What does sap the seas of oxygen? Credibility is becoming extinct. Untruths floating everywhere, the landmass pocked with mementos that ravaged the trilobites, the splash of extraterrestrial impact flooding the continental shelves with anoxic water from depth in layers of controversy, perhaps we need a splenderous comet shower to wake everybody the hell up! Catch a spark from the comet tail and keep that lantern firing, Jude...
Your words step into shadows as boldly as they do light and always come back bearing gifts of insight, wisdom, beauty, and courage. The pleasure your readers enjoy is to happily accept them. Thank you.
Aberjhani
Dear Jude
I bow to your beauty and eloquence in harnessing your suffering into a living workmanship of life's despair.
May the preciousness of life within you renew and soar as it must.
Love and friendship Suzie xox
Robert, you have led the reader down a very very dark alcove in which there seems to be no escape. I felt the cold come through with this outstanding piece.
I have felt these feelings before and you brought them to life for me once again. The only thing keeping the spirit alive is the pain that pours from the heart. It is a feeling of every molecule of the body dieing, but death eludes. It leaves us weary like a person who is slowly bleeding to death but being kept alive with forced water and food. I am careful now, to always leave my partner in a relationship, better off or at least as well off as when I met them because this kind of pain carries with it a whole lot of Karma. "...and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."~(Beatles song The End) Strong and descriptive poetry, Jude.
Take care,
Sherry
who hasn't found himself or herself in the leaden rowboat, watching the dying flame of hope, adrift, bereft, eyes heavy with the staid dark and enveloped by the weight present circumstance, going nowhere. your imagery is phenomenal here, Jude. in leading the reader into the depths of such despair... or perhaps the depths beyond despair where all is still and sinking and we cannot remember how to feel... by taking us there in this poem you move us to rekindle our own flickering flames and brave the treacherous journey, even when we seem to be swept in smaller and smaller circles of seeming irrelevancy. Bon voyage, Dawn
Profoundly moving and profoundly excellent, this truly is exceptional Jude, I admire your fortitude and superb insight, may your lamp burn ever bright poet.
blessings
Paul
Reviewed by Kate Clifford (Reader)
Reviewed on November 4, 2006
I have been touched by these emotions and you have described them expertly. To touch this spot is deep and I loved the next step :-)
Oh Jude, you've created a masterpiece. The despair and longing are paramount, as this poetry allows us to drift into the depths of the uncertain and the unknown with heavy simile and artistry. I feel on the poems wavelength having just posted something that floats a similar current...even graphically. Is there something in the week's water?
xo Taylor~
Reviewed by Russ Okamura (Reader)
Reviewed on November 4, 2006
I believe you are the most masterful poet on this site. Your poetry in truly inspiring.
This is so compelling, Jude; and the analogies and similies, the poetic devices that you make use of are superbly effective in sharing meaning and emotions. Thank you for this gift. Love and peace to you,
Regis
Reviewed by ~ Holly Harbridge (Reader)
Reviewed on November 4, 2006
Such a pleasure to read your writing. Well written. Holly
I used to fear those times when the edge seemed to have been sanded smooth, and the friction that caused me to think and make sense of what I saw, and sensed, and create, seemed as the Mojave in its barrenness.
I learned a spiritual lesson years ago that my wife has to continually remind me of because I am hard-headed and when I am not creating I feel vulnerable ...
Any plant that produces must, at times, be pruned back in order to prepare for the next season of blossoming. At times people go through the same seasons.
Stand Strong and keep your eyes on the goal Poet ...
Extraordinary write of feelings exiled into the inevitable land of nil...Wow Jude! I will surely keep this write, as one usually can't express this walk in life...although we must try and I know anyone...reading these words, will be comforted in knowing thats exactly how they feel... but couldn't find the words.
Take time with you and the feelings of emotions return, A migrant no longer!
Love and Peace~
Kimmy
Emotions are what lets us know we're alive! Knowing you for being a man of strength, but also with a gentle nature,I can understand that this loss effects you. I also know you have special powers to rebound and stay balanced. I'm thankful you have the abiity to write such eloquent and incredibly beautiful poetry to connote your depth of feeling while maintaining your harmony. You have such a special gift for writing! Good to have you back sweetman!;-) ET
Crushing agonies of loss I get from this... they leave us with a numbness that seems to permeate all things, both tangible and illusive. It is a keen pain that leaves no visible scar, but those who have been there, see it. This is one of the most powerfully sad and gentle writes I have ever read. Much respect, Panda :)
'And my thoughts are riding within a leaden rowboat
Drifting on still waters' - its quiet in there, there is peace there too, the stillpoint - Your last three lines, i liked very much. Nicky x
Bleak write with sadness permeating the soul to the point of despair. Images flow freely between writer and reader in this epic and the lines are perfectly in tune with the feelings of the writer or so it appears. When difficult times challenge our ability to bounce back we do have a tendency to feel adrift and cut off from the world around us and it is only when we open our eyes reach out and grasp the hands of the ones who care that we can once again set a course that is true.
FEe
Fee
Pain no longer is an option
As pleasure flees into the outskirts of oblivion
My status is quiescent:
The waters of hope and my pending survival
Flood the reservoirs of credibility...
(delightful ambivalence)
Even when in a stat of flux, unlike some of us who are emotional wrecks, you still exude a central poise, grace and equilibrium somehow. A gentle composure. This write has such a soft and thoughtful tone; even when at a loss to grasp "where you're truly at" with the perceptivity of the conscious mind, you still are deeply in touch with your senses and faculties. What I have highlighted here also serves to demonstrate my left-handed brain and often how I think I read your meaning inside out... I make most out of your lines sometimes by understanding the inverse of what is written on the page. You naturally write with such verbal counterpoints and your play on words speaks in natural paradoxes, throwing light on various nouances of meaning - even your note below, in the way that it is written, can capture the essence of several different images and interpretations...
