Matthatter

What kind of writer am I,
so second-guessing every word?
The only ones that meet an end
are stringed so loose they're simply nonsense.
A necklace made so large it fits everything and nothing;
I love the beads, like earth they're circular
but they look so ordinary.

Entry-level intellectual examines three-sixty
and meditates on the circle's unseen circumference.
How far away is it?
Can I reach it? Will it last?
Brain hurts, mind strains,
turn it off and take a nap.

Wake up,
the light urges, stimulates
the search further;
time to make the day last
through the maze of absurd verses.
I relate to this and that
but not
what disconnects with limb movement
and muscle tension built up
over years of blind decisions.

I'm not quite ignorant enough
to ascribe Apollo "Absolute Error"
just because our ears,
so monkeyish,
can't cognitize his messages.
There are times that I envy Dionysus' erection,
pointing effortlessly at the gods,
while I have to use my head to get there.

Mission: Act ethically
Motive: Avoid suffering
There's an ever-present sensation
that my gears need buffering.
I try to pull myself up
is God's hand a vine?
Is that sand a trap to avoid
or a boxed learning device?

Mind cluttered with variables,
each a matryoshka doll
pregnant with potentials
that (pissing in terrored submission)
will forever leave their mark.

What to do
when a friend tells you something important,
but for you
it's so habitual it's deemed insignificant?
I try to pretend, feign interest, but then
is there succumbing to the weight
of bricks in yesteryear's pyramid?

Misery stored exhales under the pressure
of information that's useless;
the dish is too fat, too rich.

Do I plead with them to stop it?

I empathize with children
growing up little by little,
but is it wrong to let them know
that I've surpassed them?
(Can it help them grow?)

Egotistical? Maybe, probably, who isn't? (Inescapable?)
I just hate grinding my teeth
when sleep finally lets the dams of truth break free.

This is no black-and-white game
of cast blame and mask shame,
I know that in a larger scheme of things
I'm nothing more than shit;
but I'm sick of acting as if others' grasping is a positive thing-
when I can so clearly see the desperation inside them.

Baron

I would suggest taking out the question and rewriting the rest in third person. As it stands it marries angst with cliche and it needs to become more universal to make it work for a wider readership.

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Garden of Kadesh

I like this - it reads fluently and is written in a simple and informal style (something that's all too rare in poetry). I enjoyed your sincerity.

I agree and disagree with baron. The rhetorical questions work well, imo. It could do without the two parenthetical questions at the end though, they seemed out of place. At times it did seem a little cliche, but you seemed to pull it off well nonetheless.

The last 3 lines of stanza four are particularly odd and bitter (in a good way).

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"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them."

- Catch 22

MisterJack

I enjoyed this too. I've read it a number of times and although there are cliche lines/phrases, they are wrapped up well in this. I, too, admire the honesty and sincerity thrown out there and some of the phrases, as usual, are stellar!.

Another fine piece Matthatter


Jack

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If it claims to be God, eat it.

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Matthatter

Baron, thanks for your input. It's definitely clear that a lot of my lines, phrases can be cliche at times... but it's hard for me to not write them because I feel my words would be less true/sincere if I changed it around just for the sake of not coming off as cliche. But I suppose I write poems like this just because sometimes I get a little desperate to get feelings/thoughts out, and not so much for any audience (which I probably should pay more attention to if I want to publish my poetry someday).

I'm not so sure I really understand how poetry works... Never taken any classes or read any books on it.


Garden of Kadesh, thanks for your input. I'm glad you liked the informal style. I've tried writing more... grand/formal, but it felt like I was just trying to be poetic/fit in, didn't feel quite right for me.

The last 3 lines of stanza 4 r my fav, too.

MisterJack, thanks again for your input. It's nice to hear I'm doing some things right, I honestly don't know where I stand (or even if I stand anywhere...) in terms of poetry. I also appreciate the comments about the poems sincerity, as this is something I'm struggling with. I'm trying my best to be honest with myself and honest with others, rather than to just satisfy my ego, but sometimes I really can't get a clear idea of where I fit in in terms of other people/goals/writing/development/etc. Maybe I ought to go to grad school... I am not a corporate kind of guy, and I am not willing to live my life doing anything less (on the financial skill), and I'm not nearly as blindly confident in my ability to write and sell books as I was as an undergraduate... I haven't even managed to focus my energy on completing over twenty pages of a single story, let alone an entire book. I have always told myself it's problems of perfectionism, that I always end up thinking the ideas/my writing aren't good enough/marketable enough to devote so much time to, but I'm sure it also has a lot to do with self-involvement, fear of failure, not having anything (that i think others think is) worth saying. etc.

Mirror

Matthatter-

I enjoyed your musings, although much of the piece strikes me as meta-discourse, filled with hedging and intensifying (possibly a dash of tautology, as well); yet, I admire how you have sidestepped imagery in favor of arriving at profound realizations.

When you do intersperse the rhetorics with imagery, the latter then becomes particularly salient and tangible, as in the stanza below (my favorite bit):

Mind cluttered with variables,
each a matryoshka doll
pregnant with potentials
that (pissing in terrored submission)
will forever leave their mark.

The punctuation appears inconsistent in various places - a few missing or misplaced commas, which would be better replaced with semicolons (i.e. S1 L7 - after 'beads' - the sentence which contains that word is an independent clause, and it can stand solitary. Then, you need to insert a comma after 'earth'.) But, overall, nothing hindered my reading. Fine work.

Best,
Mirror

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Where the barmen have their names etched in salt; earthy and honest like their fathers. -- MisterJack