< between summer and night >

[rayheinrich]

       

                                                      < between summer and night >
                                                       
                                                        and through the door
                                                        the porch
                                                        the roses
                                                        then the path
                                                        the marsh
                                                        the bay
                                                       
                                                        i look down at the wood
                                                        the wood i'm carving started with a face
                                                        it turned to yours
                                                       
                                                        i carve the wood
                                                        i feel the press of splinters
                                                        as the chisel waits for me
                                                        to hold it to your face
                                                       
                                                        the porch
                                                        the path
                                                        that leads down to the marsh
                                                        the beach
                                                        the bay
                                                        the smell of roses
                                                        fixed between the summer and the night

                                                        i try to copy them
                                                        to copy you
                                                        i only have this chisel
                                                        much too sharp to press against your face

                                                        i try
                                                        the chisel slips
                                                        your red becomes the roses
                                                        as the chisel slips again
                                                        and cuts my fingers
                                                        that can only bleed
                                                       
                                                                    - - -

[just mercedes]

Your poem really hit at my heart. I love the view out through the door, the call of the ocean almost, the sorrow, then the attention to the wood, the cut, the blood. Sometimes you make yourself bleed, to ease the pain. Paradox of being human.

[rayheinrich]

Your poem really hit at my heart. I love the view out through the door, the call of the ocean almost, the sorrow, then the attention to the wood, the cut, the blood. Sometimes you make yourself bleed, to ease the pain. Paradox of being human.

Your perception exceeds my hopes.
(Attempting a poem, a sculpture, a relationship... who hasn't felt an end like this?)

[ellajam]

I love reading this, it brings me there as I fully accept everything. But I still have a problem with the ending. I have been trying to figure out why, I think it might be the your and into or can.

                                                       i try
                                                       the chisel slips
                                                       red becomes the roses
                                                       as the chisel slips again
                                                       into my fingers
                                                       that only bleed
or


                                                       i try
                                                       the chisel slips
                                                       red becomes the roses
                                                       as the chisel slips again
                                                       my fingers
                                                       can only bleed

I think the second one. I know you have thought through every word, but somehow I just can't get your exact choices there.

Thanks for posting it, aside from that nit I continually enjoy it.

[rayheinrich]

I love reading this, it brings me there as I fully accept everything. But I still have a problem with the ending. I have been trying to figure out why, I think it might be the your and into or can.

                                                       i try
                                                       the chisel slips
                                                       red becomes the roses
                                                       as the chisel slips again
                                                       into my fingers
                                                       that only bleed
or


                                                       i try
                                                       the chisel slips
                                                       red becomes the roses
                                                       as the chisel slips again
                                                       my fingers
                                                       can only bleed

I think the second one. I know you have thought through every word, but somehow I just can't get your exact choices there.

Thanks for posting it, aside from that nit I continually enjoy it.

The poem is constructed using disyllabic feet (iambs and trochees).
It slips between iambic and trochaic lines with the help of added
weak and strong ending/beginning syllables. This enables it to maintain
a disyllabic rhythm while taking advantage of the different emotional
qualities expressed by each type of line. It also serves to relieve the
monotony of strictly disyllabic feet.

The variable number of feet in each line, while mainly used to punctuate
the elements of meaning, also relieve this same monotony by having that
slight pause we mentally introduced at the end of each line happen
at varying intervals.

And all of this serves to hide the fact the poem is constructed of poetic feet.
I feel it's better for the reader not to know this. What I hope to accomplish
is for the poem to seem natural, smooth, effortless -- and even, at times,
breathless -- without the knowledge that the whole damn thing is a contrivance.
(Yes, of course everyone knows the things are the most egregious  
concoctions of trickery and deceit known to women or man; but if we spin
them around fast enough, they might get dizzy enough to forget it.)

Scansion of those last six lines:

        i try
        the chi sel slips
        your red be comes the ro ses
        as the chi sel slips a gain
        in to my fin gers
        that can on ly bleed

           
Using articles "a,an,the", conjunctions "and,but,or,...", and other tiny words
to manufacture correct feet is cheating. Using them in free verse is -- and
luckily this has subsided somewhat -- considered abhorrent. Personally, I love
them as they provide the fresh air needed to let the poem assume its natural voice.

In the case of "the red" and "red", it's not just the rhythm or breath, it's that
I think "red" holds more emphasis if it is preceded by that tiny "the".

The "your" is there because I want to make sure the "red" is associated foremost
with the 2nd person and not with the rose.

