A long time gone

I haven't been here in a bit, but that's okay.  I would rather do that than blather some nonsense every day.  I've been reading poetry, mostly.  I found a book by David Berman, "Actual Air" that has a lot of good lines in it.  I mentioned before that I really like good lines, and this one has a bunch of them.  It was a really good exercise, because after a bit I realized that the good lines where the best part of the poetry.  The rest left something.  I wish I knew what it was.  With Mark Strand, the good lines are in service of the poem.  For David, not so much.  The good lines in his book were almost self-congratulatory.  I liked his stuff, but not as much as Mark's. 

Then I started reading X=, by Stephen Berg.  I picked it up at the library and flipped through it, thinking it was pretty readable.  After I got into it a bit, I realized that every line of every poem in the book starts with "he".  For some reason, that really put me off.  I couldn't read the rest of the book once I realized that.  I wonder what he got from referring to the third person like that?  I think part of the reason it put me off was that I lived in a dissociated state until I was 29.  I never referred to myself in the first person.  It was always in the third person.  Nothing every happened to me, it happened to "him."  Oh well.  No poems this time.  I have a couple I'm working on, but they're not ready yet.  I hope all of you have a good New Years, and that the coming year is better than the last one.

Scattered thoughts

The semester is coming to an end, and I'm glad.  I have one final, but it shouldn't be too bad, then a break until the next term starts.  I've actually been trying to write some, although I haven't liked a lot of what I've written.  I'm tired a lot lately, which is probably a combination of the semester and the depression.  I wonder if I'll ever shake that completely.  Who knows.  Anyway, I did a couple more that are sort of okay, so here they are.  Feel free to comment, and I'll try to respond.

Hope for Half?

Chasing words across a page

  finding the ones that fit

The perfect one that suits the stage

  words of wisdom or words of wit?

c. 2011 C. Thames

That one kind of speaks for itself.  I always wonder what they're going to mean.  In that one, I stopped asking and just wrote it. The next one had a little more thought involved, although not THAT much.

Water in a Small Lake

The water in the small lake

   stays the same

It ices over, then comes back

   now and then sprouting ducks

Essentially unchanged

   under the surface

Presume fish, some algae

   weeds on the bank

A random flower

   never in the same place

The water doesn't change

   it's always

     water.

c. 2011 C. Thames

That should do it for now.  More to come.

Finally!

I've made it back.  It doesn't feel like I've been that busy, but I've been reading a lot and playing too much Text Twist.  Man, who would have thought what a time sucker that game is!  Oh well.  I finally got around to writing another poem.  I have been reading poetry though.  I picked up a couple of books by Charles Bukowski.  He had a lot of talent, and even more stubbornness, I think.  He didn't come up with that many great lines, but the whole of his poems are very thought provoking.  He did one on our need for innocence that really resonated with me.  He said that if we didn't have it we would need to create it.  The problem is that once we create it, we have some kind of bizzare need to destroy it.  For some reason, that keyed an idea about change for me.  I don't know why, and don't even attempt to explain the process.  Anyway, here it is:

Changes

Sitting in another restaurant

   looking out the same window

     watching the season change

       before my eyes

         like last year

The season changes every year

   from green to white to green

     lots of red and yellow too

       fall got the cool colors

         biggest mix happens then

           in the fall

Summer and winter get green and white

   Spring gets pinks and red and yellow

     Every year they change

       from one to the other

         then change back

           to what they were

             last year

Watching everything change

   only to return to what they were

     makes me wonder

       about me

© 2011 Carl Thames

Still Here.

I haven't left the country, just busy with the school thing.  Midterm and all that.  I know, it's a shoddy excuse, but it's the only one I have.  I just wanted to pop in and let everyone know I haven't abandoned the blog, I've just been busy doing other things.

I do want to comment on an interesting phenomena.  I checked out a couple of the "Best poetry of 19xx" books and read through them.  For some odd reason, they didn't resonate like a book written by a single poet.  I wonder why that is?  These were all poems that had been published in various publications, but for some reason, they left me kind of flat.  Why would that be?  Maybe it was the mix of styles, flipping and flopping in too narrow a space?  I dunno.  I won't do that again, though.  I will continue to check out poetry books, but they're going to be by one poet.  I'm still mining great lines.

Well, gotta run.  More life stuff getting in the way.  Until later....

Word Pictures

We've all heard it. “Draw them a picture when you write.” Most of us start thinking, “Why not just take a freaking camera?” The problem with the camera is that it won't capture the feel of the place, or rarely does. It's possible, but it doesn't usually happen. The reason is that for most pictures, there is no context. Why is the photographer there? What does the image say to the person taking the picture? What does he/she feel about it? You can't get that in a photo, usually. There are exceptions, and I've seen a few. Ansell Adams was one. He could capture the feel of a place or a situation. Most can't. Because of that, a written description, if done well, can make you feel more a part of what's going on. The best example of that I can think of right now is the sign one of the Occupiers was holding. It was a young girl. The sign said, “My grandma died. She was denied a procedure that would have cost $7,000 by Blue Cross. The CEO of Blue Cross made 2.3 million dollars last year.” I don't think that's an exact quote, but you get the idea. It was in a picture of a girl holding the sign, but it was the words that carried the essentials.

