{"id":15585,"date":"2014-05-02T11:34:15","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T15:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=15585"},"modified":"2014-05-02T11:34:15","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T15:34:15","slug":"missing-the-point-or-nearly-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/missing-the-point-or-nearly-so\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing the Point (or Nearly So)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'Irony<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “irony at BBworld,” by user bionicteaching (Tom Woodward) at Flickr.com<\/a>.
\nUsed under a Creative Commons license.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

West Wind<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks — when you hear that unmistakable pounding — when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming — then row, row for your life toward it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Oliver [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The History of Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our masters are gone and if they returned
\nWho among us would hear them, who would know
\nThe bodily sound of heaven of the heavenly sound
\nOf the body, endless and vanishing, that tuned
\nOur days before the wheeling stars
\nWere stripped of power? The answer is
\nNone of us here. And what does it mean if we see
\nThe moon-glazed mountains and the town with its silent doors
\nAnd water towers, and feel like raising our voices
\nJust a little, or sometimes during late autumn
\nWhen the evening flowers a moment over the western range
\nAnd we imagine angels rushing down the air’s cold steps
\nTo wish us well, if we have lost our will,
\nAnd do nothing but doze, half hearing the sighs
\nOf this or that breeze drift aimlessly over the failed farms
\nAnd wasted gardens? These days when we waken.
\nEverything shines with the same blue light
\nThat filled our sleep moments before,
\nSo we do nothing but count the trees, the clouds,
\nThe few birds left; then we decide that we shouldn’t
\nBe hard on ourselves, that the past was no better
\nThan now, for hasn’t the enemy always existed,
\nAnd wasn’t the church of the world always in ruins?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mark Strand [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Sun woke me this morning loud
\nand clear, saying “Hey! I’ve been
\ntrying to wake you up for fifteen
\nminutes. Don’t be so rude, you are
\nonly the second poet I’ve ever chosen
\nto speak to personally
\nso why<\/span>
\naren’t you more attentive? If I could
\nburn you through the window I would
\nto wake you up. I can’t hang around
\nhere all day.”
\n“Sorry, Sun, I stayed<\/span>
\nup late last night talking to Hal.”<\/p>\n

“When I woke up Mayakovsky he was
\na lot more prompt” the Sun said
\npetulantly. “Most people are up
\nalready waiting to see if I’m going
\nto put in an appearance.”
\nI tried<\/span>
\nto apologize “I missed you yesterday.”
\n“That’s better” he said. “I didn’t
\nknow you’d come out.” “You may be
\nwondering why I’ve come so close?”
\n“Yes” I said beginning to feel hot
\nwondering if maybe he wasn’t burning me
\nanyway.
\n“Frankly I wanted to tell you<\/span>
\nI like your poetry. I see a lot
\non my rounds and you’re okay. You may
\nnot be the greatest thing on earth, but
\nyou’re different. Now, I’ve heard some
\nsay you’re crazy, they being excessively
\ncalm themselves to my mind, and other
\ncrazy poets think that you’re a boring
\nreactionary. Not me.
\nJust keep on<\/span>
\nlike I do and pay no attention. You’ll
\nfind that people always will complain
\nabout the atmosphere, either too hot
\nor too cold too bright or too dark, days
\ntoo short or too long.
\nIf you don’t appear<\/span>
\nat all one day they think you’re lazy
\nor dead. Just keep right on, I like it.<\/p>\n

And don’t worry about your lineage
\npoetic or natural. The Sun shines on
\nthe jungle, you know, on the tundra
\nthe sea, the ghetto. Wherever you were
\nI knew it and saw you moving. I was waiting
\nfor you to get to work.<\/p>\n

And now that you<\/span>
\nare making your own days, so to speak,
\neven if no one reads you but me
\nyou won’t be depressed. Not
\neveryone can look up, even at me. It
\nhurts their eyes.”
\n“Oh Sun, I’m so grateful to you!”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Thanks and remember I’m watching. It’s
\neasier for me to speak to you out
\nhere. I don’t have to slide down
\nbetween buildings to get your ear.
\nI know you love Manhattan, but
\nyou ought to look up more often.
\nAnd<\/span>
\nalways embrace things, people earth
\nsky stars, as I do, freely and with
\nthe appropriate sense of space. That
\nis your inclination, known in the heavens
\nand you should follow it to hell, if
\nnecessary, which I doubt.
\nMaybe we’ll<\/span>
\nspeak again in Africa, of which I too
\nam specially fond. Go back to sleep now
\nFrank, and I may leave a tiny poem
\nin that brain of yours as my farewell.”<\/p>\n

“Sun, don’t go!” I was awake
\nat last. “No, go I must, they’re calling
\nme.”
\n“Who are they?”<\/span>
\nRising he said “Some
\nday you’ll know. They’re calling to you
\ntoo.” Darkly he rose, and then I slept. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Frank O’Hara [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

He drove slowly, carefully… Mary’s scent everywhere, all<\/em> of her scent, the vanilla and the clover and all the rest of it, everywhere, he could not not<\/em> sense it: in his hair, in his chin and brow, pressed into the backs of his hands and wrists, rubbed like liniment into his pores; indeed, while he wasn’t literally inhaling it anymore, now he seemed to be exhaling it. Scent of desire.<\/p>\n

He rolled down his window. The morning cold came roaring in at him and he hung his head out the window and into the wind; it roared around and over and into the pores of his face and scalp, blurring his vision and scrubbing scrubbing his skin but leaving untouched the scent at his core. A thousand questions glittered down at him from the sky, one question per star […], for the most part unanswerable questions about what he was — well, thought<\/em> he was — and what he wanted (or, well, all right: thought<\/em> he wanted) to be, and what he had done and would have to do now, what he could<\/em> do now and what he would never be able to do again. Lined up behind a tractor trailer which was mysteriously obeying the speed limit, on a wild impulse Webster reached forward and shut off the Galaxie’s headlights. Bobbing like a cork, borne on desire, face to the wind. Heart racing, alone in the dark.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(JES, The Dark<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “irony at BBworld,” by user bionicteaching (Tom Woodward) at Flickr.com. Used under a Creative Commons license.] From whiskey river: West Wind (excerpt) You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,36,105,251,713],"tags":[284,595,684,1939],"class_list":{"0":"post-15585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-reading","11":"category-short-fiction","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-humor-writing_cat","14":"tag-webster-stories","15":"tag-mary-oliver","16":"tag-mark-strand","17":"tag-frank-ohara","18":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-43n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15585"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15603,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585\/revisions\/15603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}