Mud Wash
Tom Bishop
of hurling ghosts and sometimes murky treats
the substance of my waters and my blood
if blindness leads the mud through dim lit streets
revealing that we cannot always can
and can knots scape the pompous decks untied
the floating god of ghost and mud-clad man
of pompous watered boast the liquid rides
on blindness sees the water of the spine
as curling lines of mud define the tides
and rails on decks of death and pomp the blind
in waters yes but mud has told of pride
before the dawn unknotted ghosts and god
and dealt and diced it all and all for good
--
Tom Bishop
Tom Bishop
Audio reading:
http://truly.nu/Audio/MudWash.wav
(MS format, GSM compressed WAV, 130K)
--
Tom Bishop ,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte
Dale Houstman
"Tom Bishop" <t...@truly.nu> wrote in message
news:aei7qm$71vai$1...@ID-138561.news.dfncis.de...
I would skip the subjective. Leave "I" out of it. And then I might pare away
some of the lesser images and build it up again.
....
Dust watered down to hurtling ghosts
in substance of a blindness
with a pompous and liquid spine
defined by a tide and a rail
unknotted by the dawn
and diced by the dealer.
....
All in all, there probably isn't enough quite enough startling imagery
generated here to get too much more from it. So - IMSO - you're going to
have to generate more and pare it down again, and on and on. Your
visual/verbal puns (e.g. "god" and "good") are not very sharp, although I
understand that their inclusion might be a good sign of a new sort of
involvement. It is - above all - difficult to avoid old tendencies. I
think - in this sort of direction - you might lean less on consonance and
assonance as generators, and more on imagery and surprising jusxtapostions.
I am not quite clear yet - however - on exactly where you want to go
eventually, and I believe any advice I could give you might be more harm
than good overall. But - in general - I think you should be looking at
making the "good bits" more concrete, no matter how odd they seem. In fact,
one will have to overcome the idea of "oddity" altogether to live in such a
poetically-charged world for any amount of time. And keep an eye toward
domestic detail, allowing all strangeness to emerge from the commonplace,
otherwise one is in danger of tumbling into mere Fancy. It is hard to edit
the Ineffable without reducing it to the Inevitable, but it can be done.
Consider all texts totally permeable to change at the time of composition
and any time following. And most of all, consider the poetic as a way to a
space beyond the poem itself. IMSO, poems are mainly "forensic debris" of a
larger poetic experience that - still - is not spiritual but of the human
imagination.
Here is a short (and yet still unbearable) "essay" I composed upon the
subject of the Poetic. It is probably of no use to you...
____________________________________________________
On the Poetic
"I observe that for many. the word poetic has deep and
important
positive meanings. The word seems to be related to
surrealism in a
significant way. / I find the word deeply disturbing. I do
not like the word;.
It may represent a point where my thinking departs in a
serious way
from the thinking of others. interested in surrealism. It
may separate me
in a very significant way from whatever. that surrealism is."
The poetic is a creation of the human mind in search of its natural ground,
and as such is not superior to that mind: it is NOT a "deity" but an
instrumentation of human desire. It is a stream of shared and personal
images that may be forded by all.
The poetic is a ticket to the interaction of potential versus failure. It
maintains no power to interfere with its own movements (as we sweep it up in
our deluge) toward more life and more mindfulness.
The poetic is valuable because it is the power of the individual to
supervene in his own making or unmaking of the world about him; it is not
(as in religion) a set of rules, but an integrity of willed immersion, and
though drowned it arises from the human as light does from the solar body.
Any reverence due it pertains from reverence toward the human that is an
axiom. It appears "spiritual" only in light of our forced separation from
its natural extension: the poetic is man wresting the seat of power back
from the supernatural sickhouse of his created gods; it is the radiation of
that reclaimed sovereignty into the air about each human movement. It is a
sort of human birthright. An added and overweening sense.
There are specious and half-considered neurological studies that locate (or
appear to locate) a a seat of transcendence and connection within the
physical structure of the human brain. This has been dubbed "the God node";
however the religious use of these poetic (and thus surrealist irradiations)
is a typical power grab by society's riot control. This is little different
from the ancients who felt that epilepsy was a manifestation of the gods.
Epilepsy (which can be traced to functions in the brain also) is thus
exploited by societal pre-constrains and turned to religious significance.
As the history of such "royal diseases" proves, mindfulness and
investigation can regain the ground. Demons have their day and depart.
Religions lie in ruin.
The poetic pre-dates and shall post-date the great ages of religious
mania. We may yet see it clearly.
------
dmh
Tom Bishop
"Dale Houstman" <dm...@news.citilink.com> wrote in message news:ugqq959...@corp.supernews.com...
god <not> rhymes with good, eh?
> although I
> understand that their inclusion might be a good sign of a new sort of
> involvement. It is - above all - difficult to avoid old tendencies.
But such breakage of molds and mindsets is the only interesting thing.
No omelet without breaking something.
> I think - in this sort of direction - you might lean less on consonance and
> assonance as generators, and more on imagery and surprising jusxtapostions.
I am still attempting to fill a sonnet form, and will probably play with
this for some time.
