This Poem was Submitted By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2009-09-07 21:03:15 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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Poetry

I'll admit: I know nothing of it but the naked page's unending temptation. All the deep talk the here-and-now across the ages can't displace rattles in me, a cage of bones dry and unrelenting. All I see through my keyhole brain is a satin-sheeted betrayal. The lights rise and rise, balloons against the universal blue, unfathomable. Balloonmen on every street- corner with gorgeous spheres barter for air. What's in bloom is a knowledge - so I'm told - but as certain as the sun will prize open yet another day it is a mere artifact of time and will never change a thing.

Copyright © September 2009 Mark Andrew Hislop


This Poem was Critiqued By: James C. Horak On Date: 2009-09-09 00:16:04
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
I had meant to be more deliberate. To give you something encompassing in scope in the way of a critique. Then I read your recent reply to my last critique. Deep uncompromising introspection not permitted the company of like minds can leave one brittle. This is, most likely, responsible for the popularity of bars or pubs. Not that any man should permit another to make an inveterate explainer out of himself either. But we come, in times of complexity, to push our centers around. Some never quite reestablish equalibrium, some even give in to depression or worse. In your reply you spoke of yourself in an unflattering manner. What you named yourself I believe to be untrue. The opposite is more likely. You are paralleling here poetic aspirations with what you perceive to be failings in life, almost like you view poetry a failed objective itself. In absolutes nothing exists, nothing acquires absolute truth, beauty, purity. Life draws its most important value as a quest to refine all these values for ourselves and others right up to our last breath. But if one draws up from the quest to gauge anything on absolutes nothing stands on its own. It is the eternal dichotomy, to obtain what is unreachable. That's why we need heaven. Resign to being a poet. Fulfill it. Realize you can do things for others you might not know how to do for yourself...until someday, someone, inspired by something you wrote, teaches you how. It's not an absolute, but it's better. For it comes from the one thing on earth that is absolute, the constant need in us all to be touched. Take your eyes off what you would make perfect and become engulfed in process, hoping you never end some marble god on some Olympian plateau decorated in thin gleaming gilt. Never losing the senses it takes to detect even the unsavory secretions of life. Now go out and mud wrestle fat women while downing beer as fast as you can. JCH


This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Steven Scheffer On Date: 2009-09-08 16:58:17
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
MAH, I know the place from which this comes . . . fight it. Never change a thing? No. No. NO!!!! Never change a thing . . . by whose standards? Some politician's? Some idiot lawyers (grin)? Some selfish, bloated materialists? Don't judge by false standards. Suppose someone were to tell you that, 60, 70 years from now someone somewhere would discover your poetry and be set on fire by it? That they would fall in love with you and carry your words around in their heart, and that you'd inspire them to live a fuller life? Just one person. A sensitive, imaginative human being who would probably be a poet themselves. I wager you wouldn't say, "never change a thing." Shit, you're just down on yourself and your poetry. Don't lose the faith. This too will pass . . . this damn doubt and self-defeatism. Even if it doesn't pass, die fighting it. It's because of your doubts that you will rise to higher levels. Christ, you're my semblable, and I'm yours. You scare the shit out of me. MSS
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