upward
i followed Earth's tug
magnetic pull North
till i stood where the needle spun round
the way seagulls circle above arctic water
searching
hunting
diving down upon an ocean crest
scooping up some ill destined fish
venturing too close to the surface
the moment of capture
uncertainty
confusion
the way penguins oscillate in heat retaining mosh pits
wobbling inward
shoving outward
unsteady is my compass
the way a snowflake sometimes hovers eye-level
still
in the wake of a tumbling wind gust
indecisive
apprehensive
suspensively suspended
it asks
what direction do i point
on top of the world?
Author notes
just a thought...
what would make this poem stronger?
Comments
1 - 8 of 8
-
"You hate the lubby-dubby crap"?
Damn, that's too bad for you. If you do it well the doors it can open are endless. And I just wrote all about that lubby-dubby crap to you in this comment...How lame am I? Gee whiz...I guess I'm just not in touch anymore. But I suppose it fits bein' as how lubby-dubby crap has fallen by the wayside in today's guttural, grunting diatribes on love. Ah, well...I like being old fashioned.
There's no need to credit me with collaboration, I just thought it was interesting because I have often done the same thing. I'll read a whole slew of work, then write a poem and find that the work has been very influenced by what has been read just previous to my writing. I don't steal phrases, and neither did you, but I do find words and sometimes images that have transmigrated over to my lines. I just thought it was interesting, that's all. And I wondered if it was the same to you. Apparently it is. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on the matter. I too am fascinated by the brain.
Nice collaborating with you
al -
-
more lubby dubby !
al,
yes, in light of T.V. and movies these days, lubby dubby seems much more desirable. the art of courtship seems to be dying out in favor for a one-night-stand. this perspective makes me sick. heh. Lindsay Lohan is posing naked in some magazine now. and ya know what? Brittany Spears also started off working for Disney.
it's not that i care about these people. it's just that i have three younger sisters that watch the Disney Channel. and i swear, all the girls on that channel are dressed like little hoes! i don't want my sisters to get a wrong impression. b/c at their ages, yes, they are definitely impressionable. even if they do know better.
and besides, i love being suave. taking a girl out to dinner and a movie. massaging their feet. giving her compliments. i'm a big flirt. a real charmer all the way.
but i don't ever see that on television anymore. it's always some girl's tits flying everywhere and as much grunting and skin contact and contorted facial expressions and pogo motion in the bedroom, err, closet, err, cubicle, err, car, alleyway, or anywhere else degrading and lustful as possible.
it is not love. nor is it reality. or my reality.
so thanx for the perspective. i really needed the refresher.
anyhow,
i'm SP fasting until Easter.
take care, buddy!
Pap
-
-
Sure thing, Ace...
and may your fast be fast
or reasonably rapid at the very least.
al
-
-
-
The utter dismay and confused excitement of the explorer, landed, wondering what do I do now? This poem, Pap, is a joyful romp up to and around the magnetic circle of the Artic; very appealing. I take the poem as the poet simply flying around up there, no grand intended meaning in the "searching, hunting, diving" flight, and that openness is what, for me anyway, is the charm of the piece.
For the second time today (I already mentioned this thought to marcusmoore), I'm reminded of W.B. Yeats' great lines about his fears for the world: "Wider and wider the ever-circling gyre goes / 'til things fall apart, the center will not hold..." Not a pleasant image. But your poem here, with all its playful and journeying "uncertainty / confusion" is much more of a playful romp on top of the world - and its loaded with precise images of Emperor penguins and still snowflakes - really nice lines there, lovingly worded.
It's always a lot of fun for me as a reader when a good poet just yanks words and images around, simply for the heaven of it, no heavy duty meaning involved, like some of the best of lyric poetry. I like this one, no doubt.