> I am not quite clear yet - however - on exactly where you want to go
> eventually,
Well I am still trying to figure that myself, but the way I think of it
(now, with this) is that:
Still within (basically) a sonnet (though it bends/breaks that) I was attempting
to create something with as ambiguous sentence/clause /periods/ as possible,
allowing numerous possible readings based on where the reader chose
to break it. (thus no punctuation/caps).
Repetition used as a clarifying element in what might(?) be a called
an holistic reading.. (the piece taken as a whole).
Plus some basic sense of feeling from it that is supported by the
parts, but never said.
> and I believe any advice I could give you might be more harm
> than good overall.
I ain't as much of a robot as people may think. I am extremely new
to ALL of this, and dabbling/playing with everything I can find.
I enjoyed this, and reading it (as a reader) I am drawn in,
and prompted to continue in the directions I have taken.
> But - in general - I think you should be looking at
> making the "good bits" more concrete, no matter how odd they seem. In fact,
> one will have to overcome the idea of "oddity" altogether to live in such a
> poetically-charged world for any amount of time. And keep an eye toward
> domestic detail, allowing all strangeness to emerge from the commonplace,
> otherwise one is in danger of tumbling into mere Fancy.
Think I see this.. I would phrase: I still have an underlying /intent/
(feeling, message, whatever) and am not just stringing random words
together. I DON"T want to go there. But then too, the audience gets more
rare even going to this extreme. Since even "Granite Grasses" /didn't make
sense/ to someone (comment on another NG).. and it was much more concrete.
> It is hard to edit
> the Ineffable without reducing it to the Inevitable, but it can be done.
This definitely needs some editing, and I will work with it.
> Consider all texts totally permeable to change at the time of composition
> and any time following.
I do, but most of what I am doing is so new to me, that it is easier
and/or more profitable to move on to something else.
> And most of all, consider the poetic as a way to a
> space beyond the poem itself. IMSO, poems are mainly "forensic debris" of a
> larger poetic experience that - still - is not spiritual but of the human
> imagination.
The triggers of the mind don't need to be spiritual (and I reject literal
spiritualism, but images of god and ghosts move me as well as those
of spiritual literalists).
I keep trying to bring up Julian Jaynes here, but no one will take the
bait.. oh well.
Thanks for your comments, hope you can help me along in some way
with this, because apparently most are not interested.
>
> ------
> dmh
--
Tom Bishop ,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways
that won't work." - Thomas Alva Edison
Dennis M. Hammes
>
...
> eventually, and I believe any advice I could give you might be more harm
> than good overall. But - in general - I think you should be looking at
> making the "good bits" more concrete, no matter how odd they seem. In fact,
> one will have to overcome the idea of "oddity" altogether to live in such a
> poetically-charged world for any amount of time. And keep an eye toward
> domestic detail, allowing all strangeness to emerge from the commonplace,
> otherwise one is in danger of tumbling into mere Fancy. It is hard to edit
> the Ineffable without reducing it to the Inevitable, but it can be done.
> ------
> dmh
Pretty good essay.
What he said, Tom.
You encounter an accident here recently: I happen to be working
on a sonnet sequence, and right now not much else.
About a year ago, more, I wrote 500 haiku in 30 days, and I'd
rather you'd tripped over that. Basho' especially could suggest the
whole universe by careful selection of the commonplace -- and
usually without saying anything /about/ it. Just "this, and this."
I, however, like he, see nothing wrong with reducing anything
including the Ineffable to inevitability; I happen to think it's the
essence of lasting poultry. And since carbon is gonna be around
relatively forever, I figger things made of carbon (etc.) are pretty
inevitable. So are their verbs.
Since some of the verbs are rather more complex than ca. 14
syllables allow (that's what makes carbon interesting, after all), I
try to use the octave and sestet of a sonnet to say "this, and
this." Call it "experimental," but it's been known to work.
--
------(m+
~/:o)_|
We sonneteers have archaic
and Edith.
http://scrawlmark.net
Tom Bishop
"Dennis M. Hammes" <scraw...@arvig.net> wrote in message news:3D0D7FE4...@arvig.net...
> Dale Houstman wrote:
> >
> ...
> > eventually, and I believe any advice I could give you might be more harm
> > than good overall. But - in general - I think you should be looking at
> > making the "good bits" more concrete, no matter how odd they seem. In fact,
> > one will have to overcome the idea of "oddity" altogether to live in such a
> > poetically-charged world for any amount of time. And keep an eye toward
> > domestic detail, allowing all strangeness to emerge from the commonplace,
> > otherwise one is in danger of tumbling into mere Fancy. It is hard to edit
> > the Ineffable without reducing it to the Inevitable, but it can be done.
> ...
> > ------
> > dmh
>
> Pretty good essay.
>
> What he said, Tom.
I'm listening, and we are talking on the side, perhaps collaborating.
> You encounter an accident here recently: I happen to be working
> on a sonnet sequence, and right now not much else.
> About a year ago, more, I wrote 500 haiku in 30 days, and I'd
> rather you'd tripped over that.
You posted many recently (noticed a big gap), read some.. (oh my eyes,
not to mention fingers.. this is harder than programming 'puters)
> Basho'
..yes, easy google, least for a survey.