This Poem was Submitted By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2006-02-05 09:30:50 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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The Outside, In

May brothers Dust and Star resolve: begin      these transactions. Then, may the sole unshoe sensation, pressed up through the earth, let in      its surface, and connect the mythic two      like dots. And may souls see how vision grew by telescope, inverted for each: twin       pinhead sun with galactic drop of dew to make the inside bring the outside in. May water blow the rower o’er its skin      of air, may the air wash him along, too. How reconciled can feather be to fin      while water blames the air, and craft the crew,      for breakers? Each finds each half of its clue at the waterline’s mediatory sin,      where wet for wet and dry for dry must do to make the inside bring the outside in. May tensions, strummed or plucked, seem all akin      to unity: one wave is but a two making harmony of the warring kin,      that, moving, know each other at and through      their interface. A peak’s a trough, a true reflection, in a nature: in a grin,      refracted sorrow rests, as if these knew to make the inside bring the outside in. (Envoi)      Prince, may station not deny the door to you, this half-way house for travelers within     where everything can be conceived anew to make the inside bring the outside in.

Copyright © February 2006 Mark Andrew Hislop

Additional Notes:
With a nod to Jane Kenyon.


This Poem was Critiqued By: Thomas H. Smihula On Date: 2006-03-07 10:07:15
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.28571
Love the use of inside bringing the outside in throughout this well structured piece. The stars, water, and unity does bring the outside in when looked upon the way you do here. We travel yet all within the same universe. Well done and a joy to read Mark this is my favorite of yours this month.


This Poem was Critiqued By: Terry A On Date: 2006-02-28 16:11:58
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
This poem has quite a chant-like rhythm. Much writing, preserved from the past, induced that almost trance like feeling in the reader. The form of many things, including prayer; which is how you structure your first lines, by petition. The microscope and the telescope and the search for the Unified Theory. Your poem, is frankly physics, made poetic,and with such a strong human element present. "half-way house for travelers", kinda sums up my life for the past few years, that feeling of almost being somewhere. Started too late critiquing poems this month Mark, but as this is my favorite of yours, I'll add this one to my voting list. Terry
This Poem was Critiqued By: James C. Horak On Date: 2006-02-16 09:30:40
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
I've just submitted an anti-Romantic piece. Yours here is anti-sensual. Poems like this are excursions into realms not often made, but that advance outlooks and better define them with the challenge they make to complaisance. Hear, Mark, you test the difference between abstract and abstruse. "sole unshoe sensation", "how vision grew by telescope", "May water blow the rower", "a peak's a trough", come to comply well with the stated intention each stanza ending refrain so adequately reflects upon the title, "to make the inside bring the outside in." Added to this is well placed unity of theme in the lines, 'where everything can be conceived anew' and "making harmony of the warring kin." Like me, you are after the lethargic with a vengence. Exceedingly well taken. Certainly a poem to task those who habitually give shallow readings. But, my clever friend, inversion is a tool for discovery only so much as each presses themself to acquire such understanding as to see the underbelly of reality. One view upon a thing is inadequate. Without this grasp, your poem is another pearl cast before swine. But then perceptive critics bring so many to understanding and, with that consideration, your poem could possibly become, "a message to the world". It would not be the first successful poem brought to an adulating audience that way. JCH
This Poem was Critiqued By: Thomas Edward Wright On Date: 2006-02-06 21:38:33
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
I don't know if this is going to get through the filtering mechanism, but I didn't get a chance to finish my critique of this piece. I'm thinking this is some olde form, what with the rhyme scheme and the Envoi at the end. I suspect this is a ballade, French, or something like that. I did a Jane K search and found some of her stuff at Poets.org nothing too connected there. anyway, this seems an atmosphere or two removed from the usual TPL trance, so I thank you for gracing the edifice with a permanent and beautiful flower. t.
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