The "can" is there because it connotes limitation, even despair, at not being able
to do something as opposed to only doing something.

But the "that", I'll give you, is just a contrivance to satisfy the meter.

And there you have it.

I'm reminded of what a good friend and wonderful poet once said to me:
"If you have to explain it, you need to rewrite it."

But I'm tired of this poem now -- it has taken up too much of my life as it is
(probably 10 to 12 edits of 15 to 60 minutes) -- so I hope you'll forgive me for
not attempting a rewite.

I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to comment and you even reading
the damn thing in the first place.

Ray

P.S. And speaking of taking time: Your pigpen efforts are to be lauded.

[ellajam]

Thanks so much for explaining your means of hypnosis. Very valuable to me. The your tripped me for meaning, but I read INto, so that must be what tripped me there.

No need to or expectation of an edit, I'm mostly just talking to myself, trying to pinpoint my own reactions.

I spend plenty of my life fulfilling obligations I have tied myself to, time spent here is my self-centered pleasure.

[billy]

i have no idea about the meter you say you used [i'm not yet past iambic] but the poem evokes.... the image is perfect for it, it draws the eye away and helps the chisel, and the heart slip a little. i also like the repeats used throughout the poem. we as critics often [always almost complain about them] here they show the exception to the rule; if done well they can add impact to a poem.

[rayheinrich]

Thanks so much for explaining your means of hypnosis. Very valuable to me. The your tripped me for meaning, but I read INto, so that must be what tripped me there.

No need to or expectation of an edit, I'm mostly just talking to myself, trying to pinpoint my own reactions.

I spend plenty of my life fulfilling obligations I have tied myself to, time spent here is my self-centered pleasure.

Well, "into" IS pronounced " in to ".  I subconsciously mispronounced it to make it fit.
I'm always doing that. I can usually catch those forced pronunciations if a wait a day or two before I
read the poem again. Not this time. It took you reading it fresh to find that.
Thanks
I've changed "into" to "and cuts".

ray

---

i have no idea about the meter you say you used [i'm not yet past iambic] but the poem evokes.... the image is perfect for it, it draws the eye away and helps the chisel, and the heart slip a little. i also like the repeats used throughout the poem. we as critics often [always almost complain about them] here they show the exception to the rule; if done well they can add impact to a poem.

Your perceptions please the hell out of me.

And speaking of repeats. I have a poem here:
< a window on whose other side is everything >

It drives people who hate repeats CRAZY!

ray



P.S.
Disyllabic feet are ones that have two syllables.
An iamb has its last syllable stressed: " aWAKE "
A troche has its first syllable stressed: " WAKing "

There are two others that only Leanne uses:
A spondee has both syllables stressed
A pyrrhic has neither syllable stressed.

[billy]

just read it and will give a response in it's thread later, but at first pass, it reads great as an open mic piece.

[NobodyNothing]

Me like this one too.  I love the idea of a  multi-media approach to poetry.  I've thought so much about putting images, dance, music, etc... to live poetry.  I once thought that that was where poetry should go in this day and age.  Before I quit trying, I had conceived of such a thing once, something I called to myself a poetic opera.  It was all in my head, so much of it, but I couldn't pull it off.  Drove me crazy.

You're a real talent.  You have that musical, visual, multimedia touch that once enthralled me as to its artistic potentiality.

[Grace]

       

                                                      < between summer and night >
                                                       
                                                        and through the door
                                                        the porch
                                                        the roses
                                                        then the path
                                                        the marsh
                                                        the bay
                                                       
                                                        i look down at the wood
                                                        the wood i'm carving started with a face
                                                        it turned to yours
                                                       
                                                        i carve the wood
                                                        i feel the press of splinters
                                                        as the chisel waits for me
                                                        to hold it to your face
                                                       
                                                        the porch
                                                        the path
                                                        that leads down to the marsh
                                                        the beach
                                                        the bay
                                                        the smell of roses
                                                        fixed between the summer and the night

                                                        i try to copy them
                                                        to copy you
                                                        i only have this chisel
                                                        much too sharp to press against your face

                                                        i try
                                                        the chisel slips
                                                        your red becomes the roses
                                                        as the chisel slips again
                                                        and cuts my fingers
                                                        that can only bleed
                                                       
                                                                    - - -

Ray, this is truly brilliant and moved me deeply . I especially like the lines i try/ the chisel slips/your red becomes the roses. It's about being human. Thank you. Grace.