
Quiet Voices
There is an ironic twist
Something I cannot fathom
The reason or the dimension
I only know the voices persist.
The vision and the faces change
Flecked with the permeations of time
Lines flicker, styles are filled
With variation.
Expressions becomes smeared
Unable to survive a closer examination.
In this memory is traitorous and unable
To resist, to find a truer depiction.
The fabric on which the fragments remain
Disdain any rigorous integrity
But rather stipple it with emotion
Intensified with loss and sadness.
But through it all the voices are clear and true
Reflecting the comfort I found then
With them
and now with you. --------------------------------- 16/1/07
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Comment by David my David
Don't you just love the way the introductory spiel butchers line-breaks. *
Just popped in for a read. Your post takes me back to creative-writing-college days ... My teacher (Graeme Webster) use to tell us about the arguments he'd have with his father-in-law over rhyming-doggerel versus free-verse ...
Graeme? A free-verse man (runner up in the Newcastle Poetry Prize for 'In the Killing Pen' to Roland Leach's 'Drowning Ophelia - The Madness Poems' ... Should have been a dead-heat I reckon ...
Me? A free-verse Pablo Neruda eroto-fanatic ... (and insane to boot ... Insanity? I love it ... Only took about 46 years to get comfortable with it ... * If I believed in reincarnation, I'd swear I was Yossarian in a former life ...
David ...
Comment by JohnH
Thanks for dropping by. Neruda was reincarnated from the bones of Rilke per'aps. The trouble with dejas vus/view/vue is you never know which loop your're in. Catch 43?
I'm weeks away from enrolling at Uni of Sydney to do a combined masters. Academia and I have always had a certain grudging co-existence policy. There are certain to be conflicts, blood on the carpet and bruised egos. The merry-go-round of discipline and rigor as against the creative mage in all it's silliness. Come Chaos, ring the bell and let discord be seated where it may.
Oh to be an observer and a participant at the same time. Can I do that? Cogito ergo split tuo? Maybe I can argue with myself, win the arguement and lose at the same time. Expand the view to include you know who?
Sinks back into couch contemplating navel, which is way too visible.
John