A year ago I embarked on a project to post a poem a day on breathingspoetry.blogspot.com. Today marks the 365th poem and the completion of my initial goal. I am now looking forward to posting poems at my leisure, and perhaps providing more esoteric offerings.
There are many styles of verse that I enjoy. Most of the offerings this past year were simplistic in meter and form. This style was developed to educate, rather than impress--to proffer axioms, easy to understand, assimilate, and remember. For example, the simple poem posted on October 4, 2009.
Empathy
Each time I look through other’s eyes
I see myself to my surprise
And yet I’m changed by what I see
And take a piece of them with me
Rhyme is an issue of rhythm--not meaning, or truth. Nevertheless, the pattern recognition of the cerebrum latches onto these. When all three converge you have the optimal result--meaning appealing to intellect and reason, elusive truth touching the recesses of the heart, and rhythm imbedding them into the psyche for easy recall.
While I write many simple poems in this manner, my favorite genre is free flowing prose, where content trumps rhythm, verbiage, and form. This does not suggest a lack of these elements, but that content is given preeminence. One such example, is the first poem I posted one year ago, about the art of verse.
The Pen
To yearn is to breathe
By drawing in life
So feeds the quill
Returning more
In her exhale
The berthing of poets
Wedged between the press
Alone they bleed the ink
By pain and force of could be
Forlorn against the wall of is
The world its lumen gives
Though focus blurs the whole
So verse, while trite, hath pollen for perception
A thought, a rose, plucked from a bush
Then placed in vase, as mind
This voice
A ping resounding
Off fellow souls
Whispers through the dark
I am not alone
(NOTE: This poem and its imagery became key in the visual lexicon of symbols I use to represent authorship. See logo above with the eagle feather quill, bleeding thoughts which fall onto the page as the Namlha seal.)
While such prose often appear free flowing without rhyme or structure, it is rarely the case. Indeed, just as I love composing music with odd meter, tempo change and polyrhythms, I also enjoy imbedding similar rhythmic complexity into verse. The challenge is to weave these in subtle ways, so as not to detract from the organic quality.
In the example shown above we see many phonetic links which create an elaborate rhythm and pulse. From strong vowel sounds and consonants to phonetic inversions--yet they do not draw overt attention to themselves. Nevertheless, the real love of poetry lies in extracting meaning and significance. Sometimes this is easy, while at other times it holds the intrigue of solving a chinese puzzle box. Moreover, some prose are simply crafted as impressionistic journeys. Regardless, the trick is to enjoy the ride.
Let us take a quick stab at unlocking the verse above in Postlude. (Stop here and read the poem--see if you can decipher it on your own.) The first verse speaks of an anxiety that takes us away from enjoying the now. The second verse reveals that it is worry about the unknown future. The third verse teaches that this fear is self-imposed, and that though we may feel like a victim, we are in fact the perpetrator. Therefore the distress is illusory. The forth verse exposes the futility of this panicked inquiry. The fifth verse illuminates that the experience of the future is determined by what we carry into it. The sixth verse speaks to the power of lighting the way through optimism. The seventh verse reaffirms that we have the ability to shape the future, and therefore possess the oracles whereby to glimpse it.
This simple exercise reveals that verse is more than just food for thought. Indeed, we could put our food in a blender and still receive the same nutrition. Instead, we relish the aesthetics of presentation, texture, aroma, and the individual savour of diverse flavors. So it is with verse. Whether it be appreciation for simple cuisine, or a complex gourmet meal tailored towards sophisticated palates, the need to express is the same.
Expression is as fundamental to awareness as the innate dictum of, “I am!” The articulation of the word is a primordial zygote of creativity. The impulse to convey, connect, and disseminate one’s essence, experience, and longing is core to the very nature of sentience.
Poetry reaches into the heart in ineffable ways. Similar to music which speaks below the horizon of conscious thought, poetry represents the first shards of dawning. The splintered light that cracks the heavens to illuminate reality. Rhythm, rhyme, and reason dancing. Words, whispers, and wonderment flashing. Images, impression, and intellect converging. Such is the language of enlightened prose, and the oracle through which it pollinates the mind.
