The Family (Or most of them)

The Family (Or most of them)
The Family

July 1, 2006

POETIC (HA!) REVELATIONS (aka: Tag! You're It!)




I WAS recently brought back to my high school days and what I admit is (was) my utter misunderstanding of poetry by Lady Wordsmith, a very imaginative person who needed to translate for me some of her beautifully written works.

Basically, my thing is: I didn't "get it." How is speaking in rhymes and riddles and making imagery and hidden meaning and not saying things directly the method of choice to communicate feeling and life and thought?

The poem I most enjoyed in my school days was The Cremation of Sam McGee. Followed closely by Three Blind Mice.


Of course, I have now been saved from that starkly black and white world, although I still couldn't tell you the difference between a limerick and a pin prick. Cut me some slack! I write sports for a living! I'm a Jocko Journalist, not Edgar Allen Poe!

I now fully realize that poetry is to writing what Da Vinci was to my stickman drawings. I can draw a four-legged dog or The Last Supper or Mona Lisa too, but which is going to be more artistic and creative?

Anyway, Lady W (http://ladywordsmith.blogspot.com/) has recently tagged several of us in a stimulating game of revelation.

So, to wit:

I am thinking about:
What my kids are going to grow up to be
And in a sense asking the same about me
More than halfway through, a tad off kilter
It's changing times, I'm stuck on tilt(er...)

I said:
The turtle can't be the hare. Pace isn't everything.

I want:
Whatever I need to happen, happily
Good things I lost to be found again
Bad things I found to be lost again

I miss:
Having my feet on solid ground
Having my head on my neck instead of sometimes up my ass
Intense feeling and purpose and passion
Maxwell Smart and the Cone of Silence

I wish:
1. Bush would go away already
2. I could be in India again
3. I didn't feel so stagnant (sometimes)
4. I was playing ball or some other sport this year
5. We'd let the Middle East sort out their own shit
6. We'd stop B.S.ing about the "terrorist threat." It's our own creation because we won't do No. 5
7. I could be driving down the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia
8. I could be pushing a giant boulder down a cliff on "Mike's Mountain" in Newfoundland and saving my brother from falling over the same cliff

And with each wish I wish,
That they all come true and that I get more

I hear:
Voices giving me choices that I sometimes choose to ignore

I wonder:
Why some people dig far too deep
Why some people don't dig at all
Why we let ourselves be consumed by shallow mass messages

I regret:
Doing some of the things I did in a blind trance
Getting some of the things I thought I wanted
Losing some of the things I should have had


I am:
At a crossroads
Trying to read a half-burned map

I dance:
Not nearly enough
But when I do,
To life's loveliness:
In the faces of my kids and family and friends
And caring, feeling feminine faces and forms

I sing:
Too quietly, in the shower
While my guitar gently weeps
Because I don't play it enough
For its liking or mine

I cry:
When I see men being emotional
And overcoming great odds or difficulties
With feeling and fight and passion;
When I think of my dad
And the life he has had

I make with my hands:
Loving grasps for my kids
120 words per minute on a keyboard
Sickly little stickmen

I write:
For a living
But also to live
And communicate my thoughts and feelings best

I confuse:
Myself
My ex, I'm sure
My intensity with my expectations of the intensity of others

I need:
A whole bunch of stuff besides this, but...
Contentment;
To DO the things I only talk about

I should:
Become more of the kid I was
Regain confidence, honesty, zest and
A belief that I always had

I start:
Things I don't have the commitment to finish

I finish:
Things I didn't have the balls
Or foresight or intention to start


11 comments:

  1. I READ:
    the whole damn thing.
    I WISH:
    that I had something to drink before I started reading it
    I REGRET:
    that I still don't have a drink
    I SHOULD,
    get something to drink now that I have commented
    I AM,
    for sure I am not kidding this time, now actually getting up and getting a drink
    I WANT,
    you to know that you are a very wonderful human and that I have decided exactly what I am going to drink

    ReplyDelete
  2. There's poetry in them thar hills of prose. The stickman / Da Vinci comparison proves it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Interesting that you write sports for a living.

    I truly think there's a big and under-discussed connection between, yes, esthetics and sports. The main place this connection does find some acknowledgment from time to time is in baseball - the sounds, sights, pastoral-like setting...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Homo, Perry Como here...

    Did you get that drink? I think the bar had already closed, hadn't it?

    I see you've felt yourself tagged too...brilliant and much funnier, of course...

    Kyk:

    Thx, now I'm still trying to figure out why you'd be the cute girl in the corner...

    And you really figure the practical module was the more difficult method?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Darius:

    If you see this and you're interested in expanding on your comment about sports, please do.

    My confusion is with your use of the word esthetics and what you said after it.

    I can think of a lot of other things about the value of sports besides that it's artistic or full of beauty.

    I don't say that it can't be seen that way...there is something very pleasing to the soul about being at a ballpark for a baseball game.

