Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Ascent
into newness
or return to formerness,
with a twist;
from charged brown hominids,
some having orangey fur
bubbling like whitewater brooks
with magic-8-ball eyes -
scorn or desire;
from tough roads, jungle trees,
an island of effluent not affluence
food not polystyrene
service not manufacture
haggle not hustle;
from water clear as floating plastic
with a fulfilled destiny
lacking destination;
from thunderous motorcycle crashes,
loud and harmless,
idiots abroad facing
adventure not danger,
sunburned in a hot spring,
then painless goodbyes
with liked ones;
from foggy horizons,
bubbling ashen brews
viscous green goos,
easing down mountainsides
like goats
high on Bob Marley
and his kaya philosophy;
into Big Booming cities
of magazines, expensive cigarettes,
sweet sin and egotism,
books of great magnitude,
where newspaper salesmen
would fly but for the time -
so much pornography left to sell;
into newness:
the sweet, the stale,
the curvaceous, the limp,
the shaking, the et cetera
of this vast living’s
eternal march.
or return to formerness,
with a twist;
from charged brown hominids,
some having orangey fur
bubbling like whitewater brooks
with magic-8-ball eyes -
scorn or desire;
from tough roads, jungle trees,
an island of effluent not affluence
food not polystyrene
service not manufacture
haggle not hustle;
from water clear as floating plastic
with a fulfilled destiny
lacking destination;
from thunderous motorcycle crashes,
loud and harmless,
idiots abroad facing
adventure not danger,
sunburned in a hot spring,
then painless goodbyes
with liked ones;
from foggy horizons,
bubbling ashen brews
viscous green goos,
easing down mountainsides
like goats
high on Bob Marley
and his kaya philosophy;
into Big Booming cities
of magazines, expensive cigarettes,
sweet sin and egotism,
books of great magnitude,
where newspaper salesmen
would fly but for the time -
so much pornography left to sell;
into newness:
the sweet, the stale,
the curvaceous, the limp,
the shaking, the et cetera
of this vast living’s
eternal march.
Labels: 2000, Indonesia, Poetry, Travel
Comments:
<< Home
It's not easy for a journaliast to write poetry. Organization always sems to trump essence.
# posted by 
: 11:03 PM
: 11:03 PM
Who is that comment coming from? Can you be more specific/constructive in your feedback here? I'm open to it.
Actually, I don't even try to write poetry. I don't have the patience to learn it (and thus develop any talent for it).
I am kinda curious about Anonymous' comment, though. Seems to me there's always more than one way to be a poet, just as there are many different kinds of poets.
Forgive me, but it's just that I've always been rather skeptical when it comes to purists.
I am kinda curious about Anonymous' comment, though. Seems to me there's always more than one way to be a poet, just as there are many different kinds of poets.
Forgive me, but it's just that I've always been rather skeptical when it comes to purists.
Having been a journalist, I am,uh, smitten by Anonymous' comment.
I guess it's my final realization that journalism is a business, and what a business it was and is.
It has led me to monkey busines,disguising short stories as editorials.
How else to sneak into the mass media?
Norman Mailer used to say, "Get a job in the mass media and subvert from within. :)
I guess it's my final realization that journalism is a business, and what a business it was and is.
It has led me to monkey busines,disguising short stories as editorials.
How else to sneak into the mass media?
Norman Mailer used to say, "Get a job in the mass media and subvert from within. :)
X: As a rule I agree with you about purists. Poetry wouldn't exist if we were all purists; nor would jazz or hip hop. Yet I think there's probably a useful, more specific critique of this poem in Anon's comment. I just wish s/he'd been clearer.
Toast: Naw, this was written in 2000 on a plan home from Indonesia - Jakarta to Toronto that is.
Ivan: Does that advice still work? In Mailer's day the mass media still had length, bulk and analysis. Now it's 3-400 word fact lists about recent crimes, deaths and factory closures. How do you even subvert that?
Post a Comment
Toast: Naw, this was written in 2000 on a plan home from Indonesia - Jakarta to Toronto that is.
Ivan: Does that advice still work? In Mailer's day the mass media still had length, bulk and analysis. Now it's 3-400 word fact lists about recent crimes, deaths and factory closures. How do you even subvert that?
<< Home
