Porphyrios (an Ode)

Poor-fear-ee-ohs
Who ever thought I would love someone with such a name?
But as I get to know it, it plays on the tongue
like a whiskey and cigar

What a blessed man! To be God’s puppy dog.
You decided you deserved nothing,
begged,
wagged your tail.
When he closed his door you did not go away
until one night he took you into his house.

You say this is the easy way,
Don’t you see how hard it is?
To be so utterly unsophisticated.
I have an 8th ex-girlfriend
and a 3rd career
envy my coworkers that have more shares than me
resent my government
have kinks
and daydream about sex, sometimes, in church.
How could I ever be a puppy?
Maybe I could be a smelly beggar outside God’s door
whom he slips a buck every now and then
out of pity.

But oh, Porphyrios!
You have shown the way.
It is never too late to grow in trust and simplicity,
wag more, whine less,
and maybe one day I will nip at your ear in the lap of God.

Fire Built for One (1)

At a campfire built for one

my heart aches for every flame you do not see.

When the sun rises, I will weep for every golden ray

nudging the mountain awake,

lifting the mist off of the tree,

and chasing the hare across the field.

I learned that joy was made for two,

in these last three years,

I would breathe the in

and you would breathe the out.

There was never any difference between me and you

and there still isn’t, now that we hate each other.

There is nothing in life that I haven’t earned,

threefold.

And I know I will carry us both to my grave.

The Spider

The spider is a wonderful creature.
She weaves such a regular web
which has such regular features
all plotted in her tiny head.

The spokes meet in the middle
the net runs round and round.
How they get there seems a riddle,
tiny miles above the ground.

The spider swings across vast spaces
she plunges unimaginable depths
without a hint of fear on her faces
or the slightest thought of death.

Her limbs are slim and busy,
her touch, subtle as the wind.
Weaving and leaving her monuments
wherever she has been

When her work is done she sleeps
for day after day in her home
content that her work will reap her
the fruits of what she has sewn.

May my house be open to host her
may her wonders always be near
Let us raise a happy toast to her -
nature's engineer.

A declaration concerning my relationship to human society

I claim the right to be here. I claim the right to participate fully.

I claim these rights by my common humanity. I claim them by the blood of my ancestors, which flowed to America through Europe, and before that through Africa, the birthplace of humanity, and which ultimately originated in the oceans, the womb of the Earth.

It is my duty to be fully me for the good of all beings. It is my duty to dare, to hold nothing back, and to accept the pain of my personal evolution.

From time to time, other people will object to my activity on the basis that it hurts them. I am sorry for their suffering. I am sorry for a world where growth is neither isolated nor painless, and where only collective evolution is possible. I pledge that I will spread more growth and less hurt as my consciousness rises and I become aware of more opportunities to do so.

But despite the costs, I cannot pull back or pretend to be less than I am. For it is my mission to be the blessing to the world that I was born to be. In my fullness and yours, I promise you, we will all rejoice.

Amen.

economy seating.

They stumble past bearing bags and children,
and bumping into seats with clumsy limbs
through warm and stuffy air they shuffle and swim
until illogic works to its conclusion
and all are seated, human cattle penned.
The ship then crawls from pavement onto pavement
while the vents emit an antisceptic scent.
We turn into a last impatient halt and then

I lift my feet and fall into the sky.
I am pure joy, a gust of wind I blow.
Through cloudy halls of forgotten kings I fly
and look down on soaring hawks below.
Resting on virgin snow I realize
my life began one blessed hour ago

Strange Loop - Analysis of "The Soul unto itself"

(I submitted this to my Modern Poetry class on Coursera)

The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend  –
Or the most agonizing Spy  –
An Enemy  –  could send  –

Secure against its own  –
No treason it can fear  –
Itself  –  its Sovereign  –  of itself
The Soul should stand in Awe  –


This topic of this poem is the soul's relationship to itself. There are two descriptions of this relationship which wrap around each other throughout the poem - master and enemy.

Let's consider the phrases of the poem individually.

"The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend  –"

The first concept introduced is the "Soul". The soul is the entire essence of a person - his identity, his thoughts, his emotions, his desires, and his will. The soul is a complex thing with multiple dimensions. Plato thought that it had three parts - roughly the animal appetites, the rational being, and the will which arbitrates between them.

"Soul" is similar to the words "self", "being" or "consciousness". But "soul" is a richer and more complicated description of a living thing than any of those alternatives.

