(no subject)

[vriad_lee]

fall into a manhole tonight
and lie down there, in damp darkness
with a broken spine, for a fortnight
you're right: life is uncomfortable
it wasn't made with happy ends in mind
those happy ends, invented by ourselves.
live with a cloud in your brain, defy
all rationale
forget the days and ways in which you die

or, if you want to breathe one with the world,
become a salmon swimming up the stream,
to spawn
get caught by shaggy grizzly bear
he won't so much as tear out your guts
or eat your eyes, but maybe, bored, he will
skin you alive, such sport
and throw you back into the clear water

no doubt, you could be a samurai
and daily think of painful slow dying
make peace with death, adjust all to that thought
become a stone figure, sitting by a river,
be happy, in a kinky, desperate way

but how to reconcile that plan of yours
with early childhood visions?
to run, at noon, through singing summer fields,
and chat along with spiders, flies, and grasses

i've asked that question
for like 20 years
but nature only cried and sighed, by turns
until this day. and now,
she stares back at me with loving eyes
and mocking smile
hello, are you dreaming?
forget the days and ways in which you die

Comments

[poemtree.livejournal.com]

i had terrible dreams all night and woke up crying except the funny rhing is that i don't remember any of the dreams.

i haven't written a poem (that i liked, that is) in a long time. i like your poems, i like that you seem unrestrained. i stopped writing poetry because i became so restrained that eventually nothing came out.

[poemtree.livejournal.com]

rhing? like the sibling of rhino.

[vriad-lee.livejournal.com]

oh my god, you already got up, and i just returned from my walk, and took a bath. it was a very long walk, like five hours or something, and i took some self-shots, i'll show them to you when i get around to processing today's shoot.
when i read that comment, i thought, did she reply to that old comment of mine? it looked the same, except yours is a bit cleaned-up. you shouldn't worry: chances are you're at the most difficult stage of your life, at least, your age, plus some 5 years, seems to have been the most difficfult stage of my life, in perspective. i mean, so far

[vriad-lee.livejournal.com]

no, in fact school was much worse

[poemtree.livejournal.com]

it's 11 am, i just got up. in a minute i'm going to go have my first coffee and then i'm going to leave and go buy a book, except i don't know which one.

[poemtree.livejournal.com]

also yes please, take photos of yourself and anything else and post all of them please.

[atruestory.livejournal.com]

I've been reading lots of poetry manuscripts recently for a contest at the magazine I intern at, so slightly dreading poetry. However, I like this. There are beautiful lines, things I really like; also, the language itself is fairly straightforward and not all weighed with attempts to impress.

The stanzas don't quite seem to come together; each seems to be doing too much. Things don't all come together, i.e. the manhole occupies the first stanza (manhole being very man-made and usually found in large cities) but then the imagery becomes focused on nature, almost as though written for a different poem.

My least favorite is probably the grizzly/samon bit, maybe because I had to learn about those two in school. Sort of mythological animals, but in a boring California way (in my mind, at least; were I to actually see them I'd feel differently).

But here are my absolute favorite parts:

"fall into a manhole tonight
and lie down there, in damp darkness
with a broken spine, for a fortnight
you're right: life is uncomfortable"

"become a stone figure, sitting by a river,
be happy, in a kinky, desperate way"

"and chat along with spiders, flies, and grasses"

(That line is probably my favorite part! That stanza is my favorite stanza, I think.)

Anyway, I have no idea if any of this is interesting or helpful. I'm sad to hear you've stopped writing, especially because after seeing your interest in poetry and enjoying your photographs so much, visions of a photography/writing book dance through my head.

See, the poem in its totality just seemed like something that hadn't quite worked itself out yet (parts of it work well and other parts don't), but it made me very very curious to see more, hear the thoughts behind it. I want more images! More poems! More explanations! More more more

[vriad-lee.livejournal.com]

oh thanks so much for taking time to write all this. and yes, it's actually helpful, i needed feedback!