you inspire love. this poem gives some real depth without becoming trite. the "s" alliterations are tricky but give a fluidity to the rhythm of the words. mostly though I know this. I felt this and remember how it feels to look back and find out you were actually looking forward. now is all we have.. and oops.. there it goes. thank you!

I liked its unfinished feel. I felt the opening line being uncapitalized signified it's unfinished feel. It's always good to reach a point when time becomes unified with a poet's dream of writing again. The little voice that spiraled so often to infinity and back grew up and did not hide but sought to speak the truth. Again, the hand opened, but this time tiny seeds were spotted a memory of a worn coat pocket. Time to plant a tree.

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"I've taken enough walks alone
to know how real nothing is."
~dystopian-dream-girl

after reading justb's comment i just noticed the whole of the first verse is uncapitalized, the way a child might write it (or a lazy person like me) a nice touch! i love this. myself, am now on the doorstep of 22, having lived through those first two verses. it's one of my favourite things about poetry, when it lets you into someone elses head and you discover you have been to the same places. i think this will have to be the very first poem to enter my favourites. wonderful!

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Jim and Tonic, or the Adventures of Jim the Chaosbunny - a webcomic by Maxine Green - Free online cartoons!
Maxine Green -Fine art, portraits, illustrations.

I've always been a much better reader of classical poetry than modern, so the form was a bit of a mystery to me, although I did notice that visually it undulates in and out and in and out in a constant flow of assertion and retraction, which I think works well thematically, and might, after all, be the point.

At first I thought that the use of concrete ages as snapshots of spiritual maturity or discovery worked best in the beginning of the poem. The image of a child-like conviction crawling on the ground and 'driving the nails' was one of the high points in my first readings, and I thought the convergence of the real, physical challenges of the ages 16 and <22 (sex, etc) with the spiritual, weakened the later ages. Now I've decided that it is this very replacement of the ideal and abstract with the real and physical that not only gives the later ages their sad tone ('I sat') but accurately mirrors the transformation.

I very much like the almost complete disappearance of 'I' in 16 and 22. However, I personally might have inverted what you have done, moving 'I was frustration' to the end of sixteen, while opening 22 with 'I sat.' This because 16 is the first time the 'I' is lost in external sources, and putting it at the end would be a sort of self-revelation. Then, 'I sat', followed by the list of worthless pursuits could develop that revelation further. Ending on '..open hand' does the same, and I understand that you probably didn't want to have 'I' twice; I understand that it's tricky.

'recursive thinking' is a problem for me. It sounds like something a 16 yo would write, and therefore fits into the stanza, but that is also the problem.
I have a similar reaction to 'or the interest.' It does fit the spiritual age, but the entire poem up to this point belies it. Without the laugh just before I might take it as a lie, or denial, but it doesn't seem so in context.

My favorite lines are ' tripping over holes / in strange grey matter', 'Counting backwards
on my fingers' and 'i sought to fix them / with iron nail / through hand and / foot'
though I have to admit, the navel thing went by me.

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I like this poem. It captures the reader's attention completely and leaves poets inspired.

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Jy

Unreal

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"he didn't want to be alone."

wow....

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my other account [link]

teehee! energy drinks will make life fun!

fascinating commentary and definitely the kind of thing worth reading. I enjoyed your comments. I wonder though, if the "I" referred to is in fact, the elucidation, if that moment of clarity is muddled by the id. a clarity of concept and a realization that it is only a fragment of awareness. not sure I am making sense on this, but what if it is: first the perception, then the enlightenment? not so much a retrospect look as an ongoing realisation. I wonder, though I definitely have the value of hindsight in my bag of experience, I know there have been times when at the moment, I performed an action, had the thought, then realised the futility of that thought and the context implied. it's a liberating thing to understand the place of an action in the schema without seeing the entire picture initially. sort of a prescient view of the moments underpinnings. I could be going beyond the intent of our beloved poetess, but I think that we all have that kind of awareness and sometimes, it's not until we write it down that we realise it. my favourite line: "Both past and present
slide off into
grey abstraction:
a story once told
and to be told again
by a beloved stranger. " to me summarizes the connection. that complete realization of interconnectedness and reiteration. Life expressing itself ad infinitum. again. I may be way out there, but at least it is a territory I am familiar with.

first stanza was the most compelling... a great read soma.

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