Lad -
-
hello down there ! (from on atop the world)
Lad,
yes, in this poem, i tried to appeal to the senses. it is the poet's job, i do believe. and so i'm really trying to work on that.
anyhow, this isn't my latest draft. and i'll continue to work on what i have, not doubt.
maybe i'll let it sit for a week, then come back to it, like you do.
i gave that advice in my creative writing class, and my teacher agreed. she thought it was sound advice.
so there, you are a real help around here, ya know? b/c there is a lot of bad poetry in the world, but a lot of poets with potential on SP, i like to think. so with the guidance of someone like you around, a seasoned poet, all us up-and-comings have a fighting chance.
take care,
Pap
-
-
Hey pap, this kind of intrigues me
I just did a bunch of free-writes from a sub-conscious flow sort of thing. The stuff just came out and there was a bunch of nonsense about compass coordinates and gulls and moshing and all sorts of baloney that I just I just spewed forth in an impressionist bowl of baloney. Then I stood back and wondered what it all meant. I see a lot of the elements of those free-writes I'd written here in this poem. I'm just wondering as I know you were free-writing at the same time (I think I played off a few of your topics), I was just wondering if my work had anything to do with this? I often am sparked to a subject by someone else's musings and I wondered if I am so honored to be an impetus to such(at the very least indirectly?
Anyway, I gotta kick outta thinking I was seeing a bunch of my baloney incorporated into someone elses thought process.
Now... the poem: Much more organized and coherent than my freewrite ramblings. What do I gather from it? Hmmmm....let's see:
You've followed a trail to where you find yourself sitting on top of the world, watching circumstances unfold and revolve about you. You mark yourself an observer and observe a gull, circling and swooping to capture prey that had made itself too apparent. Then the poem shifts to an empathic view for this prey, an "ill-destined fish" thus swooped upon and snapped up. But you view the fish not as dead, but lost in confusion and therein shines a metaphorical likening to a cherished friend that you see in the throes of something difficult as that friend cavitates on the spindle of uncertainty and unfamiliarity. Your love is apparent and very touching. I can feel your love for this person. Yet you hover uncertainly as your compass is spinning round without direction You are lost at the source of your reckoning and thus have no frame of reference to guide you. And you wonder which way to go... You're waiting for something to tell you what to do, when really you gotta do the doing and go out and get what you want.
As this seems a wondering poem, and I'm a bombastic bastard that just loves to proffer possible answers to queries in the form of advice, I'd say that fortune favors the bold and that sometimes the best medicine to make up another's mind is to make it up for them by your own solid action. That's why I love writing. It allows you invite yourself inside someone's head(if you write well enough) and to sway them to your point of view. People like to be captured, directed and led. To answer questions with questions offers no compass points to ponder, but only spinnning and confusion. Forgive me here, pap, but this seems to be a love poem about someone for whom you care dearly. And if I may be so bold, I would share with you that I have never been ashamed to make a fool out of myself for love. Because there is nothing more pathetic and tragic than love lost because no one had the courage to profess. Go after your fishy. Because most fish? Well, even thought they may wiggle a bit, they just want to be gotten, sought out and caught. My wife was a bit blase' but I was undeterred. I never hesitated to tell her how I felt in so many ways. And I eventually wore her down. And do know what she says to me to this day? That she loved that she was "gotten", that I went after her and captured her. Because so many today are tepid, ho-hummm and "what-ever".
So...that's what I felt about this poem, pap. I thunk it, I wrote it, and now you got it. Do with it what you will.
Great poem, by the way. Very well presented and construed.
al
-
-
a collaboration of vagbond minds
al,
in response to your latest comment on my poem "were?" -
if it bears any relation to this freewrite of yours, then it probably is not a coincidence. although i did not look for your poem for inspiration, my poem does echo your musings...
so i took a look at your freewrite you were talking about and realized that i had read it not long before the idea of a compass spinning round came into my head. and i didn't know where the idea came from. haha. but it seems pretty clear to me now that skimming through your freewrite probably had something to do with it.
i'm fascinated by the way our brains work, conjuring up subconscious thoughts, things consciously overlooked, and regurgitating them into a new creation. so there, i give you credit for this one -- it's a collaboration, and i never would have known.
and regarding the love aspect of my poem, yes, it does seem to read that way i suppose, although it wasn't really my intent. i was just trying to describe a general feeling of "what next?" -- it can apply to anything, really. there was an image in my head of a compass spinning round being at the North pole, and so i tried to describe it, but left the metaphorical meaning open.
however, this is a work in progress. in fact, the version your read isn't my latest draft. haha. i've been working on it a couple of days now, and really sorta "finished" it last night. for a couple of days it was just an idea scribbled down on a page somewhere in my dorm.
so, i may add a meaning to it later. and as a side note, i am sick of love poems, but i guess such a topic could suffice for this one, being as abstract as it is. i don't want to be obvious about it. i hate the lubby dubby crap.
Pap
-
Adding your comment:
1 - 8 of 8
