Something I started working on today – fairly rough still but hey, I’m dusting off my poetry skills which have lain dormant since high school. Actually, I banished them for awhile, but I’ve been thinking lately, probably influenced by Jess’s blog that I should give it a whirl again sometime. The rhythm for this was in my head but it doesn’t quite all fit and I’m not sure it’s really done where it ends. Oh well – as one of my favourite quotes says, “A poem is never finished, only abandoned” or Oscar Wilde who commented that he knew a poem was done when he spent the whole morning inserting a comma, and the rest of the afternoon removing it.
Lament.
This gap yawns vast in me
A lack of curiosity
That sits so idly at home
Content to know the things we know
No need to waste the energy
On learning more than necessary
The watered seeds of apathy
Grow in our inactivity
We have no stamina of thought
For complicated word and pattern
We cannot rise to the occasion
Incapable of concentration
And so a river thick with ignorance
Floods our minds with empty business
Truth no longer is imparted
Through the avenue of artists

4 comments
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September 4, 2008 at 11:16 am
jessicaschafer
Good for you, Tash! I like the rhythm! Its a very good lament–totally depressing. :]
September 4, 2008 at 3:45 pm
ncrozier
Thanks Jess! Any suggestions?
September 5, 2008 at 3:27 pm
jessicaschafer
Well one of the things I remember Mrs. Storrs always used to say was to get rid of filler words like “the” and “and” as much as possible. So certain lines could be pared down like, “No need to waste energy/learning more than necessary”. Also, the lines “And so a river thick with ignorance… with empty business” fall a little flat. I like the image of the river, but the “empty business” doesn’t seem to capture what’s left after a flood. :]
September 5, 2008 at 4:12 pm
ncrozier
Yeah – I was trying to play with deluge and debris for the flood bit but it wasn’t working. Maybe I just leave it out?
“We cannot rise to the occasion
Incapable of concentration
Truth no longer is imparted . . .”
hmmm – I’ll have to think about it a bit more. i’ll repost it if it improves drastically.