Again, we don't really have a context of this. The girl's grandma could have been 99 years old and had multiple other problems that wouldn't be fixed by the one procedure, but the feel is there. The idea that she was denied a procedure while the CEO of the company made a huge salary was the point, not so much the result. So we're supposed to try to draw a picture with words. I'm not particularly good at that. I care more about the situation than the scenery. I've never done description particularly well, mostly because I started seriously trying to write screenplays. Since most directors ignore description in screenplays anyway, there's not a lot of point to putting it in. For my short stories, I put in enough so you get a feel for the place, and leave the rest to your imagination. That seems to work for me. For poetry, I don't use much description at all. I'm after a snapshot of an emotion, or a general feeling, and most of them don't have much to do with the setting. Others have, though, and done it well. Robert Frost made a name doing just that. Can you imagine “Stopping by a woods on a snowy evening” without scenery? It wouldn't have worked at all. The problem I have is that there are very few emotions that can't be described without resorting to scenery.

I once heard of a technique for practicing this. It was from a radio announcer. He said that when he started out, he would stand on a street corner and describe each car as it went by. The limitation was that he wasn't allowed to use the same word more than once. Try that. Stand by the street and describe each car that goes by without re-using words. I'm not sure I could do it for more than a minute or two. How many different ways can you describe a small sedan? The color may change, but then again, it might not. It would be a good exercise, though. I do need to practice this. One of the most important aspects of writing is that to be effective, you have to continue to grow. I have been avoiding that in the past few years. I need to get back to it. Seriously.

Been a few days.

It's been a few days since I've been here.  I've been trying to write more, and I'm not liking what's coming out very much.  That's happened before, and usually happens when I'm particularly disorganized, as I have been of late.  I try to impose structure on the stuff I'm writing, and it rarely, if ever, works.  I end up with a mess, so I'm not going to post them.  I will throw up another great line or two, again from Mark Strand.  In one of his poems he wrote,

"Life should be more
Than the body's weight working itself from room to room"

How do you argue with that?  How many of us find ourselves dragging our tired backsides from one room to another?  It's one of those lines that makes you stop and think.  I know, that can be dangerous, but it has to happen eventually.  Another great line:

"Is it really the wind, or is it the sound of somebody running
One step ahead of the dark?"

This one appeals to me because I resonate with the concept of dark.  A lot of that is because I've been dysthymic for years, and deal with darkness on an almost daily basis.  I don't do the deep periods of depression any more, thank Ghod, but they seem always on the edge of my consciousness.  I just don't go there.  When one of those moods is coming around, I can sense it and just stop.  I know only too well what "one step ahead of the dark" is about.  I hope Mark never experienced that, but this sounds too familiar.  It's like he know the problem very well.  He did manage to produce a number of books of poetry, though.  We should all buy them to encourage him to write more.

Great lines.

Okay, I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for a great line.  That's mostly what I look for in poetry, although I haven't managed a really good line for a while now.  One of my favorite poets is Mark Strand.  He's a bit of a master of the great line.  Do you know what I'm talking about?  That one line that captures a thought or an image in such a way that it resonates.  It hits your soul and bounces off.  You read it and immediately "get" it.  Let me try a couple of examples, from Mark Strand:

"The dust of a passion." 

Is that a great line or what?  We've all been there.  We knew times when we were so passionate about something, then it passed, and we look back with indifference on the thing that had us so enthralled for a while.

That's kind of a snapshot line.  The whole concept wrapped up in five words.  That takes a level of mastery that not many achieve.  Here's another one, although it takes more words: (Also from Mark Strand)

"The bitter remains of someone who might have been,
  had we not taken his place."

This line leaps past regret, I think.  We all know we're capable of a lot more than we are, but for some reason, there is something either in our psyche's or situation that prevents us from achieving all we can.  I read this line and picture an old man, sitting on a bench somewhere, wondering what the hell happened.  He had so much promise, and didn't realize much of it, if any.  He did everything he was supposed to do; he finished school, got the soul-sucking-job-from-hell, (but it paid well, and had decent benefits) got married, had a kid or two, got the house in mortgage heights, two cars, joined the right clubs, and never accomplished a single thing that he wanted to accomplish when he was in school.  Near the end of his life he looks back, and the line hits him right between the eyes.  It makes you wonder what the world would be like if we were able to accomplish those dreams we all had when we were young, doesn't it?  Would the world be a better place?  I don't know.  Young people tend to be pretty idealistic.  Not particularly realistic, but their motives are usually better.  At least they include things other than just making more money than someone else.  We get what we get, though.  I just hope I don't end up bitter.

The problem with words.

I've made a small discovery tonight. I think the problem I've been having is simply a problem of words. I haven't written in so long that I've lost some of my facility with them. That's been a bit of a rude awakening. For most of my life, or at least all of it I can remember, I have been able to express myself with words. It has always been my “thing.” Some people can dance, some can sing, some fell from the womb with the ability to draw or paint anything in such a way that you can't tell it apart from the real thing. My ability has always been with words. I could always write, beginning in the first grade when I made up a story and wrote it down. I handed it to my first grade teacher, Mrs. Godfry, and she gave me a weird look. I had done it in cursive, since they were on the green cards lining the top of the blackboard in the room. I simply looked at the green cards and copied what I saw. Anyway, nothing came of that. I don't know if she showed it to my mother or not. Anyway, I always wrote. And I always read. My mother insisted on that. For all of us four kids, we had to read. If it was raining outside, we read. She didn't care what we read, just that we read. She never discouraged us from reading anything, and for the longest time I would read anything I could get my hands on. I remember reading the backs of cereal boxes while sitting at the table.

