If I were a soliloquy

[Violet]

I don’t always know where my love poems derive from. Sometimes it's something very specific.. sometimes not--or it's a combination of things.

Anyway, I am happiest when I feel I don’t know where I am.. as if a foreign language were pouring forth. I think too it’s to try to inhabit that space in the psyche that is a part of some unknowable dimension in ourselves.

.. actually, I’m remembering now that one of the first comments made to me here a couple of years ago when I first starting posting was from Mat -- and you told me, Mat, that my writing was part of this tradition whereby the speaker is conversing with the God within, in a sense.. or, that the beloved is in part that. I do feel that sometimes.



much later edit: having made my introduction, I'm removing the poem for further revising.

[Violet]

[poem removed]

[Violet]

.. okay.. I guess I have to stop this. I mean, I've never actually started writing my poems at this place. Usually, I'll write a poem on my desktop, then paste it in when I think it ready. But what I've been doing with these last two poems is sort of like drinking and driving.. it's unwieldy, to say the least.

.. anyway, with this poem, I am in hell. It is Rhythm Hell.. (there's this special place in hell involving rhythm).. so..

In Shakespeare he'll have iambic pentameter, then break with it with a new thought.. a new rhythm. But I'm feeling I'm breaking with the rhythm here almost at every turn, and so it's nearly impossible for the reader to follow, I think.. and so I'm trying to pull out more its rhythm with the changes I'm now making. We'll see how it goes.

.. actually.. I think I'm taking this back to Santa's workshop for a while. I'm tired.. and it seems only to be getting worse at this point.

[wow: a writer's cliff hanger]


much later edit: again, the double ellipsis thing.

[Violet]

.. oh, to all those watching this thread's action-packed episodes with avid interest.. I am presently, as per above, in writer's hell.. (might we blame hubris??)..

[Violet]

[poem removed]

[Violet]

.. oh.. as to “hubris”.. this very word came up at the end of this documentary I was watching tonight on Edward Albee. He said a writer has to have hubris, or what’s the point?.. (something to that effect) And I liked very much his saying that. I mean, honestly, why should we ever write a thing given the literary history preceding us? Well, now I understand that it is indeed a matter of hubris that we do so. However, I still plan on writing poems on my desktop first, before posting them--I mean, there's hubris, and then there's sheer idiocy.

.. this next poem may also have some rhythm issues. I seem to have these old fashioned cadences in me that I'll push this way and that. Here it’s the second stanza where maybe I’m pushing things too far.. and yet, it adds some form of "pressure" almost that I seem to be drawn to.. but.. well, whatever works, as these things may not always pan out.

.. anyway, I wrote this earlier in the evening with a sad and lovely grey-heathery sky out my window.. (oh, in the direction I always imagine to be towards the sea)



Fallen muse


This time of night I view the sky
as not yet fallen

though I’ve no dreams
of ever losing you

sweetness, a somber bird is
calmly calling

a lovely muse that sings.


God, I have might, and this
ferociousness betimes of mind (thus

torn)

as heather clouds
do sooth;

and you alight
somewhere midst din
and music,

they raise a glass,
perchance,

and stand amused.


Though comes this
nighttide

where these sullen skies
are nearest

a love unseen,
I vanish in

this

room

and kiss my hand (as
if it were you,

dearest)

I hold it close,

your soft and
fallen

muse


v i o l e t



much later edit: I'm having another look at these, and adjusting them as I see fit.

[Violet]

[poem removed]

[Violet]

[poem removed]

[Violet]

To want to love


but simple in that morning
closes,

hand to hand,
as do lovers touch their
lips to lips

though in doubt sometimes
the heart, once light,
is broken, but still holds

fast, that dares to
love (when dares to

give)


I smile to think you are that lover
who makes of roses, a sweet and
funny afternoon;

or in the rain sometimes you
think to take me violets, or sprinkle
daisies (whilst humming
some that Gershwin

tune)


.. to want to love.




v i o l e t


much later edits: I trimmed a bit, but still like it.

last edit: much much trimmed.