    But sports (especially pro sports) can also be construed as elitist, exclusionary, a diversion from what really matters, money-oriented, a haven for cheats and drug users, an outlet for mankind's most warrior-like tendencies (as in the lion fights in Roman Times)...

    Care to expand/expound? Or am I "digging too deep?"

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ah my dearest poetic snippet! You honor me with this spin. Just got back and have but given your words the quickest of glances. You deserve more! I'll deliver. Soon.

    ReplyDelete
  7. For one who now reveals how he is earning his keep with words, you have left me standing here, across some proverbial street, and looking, rather slack jaw, back at you.

    'Tis a mighty fine and fun thing to earn your keep with words - especially if the words are about the things bringing you joy.

    But I dare say, thanks to your luverly take on my game of tag, you will never again be allowed to join me in my little lessons in poetry while you stand at the doorway toeing the threshold and feigning a lack of understanding.

    For starters - You're a Journalist! (HotDamn! 'Tis one of my deep dark secret fantasy jobs. I lust hard at the though of being a 'Gonzo Journalist' ... And no. That's not just my wordsmithing play on you being a 'Jocko Journalist' - The Great Hunter lives on in my heart!!)

    And on the other hand - I agree with kyknoord. Drawing comparative lines between Leonardo and poetry? Seeing the science, art, and -- good golly miss molly, dare I say it? -- genius of a well crafted poem. It all proves your luverly black and white mind sees muted art too.

    On to item D -- you miss "Intense feeling and purpose and passion" Jeepers creepers. That's the call of every artist!

    And Point Number 39 -- You actually wonder "Why some people dig far too deep / Why some people don't dig at all / Why we let ourselves be consumed by shallow mass messages" My darling budding poet, mull on that wonder a bit more. And while you're at it, mull on "How is speaking in rhymes and riddles and making imagery and hidden meaning and not saying things directly the method of choice to communicate feeling and life and thought?" Mull long and true enough and you'll find the mills grinding to a full robust understanding of the answer to your opening question.

    Which brings us to the next bullet -- You admit to confusing intensity with the "expectations of the intensity of others". Good Heavens Man! You play on the words like that to remind us all of that delightful/demonic pain clashing against the walls of our reality whenever we presume the paintings we created and hung are true!

    You play like that and dare to come to my world hanging your head saying 'woe is me who doesn't get it'. Never again my darling budding poet.

    Oh and before I forget, one last issue -- you write "to live" and to share your "thoughts and feelings best" Damn straight you do. Why else would you get picked to be one of the precious few to earn their dough by plying words? Lovely reliable teasing available cloying hard-working words.

    Roman Numeral Three -- You know how to couple Maxwell Smart with a reading a burned out map at the crossroads of your fabulous life!

    BTW - Pace really is not everything. But sometimes the right pace is all you really need.

    Blessings and smiles upon your world. (And art and poetry too!)
    Ever yours, gratefully, -Lady

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ah, but there was no feigning, Lady.

    Poetry DOES tease the soul, and yours did tease mine, prompting my inquiry. Like all writing, it expresses who we are. I just couldn't get all the meanings.

    I didn't say I didn't have feelings or a way of expressing them, just that your form is somewhat foreign to me and much more evasive.

    Any alive person thirsts to know. And so I thirsted to know, "what did she mean?"

    I write just sports at the moment, but haven't always. It is very easy because I understand sports and the people who play them.

    But writing sports is just writing about the physical games we play. It's a world filled with cliches.

    Poetry overflows with originality and honesty.

    Did I really go on past Point 39? Was just following your example, Lady...

    Now where's that Cone of Silence...

    ReplyDelete
  9. All I get from your protestations
    is unwavering
    if unspoken
    (Or maybe it’s just ignored?)
    proof of the poet within.

    Be careful my dear budding poet
    I think I hear his pulse
    beating metered time
    (Is it hockey stick to ice?)
    of your soon to be poetic prose.

    Oh. And do remember,
    even if you successfully call the Cone of Silence
    to descend upon you,
    you may find your poetry muted
    but it will ring out clearly to us!

    ReplyDelete
  10. No protestations, My Lady, just explanations. We are agreeing on the value of expression.

    And that there are many forms of it, and all are from within, so all are beautiful and legitimate.

    If I have some poet in me, then you have some (answer the 5 W's, pyramid style) journalist in you.

    Poetry in me maybe is ignored, perhaps just as a multi-talented artist chooses to paint rather than sculpt.

    Your words are eloquently crafted in various verse, mine aren't so neatly or artistically laid out.

    Different, but the same. It's craft, it's creativity.

    Thanks for playing tag!

    ReplyDelete
  11. **Having my feet on solid ground

    well all u've got to do is find an airport ;-)



    **Become more of the kid I was

    wish some ppl ard me thought like this.


    Nice one WW :)
    Keshi.

    ReplyDelete

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