01-03-2016, 10:02 PM
Sorry, not trying to be mean but some of this seems to have an unrealistic over romanticized aspect to it, making it ring somewhat false.
"The Tao Te Ching
where I stopped resisting the tide;"
Who has stopped resisting the the tide? Maybe you are an ascended master, but then what are you doing writing poetry on this web site? Sorry, but it just rings false.
" where I saw light through closed kaleidoscopic eyes;"
The only time I have heard the phrase " kaleidoscopic eyes" was used is in the Beatles song. The idea of closed kaleidoscopic eyes is kind of senseless, even if ones natural eyes were closed the third eye would need to be open to perceive anything. I understand how one can see sunlight through one's eyelids, but that is not what is being said here, so I struggle to find any meaning in this phrase.
A lot of the last seems like name dropping. " Kerouac, Hesse, Ginsberg, Ishmael, H.H. The Dalai Lama, Hunter S. Thompson, Alan Watts, 180 Degrees South, the sounds of Steve Kimock, the screeches of Pharoah Sanders, etc-"
Of course mostly modernist-beat-post modernist, along with some eclectic musicians with some crossover commonalities at times, kind of a seven degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of deal. I can see these as influences, but since there is nothing said about how they influenced the speaker, then it just becomes a laundry list, thus the feel of name dropping.
I just have a hard time believing that a person could live through all of this, especially the drug use, and come out with this romantic vision of things, and so the poem just seem to ring false in some areas.
I use to read all these books about different places and how wonderful and exotic they were, so I went to some of them. I spent 2 months in Thailand once and although I enjoyed talking with the people who are very open and kind, there was nothing romantic about the environment. It stunk just as bad as any third world country does. There was certainly grace under adversity, and gratitude for even the smallest things, but that did not make the environment any less brutal. Really the only difference between Thailand and Mexico is that American greed had yet to infiltrate Thailand to the same degree as Mexico. Yet, even in Thailand it was creeping in.
"...they wear out his women,
but there are always more women,
when there is baht."
Sorry, this is not exactly a strict critique, but those were the things that in the end kept me from taking this as seriously as I though was the intent of the writer.
Best,
Dale
"The Tao Te Ching
where I stopped resisting the tide;"
Who has stopped resisting the the tide? Maybe you are an ascended master, but then what are you doing writing poetry on this web site? Sorry, but it just rings false.
" where I saw light through closed kaleidoscopic eyes;"
The only time I have heard the phrase " kaleidoscopic eyes" was used is in the Beatles song. The idea of closed kaleidoscopic eyes is kind of senseless, even if ones natural eyes were closed the third eye would need to be open to perceive anything. I understand how one can see sunlight through one's eyelids, but that is not what is being said here, so I struggle to find any meaning in this phrase.
A lot of the last seems like name dropping. " Kerouac, Hesse, Ginsberg, Ishmael, H.H. The Dalai Lama, Hunter S. Thompson, Alan Watts, 180 Degrees South, the sounds of Steve Kimock, the screeches of Pharoah Sanders, etc-"
Of course mostly modernist-beat-post modernist, along with some eclectic musicians with some crossover commonalities at times, kind of a seven degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of deal. I can see these as influences, but since there is nothing said about how they influenced the speaker, then it just becomes a laundry list, thus the feel of name dropping.
I just have a hard time believing that a person could live through all of this, especially the drug use, and come out with this romantic vision of things, and so the poem just seem to ring false in some areas.
I use to read all these books about different places and how wonderful and exotic they were, so I went to some of them. I spent 2 months in Thailand once and although I enjoyed talking with the people who are very open and kind, there was nothing romantic about the environment. It stunk just as bad as any third world country does. There was certainly grace under adversity, and gratitude for even the smallest things, but that did not make the environment any less brutal. Really the only difference between Thailand and Mexico is that American greed had yet to infiltrate Thailand to the same degree as Mexico. Yet, even in Thailand it was creeping in.
"...they wear out his women,
but there are always more women,
when there is baht."
Sorry, this is not exactly a strict critique, but those were the things that in the end kept me from taking this as seriously as I though was the intent of the writer.
Best,
Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.