Soul language is used in many passages of the Bible which Dickinson would have been familiar with. In the creation story, god blows life into the lungs of the first man and "he became a living soul". The word "soul" is also used to refer to animal life in the Bible, and god himself is described as having a soul.

The first line introduces the topic of the poem - "The Soul unto itself". The second line contains a first attempt at describing this relationship - "an imperial friend". So the soul is in command of itself, an emperor. But the relationship the soul has with itself is warmer and closer than between an emperor and subject - it is also a "friend".

Describing the soul as its own emperor makes for a complicated relationship. An emperor and subject are two different people. So too when the soul perceives itself there is a strong sense of a distinction between the perceiver entity and the perceived entity. The soul is a singular thing that paradoxically fills multiple roles in relation to itself.

When an emperor commands his subject, compliance is not automatic. The subject can disobey. An emperor's nominal authority is not sufficient by itself to run an empire. He needs to build armies and bureaucracies to enforce his decrees. Managing our souls is a similarly complicated affair. We all act against our better judgment and desire. A large amount of life activity is devoted to soul-management: planners, todo lists, support groups, church, self-help books, classrooms, and more. Dickinson's metaphor hints at the difficulty of self-control.

The next lines introduce an alternative description of the soul's self-relationship as a counterpoint:

"Or the most agonizing Spy  –
An Enemy  –  could send  – "

Why is the soul the most agonizing spy possible? Because it knows itself better than anyone else. The pain of betrayal is strongest when it comes from someone close to us. There is nobody closer to a soul than itself.

For whom does the soul spy? Who is the "Enemy"? Again, itself. If we temporarily change the first dash to a comma, we get the phrase "Or the most agonizing Spy, An Enemy". The dashes can be translated multiple ways to get sentences with multiple meanings, and the ambiguity is purposeful.

In these lines the poet introduces the warring kingdoms contained within a soul. There are many sovereigns within a soul - the sovereign who is on a diet and the sovereign who likes chocolate cake. They are all constantly spying on each other, looking for advantage - and they all know, love, and hate each other intimately. They are agonized at the idea of letting another kingdom have control.

Now moving on to the second stanza:

"Secure against its own  –
No treason it can fear  –"

This phrase illustrates the soul's vulnerability and its strength. A soul is strong because it cannot be hurt by anything from the outside world. The invincible soul is illustrated by the example of sages who calmly face their own execution. Again, this recalls biblical language: "fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul".

However, the soul is very vulnerable because it can never be safe against itself. It can always betray its own intentions and values. It is always divided against itself. It can never hide from its own spying eyes.

These lines also show the obscurity of the soul. It is the only thing that can know itself. Barriers prevent it from being known by outside eyes. That is why it would fear no treason if it were secure against its own.

Finally the last two lines:

"Itself  –  its Sovereign  –  of itself
The Soul should stand in Awe  –  "

Building on previous images, "Itself - its Sovereign - of itself" is the line that most clearly states the paradoxical oneness and multipleness of the soul. Standing in awe is an action that we usually take when perceiving something grandiose and external, such as a mountain range. Standing in awe of itself, the identity of the soul splits and multiplies.

The author concludes by describing the feelings that characterize the souls relationship with itself. She suggests awe as the proper emotion to show to a sovereign. However, we have previously gone through the emotionally-loaded words "friend", "agonizing", "Enemy", and "fear". So the complete emotional palette that a soul feels towards itself contains the warmth of friendship, agony, hatred, fear, and awe.

(part 1)

Under an unblinking august moon

frost clouds shroud a purple sky.

Silver magic splashes everywhere,

bathing dust and skin and hair - 

and a false-winter chills the dunes

beneath the piercing pagan eye.

Transfixed by that timeless gaze,

I fall under silent command

bidding me march through desert lands.

A river of moonlight marks the way

past dusty worlds of frosted grey

spilling over dunes and horizon bend,

before coming to a cryptic end,

arid miles over the clay.