I went through a bad poetry phase. I would write tons of little poems, all rhymed, nearly all in quatrains. I have no idea where they are now, but hopefully they will never be found. It was easy too. At the time, it was almost like I was thinking in rhyme.

Well, no longer. Now it's an effort. That is leaving me a bit disgruntled. It's not so much that the world needs any more badly written quatrains that rhyme, it's that I can't just roll them off like I used to. I think it's like a muscle. Either use it or lose it. In my case, I think I've let it atrophy. It's possible that I can get it back. I will see. I don't plan on writing a boatload of quatrains just to prove to myself that I can, but I do want to work in more rhyme. Since it appears that only one or two people are reading this, I hope you will indulge me. Thanks again.

Exploration

I was looking through some of my older stuff and found this one about exploration.  It's not only about our physical search for something different, it's about a search for meter within the poem.  In this one, all the lines contain 10 "beats," making it pentameter.  Line 2 has nine beats, and line 13 has 11, which was purely by accident.  I thought for a bit about cleaning it up, so that each line has 10, but I think it would take something away from the poem to do that.  This was an attempt at a sonnet, with 3 rhyming quatrains followed by a couplet.  I think that's called a Petrarchian sonnet, but it's been a while, and I'm too lazy to look it up to be sure.  Anyway, here it is.

Explore

Somber commentary on things that are

examines that which lays on the ground

beneath their feet not those seen from afar

a simple close look at things that are found

Every road must have a destination

or it would never have been built at all

No point in careful investigation

the great is just a lot more of the small

Stand at the corner and look at the field

look far away from where everything stands

Exploration provides the greatest yield

take a cautious stroll in uncharted lands

If you only see what you already know

you'll only confirm that which isn't so

Copyright 2010 Carl Thames

Weird stuff

I just came back and looked at the post from yesterday, and it's all over the page.  It didn't look like that when I put it up, and I don't know how to edit it.  Sorry about that.  I'll be more careful in the future.  I'm still working on the Poetry books, and made a minor score at a flea market last week.  I found an old literature book.  I love the "Intro to Literature" books.  They all have a ton of poetry, short stories, etc. and they talk about elements of them.  Due to the nature of textbooks, each author feels the need to come up with a different way of looking at such things, and some of them are interesting.  I don't know if I'm learning anything, but it can't hurt to read them.  I did get some weird looks from my brother, along with a comment like, "You read that crap for fun???" but I'm used to that.  No poem today either, or at least not right now.  I may be back later.

The way we are.

I just finished reading a book of poetry by Partricia Traxler.  I'd never heard of 

her, but that's not unusual.  I haven't heard of a lot of people.  I got the book 

at the library.  She writes about the usual things that poets write about; love, 

loss, abusive husbands, guilt.  In several of the poems she talks of communing 

with nature.  About two thirds of the way through the book, it struck me how 

differently men and women are in the world.  We experience the world differently, 

and because of that, we may never completely agree on how we should be in the 

world. We have different roles and although some manage to pull off the appearance

of performing the other's role, there is always something missing.  I don't know 

what that is.  It's not the heart, because they are sincere in what they're doing, 

but something just isn't there.  I think I'm going to examine that a bit in the 

coming time.  I'm not putting up a poem today, because I can't find one that I've 

already done that talks about this, but there will be some coming.

I just read the above again and heard a resounding "DUH!" from the crowd that lives 

in my brain. I've known about the difference for a while, naturally, but yesterday

it went deeper.  I'm not talking surface crap here, I'm talking about soul-deep 

stuff.  It's going to be interesting to see where this takes me.

Process stuff

I seem to have a lot of poems about the process of writing.  I don't know why that is.  Maybe I'm thinking too much?  I have heard that the problem with people who study too much develop what's called "academia nervosa" and they lose their ability to write.  I wonder about that.  Robert B. Parker (Spencer, for Hire) had a PhD in English Literture, and he was able to do just fine.  A lot of it is the ability to turn off the editor while you're writing.  I think that's what gets in most people's way.  They try to edit as they go and it kills the creative flow of the work.  Sometimes we just have to let it go and let it flow.  Anyway, this one today is about the process.

Scrounging words

Scrounging words out of a mind
that has been strip-mined
down to the bedrock
with nothing left

call in the hammers
and the hard rock miners
there has to be more there
it can't all be gone

What's beneath the rock
that lies in layer upon layer
the dead from so long ago
that even it's name has forgotten

what's under the rock
under the bottom layer
so far down it doesn't remember
that there's a sky up there

go down far enough
and maybe you reach the fire
the fire in the middle
is there enough reach?


