Friday, September 19, 2008

Sunday Scribbling #129: Invitation


vestiges ushering

meaning was granulated,

coffee dark, glossolalia

of roots deep

in the dark earth.

what to make of the hut

tiffany glass

in the middle of silence,

a calling—a yearning—

full of the body’s

capacity for blown

wonder,

aching desire

and yet trundled out

into a realm not of lust

but assonance of the darkest sweat,

triangulated midst

ache and god

sense and dislocation

travel and static bliss.

what of the blue mask

over pregnant memory,

centrifugal cacophony,

sexual drowning,

calm at jungle floor—

crone in the vestiges

ushering needle

through the long lanes

of desire to have,

desire to be,

desire to know

the last ridge of the heart’s

liquid rest.

She sings from where

She sings for what

She sings to whom—

Nation of crowded isolation,

a hand that reaches

the temptation of return,

to kiss rampant,

to burn remiss

the exegesis of

incendiary invitation.

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21 Comments:

Blogger Granny Smith said...

This is feast of words and haunting phrases. The illustrations are perfect.

8:47 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Thank you, Granny Smith. I'm happy enough with the poem, but it still pales in comparison with the riparian dream that engendered it. That one lanced the soul.

8:58 PM  
Blogger Miss Alister said...

Ooh, a visible, sensual dagger of delight, dripping with significance. The Simplicity of our bginnings, the coup d’etat of Complexity, assuring our simply uncomplicated endings…burned up orange, granulated like coffee, blown like glass, threaded like a needle to a pulp fiction heart. That she sings unceasing the undertone of life, is the kiss, the peace, is bliss.

My feeling on reading, dear poet, brilliant mind. The burr has lodged and infected, does it matter where?

missalister

5:06 PM  
Blogger Pam said...

'crowded isolation' what a prophetic phrase. You have some wonderful lines in this poem.

7:32 PM  
Blogger Roan said...

Haunting is a good word to describe this piece. I enjoyed it very much. BJ

9:05 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Miss A: Translation of haunting dream to cyberpage is a daunting task: this dream has so many piercing images, virtually none of which make it to the page. And yet, when I tried overly hard for 1:1 correspondences, it felt like the dream was crumbling: funny what fervid tyranny these dreams exercise over their dreamers.

8:38 AM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Thank you, Pam. "Crowded isolation" came readymade and full blown: I liked it, too.

8:39 AM  
Blogger murat11 said...

b. roan: If haunting it is, then it nicely parallels the original dream's impact on the dreamer. Thank you for giving it your eyes and imagination.

8:41 AM  
Blogger Miss Alister said...

Indeed. I had a series of intriguing scenarios prior to waking this morning—one woke me in a start similar to my PB-inspired guy—and I’ll be damned if I can trace any of them to their conclusions for the purpose of full dissection and analysis. I have no choice but to sit here in the sea of their aftermath, in this dinghy of a mind, eerily affected, as fog rises around me…that's no better than the usual standing on Earth, looking up at the stars and wondering about dark energy :-|

9:02 AM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Lady A: I think, in truth, my whinings notwithstanding, I prefer the "sea of aftermath." As a surrealist, I'm hardly qualified for much analysis. Good, tangential association for this one is about as good as it gets.

9:51 AM  
Blogger present said...

So thought provoking. Is it real or a dream that meaning can so easily be broken down into nonsense in the face of longing, desire, and needs unmet? Does the pain exist in the depths of what we are potentially capable of knowing and experiencing... the invitation for more? And is it denigrated by what we are capable of understanding and achieving?
So beautifully written.

10:14 AM  
Blogger murat11 said...

present: Your comments are always such wonderful excavations, relics brought back from your immersion in the text. Keats and his negative capability got nuthin' on you. Upon further reflection on the "unrendered" dream, I'm reminded that I typically resist interpretation anyway (even if I do not resist representation).

But let me say this: I stopped, a good while back, trying to fashion (translate) the bright dream that shines within: like my attempts at translating this dream into poem, the bright dream also crumbles in the attempts to "import" that file. So, it lives, but it lives where it lives, which is not here, in this sunny Sunday Texas morning. Any attempts at grasping have ended in gasping. So I will sit in my sunny Sunday Texas morning, the yang to the dream's yin, or however they divvy themselves up these days. And I suppose, too, I will parse the invitations and live in joy with the food they bring.

To put it all this way sounds so full of abdication. It doesn't feel that way. My major totem animal is the blue heron, who stands still for hours in the shallows, waiting for just the right time to strike.

I like the feel of the water on my feet. Your visits are always a welcome treat.

10:47 AM  
Blogger Tumblewords: said...

Great piece! Haunting is a good description. Your words and phrases are wonderful!

9:00 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Thank you again, tumblewords.

5:39 AM  
Blogger Tammie Lee said...

Me thinks you are a wordsmith! I had to look up: glossolalia.
each line takes me on a journey into wondering what it means to you and what it inspires in me.
In the end i am left with a deep feeling of the human way of seeking the unknown, seeking for love, lust, peace and endless experience of what it is to be living.

12:01 PM  
Blogger Beth Camp said...

The mask of the woman's face pulls me in, invitation; the hint of a child wrapped in her body leads me to your poem, a wild cacaphony that surges and blurs the essence of a life into meaning and archetype. Can you transcribe a dream? Most likely not. But a poem? Yes!

2:19 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Tammie: Words stick to me like lint to a lint collector: often enough, I have to look them up, too. Sometimes I even use them "out" of their sense, just to hear and feel them collide.

I was having a conversation with a colleague this morning, reiterating the point that a written piece (I would say ANY work of art) does not exist independent of the reader: the reader's read is essential to the "meaning" of the art piece. Meaning does not exist UNTIL the reader reads, viewer views, what have you. Of course, sometimes the first reader is the writer herself, but even there, the reader reads differently from the writer writing.

In short, thank you for the continuing collaborations.

2:27 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Beth: "a wild cacaphony that surges and blurs." Thank you for that: that's how it felt, trying to catch the mercury dream.

3:32 PM  
Blogger Tammie Lee said...

I agree, without the viewer, listener, other, my art feels incomplete!

I also love the sound of some words with out their meaning. Fun that you use them "out" of their sense, just to hear and feel them collide!

1:33 PM  
Blogger San said...

Much is beautiful here, Paschal. Much to linger on, and savor. The phrase that I return to, again and again: "full of the body's capacity for blown wonder."

That is also an apt description of this invitation "...to know/the last ridge of the heart's/liquid rest."

A "centrifugal cacophony" that is somehow very quiet.

5:55 PM  
Blogger San said...

...Or at least quiet at the center.

5:56 PM  

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