from quarries etched in hope’s terrain, the walls
from roaring foundries fueled by love, the beams
annealed by heartache, fast through storms and squalls
ambition’s towers, crowned by spires of dreams
in His mysterious way, the grand Assembler,
dissembling from our feeble sense His plan,
springs trouble from the ground, begets a temblor
of grief to raze the edifice we raise
with shattered visages and broken hearts
we gather splintered glass and fractured steel
with newfound blueprints in woe’s ink, the parts
we ply, the joists to shore, the clefts to seal
by tragedy thus welded, braced by tears,
our souls survive the quakes of future years
2011/01/25 at 19:02
Lovely poem. You really are very talented. I’m so envious.
2011/01/25 at 20:31
Thank you. Wonderful poem.
2011/01/25 at 21:06
Nice to see you blogging again. This was a very ambitious attempt, and you pulled it off with style.
2011/01/25 at 23:29
I’m becoming envious of people with artistic ability.
2011/01/26 at 00:50
The practice of linking allusions is an interesting innovation that holds promise for reviving poetry online. A hi-tech solution to poetry’s inaccessibility in the age of illiteracy.
2011/01/26 at 01:10
thanks for the kind words all.
as for poetry in general, i try to avoid the (mis)use of poetry to express ideas that can be adequately represented without it.
having the same respect for poetry as for a formidable opponent in the ring, i try not to step between those particular ropes unless the content’s analogical or emotional weight, or the multiplicity of its layers, is impossible to render in prose.
incidentally, i’ve come to feel much the same way about sex, in that i feel it’s almost disrespectful to deploy our sexuality in situations that don’t involve otherwise inexpressible (and sometimes contradictory) emotions. fortunately, i’m sufficiently hotheaded (in all senses of the word) that i encounter few such situations.
2011/01/26 at 01:18
dantes, #5
The practice of linking allusions is an interesting innovation that holds promise for reviving poetry online. A hi-tech solution to poetry’s inaccessibility in the age of illiteracy
i considered the linking necessary because the allusions are weak enough to go unnoticed otherwise.
i don’t mean “weak” in a pejorative sense here; i have a rather sensitive threshold for what i consider plagiarism and/or dilution of my own voice, so any allusions i may throw into the text will normally be minimum effective doses.
also not insignificant is the unobtrusiveness of links in this particular wordpress theme. were the links to appear in the usual jarring, underlined royal blue, i’d eighty-six them.