Copyright 2010 C. Thames

To Create

I've been thinking about older people lately.  Partly because I'm headed in that direction at the speed of light, it seems, and partly because I've always enjoyed being around them.  They seemed to know so much.  Not as much now as before, unfortunately.  That's mainly because as I approach their age, I'm catching up a bit.  One thing I've noticed is that as you get older, you don't create as much.  Part of that is that you tired more easily, and the big part is that the fire is gone.  When you're young, you not only have a lot of energy, you have a real desire to go out and make a difference.  Not so much for older people.  They've made all the mark they're going to make, and are usually just cruising.  That's not to say that older people just give up, because they don't.  Mostly it's that their creative endeavors are a lot more studied.  They think about what they're going to do before they jump in.  That can make a huge difference, and it can also kill a project in a heartbeat.  I know I've sat back and looked at something and decided that it just wasn't worth the effort it would take to do it.  Anyway, I named this one Create.

To Create

To create, to make something
  that never existed
Maybe a new thing or just
  a new way of seeing the old

A painting or a pot
  or a painting of a pot
Something new!
  We love it!

It's probably why we have no use
  for older people
They've been there, done that
  already seen it all

Except they haven't
  they couldn't
They were too busy
  being alive

They have seen a lot
  and already know
But nobody listens
  so we go that way again

The really new is built on the old
  that which existed before
Nostalgia still sells
  better than art

Old people can teach us
  but we have no time to learn
We're too busy
  repeating the same old mistakes

c. 2011 C. Thames

Happy Monday!

Aarrrggghhh!  Typing up some poetry while listening to country music!  I got up way too early this morning, and I'm trying to get some stuff done before I crash again.  I have been carrying a notebook to jot down some lines when they hit me, or that's the idea.  Part of it is that if I have the notebook I feel somewhat obligated to write in it.  Some of the stuff is okay and some of it is just silly.  This one is pretty silly.

Hope for Half

Chasing words across a page
  finding the ones that fit
The perfect ones that suit the stage
  words of wisdom or words of wit?

C. 2011 C. Thames

This is a bit of a take-off on Mark Twain.  He commented once that, "The man who thinks himself a wit is usually half-right."  Great line, IMHO.   I did another one that hits me as silly.  I have decided not to try to judge them, so you're going to get the bad with the good.  You can sort that one out for yourselves.

Fourteen

The number came up just now
  it doesn't mean anything
One more than the one below
  one less than the one above

It has to stand for something
  numbers always do
they mean something real
  they're not like the rest of us

Except this one
  out of the blue
It presented itself
  it just is

c. 2011 C. Thames

Back again.

I can't believe it's been as long as it has.  I started this blog to make myself write more, and in a way, it's working.  I'm just not writing here.  That may continue, but I'll try to be a bit more disciplined about putting stuff up here.  I've been working on a series of poems that's not really a series.  I've started carrying a notebook with me again, and when I'm sitting around waiting on something, I've been trying to write.  I say trying because it doesn't come like it used to come.  That was after the antidepressants.  That's been several years now, but the effects linger on.  I really understand Hemmingway now.  He had shock treatments for depression and lost a good bit of his ability to write as a result.  Because of that, he tried to walk into the propeller blades of an airplane.  He was prevented from doing that, but he eventually did succeed in killing himself.  Looking back through our literary history, too many poets have died by their own hand.  I'm in no danger of doing that, but I do understand the loss they went through.  For me, it's more of a sense of helplessness than hopelessness.  I know what I want to write, but the words aren't coming like they used to. I blame the meds when it might be a simple case of writer's block.  I don't know.  I have never really had a problem with writer's block before.  For me, it's always been a matter of having too many ideas than not having enough.  I can still crank it out, but it's a lot more work now than it used to be.  I do have some distractions working now.  School is a big one.  I'm trying to get credentialed (is that a word?) so I can do what comes naturally to me.  Go through the motions, get the box checked off, and get back to work, right?  Anyway, this one resulted from some musings on that.

To Study

To learn, to increase one's knowledge
for a specific end
Or not. Mostly out of curiosity
because I just didn't know

Half-prepared usually
for the task at hand
Half-asleep, semi-conscious
but only on schedule

Class time is nap time
odd how that happens
Search time is my time
when I just want to look it up

Nothing due -- no assignment
just what I want to know
Seems it's a lot easier to remember
than the stuff on the test

c. 2011 C. Thames

Recurring Themes

I've noticed a lot of recurring themes lately.  It's not that they haven't always been there, it's just that I'm starting to notice them more.  It seems like I'm seeing a lot about mirrors, and reflections in general, mostly with light on water.  We all see them, but don't think about them that much.  This one touches on that theme again.  I'm trying to decide if I want to drop the whole idea of mirrors, and reflections, but like I said, they keep coming up, and they do serve.  Maybe I should be looking into the underlying whatever?  Anyway, here's another one.

You

When you're not here my mirror is empty

There is light shining back

but nothing else that matters

Hope

lies in the background next to the couch

between it and the floor lamp

where you dropped my little bag of dreams

Forgot

the bag and took the dreams with you

I put some books on top of the bag

so I wouldn't have to see it all the time

Knowing

it's there but it really doesn't matter

smash it flat with enough books

you can ignore its existence

Time

passes, slowly but still

like a moon on calm water

shining brightly but not really there

Copyright 2010 Carl Thames

Rain

Rain happens, if we're lucky.  For too many this year, there hasn't been enough.  For others, in the path of the various hurricanes, there has been too much.  At least too much at once.  We need it, but we need it to be spread out.  Another thing I've noticed is the lack of the gentle summer showers.  It seems now it's always thunder and lightening.  I remember back when, a shower would roll through and we could sit back and enjoy it, and it would rain for an hour or so and then stop.  Now when it blows through you have to worry about it taking the roof with it.  Everything changes, eh?  Well, it appears to change.  That's what the poem today is about, actually.  Rain that keeps coming, literally.

