Poem: Snowglare

Aurora’d e’entide
--as close to dark as it gets this far north--
any perceived brightness a mere matter of snowglare
light-starved crystals glittering with all their might
that the dim shimmer might pass for luminosity
and draw all attention

Poem: Kiss the golden cross for luck

St John would not approve of this
But Carmelite interdiction and it's discipline of mind
have passed on down the river of tomorrow
as we keep paddling upstream on hazel oars
fiercely always away from yesterday's sea
into the mountains of Amber

when the evening light has turned to amber
and the world has been reduced to this
a mooring post upended above a starry sea
and the day has driven all from mind 
reduced communication to whispered 'more's
our hedonism will be less delirious tomorrow

slow as golden syrup dawns Tomorrow
a naked moment to preserve in amber
reluctantly we dress and put our oars
to water, reducing the world again to this
a battle against the current, mostly of the mind
narrowing the world to what we can see

Today is one day closer to the sea
we paddle hard to get through Tomorrow
as the sun wanes afternoon the current rises, but we don't mind
the sliding sun has turned the water amber
we set out for hours like this
no distractions but the dipping of our oars

green wisdom tries to sprout from our oars
whispering of submitting to the sea
with joyful defiance we deafen ourselves to this
tomorrow bleeds midnight to the day after tomorrow
as we refuse to be fossil-amber
and cling fanatically to freedom of mind

As we round a bend to morning we mind
that we cut the water cleanly with our oars
paddling through the night has cost us clarity but put us close to Amber
and far distant from the sea
we'll land the day after the day after tomorrow
and see everything; the miracle is this.

Amber frees our minds from constant paddling, opens up to roads paved in slightly sacrilegious gold
Eternal city means we watch as this river carries our oars downstream
Down to the estuary where everyone lives, somewhere between tomorrow and the sea

Poem: Karl Marx

Hey c'mon and give me something
something to believe
something to breathe (for)
something to inhale
You don't need all that ideology, do you?
Spare some philosophy for a poor man
You've got your opium rainbow
and I'm stone cold down here with the atheists

Poetry

Sometimes I forget why I love poetry. In writing forums and reading for literary magazines, I encounter a lot that's puerile and repetitive, themed around love and middle-class kids feeling oppressed and one-dimensional nature imagery. I encounter a lot of forced rhyme scheme and strange meter and badly-punctuated prose thinly disguised.

Then I read articles like this, and am reminded that poetry can be protest, can be a defiant shriek of identity. I am reminded that hip hop is a form of poetry.

I am reminded that I have been awed by Howl and quietly enchanted by Archy and Mehitabel. Robert Service's Cremation of Sam McGee was the first piece I ever memorized, and stuck in my mind so well that when I first experimented with cryptography, it was the key I used. I am reminded that Edgar Allan Poe's The Bells was one of the first things in any form to make me aware of the sublime perfection of careful word choice.

So why do we let ourselves read and, worse, write poetry that's easy to consume? Shutting ones brain off to be entertained is what romance novels are for. I understand poetry as expression of self, as exposition of experience, and it exists for me in the same realm as most biographies: good to have on hand for later anthropologists. I am afraid I am an inveterate thrill-seeker, though, so I want something that fires the imagination or subverts my understanding. I fell in love with poetry that moved me so my heart beat with its meter, and I want more.