Finish Line by Matt Lotharius

A long time ago

I heard an argent soul speak

It rang true with

no sound 

no rhythm 

no beat

I live in a chair far removed from crooked streets

Isolated

Books travel only as far as their pages turn

How strong can the heat be when your mind says to burn

That sturdy thrum that pendulm

Left to run wild

Left to run baseless

Away from other souls

My own growing faceless

Polished and smoothed by the trials sent

Illiterate to things I never read

Try to rush head long

into nothing

into forever

Into

Lives of those that never lived

Is that good enough?  Can I learn to forgive?

Can I come from the fire, that heat

Steeled from it’s suffering?

Or will I burn all that come near

Inspiring

 reviling,

 fear.

My own crucible

Steeped for too long I’ve had my fill

I wonder

By myself, are there others

By themselves do they surrunder

To the things I run from

Do they face them and come back stronger

Do some break then? There own spine sundered

I realized it’s hard to tell when you’re own life is cracking

Bitter pavement, cold tiles, curled lips smacking

Spears and jabs old wounds fester to long

Can I overcome them?

A question lingers

am I that strong

voices from the bones that I wear

proclaim there is no stopping here

all I can do then is move on.

Hope emits sparks

Sparks admit fire

Fire the color of passion

While that heat burns

While my feet learn

While my soul yearns

I run on.

Improv by Matt Lotharius

Icarus had wings of wax

he drowned in a sea foam

But behind our backs

we all have wings

made out of sinew and bone

You want music?

Then sing dammit

Even a crow has melody

You want motion

Then dance dammit

there’s no such thing as stationary

You want to win

Then play dammit

sharpen your skills till you’re on top

you want to live then LIVE dammit

you have no reason to stop

haters will hate and talk their talk

but you’re already up on stage

do what only you can do

only you can break your cage.

Spin by Matt Lotharius

It began long before you

It began long before us

it doesn’t stop

When you think about it

it doesn’t stop

When you don’t think about it

it doesn’t slow

As more people live

It doesn’t slow

as your  own life gives

it doesn’t yield

while it lifts you up

it doesn’t feel

as it grinds you up

what do we give to spin that wheel

the unending force of all that is real

turn and turn

our arms grip tight

turn and turn

hold on dear life

turn and turn

tears stream undone

turn and turn

new life’s begun.

A Meal of Brick and Cinder Blocks by Matt Lotharius

A meal of brick and cinder blocks

hands turn wheels

pull levers

Break stone into rocks

Move shovels and plunge stakes

grind fates

force hard gambles

tattered hands never realize truth

dreams turn slowly to shambles

Bones earn wages unpaid

Dreams turn brittle

in the shade of bank towers

hands grasping desperate handles

pull blades, draw knives, lock hammers,

scrape snow across glass, light pipes and scatter

The curtain drawn shut

 the mind weighed down by chains and locks

where can hope put roots on

brick and cinder blocks

trodden wearily but not down

feed your mind not the gun

not the pipe

not the hate

the way out is forward and it’s never too late.

Failure

Failure is the foundation of success

so fail hard 

so hard it hurts

so hurt it happens

so happen to stand

so stand too tall

so tall to see

so see it all

so all it begins

so begin on a step

so step on a start

so start with some help

so help someone else

or fail all alone

polishing failure

makes your brilliance glow

Poem Response to "Musee des Beaux Arts" by W.H. Auden

Auden starts his poem off with an almost story like tone. It has a bit of nonchalance to it’s wording.  It speaks of how the masters (of painting I presume) were spot on about their subject matter.  Auden implies that many people go through their life time waiting for something spectacular to happen.  How children don’t really want something like that to happen.  How life keeps on pressing forward.  In the last block Auden refers’ to Breughel’s painting of Icarus.  Something fantastic happened, but in the end everyone was so busy with their own lives that they barely pay the event any mind. 

  I like this poem as a thought experiment.  It feels to me that Auden was making a comment on how people get so wrapped up in their own things that it hardly registers when something exciting comes along.  It makes me wonder how much that is true, even in this modern age.