The rain

The rain has been falling for two days now
it is tired
It has been falling for an eternity
hit the ground, evaporate, hit the ground

If you think about the cycles
it's no wonder 
rain makes people feel down
it is, why shouldn't we?


Copyright 2010 Carl Thames

Been busy.

For the past week or so, I've been going through some published poets and writing down the great lines I'm finding in them.  Hopefully, they will nudge me toward writing more of my own.  The main poet I'm reading right now is Mark Strand.  I sincerely recommend him.  He was Poet Laureate for a year, and has won the Pulitzer.  Good stuff.  Well, back to it.  I've only got two books to go before I stop copying and start writing....

A short one

Today's poem is short, but I like it anyway.  Rather than comment, I'm just going to post and go back to what I was doing before.  (I realize I'm slacking big time, but I never intended this blog to be a job, so I won't feel guilty about it.  It's not like there is a deadline, or even hoard of people waiting to read it anyway.)

Desire

The nature of desire
is like the nature of fire
it flames much too fast
to ever really last


Copyright 2010 Carl Thames

Tendencies

Okay, I haven't posted for a couple of days.  I've been thinking about it a lot, but just haven't done it.  Part of that reason is that I'm spending some time reading poetry.  I have several books by Mark Strand.  He was a Poet Laureate of the U.S. for a year, and has won a Pulitzer.  I'm going through the books and actually writing down some of the lines that really strike me.  He has at least one per poem.  To me, he "gets" it.  He's not pastoral at all, no sweeping vistas, etc.  He's more internally focused, which I guess is what I am.  I've read back over what I've posted so far, and noticed that much of it is pretty dark stuff.  I don't want to write dark stuff, but that's what tends to come out.  It's not that I don't want to deal with it, because we all have to deal with the shadows along with the rest, but I'm not sure that's what other people want to read.  I know it helps sometimes to realize that I'm not the only one with somewhat morbid thoughts, but I don't want to drag someone down further than they already are.  I've been thinking about that for the past several days.  I'm going to try to be a bit more upbeat, but no promises.  Today's poem isn't all that upbeat, but here it is.  Reading it again, it speaks more to the process, I think.  Where the ideas come from, and how to dig them out.  It's not that ideas aren't easy, because they just happen.  The problem comes in when you try to express them in a coherent way.  You want to capture the central idea while presenting it in a manner that's understandable to a reader.  I know what I want to say, but I'm rarely sure that the way I say it makes sense to anyone else.  I guess I'll just have to see if anyone gets it.

Scrounging words

Scrounging words out of a mind
that has been strip-mined
down to the bedrock
with nothing left

call in the hammers
and the hard rock miners
there has to be more there
it can't all be gone

What's beneath the rock
that lies in layer upon layer
the dead from so long ago
that even it's name has forgotten

what's under the rock
under the bottom layer
so far down it doesn't remember
that there's a sky up there

go down far enough
and maybe you reach the fire
the fire in the middle
is there enough reach?


Copyright 2010 C. Thames

Two Haiku

Hey, I told you I get into a weird mood now and then.  Occassionally, that comes out as Haiku.  Not very often, because the form is difficult, if you do it right.  It's not just the right number of beats per line, it's also the content of the poem itself.  To me, a good Haiku bends back upon itself, and convey a lot of meaning in three apparently simple lines.  I think I managed it with these two, but you can make up your own mind about that.

Two Haiku

Breathtaking beauty
beheld in a passing glance
once captured is lost



knowing heartbreak
memory of beginning
melancholy bliss

A little different direction.

Okay, for this one, I start with a sonnet, followed by a quatrain.  I don't know why I did this, but it came out okay, so I kept it.  I'm still wondering about the quatrain,  but that's the way I wrote it, so it's staying.  Again, I do occasionally do rhymed poetry.  I used to do it a lot, but came the realization that most people now, (at least the people who are publishing poetry) have no use for it at all.  I remember getting into a discussion about this with a friend, and I told him that most of the really good poetry being written now is set to music.  It all rhymes, and flows, and has recognizable meter, etc.  There are other techniques being used, such as metaphor, simile, etc. also.  Anyway, here it is:

He stares

He stares out solemnly into the night
seeing nothing, feeling less, hearing sounds
He scans the darkness while seeking the light
held tightly in check by too-human bounds
Where is the sudden illumination
the answers to the questions never asked
somewhere in the inner rumination
he was bound to an impossible task
He looked into the depths of his soul
and did a completely thorough inspection
he searched the entire width of the whole
and found there only his own reflection
Is this all there is, he asked in wonder
there must have been a terrible blunder

Little ego burning bright
crouching low in quivering fright
what a poor, poor pitiful sight
hiding there beneath the light

Copyright 2010 Carl Thames

Slacking? Nope.

