“Cherish today/Dream tomorrow/Live today” – a short poem by Don Bliss
Poetry to me seems undefinable. I remember once believing that lines must rhyme for it to truly be poetry. Never mind free verse or other structures. Of course, I had not yet grasped the question of “what is a rhyme?”
I find poetry in the writing of Mark Helprin, and this line from “Soldier From The Great War” speaks to the mercurial quality of the written word:
“Each and every instance of beauty is a promise and example, in miniature, of life that can end in balance, with symettry, purpose, and hope – even without explanation. Beauty has no explanation, but its right perfection elicits hope.”
I’ve most recently encountered the contemporary poet Mydriasis Aletheia, with works such as “True Delusions”:
Innocuous moments stretch through the night
like unwritten nostalgia
condemned to change forever.
I’ve tried to find something biographical about Aletheia, but as near as I can deduce they – who speculates on gender or binary identification anymore? – are in their thirties and Irish, or at least living in Galway, a place referenced in several of their poems. The poet’s Greek name seems to be a nom de plume; one poem refers to their grandfather rejecting the Irish language as impractical. The poet’s name is up to interpretation, but to me it seems to be about being open to vision or understanding; Mydriasis refers to dilation of the pupil, Aletheia can mean “unconcealedness” or “revealing.”
In "Disconternet” (a deliciously sardonic portmanteau in itself) they write:
I fear the net is becoming
dystopic in the Huxleyan sense,
Much of it is now ruled by algocracies.
Providence favored Big Tech's undertaking:
They tapped the attention-economy, our drive
to create, consume and pass comment on content;
It is so mercantile.
In another poem, Aletheia wrotes of “Lucid whispers in the static/filter through the dark.
These words capture for me the beauty of fragmentation: a piece of something broken off a larger idea.
Mentioned in part 1 of this post, “This Poem Again” by David Spicer (it’s a long one) imbues fragmentation:
… this poem, I promise you, will never be finished, it will end with an ellipsis, a solar sunspot, an eyelash wanting a new globe to sit on …
Spicer’s poem self-denigrates with a variety of statements such as “this poem is a litany of lies” and “this poem will live forever and die the first chance it gets.” A few favorite highlights:
this poem will decorate the walls of Berlin in 2120/… this poem is a muffler, a wind breaker, a pair of shoes with holes in their soles … this poem is a cerebral carrot … this poem is a giant’s testicle disguised as an ancient basketball ... this poem disowns the previous metaphor … this poem is a betrayed confidence, a reservoir of a thousand jobless Cubans, a field of weak words, ironwood gone soft, a raccoon with its mask stolen, a grand street with no blue buildings, a giant without a world supporting his shoulders, a porch without steps …
These pieces don’t go together, and yet they do. Spicer’s worldview, as seen in “This Poem Again,” is an ribald, existential marvel.
Back to Bon Mots:
“Love many – trust few/Always paddle your own canoe” was another from my friend Don.
My 2017 poetry regimen took me all over the poetry atlas – from those as short as Don Bliss’s blessings on up to (in a few cases) long poems such as Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”. The beauty of most of what I read was its brevity.
Take two: Their brevity was the beauty part of most of the poems.
Take three: Short poems were my favorites.
No, not true: don’t say “favorites” just for the sake of brevity.
Here: I enjoyed long poems but for me the strongest ones were the shorter ones.
A lot of people talk about poetry but don’t do anything about it.
I figured I should write one myself. Here it is:
Banana Tree
If I had a banana tree I’d sit by it every day.
I’d spend some time, every day, with that banana tree.
Who plants a banana tree in some sideyard, somewhere?
If I had a banana tree I’d be looking at it every day.
I’d plant it by a big window so even
if I was inside there’s no way I’d miss it.
No way I’d ignore my banana tree.
I don’t care if it never grows a banana.
I just love the leaves; tropical suburbia.
How many people have a banana tree?
Why don’t they hang out next to it?"
Maybe they do, maybe they’re out there at night.
Spending time with their banana tree.
No point in having a banana tree
if you don’t keep it company.
I mean, it’s a banana tree and you live in the suburbs.
How many people can say that?
And there must be a reason
you planted that banana tree anyway.
“You have a banana tree. Why are you not out there with it?”
If I had a banana tree I’d sit by it every day.
I’d spend some time, every day, with my banana tree.
— N.R.
Enjoyed the pieces and the web of thoughts you spun from single strands of thought. If I remember correctly I knew a person ( name escapes me) who had a banana tree planted against a southwest wall sheltered from the elements in PT. It had little nubbins of bananas on it.
I hope someday you look out your window and are blessed with a banana 🍌 view and reminisce on the beautiful piece of poetry you wrote.