Monday, August 29, 2016

Chrysogonus #29 - finding my poem

finding my poem
(after Susan Hawthorne)  

after a voyage
across piles of book
big words that drove me
to look for their meaning
in the thick dictionary
I still cannot find my poem

I find it waiting in my bed instead
in the second before I close my eyes
or the first grunt in the morning
a blink and miss moment

I find it waiting in my vibrating phone
all the words I typed in my messenger
the complaints I blurted through skype
or yellow faces lining up in the chat

my poem lies awaiting
in the simplicity of life

that I fail to see in favour of the old texts



*I am still trying to figure out how to write the ending for this poem. Any suggestion would be welcomed :) * 

7 comments:

  1. I think the problem with the ending is the lines

    my poem lies awaiting
    in the simplicity of life

    not enough work for the reader to do there!

    you need to show this by example somehow I think

    and the last line is confusing ... not quite clear what you mean here, Chrys ...

    I think it's better to post in Indonesian as well as English because a lot of the problems a poem might have could be solved by working across the languages

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  2. Yes please Chrys. Post in Indonesian also.

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  3. My poem lies awaiting
    in the simplicity of life
    I fail to see in favour of the new
    but a poem is the last breath taken
    and the next one hardly bears a thought

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  4. I think you just need to keep writing longer, I think it's the final line that is problematic, could be deleted. I know in my own case, I often attempt closure too early and that creates awkwardness or even cliché.

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  5. Dear all, thank you for the suggestion. Here is what I could come up as the revised version.

    finding my poem
    (after Susan Hawthorne)

    after a voyage through piles of books
    big words that drove me to look for their meaning
    in the biggest dictionary...
    I still couldn’t find my poem

    I thought I should find it waiting in my bed instead
    in the second before my deep sleep
    in the first grunt after the sunrise
    a blink and miss moment

    would I find it waiting in my vibrating phone
    all the words I typed in my messenger
    the complaints I blurted through Skype
    or emoji lining up in the chat?

    I suppose the poem has always been waiting for me
    during my lunch break or at dinner
    in my walk to the office, on my sweaty jog
    next to my cup of tea and Oreo packets

    I suppose it was there
    but I failed to notice it
    I was too busy, too absorbed
    in the accomplished grandeur of old texts


    Rob, the last two lines that you suggested are beautiful. I think they deserve their own poem :)

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  6. I came back to suggest the personification of the poem - as opposed to the object poem was there under your nose - then see - here you are! Also the blog threw the word personification right at me. But I think that the tension between the poem ( as an item to be lost) the poem ( as a concept) and the poem ( inside you the person, the poet - thus the poem personified) might be the story here.

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