[Violet]

I feel to remove this poem this morning, to those who might have read it.. I sometimes think it's good to write without a guide, as it were.. but sometimes I find a poem to be too unyielding somehow.. so.. maybe I'll reconsider it..

[Violet]

Know nothing

an oil painting's black depths caught
me for just an instant tonight, and some
small wonderment came over me.

I don’t know what comes next.
when once I was stuck--nailed here,
for
something like a

century.


(I like thinking of your eyes)



v i o l e t


much later edit: this is still holding me somewhat [with a few extractions]

later edit: more extractions.

[Violet]

I awoke today feeling so unsettled and sick feeling in my stomach. I've been trying to resurrect things all day. I still feel ungrounded.. entirely alone feeling.

I've just looked through my poem file and this one seemed to resonate with me for some reason. My father was diagnosed with terminal cancer (he had two months to live) the very week of 9/11. I wrote this at that time, and the second part was read at his funeral. That part does feel to be soothing, even to me now.



Now that death is near


Once the tree has fallen, and
so many loyalties have
been stripped away; the mounds
of them
decaying there
like the matter we build upon, until
every disloyalty is rewarded, and
disobedience condemned.

here lies the heart:
blown out from the chest
like a piece of shrapnel; there is
a beat or two
and then it stops

time is throbbing with its
crimes, and there is justice
in an orbit
outside of this one.

ii.

come, father,
let me take your hand
now, now that death
is near. I see so much
in you. so much that was done,
and so much that can't
be
that shouldn't be
undone.

we are like the clouds the
angels descend upon

just lying here
with hallowed infants treading about
our souls

we are like the clouds,
now,
you and I

I have no doubts

that you,
like all of us, are everything
that ever was

and everything that ever will be.

there is nothing so dark
that we can't bring light to

our frailties consorting
to gather our grace

to join, finally, all those
we've lost

joining too the hearts of all
we are leaving

drifting now

drifting


v i o l e t



much later edits: spacing; those double ellipses on the intro.

[Violet]

Take me under


kindnesses, sweetnesses
kind sweet willow
take me under

under your breathless
weeping hair

lying gently
over cold waters,
silver green
sleeps Ophelia
(meet me there)


kindnesses, sweetnesses
kind sweet willow
take me under your sublime;
your wistfulness under stars
under a dark
dark sky.


kindnesses, sweetnesses
dark sweet willow
take me under

under your spell;
your silent waiting.

willow, sweet willow,
dear,

still unknown

undared

untried



v i o l e t

[Violet]

I am having just the strangest day.. I feel rather done in too.. so.. probably shouldn't be
writing and posting poems without some digestion time first.. [probably]..

.. so.. I'm taking this one back for further reflection..

[Violet]

Will you remember me when we do Berlin, perhaps?


I’ve only just had this dream. This morning dream. [some version
of my father] [from another lifetime, maybe]

Servants were there. He was attending to them.
There was work to be done.

But I didn’t care, I.. I made him put his arms around me.

He was behind me, and now he had his arms wrapped around
my waist.

He didn’t want to do this now. There were things to be
done, he told me. But I made him love me
now, in this way

I made him love me now.

And as he held me, as he loved me in this way, he spoke those words to me:

Will you remember me when we do Berlin, perhaps?

and such tears came then. And I saw in my mind’s eye:

sheet music

layer upon layer of sheet music--champagne colored, and lit from
within.

and there were strings suspended over it. strings, as with a harp,
maybe

and the strings were somehow being plucked, being played.. though there was
no hand there..

.. and then I realized:

he's playing my heart strings!

and I remembered again my tears. as all
that was so moving to me
looked to be dissolving almost
as I was seeing it all,
now

through my tears;

my deepest heart strings being plucked

through my tears.

.. and I awoke.

I awoke to tell you of it.

.. and how it is I’m crying for you still,
father

I’m sitting here, crying for you
still.


v i o l e t



much later edit: added some italics.