I wasn't slacking yesterday, I was wiped out.  On Saturday, I went over 500 miles, and it took 11 hours to do it.  Lot of sitting in the car, broken by brief moments of hard physical labor.  I know, I have been convinced that Manual Labor was the President of Mexico, but it's not.  Trust me on that one.  Anyway, knowing that at least two people read this thing on a regular basis, I decided I'd better get busy and put something new on here.  I like that.  Thank you.  You are motivating me to write more.  This one came from the same place the other ones did, only again it's a bit darker.  I write a lot about uncertainty.  I don't think any of us get any kind of guarantee of certainty, and I'm reacting badly to that.  Part of that is age, I think.  As I get older, I become more resistant to change, while at the same time I realize that changes are happening faster and faster.  It's already nearly the end of August.  It feels like yesterday was the 4th of July.  The day before that was New Years Day.  I guess I'll do like the rest and emulate the duck.  We see the calm, placid appearance on the surface, while underneath he's paddling like mad to try to get somewhere....

Do Your Duty!

All my life I've been destroyed
beginning from the first
curiosity dashed, questions ignored
molded into a formlessness
Do your duty!

My soul keeps screaming
there is someone in here
the world laughs quietly
it's somewhere in where?
Do your duty!

Life is a whole of disjointed parts
each part playing it's role
without knowing it's lines
on a stage of quicksand
Do your duty!

I run my race hobbled
cheered on by faces I trust
behind hands that secure the binds
I'm not allowed to quit
Do my duty!

C 2011 C. Thames

Yet another day?

It seems like the days are passing like a long walk lately.  One after the other, like one foot after the other.  They're not unpleasant, and they seem to have a goal, or destination.  Yet with each step, we find ourselves closer to the end, whatever that is.  In my case, I hope that it's another beginning place.  For the first time in a long time, I'm actively engaged in something that is going to lead to something else.  Maybe I'm just more conscious of it?  I'm working on a Master's degree in Counseling.  I am half-way through the program now, and have just as far to go as I've already come.  At times it seems amazing, at other, kind of an "eh" feeling.  I am enjoying the process, with the minor exception of the statistics class.  I didn't enjoy that very much, but it's interesting in that when I finished, I briefly considered going back and taking more math classes.  I may do that, after I finish this degree.  There is an elegance in numbers, and I feel a distinct lack in not being able to do them.  I now understand why my sons both like math.  I've always been a word person, and have always done better with words than numbers.  I think if I get more into numbers, it could round me out a bit.  I don't think I'm going to put up a poem with this post, just rambling.  Maybe later today?

Another question

I notice with several of my poems that I keep asking pretty much the same question.  It may seem important, but I'm now starting to ask just how relevant it really is.  I do like this poem, though.  I like the play on words, but again, I tend to have a favorite word for a while.  This period of time appeared to be "apart."  I like it because it's made up of the "a" and "part" which means belonging to, and yet together they mean the opposite.

Lying here


lying here, looking up
staring at the stars
feeling kinship
they are alone
one star, then another
apart, of the whole

I reach out to them
they are so far away
everyone sees them
you promise they are real
those stars
beyond touch
am I?


c. 2010 Carl Thames

In reading this again, I'm once again asking if I'm reachable, or even real.  That's always a question.  Have I distanced myself from the general flow of society so much that I'm no longer approachable?  I see evidence of that.  The curious thing is that I'm not sure that it bothers me.  I'm a lot more hesitant to make new friends now.  While I tell myself that I'm open to a romantic relationship, I'm not doing anything about achieving that.  I guess I'll just see what happens.

Make a better world?

I've heard since I was in high school that I needed to be a force for change, to do my part in making this a better world.  For the most part, I believe that.  We all have an obligation to do something to make this world a better place.  I know that doesn't seem like an attitude that's shared much any more, but it's out there.  It's way too easy to get caught up in our own lives and our own desires and completely ignore the rest of humanity.  Then there are those who have no interest whatever in improving anything other than their own personal situation.  I can understand that.  It just seems really, really small to me.  Don't misunderstand.  If you're in a lousy situation, you need to do what you can to change it.  The thing is that most people aren't in that bad a situation.  Most of us are just plugging along, doing what we do.  Anyway, I decided one day to write about it, so here it is.

Be a Force for Change


Be a force for change
that's what they said
I was supposed to do
all the way through school
Make your mark on the world
aspire to greatness
what a laugh
The people who told me to change
the world, won't
not the world,
not even themselves


Copyright 2010 Carl Thames

All we have to do now is to not take on their attitude, right?  We can do SOMETHING to make this world better.  All we have to do is decide to do it.

Are you there? Am I here?

I feel like I'm not being treated fairly.  At this stage in my life, I should have some certainty.  That seemed to be the promise.  When I was young, everything I read and heard was that if you wait long enough, you will find out what you need to know.  Well, it's not happening.  The older I get, the less I'm certain about.  Things that I thought I knew for sure are turning out to be just another delusion.  Things I thought I could count on are turning out to be less sure than some of the fantasy stuff.  Right now, I can stand in the middle of the woods and direct dial Australia and talk to someone there as if they were standing next to me.  It's incredible.  If I have a question, I can hop on the computer and within minutes have an answer.  I can't be sure it's the right answer, but I will have an answer.  Our access to information is incredible.  The problem is that it doesn't come with knowledge.  We can have pedantry, but we can't have knowledge.  The difference is that we can have the facts, but we can't be sure we know how those facts fit in with everything else.  Anyway, I did one that sort of fits this, so here it is.