... It's good to have you back, Jude - even in lassitude. Reviewing can wait. Forgive me for reading this poem in the context of your expressed time of bereavement recently, but perhaps it is not wholly irrelevent. Grief can render us becalmed in the most frustrating of ways - especially if it is significant. Your final stanza highlights this so pictorially. We can be walking down the same old streets, doing the same old thing and yet somehow everything's changed; there is an element of "things being in the past" about it that we are unable to register as an unsolicited and enforced step into the future. A puzzling time when we have no appetite to continue life in this way as being "as it was", and yet the stillpoint in the turning of the tide makes the way ahead unknown except that we DO know that the time has come for massive sea-change in our lives and we can settle for no less. This has been a whole 2 years of such time for me. Let go of the ropes and listen... if it IS God who has stayed the hand of the wind, it is to get your attention, I'll bet! :)) Just go with the flow and be kind to yourself, Babe...
Sorry... I haven't written like this for yonks. My new environment is making me all whoopsadaisy, langourous and dreamy.
LOL KeepthesparKKindled Kate xx :))
Reviewed by J M (Reader)
Reviewed on November 4, 2006
If we have hope we can go on......
"And I am traveling as an emotional émigré
Drifting into yesterday’s footsteps
Waving a dying lantern in my hand "
Reviewed by Victor Buhagiar (Reader)
Reviewed on November 4, 2006
Sad poem because while in this life we have to face many turbulent and painful moments, hope should lead us to a loving God. Then the lantern will not stop giving light. As a dark poem, I find this excellent, moving to towards its final climax in its last line. Victor
Emotions are what gives human their sensibility and changes them accordingly.An excelent poem Robert evry verse is threaded with such mastery.And the insight in this poem strikes the truth.
“The woman or man who is a poet, or fiction writer, or playwright, or all of these, is engaged constantly in a jazz ballet of vocabularies, passions, genders, histories, perspectives, death, love, and life. The music of revelation announces itself to
Mary Angela Nangini's poems celebrate the richness of life and love. From the city to cottage-country and the roads in between, Nangini explores the changing seasons of her varied region. (This book will soon be reprinted in hard cover.)
Share
Print
Save
Follow
Ron
Sage
Carmen
its menopause
Aberjhani
A most captiating expression of despondency
I bow to your beauty and eloquence in harnessing your suffering into a living workmanship of life's despair.
May the preciousness of life within you renew and soar as it must.
Love and friendship Suzie xox
Allen
Sandie Angel a.k.a. Sandie May Angel :o(
Take care,
Sherry
blessings
Paul
xo Taylor~
Regis
(((HUGS))) and love, Karla.
I used to fear those times when the edge seemed to have been sanded smooth, and the friction that caused me to think and make sense of what I saw, and sensed, and create, seemed as the Mojave in its barrenness.
I learned a spiritual lesson years ago that my wife has to continually remind me of because I am hard-headed and when I am not creating I feel vulnerable ...
Any plant that produces must, at times, be pruned back in order to prepare for the next season of blossoming. At times people go through the same seasons.
Stand Strong and keep your eyes on the goal Poet ...
Light and Wisdom ...
Richard Lloyd Cederberg
You are a man of extraordinary intellect and vision..
The Lamp you hold in your hand is your Essence,.... which can never go out...
Breathe new life into it..;-)
Peter
Take time with you and the feelings of emotions return, A migrant no longer!
Love and Peace~
Kimmy
Chrissy
susan
Hugs
Ch'erie
Drifting on still waters' - its quiet in there, there is peace there too, the stillpoint - Your last three lines, i liked very much. Nicky x
Love Tinka
FEe
Fee
As pleasure flees into the outskirts of oblivion
My status is quiescent:
The waters of hope and my pending survival
Flood the reservoirs of credibility...
(delightful ambivalence)
Even when in a stat of flux, unlike some of us who are emotional wrecks, you still exude a central poise, grace and equilibrium somehow. A gentle composure. This write has such a soft and thoughtful tone; even when at a loss to grasp "where you're truly at" with the perceptivity of the conscious mind, you still are deeply in touch with your senses and faculties. What I have highlighted here also serves to demonstrate my left-handed brain and often how I think I read your meaning inside out... I make most out of your lines sometimes by understanding the inverse of what is written on the page. You naturally write with such verbal counterpoints and your play on words speaks in natural paradoxes, throwing light on various nouances of meaning - even your note below, in the way that it is written, can capture the essence of several different images and interpretations...
... It's good to have you back, Jude - even in lassitude. Reviewing can wait. Forgive me for reading this poem in the context of your expressed time of bereavement recently, but perhaps it is not wholly irrelevent. Grief can render us becalmed in the most frustrating of ways - especially if it is significant. Your final stanza highlights this so pictorially. We can be walking down the same old streets, doing the same old thing and yet somehow everything's changed; there is an element of "things being in the past" about it that we are unable to register as an unsolicited and enforced step into the future. A puzzling time when we have no appetite to continue life in this way as being "as it was", and yet the stillpoint in the turning of the tide makes the way ahead unknown except that we DO know that the time has come for massive sea-change in our lives and we can settle for no less. This has been a whole 2 years of such time for me. Let go of the ropes and listen... if it IS God who has stayed the hand of the wind, it is to get your attention, I'll bet! :)) Just go with the flow and be kind to yourself, Babe...
Sorry... I haven't written like this for yonks. My new environment is making me all whoopsadaisy, langourous and dreamy.
LOL KeepthesparKKindled Kate xx :))
"And I am traveling as an emotional émigré
Drifting into yesterday’s footsteps
Waving a dying lantern in my hand "
Bom Bhole!
Roshan