"You got a fast car, but is it fast enough so we can fly away?"

Updates have been lacking due to this past and current week being finals week/s.  However, this morning I was looking for an old poem to read again and, searching for it on the blog, I realized that I never uploaded it.  It must have been written during one of my long non-posting periods.  In any case, it is a poem that I am currently feeling so I'll post it up now.  Sometimes it is comforting to read something old that documents a place that can otherwise be hard to remember.

This one was written during the week in Israel.  We were staying in a kibbutz named Nof Ginosar (not rhyming with Dinosaur, sorry Claire), translating roughly (if memory serves) to "The Prince's Garden", which I guess was an old name for the region.  It was on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and the scene described below happened pretty much as transcribed.  The guide had been telling us about Tiberius' history that day, but I have to credit Reez for the image of Tiberius at night as a rack of votive candles.

It has a sincerely strange rhyme-scheme, though it was quite a late hour so perhaps I wasn't trying for one.  I should definitely try to write something in this or a similar scheme again though... for funzies.  The scheme is: abbc abbc deeffg

It is also written roughly in dactylic trimeter (ending regularly with an extra stressed syllable), with a few lines starting with an extra unstressed syllable.

"The Window of Nof Ginosar" -3/12/07

The Lord woke me up at a quarter-to-five,

Calling from outside the window to me,

Speaking of faith and of storms on the sea,

And Christ in the sailboat, appearing to sleep.

Then I, for an hour, proceeded to strive,

Struggling to learn of this great mystery,

Thinking of faith like the storms on the sea:

A faith that’s unmoved as the Galilee Deep.

Oh distant Tiberius, built on the dead,

Can branches still grow from the root that you hide?

Burning like candles across the far side

And drawing my eyes to the twinkling span:

A lake bearing footprints of God and of Man.

Oh votive Tiberius, pray for us.

"We gotta make a decision: we leave tonight or live and die this way."

-L

"In our darkest hours we have all asked for some angel to come sprinkle his dust all around..."

A perhaps little-known fact: Freshman year I had General Psych with... I no longer remember his name but he was Polish.  In any case, every class he presented us with his typed notes, usually a 20-30 page bundle. For each class.  So, even though most of the information was so basic that I didn't need the notes, I saved them for use as scrap paper rather than throwing them out.  I put them in the back of my archive folder so, with the exception of the Metaphysics poetry, most of what I've written since has been on the back of these notes. It sometimes yields an interesting subtext and, this past time, inspired a little introspection.

The previous poem (see post below) was written on the last page of a study guide, and the title of this current poem is the last question from that guide. I realize that it's long, and a somewhat pretentious thing to name a fourteen-line poem, but I wanted to include the full context of what spawned my subsequent meditation.

This one has two Shakespearean quatrains and an Italian sextet.  I like the first quatrain a lot. I have been trying to break my habit of ending sentences or phrases with linebreaks because I think that it, overall, makes for a more interesting, less stilted sound.  I only really managed that in the first one though.  The quatrains flowed without much difficulty, but the sextet was harder.  In part because I wasn't sure how well it fit with the quatrains thematically (although it followed fairly directly in my mind) and in part because it was simply something that was hard for me to write.  But you all know what to expect from me by now.

"72. Define similarity, closure, continuation and nearness as they pertain to perception." -3/11/09

I came at You with eyes flung open wide.

With elbows locked, I felt around for such

a thing as curled fingers may abide,

but I found nothing dead enough to touch.

I came at You as if You were a thought.

I tried to box You in with ev'ry tool

but, when I looked inside the cage I'd wrought,

found nothing dead enough to heed my rule.

I'm told that You are close to me in kind:

that I, from clay, was in Your image set.

But You're a spirit that I cannot see,

a word that will not fit inside my mind

and, worst of all I have not uttered yet,

a Father who so scarce resembles me.

"Cause this is nothing like we'd ever dreamt, tell Sir Thomas More we've got another failed attempt..."

-L

"Fight to the death, I'll see you in the next life..."

Welcome to Insomnia Theatre.

