If I were a soliloquy

[imaginary friend]

What beautiful dream imagery Violet – the plucking of heart strings made tangible and illuminated with a warmth from within!

I like to think that the thrill experienced when something is 'realized very deeply', is a physical experience of truth...

XO

[Violet]

.. yes, that image of the luminous sheet music, and the harp strings, which I came to recognize in the dream as my "heart strings." I don't know.. there are these glimpses sometimes into aspects of "truth" or reality.. or.. our own "being," I guess.. but they can be so incredibly powerful, and elicit such depth of feeling. It's rather startling almost that we are so close to such great beauty, and yet it's usually hidden from us.

.. thanks for your thoughts, I.F..

v. xx x



much later edit: re-thinking the double-ellipses. [laughter]

[Violet]

[poem removed]

[Violet]

Cate, I saw you posted this in another section, and thought to paste it in here, along with Hamlet's speech [to his actors] afterwards.. [which my mind immediately went to with this] Alhough Hamlet is less generous as concerns his conception of his audience.. [yet somehow I think there may be room for agreement on this] [after all is said and done, I mean]


HOW TO SPEAK POETRY

Take the word butterfly. To use this word it is not necessary to make the voice weigh less than an ounce or equip it with small dusty wings. It is not necessary to invent a sunny day or a field of daffodils. It is not necessary to be in love, or to be in love with butterflies. The word butterfly is not a real butterfly. There is the word and there is the butterfly. If you confuse these two items people have the right to laugh at you. Do not make so much of the word. Are you trying to suggest that you love butterflies more perfectly than anyone else, or really understand their nature? The word butterfly is merely data. It is not an opportunity for you to hover, soar, befriend flowers, symbolize beauty and frailty, or in any way impersonate a butterfly. Do not act out words. Never act out words. Never try to leave the floor when you talk about flying. Never close your eyes and jerk your head to one side when you talk about death. Do not fix your burning eyes on me when you speak about love. If you want to impress me when you speak about love put your hand in your pocket or under your dress and play with yourself. If ambition and the hunger for applause have driven you to speak about love you should learn how to do it without disgracing yourself or the material.

What is the expression which the age demands? The age demands no expression whatever. We have seen photographs of bereaved Asian mothers. We are not interested in the agony of your fumbled organs. There is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horror of this time. Do not even try. You will only hold yourself up to the scorn of those who have felt things deeply. We have seen newsreels of humans in the extremities of pain and dislocation. Everyone knows you are eating well and are even being paid to stand up there. You are playing to people who have experienced a catastrophe. This should make you very quiet. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Everyone knows you are in pain. You cannot tell the audience everything you know about love in every line of love you speak. Step aside and they will know what you know because you know it already. You have nothing to teach them. You are not more beautiful than they are. You are not wiser. Do not shout at them. Do not force a dry entry. That is bad sex. If you show the lines of your genitals, then deliver what you promise. And remember that people do not really want an acrobat in bed. What is our need? To be close to the natural man, to be close to the natural woman. Do not pretend that you are a beloved singer with a vast loyal audience which has followed the ups and downs of your life to this very moment. The bombs, flame-throwers, and all the shit have destroyed more than just the trees and villages. They have also destroyed the stage. Did you think that your profession would escape the general destruction? There is no more stage. There are no more footlights. You are among the people. Then be modest. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Be by yourself. Be in your own room. Do not put yourself on.

This is an interior landscape. It is inside. It is private. Respect the privacy of the material. These pieces were written in silence. The courage of the play is to speak them. The discipline of the play is not to violate them. Let the audience feel your love of privacy even though there is no privacy. Be good whores. The poem is not a slogan. It cannot advertise you. It cannot promote your reputation for sensitivity. You are not a stud. You are not a killer lady. All this junk about the gangsters of love. You are students of discipline. Do not act out the words. The words die when you act them out, they wither, and we are left with nothing but your ambition.

Speak the words with the exact precision with which you would check out a laundry list. Do not become emotional about the lace blouse. Do not get a hard-on when you say panties. Do not get all shivery just because of the towel. The sheets should not provoke a dreamy expression about the eyes. There is no need to weep into the handkerchief. The socks are not there to remind you of strange and distant voyages. It is just your laundry. It is just your clothes. Don't peep through them. Just wear them.

The poem is nothing but information. It is the Constitution of the inner country. If you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. You are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest kind of appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. Think of the words as science, not as art. They are a report. You are speaking before a meeting of the Explorers' Club of the National Geographic Society. These people know all the risks of mountain climbing. They honour you by taking this for granted. If you rub their faces in it that is an insult to their hospitality. Tell them about the height of the mountain, the equipment you used, be specific about the surfaces and the time it took to scale it. Do not work the audience for gasps and sighs. If you are worthy of gasps and sighs it will not be from your appreciation of the event but from theirs. It will be in the statistics and not the trembling of the voice or the cutting of the air with your hands. It will be in the data and the quiet organization of your presence.

Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you're tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty.

Leonard Cohen
Death of a Lady's Man



HAMLET:
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
as many of your players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget
a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to
very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who
for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such
a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it
out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion
be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the
word to the action; with this special o'erstep not
the modesty of nature: for any thing so o'erdone is
from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the
mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
censure of the which one must in your allowance
o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be
players that I have seen play - and heard others
praise, and that highly - not to speak it profanely,
that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
nature's journeymen had made men and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

O, reform it altogether. And let those that play
your clowns speak no more than is set down for them;
for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to
set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
too; though, in the mean time, some necessary
question of the play be then to be considered:
that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.


William Shakespeare (1564-1616) - HAMLET




much later edit: just the double ellipsis thing, at the outset.

[Violet]

Inside this purple flesh


I rode in darkness, the
orchid still clinging
to my breast;

his knowing fingers
having
found me

there

(inside its folds; inside
this purple

flesh)


v i o l e t



much later edits: spacing.

[Cate]

This is lovely ... quiet and sensual. It feels a bit haunting.

My dear V … if you were any other flower then a Violet it would surly be an orchid (one with beautiful purple markings)

interesting hamlet observation btw

xx
cate


psss.... Violet - there was another poem here this morning about a muse. I only had one reading but it looked interesting, I hope it finds its way back again when it's ready

[Violet]

.. thanks for the poem appreciation, Cate. I guess I might have chosen the name Iris.. but.. well, with Violet you get the color and the flower all in one. It's a real bargain, in that sense.

.. it's another dreary rainy here.. [sigh].. need to get back to work, I guess.. [try to save the world].. [Leonard, my love.. you're rather a huge distraction for me. I hope you appreciate that]

v. x

.. wonder where the muse poem went to.. [would have liked to have seen it]

[geoff+evans]

Hi Violet - you sounded a bit down the other day (in your comments above in Daddy's Little Princess).
Soooooooo - I wrote a few words for you.....
I'm a bit rough and not a poet and don't know what a soliloquy is (apologies)......
I know what a song is though.... so hope you find this an amusing distraction........

If You Were A Song (A poem to amuse Violet)
(Geoff Evans - August/2011)

If you were a song
What words would I sing
Would they be sweet on my lips
Or could they taste sad
Long as it’s your song
My soul will be glad

If you were a song
What tune would I play
How about a love song
A romantic refrain
The sound of your rhythm
Drives my body insane

If you were a song
In what key do you play
Teach me how you start
Show me how you end
Your beat soft or strong
Loving verses short or long

If you were a song
I’d play you all day
Try different rhythms
Play you in different ways
My touch would be gentle
My love for always

[Violet]

.. my god, that's terribly sweet, Geoff.

.. you know, I'm not sure I've ever been "wooed" before. I seem to have the job as the woo'er. The wounded woo'er.

anyway, thank you. And yeah, I'm kind of in hell right now.. so.. need to get back to that.

v. x

[geoff+evans]

Hi Violet, I'm kind of new to this fantastic LC forum.
I have read with interest your 'blogs' on here .... I wish i had your use of the English language.
I'm a bit of a rough singer/songwriter type not really a poet (as you've seen)

Hey don't be down ....
time is too short
life is too precious
... and violet's are far too sweet

Leonard if you're reading this .... how about a poem or a message for this amazing woman???

ps I'm married by the way V so my wooing days are long over....
Can't afford another divorce and yet more scandal about my amorous adventures....

....kindest regards from Mumbles, Swansea, Wales UK xx

[Violet]

Can't afford another divorce and yet more scandal about my amorous adventures....

....kindest regards from Mumbles, Swansea, Wales UK xx

you're an [ex]divorcee?.. with a scandalous reputation??.. AND you're a Britster???.. You'll fit right in, Mumbles. [welcome aboard]

v. x

[geoff+evans]

thank you kind lady.... I am a Britster .... but Welsh .... a lot more emotional and earthy.....you'll have to google Wales maybe?
It's a wet, rainy afternoon here by the sea in the land of the red dragon... probably mid morning with you in the land of hope and dreams...
..... have a good one V

[Violet]

.. I've just sent driving directions to my "crazy cuz" who's coming up here today.. to this lake region north of Gotham. [where my broken-down country estate is located] I'm hoping my directions are not what he deemed "poetic" last time. [I thought to use the other side of my brain, in other words]

.. yes, I'm aware of this manner of Welshness.. I found out that my sir name, though Scottish, hails from Wales, actually.. and so it seems I have that in me too.

.. have a fair weekend too, Geof--uh, Mumbles..

v. x

.. I realize I'm now in a conundrum over 'hale' and 'hail'.. but am going with 'hail'.. [just looked it up, it seems I'm right] [for a change].. [oh, so I continue to "hail from Wales"]

[okay, in reading another thread of yours, is "Mumbles" a region?] [I thought it made a cute name, actually]