Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Readwritepoem#54

Once upon a time


Once upon the time of words

contained only by lore

mendicant monks marched the

road to sainthood mumbling

imaginary verses of prayers unwritten.

No one was able to depict rite, for

no eye had been able to bear

the burden of the Seductrice

unclothing, hallow the Summer Solstice.

Nations loaded stock and children into



wagons as they moved to the next fair:

the way ahead always free

boarded by only tradition.

All their fortunes shall lie

on the fruitful chests of their women.

At all times they shall remain bind free

from the earth or city or local ruler,

ready to move forward,

for only one god shall trace the path

never to stop or turn back

as they cross the sea bottom.



But (whilst this verse is written)

at the time present

we classify words in a web of dictionaries

with rules made up by a sour grammar school

teacher who designed connotations for

home, family, caste, state, Constitution, religion

matchbox shaped cement blocks

we use to confine nations like we

jail our mendicants in cutting down

the roads we know they'll die buried amongst our customs.


Not that I argue that happiness is to be found among the unruly ;

nor that liberty does not belong to necessity (for it does).

All I ask for is to unbind words and let them scatter around

for some to land under the good augurs of chernozem and bear fruit (Free!).



the prompt was (not) following the rules…and since I have recently a problem with following all rules of language, I fall out of "scholarly expression" for school more often before since I started to grasp the language as a living corpus – I said to myself what'll be better to write about…


this is a draft, for I am not happy yet with the third stanza and the last one also needs some extra care (I think)…











14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woohoo, Not following the rules, what a brilliant prompt! This is a fantastic gypsy caravan clip clop freedom poem which retains control over itself while asserting liberty, dada diddle diddle dum dum dada...

Anonymous said...

Oh and I like the idea of not following the rules by not linking back to the prompt site, that's cool too. Let anarchy rain,

anthonynorth said...

Powerful and anarchic. Excellent.

Ana said...

Anthony,
thanks.

Paul,

this is more about entropy(the natural tendency to dis-order) than about anarchy (freedom is not among the unruly)...
thus the title was supposed to link, but I guess that did not work so I got the link in the note now...

Anonymous said...

I particularly love these lines: "we classify words in a web of dictionaries / with rules made up by a sour grammar school / teacher who designed connotations for / home, family, caste, state, Constitution, religion /matchbox shaped cement blocks." Wonderful.

Anonymous said...

Freedom is not among the unruly? What a great sentence, 'un-rule-y'. I don't think it's to be found in marching in neat lines and files either. The tendancy to entropy is a 'rule' of physics? So the struggle to assert order, create patterns, evolve a language which communicates could be seen as breaking the rule of entropy. It's a fascinating poem, full of ideas and images that coalesce in the relaxed mind into an image of a very unique kind of freedom.

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of unbinding words so they can be scattered around and bear fruit - I think often as poets we do that when we find a new word or thought.

Ana said...

Ingrid,

thank you...
if you look at the cities that some countries had built in order to enforce industrialism, progress and order you would notice they are all matchbox shaped cement blocks- and very cold ones, like a grammar class or a big dictionary - thus...the image. And there is an analogy between words and nations so
yes, Andy, poets re-discover language but that does not mean they are free of grammar rules. It is more like discovering that language is alive -so
Paul,
yes, there is a theory that claims human mind to be the cause for negentropy (because it classifieds, orders, conceptualizes), and that is the opposite of entropy. Entropy is a “law” of physics that states that the universe has a tendency to return to chaos, to become so scattered that it will be unable to sustain itself, therefore it will self-destruct… So people do not break a rule, but they apply rules as to oppose a law. However, since I think that neither the universe can escape entropy, neither human mind can escape its most fundamental tendency to classify, my point is:
“ nor that liberty does not belong to necessity (for it does).”

but (I think I tried to capture freedom in the first two stanzas ...)

Anonymous said...

what a wild journey--both the poem and the comments!

thanks, annamari, for the philosophical and scientifical adventure!

Ana said...

Gwen,
thanks for not getting too bored by it...

Anonymous said...

Hi Annamari. That's a brilliant commentary and closing plea. Isn't it fantastic that it spurred such a fascinating conversation? Love it.

Ana said...

Brad,

I am happy when people actually come to like it - the concepts and the way they dance, as a common friend will put it...

Anonymous said...

You did a beautiful job, Annamari. This was a pleasure to read.

My favorite lines are:

"matchbox shaped cement blocks
we use to confine nations like we
jail our mendicants in cutting down
the roads we know they'll die buried amongst our customs."

I love the matchbox shaped cement blocks. That is a spectacular image.

You're right about the societal rules. I'm constantly being reminded that I'm not doing something "the way it's supposed to be done," and I wonder why.

As for writing, once we learn the rules, we can break them into pieces and make our own, huh? I like that idea, too. This is a beautiful poem, and I love how it makes me think.

Ana said...

Julie,

Thank you , and I am glad you liked it. and your comment too, made me see my own poem in a different light...