My Life

There are times when my life
feels like the moon shining on calm water
I can see it clearly
but I know it's not really there


Copyright 2010 Carl Thames

What's real?

Okay, so I get philosophical now and then.  The problem is that I don't have the logical kind of mind to really do it right, but it's fun to play anyway.  I actually hunted down and read Rene Descartes at one time.  I tried to read Kant, but the guy writes like a German.  Forget Hume.  Anyway, I get in these moods and I like to think about why we are who and what we are.  I know, that's pretty dangerous, and I should learn to just shut up and live, but I got hung up on the saying "The unexplored life isn't worth living."  That's basically nonsense but again, I'm not all that logical at times.  When I get too illogical, I start making weird associations, and when I do that, sometimes poetry results.  I should be talking more about what constitutes poetry, but for this first bit, I just want to get some of it out there.  Debate among yourselves whether it's really poetry or not.

It was Real

Are there earthquakes on the moon?

Does the ground shake and move

or is it solid, not made of pieces

like our earth, in little squares

The ground here fits like a puzzle

one piece jammed into another

nothing solid about it

although we like to think it is

Does Mars have earthquakes?

I think it probably does

named after the God of war

it would be appropriate there

Or Venus, after the goddess of love

earthquakes would make sense there too

Only they would start from the center

not the surface like they do here

Here just the surface shakes

as the pieces move around

like the moves the silly humans make

dropping bombs all over the ground

or bouncing from one love to another

nothing is ever always

we feel the shake and convince ourselves

it was real, but it was then

The moon would probably shake it's head

if it had one, watching what was going on

seeing the pieces move around

with silly humans thinking they don't

Copyright 2010 Carl Thames

I'm not totally happy with the rhyming in the fifth stanza, but I don't want to change anything as it describes what I wanted to say.  Damn words anyway. I did another repeat in this one, with "silly humans" and I didn't even realize I'd done it until I posted, then read the post to see how it looked.  Hmmm, I'm usually a better editor than that.  Oh well, I think it fits, so it's staying.

Update

I just added a sign in thing.  I don't know for sure what it does, but it seemed like a good thing to add.  This site will morph gradually, as I figure stuff out.  Thanks Karen for the nudge.  I'll try to add some more stuff later today.

Why do it?

I ask myself constantly why I want to write, and specifically why I want to write poetry.  I've never fully understood it.  There are times, not frequently any more, when the urge is almost overwhelming.  I can remember when I was younger, when I would HAVE to write something, in order to stay sane.  Not that I regard sanity as all that it's cracked up to be.  Someone said that to be fully adjusted to an insane world is NOT a sign of mental health, and I believe it.  The world is a mess, the concept of a relationship usually involves a computer now, and nobody talks face-to-face if they can avoid it.  I'm not sure if that's a matter of choice or a matter of available time, though.  Everyone is so busy doing things now.  It's like nobody can stop for a few minutes and talk, because if they do, they'll be late for the next thing they have to do.  I guess I'm very lucky in that regard that I'm taking my retirement in the middle.  As soon as I finish school, I plan to get a job and hold it until they carry me out of it.  In the meantime, I'm going to continue to write, although I'm not doing a great job of that.  Most of the stuff I'm posting here was written in the past.  I'll run out of it soon, and have to start creating again.  I know we're all looking forward to that. 

I was in a pretty weird mood when I wrote this one.  Let me know what you think.

A hot loaf of poet

Lemme have a hot loaf of poet

steaming, if you have one

nothing satisfies like a fresh one

right out of the oven

He was from so far down south

he was up to here with it

full of ya'll and yes'um's

dripping off him like bird shit

he'd appreciate a hunk too

you don't slice bread, you break it

like you break poets

uneven, unleavened, unclean

take a hunk of poet

dip it in some butter

or gravy, or anything

improve the taste some

better to bake it fresh

eat it hot out of the pan

add a sprig of honeysuckle

stuffed up your nose

copyright 2010 Carl Thames

Words

Have you ever ran across a word that sounded like what it meant?  I do that on occassion, an usually spend a day or so with the word, running through my mind.  I savor it, let it rumble around for a bit.  Now and then I use it.  That's what happened with this one.

Jangled


Jangled nerves
that's a great word
it sounds like it feels
too much coffee
not enough something else

too much life
25 hours a day
of nothing much, really
talk about a waste
of timelessness

copyright 2010 C. Thames

What it is.

I have decided to just write here.  I'm not going to go for the ad thing where I can make money from this, or whatever.  That's not why I started this blog.  I want to put into words some of the stuff I'm dealing with.  The main problem, as is with most people, is this thing called life getting in the way of what we want to do.  Granted, my life is probably less intrusive in that regard.  I have a steady source of income, although it's barely adequate.  The important thing there is that it IS adequate, and I'm clinging to that.  I'm heading in the direction I want to go, and will become what I have been for most of my life in several years.  That sounds oxymoronic, and to a point it is.  I am studying to be a counselor.  I've done it for most of my life, and have actively sought out opportunities to help other people.  This class is good, though.  I'm learning how to help people without putting myself in jeopardy in some way.  I needed this thirty years ago.  Okay, maybe forty years ago. 

