Tag: poetics

Posted in interNational Poetry Month, poem, poetry

~ The Will of the Quill ~

Posted on by The BeZine Editors 
(( wrote this after an extended blog conversation with another talented poet friend of mine about the limits of the written word and language. As good/succinct/clear as a writer strives to be, there always exists the possibility of misunderstanding, and that can be very frustrating! She inspired it (Thanks again, E!), and rather than use an image for this one, I think it's more appropriate to let the words do the talking this time...)
Thick as the speed of clotted thoughts,
This language suffices;
A cumbersome tool.
Experience sought (and bought)
The sacrifices
That made wiser men
From ignorant fools.

Words escape.

You. Me.
They cannot be caught,
Yet aren’t quite free,
For every one comes attached to a thought,
And for every action,
It was birthed in naught but
Electrical energy --
Brain waves of….what?

Symbols understood, with meaning,
But none can accurately catch the dreaming,
Teeming shores of what it means to live.
Sensation lingers in the mind’s mouth,
Tasting phrases.
Sifting variations of description,
Through this medium’s sieve.

It still lacks
The richness of the moment’s impact.
In fact,
It’s amazing communication takes place.
Limited as we are,
By our lack
Of (understanding)
The rigidity of moving back
And forth,
Through
Time
and
Space.

Seeking to capture a feeling,
A sight,
To explain human nature --
Thus, stealing it, right?
We take from experience,
And categorize.
We label our labors,
And ceaselessly prize the “Hows“,
And “Whys”,

But Language,
The bridge of the written word…

*sighs*

Though inadequate,
Sometimes succeeds,
And we’re “heard”.

©2009 C.L.R.
All rights reserved

The BeZine Spring
Posted in interNational Poetry Month, poetry

Guerrilla Poetry plus 2 more from Lorraine Caputo

Posted on by The BeZine Editors
A poetry reading
Digital art from photographs, ©2021 Michael Dickel

Comments on a Reading

You create images
	with words you’ve carefully chosen
		& modeled into verse
But in your droning monotone
	they fall lifeless
		before my ears     my mind

Breathe the fire you felt
	when you wrote that poem
Let the words escape from your mouth
	the way they escaped from your imagination
Let me hear the laughter       the groans
	the serenity       the anger

Your words sputter out in a constant stream
	to stop
			dead
		before reaching my Spirit

GUERRILLA POETRY

The idea ….

Take the poetry out of the coffeehouses & classrooms
	Take the voice to the streets

Small groups       3 or 4 voices united
Guerrilla strikes       poetry readings
Hit with the power of poems
		& disappear, then
	into the mundane life

		laundromats
	speaker’s circle
shopping malls
	convenience stores
		police station waiting rooms

		wherever people are
	sludging through the mud
of rutted life

Strike       with the word

Then       vanish

DO IT!

BANQUETE CULTURAL

On a ball court
in Barrio Edén
we set chairs around
the stage-buffet
we are laying

creating a different space
from the bar on the corner
blaring tropical rhythms,
from the traffic going
some place
some place else
this Saturday night

Families & neighbors
take a seat, their hungering
souls, hungering minds
feasting on the songs & stories,
poetry & mime—the visions
we serve at this 
Cultural Banquet,

a now & then breeze
softly wiping away our
sweat, softly swaying palms
to our rhythms
in this different space

©2021 Lorraine Caputo
All rights reserved

in The BeZine

Follow her travels on
latin america wanderer

Lorraine Caputo

Wandering troubadour Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in over 250 journals on six continents; and 14 collections of poetry – including On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019) and Escape to the Sea (Origami Poems Project, 2021). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. In March 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honored her verse. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She travels through Latin America with her faithful companion Rocinante (that is, her knapsack), listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.

The BeZine Spring

Posted in Art, interNational Poetry Month, poem, poetry

Somewhere a Whirring Fan

Posted on by The BeZine Editors 
                         “With this beginning, the unknown concealed one created
                           the palace. This palace is called אלוהים (Elohim), God.
                           The secret is: בראשית ברא אלוהים (Bereshit bara Elohim),
                           With beginning, _______ created God (Genesis 1:1).”
— Zohar (I:15a)
                         “…She knows that her beloved is searching for her;
                          so what does she do?  She opens the portal to her
                          hidden room [in the palace] slightly and reveals
                          her face for a moment, and then hides it again.”
— Zohar  (II.99a)
 Somewhere, a whirring fan
 in an open window spins
 possibilities into threads.
 I heard a rumor that the
 Oleander flowers shed
 their pink and white grace
 for poisonous reason.
 A car slinks down traces
 of a melted tar road.

You like to stand by the window,
 and want him to see you there,
 behind a curtain. He doesn’t
 know you or you him. He walks
 the span of street, infrequently
 catching a glimpse of blue
 eyes, a reflection in cracks
 of the cotton-hued skies.

The crow calls from a tree.
 Another day, green parrots
 screech louder than the
 traffic flees. The heat lays
 like a corpse upon our city.
 Bougainvillea bracts spot
 gardens with false hope,
 colorful arrays of forgotten
 pain turned to sweet honey.

He forgets you, though you
 never meet. And you, also,
 forget—window, curtains,
 the desire for a stranger's
 glad glance. Someone wants
 this to be autobiography, a
 short recollection of moments
 actually lived. That person never
 dreamed, does not exist anymore.

 And I never existed because I
 don’t stop dreaming. Poetry, like
 a god, provides code for an image,
 keying it to suggest a revelation-lode
 from your past. You want it to be
 my past. Parrots screech.
 A crow calls. A beautiful Other
 by the window waits. This all
 happens to you while I write

 these scenes tangled in dreams,
 whirring fans—the poem unable
 to light any form, your reading,
 this page; unable to discover more
 than bare wisps of  meaning in the
 vibrations of words—your song longing
 for someone in the infinite void. Wanting
 a mortal to read you into this, to see you
 alive, you seek a new beginning—genesis.
Asemic Writing Crab / Self-portrait
©2021 Michael Dickel

Note: Zohar refers to The Book of Splendor, one of the main texts of Kabbalah. Translations are from Daniel Matt’s work.

Somewhere a Whirring Fan is from Michael Dickel’s collection, Nothing Remembers.

©2019 Michael Dickel
All rights reserved

The BeZine Spring