Neutiquam Erro - Writers Forum

Pawn · 01-31-2005, 05:04 PM

Neutiquam Erro
(I am not lost)

strange minutes,
recompense joy.
"Love, love, love."
and we beget only dust.

abstract parameters,
won't hold you down!
so firmly here, and now.
but potent extrication,
takes me far from home.

in soporific ascension,
we are without form.
"Love, love, love,"
and beget only dust.

Druid · 01-31-2005, 09:16 PM

Oh my type of poem

I felt transcendentalism and loved it!

I see the poem as a reassuring practice that helps us think straight and remain limitless in our lives.

I like this:

"abstract parameters,
won't hold you down!"

Makes one feel omnipotent, as words have always been able to deter that claim from writers producing mental anguish.

"in soporific ascension,
we are without form."

I like the allusion to dreams that really gave me the idea of how to let your poem flow. You do not see soporific in many writers diction

Unique to me.

Your use of repitition helps more than I first thought as it concludes the entire tone I took your poem. Now if only I had the mental capacity to write a few poems as nice as this.

If I could fix anything it would be the meter in the first few lines, nothing outstanding. Great word choice, I loved it!

Pawn · 02-01-2005, 07:29 AM

My limitless thanks for you glowing review, Druid. The poem is definitely open to multiple interpretations, but a couple of your points certainly seemed to ring true with my thoughts as I wrote it.

I agree that the meter of the first stanza is slightly off, but am not quite sure what to do about it. Glad you enjoyed the 'soporific ascension' phrase. 'Soporific' originally read 'somnific', but I changed it so as to save readers having to fumble for their dictionaries!

Thanks again.

02-01-2005, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pawn

Neutiquam Erro
(I am not lost)

strange minutes,
recompense joy.
"Love, love, love."
and we beget only dust.

abstract parameters,
won't hold you down!
so firmly here, and now.
but potent extrication,
takes me far from home.

in soporific ascension,
we are without form.
"Love, love, love,"
and beget only dust.

Pawn, why the quotes around love, love, love? What purpose do they serve?

I like it, and beget only dust.

I find how it reads to be quite lovely indeed, but it is also very vague.

I think it may be me today, because I am not understanding much of anything...

Care to open my eyes?

esotericdynamo · 02-01-2005, 03:56 PM

i love the language you use in your poem... it drew me in completely

Pawn · 02-01-2005, 04:53 PM

For me, "Love, love, love" is reminiscent of Lorca's 'Poet In New York': I'm not really sure why. The phrase popped into my head, but I didn't feel right just writing it, so I stuck it in quotation marks as a personal homage to Lorca. I think from the reader's perspective it suggests the line read out loud, but doesn't tell you by who: there's a whimsical ambiguity there which attracted me. When Gigi read this she mentioned a John Lennon song (which I can't remember the name of: it might be 'Love'), which the line also makes allusions to.

As I said to Druid, I think you could take the poem a number of ways. I don't think it's vague: it just doesn't really spell anything out. It could easily be interpreted as a poem about death, for example.

strange minutes, recompense joy... The idea that emotions come in waves, like tides, each balancing the last.

"Love, love, love"... whimsical, lyrical, desperate: take it as you like. It's saying: love.

"and we beget only dust"... moving like ghosts, failing to influence our surroundings. Translucence.

abstract parameters,
won't hold you down!
so firmly here, and now.

This isn't how I imagine you read it, but as I wrote it it's really a comment on other people. You're present, you're firm, I can touch you.

but potent extrication,
takes me far from home.

'potent extrication' would be analytical, philosophical 'abstract' thought. In that second stanza, I'm trying to show the difference between you, the present, and me, the poet-transient.

in soporific ascension,
we are without form.
"Love, love, love,"
and beget only dust.

I think this one's pretty clear. You remember you were talking to me about going up and up and up? In terms of thought. Tangenting mentally into the stratespheres of abstraction: this is my 'ascension', but tired, 'soporific'. And in that state, we are without form. Introversion to the point of ceasing to influence. Then, Love, love, love, cos that's what it's all about. And we beget only dust, because the poem's a tragedy.

Thinking about why I chose to say 'we beget only dust' rather than 'I', when I was trying to suggest a difference between 'you and I'... I guess it's a veiled insult to all you people who really do live firmly rooted in reality: when it comes to the end, you will have made nothing better than I.

I'm sure that's nothing like how you read it. Maybe it's too ambivalent, I don't know.

Druid · 02-01-2005, 05:07 PM

I deciphered Shelly's Ozymandius today, and relating it to your explanation, it reminds me of a dramatic irony in which our equal inferiority to time can never change. Equal beings on roads of yoked ambiguity and reality.

Quite a different scope.

Pawn · 02-01-2005, 05:50 PM

It pleases me to be percieved in such excellent company. Shelley is one of my favourites, alongside Byron and Keats. I'd love to know what they'd write were they alive today.

"The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Druid · 02-01-2005, 07:17 PM

Ah, they are all very good, but I dip deep
as Cummings and Service make my mind replete.

Pawn · 02-01-2005, 07:38 PM

Sorry, but Wilde and Cummings are on my side too.

"He did not wear his scarlet robe,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands,
When they found him with the dead."

Pawn · 02-01-2005, 07:47 PM

I knew it to be a quotation, but had no idea where from. Was I meant to come back with some witty repartee? Bollocks.

Lilia · 02-01-2005, 08:38 PM

Woo Yee Pinguin this is good! I LOVED this---------------------awesome.

flowersprite · 02-02-2005, 03:15 AM

I like it very much ...strange minutes?

Pawn · 02-02-2005, 04:17 PM

empty spaces,
empty faces,
ever wishing,
to evolve.

Thanks Lilia.

flowersprite · 02-02-2005, 06:29 PM

you are welcome pawn.