Bright Red Rectangles form... a Wagon!

Bright red sides, constricting
But I shouldn't panic.. no...
Panic says the voice inside;
The alley's filled with snow!

A little wagon, lightning blazed
Pitched and weaved down icy slopes
Its helpless cargo clutching fast
The sides, as houses thundered past.
And looming nearer wooden doom..
Turn the lever, turn us left!
A patch of frozen ground afrights
Quickly slides us to the right.

...I blinked at grey and leaden sky
Wincing, prone upon the snow.
Nothing broken, save my sense
From plowing through the neighbor's fence!
But as I lay and turned to see
That bright-red wagon 'pon the ice
I couldn't help but curse the thing,
"Damn you fisher-price!"

Electronic Poetry Review: A Response

Poem with Citations from the O.E.D by Francisco Aragon


I found in Aragon's work something poignant, an undeniable significance that welled up inside, much like a secret voice coaxing me to the keyboard, urging me to heed and record.

Aragon seems troubled through the first few stanzas, trying to reconcile something of 'voyce' and expression. Does the deaf-mute shout?.. in lacking standard communication, does this individual not still possess an inner voice, articulate thoughts? Strange then that we so stigmatize a person for hearing 'voices'. Do we not all hear them, a communal unspoken voice or one which speaks to us soundlessly through memory, through the impressions of family or experience? To lock them up would be a self-denial and abusive, for they remain inside and linger all the same.

I felt that the last few stanzas implied a sense of connection, an unspoken bond perpetuated even beyond death through memory. Even in sorrow, the "voiceless thought" persists, and I felt a strange sense of comfort in that idea, that I have these memories and voices with which to weather stress or exult in joy.

Language Poetry: A Response

Taking into account both Mohammad's "A Language Poetry Dossier" and Silliman's subsequent response, I believe I have come to a better understanding of language poetry, in so far as it allows the poet to understand its machination at all. But then again, is that correct? Correct to claim it has a machination, some secretive aim? I think it rather a thing unknowable, undefinable; it is in this very lack of definition that language poetry seems to possess its curious beauty and power. It is significant for its whimsical nature and the ability to toss form and definition aside; it seems very much the stuff of creative imagination, the raw fountainhead of any poetic enterprise. Language poetry relies upon nothing more than what an author perceives at a sound, at a collection of characters, at a lively image in a consuming instant. This is something I respect, to a degree, something vital and appropriate for its wild abandon, not unlike a mustang galloping o'er the plain; unbridled, it tosses its head at walls and fenses and thunders onward.

I look forward to exploring this further.

Experimenting with Poetry: #4 - Acrostic Chance

Fox Woman


Unadapted Lines

Floor of one of the deserted buildings...
Oxen labor, with the backs of their driver's heads as
X-pression; and Onaga's narrow face...
What does she think, when she writes these poems?
On one side,
Masters of the house
Are often filled with grief
Notoriously inconstant, smooth and fluid


Author Alteration

The floor, begrimed and deserted
Kaya stood, head bowed, straining as an oxen
Laboring face, narrow expression
'Do you think to write these poems?'
On one side, the rocky road lies tempting
But this was his, and he the master of the house
Though his destiny be filled with grief
Better a hovel than a notoriously inconstant world.

Ezra Pound: A Response

While contemporary poetry, free verse expression, rarely moves me in a comparable fashion with the traditional strain, it still seems to me that Ezra Pound should be afforded every honor for his influence, for his contributions to poetic expression.
I see in Pound's work the same fluidity of language I would readily laud in Frost or Yeats. How then to reconcile my usual misgivings, the uncertainty that would have me both uplift and marginalize 'free verse' poetry?

Contemporary poetry could easily be termed 'new', 'novus' in the Roman tongue. The Latin word implies 'strange' as well; something new is strange and not to be trusted. I have my reservations, but at the same time I can not condemn this man for reaching outward, for experimenting and revealing another outlet for inspiration. And in the same breath, I can not discount those like-minded poets who find exhilaration in new methods, in the simple beauty and musical nature of language. To walk the same path inevitably becomes tiresome and dangerous. New blood and new horizons always benefit the human spirit, and any study of literature finds ample evidence that sometimes the old, traditional ways do not suffice. To keep poetry fresh and lively, sometimes a new method need be procured, a method that includes everyone and liberates language. I think this has been a hard won but valuable lesson for me, in that while many contemporary poets refuse the rhyme and meter, they still possess the same wishes, the same desires and wistfulness. Yeats and Wordsworth were not so different, nor Ezra Pound unaware of his emotions and unable to express them in his medium.

Breathe deep then, gentle poets. Dream something new, and when the poetic ecstasy is spent, let us meet at the local coffee house.