Beyond

Victor Vignon "Untitled"

 

"Beyond"

By: Lauren Laguna

Beyond me fall the shadows of long forgotten things, cast by the searchlight burning my back with wanting, so much wanting directed on my head. Want to know, pick, peel, chew. Want the information kept from you. No. Do not ask. Questions will not meet answers, will only spread the black shapes, speed them further ahead— Stop! No more wanting. No more answers to be had. Throw away your searchlight. Get it off my head. Can’t you see what you’re doing placing the dark ahead, putting shadows in my future instead of letting them remain dead? You have the searchlight, but now I have one too. I choose to flip the switch, flood the room, turn on you, obliterate any shadow— Black, to grey, to white.

Beyond me falls the light.

Poem Response 11

 David Wagner "Clouds"

 

 

"I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud" 

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 

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I believe in some distant past I read this poem. It feels familiar to me, sounds familiar when I read it aloud. I wonder if the speaker dreamed about these flowers or if they actually saw them. The reference to being a cloud makes it seem like the speaker was having an out of body experience or that they feel the only way nature can be fully appreciated is by the vantage point of something else in nature. 

I think the words used, such as "Shine, twinkle, dance, and bliss",  all throughout the poem are what make the poem so "familiar" feeling. The words and tone add to the happy tone and beautiful imagery. Also, Wordsworth used a images that are widely known, such as the milky way and the shore of a bay, as well as the prominent image of an ever extending field of daffodils. 

I like the idea presented that the speaker did not know what "wealth" they had received in being able to see the scene that they did. This seems often true in real life. You see something beautiful, swear to yourself that you will not forget it, then time passes and it is out of mind, until you are sitting quietly, maybe in need of a little boost.

 

Boundless

Konstantia Karletsa "Sprout"

"Boundless"

By: Lauren Laguna



Tiny boundless thing

The first bud of spring


Sticking up from ground's cool thaw. 

Causing some creatures to sing in awe, 

Because they do not, cannot know 

How it made its journey.

From seed the shoot turning green from leaf to root. 

Nor do they understand its capacity, its growing strength, its spreading, stretching ways.

They sing and ask themselves. Croon and question. 

The seed that grew a patch, that grew a field, that grew a forest, that encroached on the world. 

Their voices rise in tumult,

The nagging thought too much to take, 

Then silence, all silence, 

As the question


Fades. 

Poem Response 10

Jenny Floravita "Sailing in the Hawaiian Islands"

"If You Forget Me"

 by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine 

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 Wow. The speaker sounds harsh at first. For example, stanza four says "If suddenly
you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you." This seems as if the speaker is either very adaptable or a jerk who can pick up and start a new love affair with anyone. However, after reading the poem a few times it became apparent, at least to me, that the speaker is in love with the fact that the person they are talking about loves them so much. Therefore, there would be no point in the speaker trying to hold on to an unrequited love.

The poems tone moves from loving and sweet to foreboding then back to sweet again. I'd say the whole thing is a sugar coated warning of love once lost never regained. The long stanza structure broken up by the warning in the middle is very effective at moving the reader from one set of imagery to the next. That being said, the imagery used is well thought out. Islands, boats, and the fire of love all speak to the feeling of being at home, intimate, private, or comfortable. The opposing images of roots being ripped up or being left at the shore do the opposite, rather giving the sense of loss.

 

Field

 Van Gogh
 

"Field"

By: Lauren Laguna

I've got a wandering eye and a soul searching gaze,
But no one stands out in the crowd.

Like a flower field; all so pretty, all so the same.
Faces pass by, yellow petals touch the sky.

Why can't I see it there?
The difference that makes you fair?

You look the same.
Yellow petals in your frame.

But, you seem so right in some other ways.
Should I change the way I gaze?

Change the perspective and
Change my mind?

Walking through the sea, yellow petals brushing me,
Trying not to crush them or block their sun.

I'm just passing by and passing through.
I saw you for a moment, standing out amidst the crowd.

Your petals white as cotton,
Covered in dew that caught the light.

Then clouds rolled in,
The sun went down.

My time in the field was run down.

There was the difference I had wanted so much to see,
But flowers wait for no one.

They fade before me.
Yellow petals touch the sky.

All so pretty, all so the same.
Faces pass, but yours still remains.