Poem Response to "The Cuban Doctor" by Wallace Stevens

I’m amazed by the variety of poetry that Wallace Stevens has written.  While they all flirt with imagery in fun ways, I feel that this particular poem takes the imagery to its extreme.  The Cuban doctor reads like a stream of consciousness poem.  There is only imagery, the events written barely link to each other.  I feel that maybe he was drowsy when he was writing this and that he either saw these images or even began to dictate them in his mind and wrote them down when he woke up.

Poem Response to "Disillusionment of 10 O'clock" by Wallace Stevens

The Poem “DIsillustionment of Ten O’Clock” is a very succinct poem.  Each line feels very deliberate with the mood that he is trying to convey.  Stevens starts the poem by stating that none of the night-gowns are specific shapes or colors.  He even states what people are not going to dream about.  I thought that was an interesting direction to take a poem by stating things that are not happening.  It made me wonder if there actually are purple with green rings night-gowns.  I feel almost as if the poem is an abstract.  The lines barely seem to relate to each other.  This might even be a type of “Stream of Conciousness” poem?  As if Stevens was sitting down to write at Ten O’Clock and then these ideas drifted to him as he wrote.

Poem Response to "Matisse: The Red Studio" by W.D. Snodgrass

  The poem “The Red Studio” is a reflection based on the painting of the same name by Henri Matisse.   Snodgrass starts pointing out how the painting is only a simularcrum of actual objects, of an actual place, but then he turns it on it’s ear by stating that the painting itself is a piece of Matisse himself.  I loved how Snodgrass says that the room itself had consumed him, that the painting had absorbed Matisse’s energy and is both an object and a representation of him.  That the items depicted are given life through Matisse’s effort.  I find that observation to be imaginative and intriguing.  The structure of the poem I find appealing, it feels almost lyrical with his word choice.  They alternating between long descriptive lines and the occasional terse short line helps emphasize the words.

Poem Response to "Man with a Blue Guitar" by Wallace Stevens

When I first started reading the poem I really enjoyed the way the rhyming scheme was setting up.  It had a bit of a rhythm to it, not perfect, but enough to keep me bouncing through the lines as it went.  It reminds me of some of the more contemporary poetry like Saul Willams or Maya Angelou.  I can see how Stevens’ work fits in the history of poetry.  As I kept reading the poem it started to occur to me that this thing is running on a bit.  And then I looked at the scroll bar.  So I know this may sound like an uneducated or short attention spanned remark, but seriously Wallace Stevens.  Too long, didn’t read.  33 sections to this poem.  It could take up its own book!  I suppose my opinion may be colored by how late it is while I’m writing this.  I’ll try to pick up where I left off and see it from some morning eyes.

 So despite how incredibly lengthy the poem is, every section is packed with imagery and meaning. I think the subject matter of the poem has a fun little twist to it as well.  It starts out like your hearing a story about a man who plays a guitar, but it quickly begins to transcend that little starting piece.  The poem runs at full speed away from that and quickly becomes a cosmic experience.  The blue guitar begins to stretch itself into infinity.

 I liked the poem despite how quickly I was stumped by how long it was.  Stevens’ work feels highly intelligent and even manages to sound a little pleasing to the ear at the same time.

Trigger Happy

A sodden glow that seeps from a weary soul

Solidifying bone into action

Turning sinew into energy

A mind alight

Heralded by a bright aroma

Incited from violent beauty

feral wind slides down a splintered spine

it defines itself and divides

to a splendor that pushes fire

causes light to be lighter

and words to blend in ways that are brighter

the weights that orate about our melancholy statements

suffer abatement

raw like life bursting from earth

a place that was once bereft now

bleeds girth

overturning its midnight grip

upon blackend stones

heat dances down limbs and erupts

waving flags of action

flags of truth

fragments forming into one sharp edge

cut through diamonds

and things that suffer definement

this is what the light meant

when it spoke to be free from confinement

and you it’s vessel

harness it’s heightening

strike with your mind a bold wave of lightening.

Inspired from the state of orbit

Decayed as time wore it

Or deplored from suction

Malfunction over run

And now the choosen one

Locked and loaded inspiration

And now you are the gun.