Joined by none of human kind,

following countless pilgrims past,

I know my journey is not the last

to meet the eternal desert mind.

i am new-born

i am new-born
i taste the world with my skin
wholly and directly,
without interpretation

i need your love,
hold me in your love.
hold me in your warmth.
mine is freely given
come, have my love

hold me and i will shine for you.
i will repay you a million times,
for there is no art like a life
and no joy like the first

i am small, so small
hold me in you
i am so small
hold me

i cry at fresh beauty
and justify the cycle of death.
my newfound laughter
is the fount of redemption

i circumscribe the limits of evil,
it will never be absolute.
i set its boundaries and barriers
no darkness can reach this -
this holy apprehension

Loneliness

I want to thread a needle through your heart
and plunge it into mine and tie a knot
so each and every crimson bead can crawl
along this thread as frantic, eager worms
and find a partner in the air between
a friendship safe and confident, secured
against mysterious erosion

Melancholy

This stony head and stony limbs
now disconnect from flowing blood
and fall as stony anchorpoints
around a once ambitious heart

God Stuff

They say we are made of god-stuff
but today I feel mismighted.
All of my power was left in the slough,
omniscient lenses nearsighted.

I swagger forward with hero-gaze
to greet my trials and testing,
but I have gotten so lost in the maze
and my throat is slit when I'm resting.

My deeds will not weave an epic tale
no child will be taught my story.
There is not a breath for the one who fails
for attempt, not a glint of the glory.

The dark-fated bodies laid out by the fight
make stages for the play of greater lights.

Two Poems about Father: a comparison

I am reading Helen Vendler's introductory text "Poems, Poets, Poetry". It is my belief that every poet needs an anthology, and this one has the added benefit of having Helen's clear instruction woven throughout. The opening chapter includes several poems exploring the relationship between child and father and I was struck by the difference between two of them.

The first is by Robert Hayden entitled "Those Winter Sundays":

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
  
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
  
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices? 

Notice the incredible economy of language. The "too" in the line "Sundays too my father got up early" implies that his father gets up early *every* day, not just on Sunday. That one word changes the description of his father's early rising significantly, from something exceptional to something routine. It's the end of the first line, and I already have a rich portrait of his father's character. 

The emotional tension in the poem comes from the poet's two contrasting perspectives on his father. At the time he is writing about, the poet had a cold relationship with his father, "speaking indifferently to him" and "fearing the chronic angers of that house". But looking back in retrospective, the poet realizes the strength of the love shown by his father's labors for the family's comfort, waking up early to heat the house. "No one ever thanked" his father at the time, and now that the poet recognizes his father's love he regrets not having the opportunity to give thanks.

The second piece is by Dylan Thomas entitled "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night":

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    

I don't like this poem near as much. The opening stanza is one of the best *sounding* stanzas in all poetry, and the poem is rightfully remembered as a classic due to the incredible consonance, assonance, and rhyme. 

But in comparison to the intimacy of the first poem, this one is very abstract. It ends with the author's reaction to his father's dying days, but in the middle it detours to discuss "men" in general facing death (wise men, good men, wild men, and grave men). The resulting poem feels a lot less genuine, more contrived. And the imagery is hard to parse - "Because their words had forked no lightning"  is opaque, and lazy. There is no thematic unity to the images chosen, each stanza is disjoint: lightning, a green bay, catching the sun and singing(?!) it, meteors, a sad height. It is as if Thomas came up with two brilliant lines for the refrain and then phoned it in. 

This illustrates how poems can be great in different ways. Robert Hayden paints a vivid intimate, personal narrative that portrays the change in his emotional relationship to his father over time. Dylan Thomas makes some of the most musical lines in all poetry. 

At Horse-Shoe Lake (Sonnet 1)

I left the cities far behind, up road
of twisting tight parameters. 'round hills
until I found at Horse-Shoe Lake, a still
and quiet place - a lookout, high and oaked.
There, cradled soft in warming wind, with gold
bespeckled fingers sunlight soothed my aches,
unknotted worried thoughts. Now I awake
to nature's sights - and blinking eyes behold:
The ant forages through valley and mountain,
A Spider raises lofty scaffold heights,
and bumble bee each flower makes accounting.
A mallard convoy sails from harbor sites,
The thrushes keep their relay stations sounding,
and water waves glimmer like Hong Kong lights.

The Courtship of the Philosopher

I can no more mix with you
than stone can mix with air.
Like stone I am, and feel so low
and hard and strong and rare.

Were you with arms to lift me up
my nature would show true.
I was born to scorn the sky
and seek out earthy truth.

Were I made of softer stuff
I too would dance days past,
drifting each from place to place
each moment like the last.

But I find my joys in heavy things -
filling soul at wisdom's feast.
Come here! Feel your weight as well with me
substance, knowledge, lasting peace!

But rock leaves no mark on wind
and soon you fly away.
Chance meet, chance part, and parting goes
each back to natures' place.