I have, as usual, had a final line floating in my head for the past several days, just waiting for some idea of how to reach it.  Often my poems start from the end like that. The self discovery found in the process of writing is not what conclusion I'll arrive at but rather the realization of how I arrived there.

In any case, after about 40 minutes of lying wide awake last night (was it the time-change? Who knows...) I got an inkling of a first line.  After rolling over a few times and trying not to think about it, I got up and scribbled it in the dark before jumping back into my bed. Which I exited not many minutes later, trapped by the fact that a first line begets a second.  So that's the story behind this one.  Luckily, it didn't take long and I was in bed again within about twenty minutes, able to fall asleep.  I wonder if perhaps the fact that I don't allow myself much interior time during the day results in this racing brain syndrome after I turn out the lights and everything is finally quiet. I swore that I was going to force myself to reflect more this Lent. So far, I haven't done much.

This is a somewhat irregluar sonnet. The octet is in Shakespearian format (abab, etc) except that I reversed the order on the second quatrain to attempt to duplicate the beatiful 4th-5th line transition in an Italian/Petrarchan quatrain (abbaabba). I'm not sure if this moment strikes you like it does me, but it seems like there is always this moment of transcendance when, finished with a quatrain, you hear that "a" rhyme again right after. It's like a second volta. It's like the moment that you reach the top of the hill and, after going up for a while, first feel gravity begin to pull you down.  So, in any case, that's the effect that I was going for.  The sextet is in a typical Italian form (cdecde), and even has a proper volta! I was so proud of myself. Okay. I realize that few of you read this paragraph, because it was fairly dense. But hopefully the Lit majors at least appreciated it. My point was that, in an attempt to duplicate the effect of the center of an "abbaabba", I made a "ababbaba" and I think it worked out pretty well.  The title is, as ever, my spectral fifteenth line.

"... Then find myself a craven thing, a snail." -3/09/09

So ready to betray, the fearful heart,

Which finds itself unable e'er to bend.

And so, although it once was coaxed to start,

So ready finds itself to make an end.

It finds no bond to hold it in a friend,

For self-protection is its given art.

And so, when challenged, rather than defend,

At soonest sign of danger it will part.

This story, told in third, tells not as well

As that which, told in first, would sure excite

Emotions suiting truth within a tale.

The truth is: though You braved the Scorn of Hell,

I fear that I myself would lack the might;

I flee when "in this sign" I think I'll fail...

All in all, I think that this is the first thing that I've written in over a year that just flowed without feeling forced and, in fact, without respect for my sleep schedule. I think that's why I've been writing so much about the process of writing it. It just feels so good to get a dash of inspiration again, whatever the merits of the product.

"With a dull blade, could take all night."

-L

"There's no place on Earth I can hide from the wrong I've done..."

I am not entirely sure how this one turned out... Any of those reading it: I need your opinion regarding the final sextet. When I started, all I had were the final two lines, which were in iambic quadrameter, so I decided to do a quint-quad-quad (x2) format for the sextet.  What I need to know is: when you read it aloud to yourself, does it sound good? Or stilted?

EDIT: Based on my judgement, I changed the sextet to petrameter and have therefore changed the poem in this post.

In any case: this is Lenten. I sat down and made myself write it so, by nature, I am somewhat unsatisfied with it. It seems like, thematically, the first quatrain doesn't entirely mesh with the second. But in any case, I may change it later, but here it is.

"... but as I give the order, shed a tear." -3/02/09

Your eyes, like Circe, change a man to beast.

I've stared in, long and deep, and every time

The sacrifice I make may seem the least,

Forgetting: ev'ry compromise is crime.

I heard a voice today from wilderness;

I heard today the voice of locusts talk,

With honey on his tongue bade me redress:

He bade me to the Jordan River walk.

So I must weigh the things that I hold dear.

Although before I'd lose you I'd be dead,

Because of this I know I'll ne'er be free.

I know myself, and this is what I fear:

I'd freely give you John the Baptist's head

If ever you should deign to dance for me.

"... All or what little pleasure exists, seductively sold and uselessly mine."

-L