What does that have to do with poetry?  Everything, in my opinion.  Poetry, for me, is the essence of the thing.  You can lie in poetry, and many people do, but to me that defeats the purpose of it.  For me, it's like a Buddhist thing, where you get beyond the mundane, the routine, whatever, and get to what really matters.  That attitude brings its own problems, though.  What really matters?  Who gets to decide?  Then, add in the possibility of assuming another persona in the poem, and it gets really confusing.  One of my strong points is my ability to put myself into someone else's shoes.  I have the ability to feel what others feel in certain situations.  Now that I've written that, I have to question if it's real, or just another delusion.  I think it's real, because I am able to connect with other people, and in order to do that you have to be able to relate.  In order to relate, you need to be able to share, and the only way you can share is to know the feelings involved.  The purpose of poetry is to allow others into the space that contains those feelings or experiences.  I differentiate because two people can share an experience and come away with completely different feelings.  Maybe if I share an experience of sitting beside a lake, or the experience of standing in a pasture, eating grass and looking down a nearby road, it will pass along some kind of kindred feeling.  (Oh, you thought I was just talking about human feelings?)  Who knows.  I know I like to do it, so I do. Here's one I wrote one day when I was feeling mostly lack, but not totally. 

Empty Lot of Nothing

There's an empty lot
of nothing over there
a few blades of grass
some trash
but mostly nothing

Can you hear it calling?
What does it want from you?
Could be a social project
turn it into something
other than what it is

It seems fullfilled, an odd word
it just is, and in it's is-ness
fullfills us
it's not used
up to nothing

Leave it
but not alone
it's a place
empty in it's existence
it's how I know it.

c. 2011 C. Thames

Follow up

It took me a minute to find the poem I was talking about.  Sometimes the titles don't ring the right bell and I have to open them and read them to make sure it's the one I was really looking for.  (I know, ending a sentence with a proposition is a no-no, but it's the way I talk, so there it is.)  Anyway, here it is.

Feet blind

Blow me, wind
blow me down
a path my past doesn't know
somewhere new
that doesn't know me either

We can learn each other
I can find your rocks and thorns
and share them with you
and make them new to you

You can find me, maybe
stumbling down you
head up, feet blind
falling and getting up

Moving to a new place
that I can make old again
just like the old new place
I fell over, feet blind

It was such a nice place
green grass, blue sky, clear water
and I rejoiced, and sang
and danced until

the grass was mud
the sky was black
the water a murky brown
and it was old again

Copyright 2010 Carl Thames


I'm not that crazy about using the words "feet blind" twice, but I couldn't think of a better way to describe the situation that occurs in the second usage, so I left it.  I do like playing with words.

Oh. Yeah.

I am supposed to post here, I guess.  What's the point of having a blog if you don't post to it, right?  Anyway, I did want to put up some more of my poetry, which was the whole point of the blog in the first place, so I should get busy. 


Time is of the essense
   of what?
What time is the right time
  for anything now?
It comes, it changes, it goes
Everything was just fine then
  at least what we remember
     of the good parts
Nothing is ever as good
  as it was back then
  when we had so many
      tomorrows

I'm not really sure what I feel about this one.  It seems a little maudlin on the surface, but it does capture the feeling I had at the time.  I was sitting in the student commons, looking at the young people there.  I do that at times, and it brings up some weird stuff.  I'm older then they are, (56) and I've been where many of them want to go.  Some of those places I've been were nice, many weren't.  The main thing is that NONE of them were what I expected them to be. 

Being older than most of the people around you brings a blessing and a curse.  The blessing is that you now know how to handle a lot of those situations that they are heading toward, and the curse is that you can't go back and do that.  We are all on our own path, and that path does contain some rocks and brambles.  I did a poem about that too.  I guess I should post it as well.  I'll go find it.

The Blog Title

It's only fitting that I post the poem that gave me the title for the blog.  I'm still figuring out how this thing works, so bear with me for a bit.  Okay, let's see if it works this time:

Broke Brain Fool

Broke brain fool writing down words

he don't know what they mean

he picks them up by the dozen

scatters them on a page

like he thinks he knows what he's doing

he thinks he's going to touch somebody

reach into a place they can't get to

themselves because they're too busy

at whatever busy-ness they're doing

so he gets busy writing down words

he don't know what they mean

to anybody else

Copyright 2010 Carl Thames

Hello All, and Welcome!

I decided to start a poetry blog.  Why?  I think the best explanation of the reason would be summed up pretty well with the phrase, "Lack of better sense."  Why else would I want to put some of my poetry out there, along with various related musing, for the entire world to critique?  A big part of it is that I want to start writing more, and if I have a blog to post to, maybe it will be enough of an incentive to just do it.  I want to write more poetry, and I want to talk about poetry.  You're more than welcome to comment.  If I like your comment, I'll post it.  Sometimes I'll post it even if I don't like it.  That may sound counter-productive, but to me, poetry is about honesty.  You won't see many epic poems here, because I think poems should be a snapshot of an emotion.  If I want a larger picture, I will write a short story or a novel.  Poetry is about right now.  When I'm writing them, I try to get my personal self out of the way and let the feeling flow through to the end of the pen, or in this case, to the keyboard.  I hope you enjoy it, or at least get something out of it.  We shall see.