re: Dezzie goes Buddhist, "The Only Reason"

[d e s d e m o n o]

THE ONLY REASON

I wish I remember when I stopped being able to
See the world as the world;
When the silver-filigree connections, the spider-wires,
Always there,
Caught up with reality and fell over my head like a filmy net until
There was nothing to see but the gossamer,
Along which it is, true, easier for my words to leap to beauty
But through which it is harder to see beauty without the leaping of it.
I wish I remember when a blue sky
Started toting around the phrase 'rain-washed' wherever it wandered
From my ear to my lips
And back;
When pleasant fall evenings
Turned into impressions of moth-eaten drapes and
Leaves, shading from dark green to orange,
Fingertips, moss between old stone,
Even as I breathed in city crispness and rubbed my mottled palms together
That I might keep them warm.

It is a fine thing, to be sure,
This layering of worlds, one after another, bridged easily, by reflex,
The tool of any aspiring creator, that they may never lack for sly allegory-
Allusion, but rather always have a many-legged not quite choice
Of what to weave, more than intention, from the threads that
Cross behind their awed audience's eyes.

Still the few memories -
I say few, mistake me not; they branch out the instant I loose them -
That have one way or another stayed clean of most these cobwebs,
Bounded only faintly by an emotion,
A song or a saying,
An imagined smile,
Strike me sometimes from behind with gentle hands,
Present their fragile faces, darting away before I can tie them down.

They are lovely, I think (though I cannot be sure).
Very lovely. And I wish I could clutch them
For longer; but I never try hard enough, and in any case
It would not work.
Too fleeting they are, and too happy as they fan themselves
Like summer days and
Underline my waking dreams without a care.

It makes me wish I were enlightened,
Those dreams:
The only things that ever have called me to lucid nirvana,
To being empty as a gourd,
Not happy, no
But I would see everything, I think, and need no thoughts to cross the gaps,
And passion is not what drives me, in the end; I have no true need of it,
Only treacherous desire, my noble steed,
That I would as soon dismount,
That I might walk among flowers untouched by Swinburne and God,
That I might be only what surrounds me,
Free of inflection,
Free of liberty,
Free of the self that nags me always
(Because that is what this is about, in the end; interaction is become intraction,
And I cannot find it in me to appreciate
What is essential).  

[Voxxx]

Out of your works, this one just wasn't my favorite. You're a brilliant writer, though, and all of your stuff is good, this one just seems rather mechanical.  

[d e s d e m o n o]

Hmm. Yes. I... sort of know what you mean; the poem isn't exactly alive, I think, if that makes any sense. Technically I'm pleased with it - nice flow, nice phrases, and so forth - but it is not something made to move or to be loved, really.  

[Tak-Jak]

On a technical stand-point, this is very well written. You understand and employ a variety of different syntax methods and the like. There may have been a few lines here or there that required a glance back at, to clarify, but all in all everything was good.

On an emotional stand-point, it was still written nicely but just not the same. I could feel emotion lurking there, but it didn't push forward. Now, I am not entierly sure that was a bad thing for the overall message of the piece and the abiguity of it.

It just didn't capture me as well, as some of your others. I found my eyes wondering to my cat, to my wall, to ecetera. But still very well written.  

[d e s d e m o n o]

=] We have a consensus!

Anyway, thank you both for your kind words. I'm satisfied with it, I think, because it is what it is; I may revise a little here and there but mostly it's just... not emotional, or even very poetic, in concept.

*shrugs*  

[Tak-Jak]

It is not that it is written poorly, or in any other sense.

I actually re-read it and found that I rather liked the emotionless tone of the piece.

I find in deep understanding, when scholars finally understand and master all the concepts they have studied, they find that monotone... that light is no longer there in their explainatons. That is how I view the narrator (not you, of course but that who lends his voice to the piece.)

I find he had discovered, held that epiphany to heart, and become familiar to a point with that understanding, that in expressing his finds, he sounds uncaring and distant.  

[KirbyVictorious]

Dez, love ya, but I have to agree with them about that. Still, I loved it, ebcause I understood the meaning. While I was a bit distracted and certain things caught my attention--like the rantish feel, the bored tone of it--and I got really ADD, which shouldn't happen, I still understood entirely what you were talking about, and am glad you wrote it. It made me a bit sad though, because it's true. ):