- Non-Erotic Poetry
- Blind as Gloucester
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Click hereEven ants can suffer.
Do you think sometimes
our Lord has a bit much
to drink and crashing
upon his table cracks
the plates, twists
that laughing universal
masque to tragic groan,
calls for another glass
until the sea unfolds
itself and we are tossed
into perdition or worse,
something less?
The colony's a mess.
Who cares about the ants,
the roads they build
so carefully, the children
in their nursery and all
the labor, shelter, food;
the haven of a world
is crushed so easily,
Jove is stomping clouds
or putting out a fire
in some celestial grate,
ashes, ashes.
It's child's play,
a wing torn from a fly,
a footprint left behind
so carelessly, the echo
of a voice that shouted
once upon some random,
sunny day.
- COMMENTS
greenmountaineerabout 13 years agoUnlike Ishtar, I think the reverential reference to God works well at the start because by the poem's conclusion the dramatic affect is whether there is even a God at all or perhaps at best a fire and brimstone one.
I confess that until I read Ishtar's comment (I'm not as well acquainted with Shakespeare as perhaps I should be), I was thinking about a woman in colonial Gloucester Massachusetts staring out to sea, despondent because she feared her husband was lost in a storm. It then occurred to me that either perspective took me to the same reflection. Well done as always.
SeattleRainabout 13 years agookay I know this is metaphor still it made me feel guilty for my massacre of the fire ant mound, but still they were biting me and my kids and and eating the geckos....
okay the poem,
we are tossed
into perdition or worse,
something less?
I love this section. I love how you toss big messages into the smallest creatures, their roads, nurseries, stomped into rubble so easily. You always make it look easy, by the way :)
bogusagainabout 13 years agoI always feel one shouldn't leave a comment unless one has some critique to make otherwise you just dismiss the poet or back slap. In this case it is back slap.
Being something of an atheist my critique of your poem would be philosophical rather than poetic, which means I haven't got a critique at all. Though I would echo Istat, a more confrontational approach to god might have strengthened the poem but as Istat said, that is quibbling.
ishtatabout 13 years agoI suppose as a native (originally) of Gloucestershire I should recognize the title's reference to the blind Gloucester of King Lear.
The passion is much more evident than usual for your poetry and in this case is the better for it. I really like the result but feel it might be even better if a more accusatory standpoint was considered: ie "you Lord have had too much too drink... your table...you toss us." The Jews have a great tradition of arguing, even wrestling (Jacob) with God rather than just praying, maybe that tradition might serve here?
I also prefer Yaweh to Jove, that name just seems sort of more pentateuchical,(I couldn't bring myself to write Torahical!) but that's just me. Might dump those 'ing ' verbs too
Good poem, big clear strokes on a broad canvas, challenged and demanded attention. Worth 6.
