pounding drums
echo down the valley
birds calm
deep breath
fog dissipates
common peril
fog follows
will it catch us
before the pass
cow grazes
on the high trail
dispiriting
glaciers glow
in sunrise orange
forge iron, not
on the ridge
falls can be lethal
worth it
Source: European Southern Observatory (via Wikipedia)
Let me step up on my soapbox,
tell you about a paradox.
Said a scientist named Fermi,
“Why’ve no aliens made the journey
to bring us a nice fruit basket
or just tell us how fantastic
it is having us in the neighborhood.”
Scientists have racked their brains
considering competing claims:
“Life is hard and smarts is harder.”
“They can’t stock a trans-galactic larder.”
“They’ve come here, but are to small to hear.”
“They are shy, out of wisdom or of fear.”
Or, simply, “They all blow’d themselves to hell.”
I, too, have had reason to ponder
why aliens stifled the urge to wander
into our little neck of the wood,
and I fear we don’t come off so good.
What if, I ask you, heaven forbid
they think of us as the smelly kid?
Are we the seatmate who won’t shut up
about his robotic barbershop startup?
Do humans come across as the kind
to ask a stranger if they wouldn’t mind,
helping us move and antique armoire
or lending us their new flying car?
So when considering whether we’re alone of device or luck,
consider the competing hypothesis that we really suck.
rounding the temple,
walking its plinth,
reading each carving
like solving a labyrinth
battles and bulls
and decrepit hulls
of ships washed ashore
demons and ogres
who’d fought foreign wars
the Tartarus deep
and gods upon high
and mythical beasts
in water and sky
there’s no way this world
could be real or true
a vacuum of cruelty
a fanciful zoo
real enough to be carved in stone
constructs of mind, known but unknown
You think you know what’s real?
That’s so adorable.
You’re adrift in a space
full of false, hard edges.
Some say it’s turtles all
the way to the bottom.
Whatever a “bottom”
is or was or may be.
You are in the third act
of a two-act play, and
everyone has gone home.
If you fall to the stage
no one will hear or feel
the waves emanating
from that false, hardwood floor.
But I understand it
feels real to you.
the washboard road
sends vehicles
into
convulsive spasms–
violent shudders
that pop the wind from passengers
&
clack teeth
&
postpone words
because all utterances become
machine-gun moans
a dust plume of raw umber
slants away from rolling tires
seen across field and savannah
smoke signal of impending visitation
barren branches
rake the sky above
tines chaotic
crow turns head
aiming its lustrous eye
pausing mid-meal
snowy silence
ends in flapping wings
then returns
cornstalk stubble
dusted in dry snow
desiccated
breath tendrils
roil into limbo
forgotten
There’s so little that I know.
Banal advice: “Don’t tell, show!”
But I’ve learned a thing or two worth learning.
Enough to feel the warmth of a dream burning.
Feel grateful more often than superior.
Feel contented more often than inferior.
Mother nature offers no free rides.
You won’t find your line by riding tides.
I’m not the best. I’m not the worst.
Though I’ve been loved, loathed, cradled, and cursed.
And known hunger, and burned with thirst.
Foot to fire, you’ll find fear a liar.
It steals will as life’s great briar.
Creature comfort is overrated.
It casts away the moment sated.
Feeling you have the right to live as me.
Is not a laudable love of the free.
It’s just personal pan tyranny.
Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali
i saw a faceless clock tower
it lacked a mouth to shout the hours
and so it was that time stood still
precariously perched upon a hill
ready for some unsteadying force
to send it on a careening course
with the hapless village below
Complete Poetical Works by Edgar Allan Poe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The title is self-explanatory with respect the book’s content. However, if one is just expecting all of Poe’s poems bound together, one may be pleasantly surprised by some relevant bonus material in the form of scenes from plays and a few essays on poetry.
The works included are divided into seven sections. The first is entitled “Poems of Later Life” and includes many of the author’s most famous works such as: “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee.” The book then follows an inverse chronological order with the section entitled “Poems of Manhood” coming next. Next there are scenes from a drama entitled “Politian” that emulates classic Greco-Roman plays. Then there are the poems written in Poe’s youth. There are two more sections of poetry with only a few pieces each. The first is the “doubtful poems’’ – i.e. poems that may or may not have been penned by Poe. The last chapter of poetry consists of Poe’s prose poems. Finally, there is a section consisting of three essays about poetry. This is a nice inclusion as it offers the reader insight into Poe’s thoughts on poetry. For example, Poe believed in a poetry Goldilocks zone. That is poems that were too long would not be able to maintain the emotional experience, but one’s that were too short would not be able to convey meaning.
I enjoyed this book. Not all the poems are of the caliber of “The Raven” by any means, but the book is insightful nonetheless, and there’s a mix of Poe’s trademark darkness with pieces that might strike the reader as decidedly uncharacteristic. As I said, it’s fun to have Poe’s essays on poetry next to his poems so that one can consider his verse in that light. The inverse chronological order provides an interesting way to view the evolution of a poet – Benjamin Button style. (Plus it offers one some strong momentum by starting the reader off with some of Poe’s most exceptional work.)
There’s a brief biography in the front of the book, and there are a surprising number of detailed notations for a collection of poetry. That’s all the ancillary matter. There are editions with illustrations, but the edition that I read didn’t have them (i.e. the version on offer from Gutenberg Project .) Amazon seems to have editions both with and without illustrations. (I don’t think they would offer much value-added.)
I’d recommend this for poetry readers and poets interested in Poe’s approach to the art.
standing under a chalky cliff
losing myself in blue sky
i felt i’d found eternal drift
and looked a myth in the eye
of beasts and blessed fury wrote
the clouds up high above
they told the tale in drift and float
of angst, and war, and love
oh, such weight did escape my bones
that i felt my feet were slipping
i would have drifted to parts unknown
had i not felt the drift forbidding