Poem Response 9

Bassestti Marcantonio "Portrait of an old man with a book"

 

Yesterday by W. S. Merwin

My friend says I was not a good son
you understand
I say yes I understand

he says I did not go
to see my parents very often you know
and I say yes I know

even when I was living in the same city he says
maybe I would go there once
a month or maybe even less
I say oh yes

he says the last time I went to see my father
I say the last time I saw my father

he says the last time I saw my father
he was asking me about my life
how I was making out and he
went into the next room
to get something to give me

oh I say
feeling again the cold
of my father's hand the last time

he says and my father turned
in the doorway and saw me
look at my wristwatch and he
said you know I would like you to stay
and talk with me

oh yes I say

but if you are busy he said
I don't want you to feel that you
have to
just because I'm here

I say nothing

he says my father
said maybe
you have important work you are doing
or maybe you should be seeing
somebody I don't want to keep you

I look out the window
my friend is older than I am
he says and I told my father it was so
and I got up and left him then
you know

though there was nowhere I had to go
and nothing I had to do 

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 This poem had to be read more than once. It gets to be confusing whether the speaker is talking or the "friend". I believe this is the point. It seems that the speaker has already lost their father, as seen in stanza six "oh I say feeling again the cold of my father's hand the last time". Perhaps the speaker is being reminded of their own father by listening to their friend's experience involving their own father. 

 The tone of the poem is conversational. It as if the speaker is relating word for word a previous conversation the reader was not present for, while also adding in the thoughts they had during the time. For this reason the poem is very interesting, because it is like getting inside the speakers head and knowing what someone is really thinking about during a conversation.

 The structure of the poem adds to it being difficult to read. The brain automatically wants to add punctuation when someone is talking, however there is no punctuation in the poem. The stanza breaks also don't seem very organized, I suppose a real conversation wouldn't be either. 

I didn't like the theme of the poem, but its overall effect of "regret" was strong.  

 

 

Bone

“Bone” 

By: Lauren Laguna

Bone curves. Absorbs the impact meant to break. Infrastructure, sturdy in design, but delicate in mold. For all outer beauty, the white, subtle pieces, twigs stacked together in focused harmony. Weathered by the daily abuse. The grinding inside the sockets, the constant jarring to hold up the warm, pulsing flesh surrounding them. Absorbs the impact meant to snap. The perfect puzzle mysterious to no end, once seen, seen at once and everywhere, the graceful wrist, tapering fingers, the rising construction, flying buttress. Man-made. Playing the mocking bird of the internal form of itself. Absorbs the impact meant to crush. The straight-line will break when stressed. The tense link will snap with jolt. The tout support will be crushed with hammer. The linear curve, asymmetrical ivory, bends in continuous flow. Provision for life sustained by bone.

Poem Response 8

Paul Cezanne, "L'Estaque"

"Cezanne's Ports"

By: Allen Ginsberg

In the foreground we see time and life
swept in a race
toward the left hand side of the picture
where shore meets shore.

But that meeting place
isn't represented;
it doesn't occur on the canvas.

For the other side of the bay
is Heaven and Eternity,
with a bleak white haze over its mountains.

And the immense water of L'Estaque is a go-between
for minute rowboats.
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Allen Ginsberg's poem describes Paul Cezanne's painting "L'Estaque".
This poet's mixture of direct descriptive language and imaginative
imagery is very interesting to me as it brings across a point disguised
as basic reflection. Ginsberg is making a sharp contrast between
the heavily populated shores and the unpopulated mountains still
belonging to nature. He does this by describing the mountains in the
distance as "Heaven and Eternity", while saying that the foreground is
in a race to meet the other side.

I found the statement that the "L'Estaque is a go-between
for minute rowboats" made the ocean the "safe zone". It is the one
place where humans can go, but not completely inhabit like the land.
It makes humans seem small in comparison.

The structure of the poem seems to give adequate description of each
section of the painting and what the speaker is thinking about it.
The poem speaks of separation and illustrates it in the way that it
separates the stanzas.

Night Terror

Henri Fuseli "Nightmare"

“Night Terror”

by: Lauren Laguna

Quiet of mind chased away by draining water downhill, constant dripping. Each drop a thought unspoken, flitting behind closed eyes. Subconscious past surfaces up through dark corridors of flooded memory, bubbling up through the mesh bar, bog. Laced fingers holding back torn apart in violent rushing. Release the fog waves. The outer gates, eyelids unable to open, held down with stony weight. Eyelashes curve up, reaching, stretching; a futile attempt to let go the trapped, happy thing, its clipped wings rustling, its small body pushing against its cage. Trapped in the dark clock’s chime, each second an eternity. Muscles frozen over in the deep shadows, rebelling against the driving mind.  Vertigo. Panic. 
AWAKE