This Poem was Submitted By: Lynda G Smith On Date: 2004-09-21 21:57:31 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!To Listen to Music While Reading this Poem, just Click Here!
Click Here To add this poem to your "Voting Possibilities" list!
A Pocketful of Stones
A pocketful of stones
smooth,
polished,
click their flesh-warmed granite
skin to marbled skin
in a shuffling quest for purpose.
I wish they were balloons.
A lady descends to the lake.
her thoughts bottomed out
like the stoned pockets
that vessel the gravity
of her melancholy.
An apathetic muse in stroll
anchors granite globes
of tethered thought
on strings of agony.
Thoughts flash
through fingers weak and wistful;
in a polished avalanche
of glimpsed reverie.
How is it they can float
except perhaps upon
steel stems of sheer determination?
Through seasons of hibernations past
they lay in frozen dormancy
enclosed in their cradled crib,
a swollen and ebbing pulse
in the breathing permafrost
protected and protested
even while it hid.
Far beneath the meniscus of the mental
they stirred in their icy grave
of sub-cranium soil,
a counterfeit flat-line,
concealing the turmoil,
none could read,
thus none could help.
Fate stood upon decision
clutching in the dark,
this roiled handful.
How long would it take
to filter and sort them,
braille each one,
lift it to the light of day
or in these dark tumbled times
allow the polishing of the pain
to remove both blemish and beauty
leaving something
or someone…
smaller and less significant
to remain in trust.
Will you explain to them
what it signifies,
this dust unto dust.
or would their sole purpose be
To line the pockets faithfully
And follow the lady down.
|
|
Copyright © September 2004 Lynda G Smith
Additional Notes:
Some are dark pondering days, my sweet Virginia....
This Poem was Critiqued By: Elaine Marie Phalen On Date: 2004-10-05 09:39:18
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.92308
Lynda, I found this first on the voting finalists' list, really liked it, then today was delighted to have it appear on my personal 50-poem critiquing list. Unfortunately, I lack time this morning - have to put the horses out since it's finally clearing up - and in any case, I could not do your imagery full justice.
I love the metaphorical language throughout this piece. The stones become so many things, while still remaining what they are. We cannot remove their weight, but can make of it something creative, or therapeutic, or at least signifiacnt. They are evidence of our existence, with all its griefs and darknesses.
This poem seems to be three spearate entities. Those first seven lines could stand on their own. The longing for release from burdens is evident, and beautifully expressed. Then the POV shifts to third person, and the "lady" as main character is observed in her sorrows. There are so many superb images here! "Tethered agony" speaks once more of inescapable heaviness.
Thoughts flash
through fingers weak and wistful;
in a polished avalanche
of glimpsed reverie.
How is it they can float
except perhaps upon
steel stems of sheer determination?
The thoughts and stones appear to be parallel, associated with the speaker's mental state. Neither can rise to the surface, yet each bears the potential for transformation. The stones become stemmed blssoms; the thoughts themselves are pebbles. Wonderful passage!
"Fate stood upon decision" opens the third section, with another shift in perspective and also, after "determination" [above], a change in verb tense. Present has become past and remains so for the duration of the poem.
Now, the speaker now seems to be addressing some larger force, the workings of destiny that are moving this other party toward her choices. Resignation or survival? Acquiescene to the Fates, or resistance against them?
How long would it take
to filter and sort them,
braille each one,
lift it to the light of day
or in these dark tumbled times
allow the polishing of the pain
to remove both blemish and beauty
leaving something
or someone…
smaller and less significant
to remain in trust.[?]
Ay, there's the rub. If we smooth our losses and regrets, we also lose something of the texture that makes our lives multi-dimensional. Without the darker aspect, how can we recognize the highlights when they come? A polished stone is lovely but it is also somewhat sterile. It offers no further possibilities.
Will you explain to them
what it signifies,
this dust unto dust.[?]
I do suggest question marks where appropriate, including the poem's ending, since the speaker is asking rather than stating. But whom is she asing? Who is the "you" suddenly appearing for yet another POV change? I am taking it to mean the larger purpose which drives us. The force that moves stones, polishes or batters our lives, and decides how we will finish whatever we have begun - this seems one interpretation. The other is that the speaker is talking to her friend, the bearer of these stones; this other person is also "the lady", who must come to some course of action. In the final analysis, I sense a "human shipwreck" idea, the lady sinking beneath her own ballast, down into the waters that have grown too cold and turbulent to swim.
When we make our exit, do we truly lay aside our stones? Or do they accompany us, in spirit, to wherever we go next? Is there a karmic principle which insists that we carry past obstacles, for later expiation and release? Does the dust reassemble into old shapes, new mountains, similar rocks? And can we ever fully empty or spiritual pockets, at all?
This is a poem that raises many issues, and tantalizing reflections radiate from it, like the limbs of a starfish. I'm glad to see its position in the top group this month and hope it remains there, as it is most deserving of such recognition.