Double dose of Poetry

Gossip

some words

some words you heard

some words you heard before

some words you heard before it made sense

some words you heard before it made sense to stop

some words you heard before it made sense to stop listening

some words you heard before it made sense to stop listening to others

some words you heard before it made sense to stop listening to others repeat it

Trinket

A warm naivety, it tickles your nose when you see it again,

a shape you once danced with, colors you flew alongside,

endlessly wandered, 

endlessly wondered, 

endlessly ended

It had moved away long ago, now only dust in your eyes

a suit on your bones, a day in your job

you forgot it was special to you

you forgot to remember

you forgot to forget

you forgot

you

Ghost in the Land of Skeletons, by Cristopher Kennedy

  I feel that this poem is a more recent one.  Some of the word choice feels more more contemporary to me.  It want to say that the poem is almost a stream of consciousness kind of poem.  He describes how he prefers ghosts to skeletons, and mentions that he is unhappy about mortality.  I get the inkling that there is a bit more to this poem that i'm not picking up on.  I could be wrong.  To me the poem is about how ghosts seem to be better off in that they are the people who were so steadfast that they end up haunting a place, instead of simply turning to bones.  

  I think it is implied that the narrator himself is a ghost because near the end of the poem he says that he likes how ghosts don't know their dead.  Then he says a man sakes him if HE feels like a ghost.  The Narrator replies "sure, every day."  The man laughs and then disappears.  In that bit i guess it can be interpreted that either then Narrator is a ghost who doesn't know it, or the that the man was a ghost poking fun at him.  

Grass Lunch

The right mouth dances with

splintered skin.  The wrong face leads

and night chilled faith

fractures the vision.

cold dance bathes in a bright droning

It rings silence upon dull thumbs

does it toy? 

close up 

filled with plastic heat

closed up 

never reaching the end of it's passions.

A soft engine scratches the curtain

beguiling veins of paradise

felt tipped exploration on vacant skin

with biting page and dampened bones

commiserate failure spills from his sorrow

present hips and folded lies hesitate

crackling words on

forgiving skin

a passive halo follows me

while the sun breathes on the walking green, and dines upon a grass lunch.

Poem response to American Gothic by John Stone

  The poem is based on the painting American gothic by Grant Wood.  Stone’s poem reflects on the things that are not in the actual painting.  He writes about the animals that are probably on that farm, and how the farmer’s triumph is immortalized.  I find the line “arrested in the name of art” to be a fun play on words and the general word choice to be a bit tongue in cheek.  It is implied that the farmer is impatient and wanting to tend to his crops and the lady is trying to remember if she left the stove on or not.  I thought those little elements help add some fun to the overall poem. 

  The lines of the poem are all a fairly terse 3-5 words long and I think that pacing helps move the reader briskly from each idea to the next.  Each grouping’s idea is broken up with a short aside in the middle that can be left out and still retain the meaning, but without them deflate the poem.

Complete

Windows without glass

Doors without hinges

Bulbs without lamps on a desk with no chair

A house I built myself but something seems wrong.

Nails without a hammer on a bench with no surface. 

I scrub a saw without teeth on wood with no idea

The work is hard, and there are many other things to do,

I move without delay, onto art with no brush

I stand back from my frame without canvas on a day with no sun

To me it seems good, but something is off

I sweat all day with little result, wash my face in a sink with no water.

Warm myself at night by a fire with no heat. 

I invite some photos in and we have dinner,

They seem pleasant enough, and we have a good time,

Later in the evening I tell them about this inkling I have

ask them if anything seems amiss

Friends without name on a face with no sorrow

they assure me with their frozen smiles that I’m imagining things.

If all you know is half,

If all you have is some,

If all you see is few,

If all you do is part,

Will you ever know incomplete?

I look at my work without ego, and fix it with no fuss

Try to focus without distraction, believe with no doubt

Maybe tomorrow without fear, I will go to a future with no limit. 

