I wrote a poem

[aperson]

and I'm posting it here because I want to laugh really hard at inept comments


Frame

We are more than satellites reflected in the ocean,
Pulsing songs for souls
Who pine to occupy an infinitesimal slice of the heavens
We are more than metaphor waning in the wind,
More than faded maps
For minds shipwrecked by the airy space between our bodies

The tides of time will push and pull us
Farther
And nearer than our selves can comprehend
Until our galleons bend and splinter - Until our heads fall underwater

And as our eyes acclimatize to the salty sting of motion
The sticks and planks beneath our toes grow so very thin;
Though the yearning words we speak are stolen by clear bubbles
The border between you and me is only one within

[chemicalrabbit]

i don't have an adequate vocabulary to comprehend this poem. Yikes

[Tokzic]

Originally Posted by chemicalrabbit

i don't have an adequate vocabulary to comprehend this poem

yeah i noticed

i'll read this over again when i'm not too busy playing rock band

[chemicalrabbit]

Originally Posted by Tokzic

yeah i noticed

i'll read this over again when i'm not too busy playing rock band

The words were too big. It didn't make sense.

[SethSquall]

I think it was well written and I really like it. I think I understand it to the extent that I think I know what's happening and what you're describing. Still kinda shady in areas though.

[DrugstoreCowboy]

This is beautiful. Like Seth said, parts are unknown and mysterious, but overall I can come to my conclusion about this poem. Very nice. <3

[chemicalrabbit]

Forget what I said in my other two posts. This poem is pretty good. I re-read the poem thoroughly. I had to look a couple of the words up in Dictionary.com because my vocabulary is not that good. However, some parts I didn't understand quite well:

"We are more than metaphor waning in the wind,
More than faded maps
For minds shipwrecked by the airy space between our bodies"

It's so abstract.. could someone explain to me those two lines? o.0

[aperson]

It's a choose-your-own-adventure

[chemicalrabbit]

I understand that.. but I want to know about your adventure if I may.

[aperson]

Originally Posted by chemicalrabbit

I understand that.. but I want to know about your adventure if I may.

Ok.

This poem is about dissolving the borders of the ego.

The first three lines are a rejection of the Buddhist idea of bodhisattvahood. The second three lines are a rejection of egocentrism and more subtly hedonism. Personally, I dislike both because the first is hopelessly idealistic and the second is dangerously individualistic. The lines you are confused about are talking about the despair those in the world who are only driven by self-motivation will find when they try to come to grips with empathy, compassion, and connection with others.

I think the middle stanza is pretty straightforward. One thing of note is that I specifically chose the word galleon to slip in references to our materialistic and imperialistic desires since galleons were generally large freight and trade ships.

The last line is about what happens when our walls of ego are stripped away from us. The line about bubbles is based on a principle that was outlined in Lakoff & Johnson's book, Metaphors We Live By. Basically, it says that Language and communication is like a conduit: You take a conceptual idea, compress it into a box (bubble), and then transmit it along a conduit to someone who unpacks it into their own conceptual space. These lines are trying to hint at the nonconceptual connection we all have between us that goes far beyond anything that conceptuality can express.

I intentionally made the last line ambiguous in terms of specifying an object to 'within.' You're supposed to read it and go, "Within whom? Within what...?" Until you get the idea of egolessness.

[chemicalrabbit]

Thanks a lot for summarizing your poem for me. It's a lot more clear now that you summed it up for me. ^__^

[Tokzic]

I read it again. There's a few flaws with it. One - I don't give a damn what anyone says - finding personal connotation is one thing, but taking a few thoughts and writing them down with no iron purpose or message and saying "it's a choose your own adventure" is another - it's the reason most modern art is bull****. In this poem, it's a particularly big problem because it contradicts your thoughts directly. Saying you have to find personal meaning in a poem where the first stanza is dismissing personal beliefs kind of hurts your power.

Anyway, the ocean theme was effective, it matches the feel of the philosophy. I noticed the ambiguity in "nearer", but "within" was a bad choice of word because of the way it commonly gets used to infer self-reflection (e.g. "to find the answer you must look within [yourself]").

[aperson]

Originally Posted by Tokzic

I read it again. There's a few flaws with it. One - I don't give a damn what anyone says - finding personal connotation is one thing, but taking a few thoughts and writing them down with no iron purpose or message and saying "it's a choose your own adventure" is another - it's the reason most modern art is bull****. In this poem, it's a particularly big problem because it contradicts your thoughts directly. Saying you have to find personal meaning in a poem where the first stanza is dismissing personal beliefs kind of hurts your power.

Postmodernism has to walk this kind of paradoxical line because it's trying to get one to recognize subjectivity while using something that resembles an objective ground. A lot of modern art isn't bullshit, you just have to approach it in a different way. Duchamp's Urinal and John Cage's 4'33" both work in a way that you have to completely change how you frame your perspective to come to appreciate them, and through the process you learn to appreciate the frame itself. That's what it's trying to do, to get you to step out and look at the frame rather than the context within it, only while being able to make direct appeals to the interior context. It's like when you say a word over and over in your head - the conceptual meaning of it disappears until you're left with nothing but the sound behind it which frames the conceptualization. I'm using images of self and personal meaning because when I work it the right way (hopefully), you get to step outside a level and see the framing of the ego rather than the interior.

Anyway, the ocean theme was effective, it matches the feel of the philosophy. I noticed the ambiguity in "nearer", but "within" was a bad choice of word because of the way it commonly gets used to infer self-reflection (e.g. "to find the answer you must look within [yourself]").

Once again you seem to think contradiction's a bad thing. It's not. That's one of the whole purposes of the poem, we have to paradoxically point back in on our selves to appreciate the lack of self.

[GuidoHunter]

Originally Posted by aperson

We are more than metaphor
...
And as our eyes acclimatize

Damn, I love these lines.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[Tokzic]

I don't think modern art is bulshit at all. I was simply making the point that it's a common outlet for artists who don't put any thought or effort into their art and when they recieve criticism pull out the "personal message" card.

[ShastaTwist]

Originally Posted by Tokzic

it's the reason most modern art is bull****.

What?