Brenda
This Poem was Critiqued By: Karen Ann Jacobs On Date: 2004-10-02 23:25:50
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.57143
I read your poem last night and it has been in my mind since. I hadn’t expected the ending and even though it made me very sad I couldn’t help but think that when I have to go that going with the stones I love so much in my life wouldn’t be such bad idea. Thank you for sharing this dark and beautiful poem. It had so many original phrases that twisted the images out of my mind. This is my favorite stanza,
“An apathetic muse in stroll
anchors granite globes
of tethered thought
on strings of agony.”
If I were making a book of my favorite poems this one would be in it.
Kay
This Poem was Critiqued By: cheryl a kelley On Date: 2004-09-24 13:46:22
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Lynda, your words are beautiful and souldful, truly a dark pondering. This poem reminds me of the flat-line feeling of depression. This stanza really sums up the whole impression or purpose of the piece for me:
A lady descends to the lake.
her thoughts bottomed out
like the stoned pockets
that vessel the gravity
of her melancholy.
the rest is more descriptive of the mood then the surprising ending come back to the stones:
or would their sole purpose be
To line the pockets faithfully
And follow the lady down.
Makes the reader question if this is about the womans suicide as she descends into the lake with her pockets full of stones. A dark piece,with beautiful language. I enjoyed it ... Cheryl
This Poem was Critiqued By: James Edward Schanne On Date: 2004-09-22 10:59:37
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.26531
I've just got stoned. These lines string together nicely and make me contemplate the rocks in my head. I wish they were as polished as your poem. I see nothing to change in your poem. Just let me say thanks for a very good read.
This Poem was Critiqued By: Joanne M Uppendahl On Date: 2004-09-21 23:07:43
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Lynda:
It takes a true understanding of depression to write poetically of it with
so much precision. This poem moves me for several reasons -- because it
is good (excellent), because it is truly frightening to realize that one can
(again) experience such depths of misery, which while hibernating within
one -- "breathing permafrost" --and emerge at will, it seems, to grant
the kind of suffering that those who haven't tread this path will not
comprehend, and for more personal reasons. Last week was my late son's
birthday -- someone who would have understood this poem more perfectly
than I, if he were to read it. On another note, of synchronicity, I have
written two poems this month, each with the word "stones" in the title.
Thinking in terms of Jungian symbolism or of the collective unconscious,
I can't help but feel that there is something at work which connects us in
these several respects.
A pocketful of stones
smooth,
polished,
click their flesh-warmed granite --auditory and tactile imagery here is brilliant
skin to marbled skin
in a shuffling quest for purpose.(oh! the intensity)
I wish they were balloons.
(Here we learn that the speaker is not 'willfully' holding onto this
state of extreme malaise -- indeed, the implication is that the experience is not only
involuntary, but an unexpected reoccurrence. Often I think that the depressed are unfairly
blamed for their condition, as if somehow by willing it they could simply be cheerful.
This thought infuriates me!)
This strophe is an entire poem unto itself:
A lady descends to the lake.
her thoughts bottomed out
like the "stoned pockets" -amazing
that vessel the gravity
of her melancholy.
"vessel" as a verb, implying the force of the melancholy against the
'vessels' of the speaker, as well as a boat-like container -- of
her searing melancholy...
An apathetic muse in stroll
anchors granite globes
of tethered thought
on strings of agony. --only one who has 'been there' can write with such white hot clarity
Thoughts flash
through fingers weak and wistful;
in a polished avalanche
of glimpsed reverie.
How is it they can float
except perhaps upon
"steel stems of sheer determination?"--we see how the speaker has endured thus far
Through seasons of hibernations past
they lay in frozen dormancy
enclosed in their "cradled crib",--incredible two-word capture of the hell of depression
a swollen and ebbing pulse
in the breathing permafrost
protected and protested
even while it hid.
Far beneath the meniscus of the mental--remarkably apt
they stirred in their icy grave --the metaphor is chilling and also appealing
of sub-cranium soil,
a counterfeit flat-line, associations for me: stone-like expression, headstone, "Flatliners"
concealing the turmoil,
none could read,
thus none could help.
Fate stood upon decision
clutching in the dark,
this "roiled handful".--so much meaning in these two words
How long would it take
to filter and sort them,
braille each one, --incredible use of 'braille' as verb here
lift it to the light of day
or in these "dark tumbled times"--exquisitely limned
allow the "polishing of the pain"--if we go over it again and again, looking for a self beneath
to remove both blemish and beauty
leaving something
or someone…
This raises the question of what is left in life without beauty or pain. Is
there a central core of identity aside from our experiences (beauty and pain)?
smaller and less significant
to remain in trust.
Will you explain to them
what it signifies,
this dust unto dust. --words from the Bible, spoken at funerals -- highly evocative
or would their sole purpose be (perhaps a word-play with 'soul' as additional inference intended?)
To line the pockets faithfully
And follow the lady down.---these words seem to descend with a weight of their own
Magnificent work. Mournful, and somewhat frightening. One which will stay with me
for long after the reading. I love poetry like this, which explores the depths of
human experience with such incredible beauty of language. My hope is that the
writing of the work provides solace. The poem undoubtedly will increase understanding
for those who haven't experienced this state of mind, or been very close to someone
who has. But then again, most of us write because we...must.
Brava!
My best always,
Joanne
Poetry Contests Online at The Poetic Link
Click HERE to
return to ThePoeticLink.com Database Page!