Response to "Winter Landscape" by John Berryman

The poem Winter landscape feels like it was specifically written as a response to the painting that accompanied it.  It specifically calls out portions of the painting and describes them.  The hunters coming down the hill, the people around the fire, the children on the ice; all are mentioned in the poem.  It goes a touch beyond that though.  The line “the long companions they can never reach” almost makes a reference to the fact that this is a painting, and that the figures can never reach their destination; almost as if the poet is lamenting the plight of the figures in the painting.  At he same time there is a hint of wistfulness about how this beautiful scene will last forever. 

This poem was read alongside another poem by William Carlos Williams titled “The Hunter in the Snow”.  I only mention it because they both seem to be written about the same painting, and I wanted to mention that “The Hunter in the Snow” strikes me as the less interesting of the two because of how much less imagery we get out of the poem.  It reads almost like the painting is being described to a blind person with no real depth given in the poem.

Attempts at symbolist poems led me to write this poem

Results

It is a vulgar, tasteless brute that read a book once.

It’s pungent aroma sticks to you like the mud it tracked onto your carpet

It tarnishes and scratches, rusts and molds.

It weasels its way in with some words that you thought made sense at the time, or resonated with the big hole in your life you’ve been covering up with shopping and movies.  

It leaves an off color stain on you that you desperately try to hide.  When someone asks you about it you try to choke down the embarrassment when you have to explain that it was all “something that happened by accident” or “well this rude person barged in here and…”

It’s the same insanity that makes you think if you keep doing it over and over again and expect different results. 

That’s what poetry is.

Poem Response to "Naked Girl and Mirror" by Judith Wright

I have to reiterate that there is a distinct sound and flavor of professional poetry that I still cannot fathom.  Like stumbling out into a beautiful sunny day when all you know is darkened rooms.  I’m seeing beautiful things, but the light is too bright and their wondrous details are impossible to make out clearly. 

  The poem “Naked Girl and Mirror” is one such poem.   I feel like the “I” in this poem is at odds with their physicality.  Like they are seeing themselves for the first time and are repulsed by their own mortality.  I almost think the speaker in the poem literally is something outside of its reflection.  The word choice makes the speaker sound pleased with many elements of how they look, but still not completely willing to believe that it is themselves.  Like looking at clothing or some other inanimate object.  The end of the poem goes back to the speaker being unhappy with the girl in the mirror. “I resent your dumb and fruitful years” I interpret as being unhappy at … being young?  Being naïve?  Maybe the speaker is a sociopath?

Imagist poem

Pheasant

Emerald verdant hill

Sopping fog morning

Like a flash of fire.

A flame frozen in place, then burning to life, and then gone.

Poem Response: The Street by Stephen Dobyns

  My first reaction to the poem was that it felt like snippets of city life.  Each separate subject became a cuckoo clock figure that danced around in their scripted parts of their lives.  I feel that the author had time to observe these figures, that they were specific individuals that he ran into at some point in the city.  I'll take a guess and say this poem is done in the style of abstract poetry.

  While there are definite figures the descriptions come across in a way one sees a Salavador Dali painting.  I feel as if these events all some how make the author comment bleakly on their existences.  The things they do don't entirely make sense, the subjects and objects are disjointed from reality, even though they are apparent facsimiles of city life.  The final stanza of the poem paints the figures as self absorbed, oblivious, and alone.  I think the author would have preferred to live in the countryside.

Blackbirds, after Wallace Stevens

Sharp black outline on a power line,

While walking home

Words typed into a computer from a recollection.

Clacking of keys,

About 7,060,000 results in half a second

Most of them about an aircraft.

Turdus Merula, Turdus Boulboul, Turdus Albocinctus.

26 more formed into a list

Existing as bits and pieces

White bathes a dark room, the black birds arranged in rows

Many are exactly the same

Their eyes unmoving

Blackness eclipse them and toasters fly by.

Electricity recites them faithfully

In a song of ones and zeroes

The blackbirds are available to all corners of the globe

Conjured by fingers.

How many have seen them before?

How long have they flown?

When will they be reduced to information?

The cold scent of autumn sets in

Leaves crackle and shiver

Pull your jacket closer

A rustle of leaves and you look up

404 File not found.

Have I ever seen a blackbird?

Artists Among Poets

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