They Say We Don’t Have Wings

[jisbell00]

They Say We Don’t Have Wings


I am the fulcrum where the world rotates:
I’ve come so deep, there is no day to view.
I am the stranger waiting at the gates.
My heart tripped like a switch and brought me through.

This is what you get: it’s me,
to do the job that none would take.
I call from my Messiah tree
for spring at last. I do not break.

They say a man’s no better than a dog
if he’s not on his own two feet. They say
a lot of things. They say
I cannot hope to win if I do not
compete. And I do not compete, I am
not a competitor. They say you only
live once. They say the air is for the birds –
we don’t have wings. They say we don’t have wings.


 
Edited:
My mind is dead, but my small heart
takes the round world and holds it fast.
This is my work. I’m not that smart,
but love will win out at the last.

[Macavity]

This is familiar John. Is it a revision of a recent posting?

[jisbell00]

Hi Phil,

You are right to recognize it. I think it was a few weeks ago I posted S1 and S4. S2-3 however are new. I'm mostly trying to see how my jigsaw method holds up: for instance, your advice to remove the central stanza of "High Wire," and to rewrite "God-Seer" with more on Shekhinah, was precious to me. Sorry for the reposting but it is 50% new!

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

The concluding stanza! Yes, I'm still liking that in this hierarchy of poetry What is your intention with the 'jigsaw' method? The experience of voices? Anyway I enjoyed the 'whole' John, though the final strophe has the most bite.

[jisbell00]

Hi Phil,

I guess it's not really that I have an intention, other than to do justice to my experiecne as best I can. My other 28 or so MSS just get one poem per page, but here, i keep jotting down new tet quatrains about what happened and trying to find a home for them in a welcoming page (like S2-3 here). Hence, my jigsaw method in this instance! And my feeling is, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i have in fact an entire second mS. of rejected stanzas from this one.

Yup, that final stanza here is my favorite as well! One of those pieces that just came out that way. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Of course, there is always the option of the short form, which is usually more impactful.

[jisbell00]

Ah, that is the crux of the dilemma! Yes, less is more, but then I'll feel I've not told the whole story. That's why it was so helpful to have your advice to delete that whole stanza about Rudolf Otto. I do cut pretty routinely, but I think more cuts can still improve the document.

Ray is also really helpful here - he likes to cut!

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Yes, I can understand the need to detail the experience. After all, how much of the narrative could a reader imagine. Of course, the more that is described, the less space for the reader's imagination to be engaged. I suppose you could have the two poems on opposite pages, letting them breathe, but that is a cost. The MS would give the whole story. Or you could simply write an autobiography John

[jisbell00]

Hi Phil,

You raise an interesting point - that in being telly, one closes out the reader's imagination, which after all is why we read poetry, as much as anything. But as you also note, who is going to imagine what I am describing?

I did once write an autobiography of these times: Crazy: My Life as the Messiah. It's about 50 pages long, and I never did anything with it.

I always bump up against my 80-page limit. Believe me, I've trimmed 80 pages and more from this MS. over the years, but it remains overstuffed, like an old sofa. Perhaps more needs to go. I need an Ezra Pound to slash and burn it!

Cheers,
John

[jisbell00]

Hi folks,

I'm trying an experiment by cutting S3. The resulting poem may be tighter and the final stanza - which is perhaps the high point - may stand out better in consequence. Do people have any thoughts?

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

I don't think I can be totally convinced by this structure John, but I do feel that the poetry scales achieve more balance now.

[jisbell00]

Thanks Phil - I've made that cut in the mS., so that's one fewer stanza in the whole MS.

Would you prefer the piece *as poetry* with just the concluding stanza?

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

I am aware John, like the Wasteland, the whole can be cohesive in the MS. It is also a feature of poetry that there will 'highlights' in a poem.

[jisbell00]

Hi Phil,

I'm just mourning that vanished stanza a bit - it describes a thing I did when mad as no other stanza in the MS. does. But I wouldn't have cut it if I wasn't persuaded the piece is better without it. That is, i agree about cohesion.

OTOH, that's exactly why i ask that following question about the final stanza: I genuinely can't tell if here - "I don't think I can be totally convinced by this structure John" - you are saying the piece for you would work better as pure poetry with just a single stanza in it. I think that's what you mean though. If you as reader remain bugged by the juxtaposing of stanzas here, then I think it's important for me to wonder why my spidey senses don't pick up on that potential for discomfort when I read and reread what I've now got. My ear instead hears a kind of harmony to the jagged pieces, and that matters, because I use this structure throughout. I actually went back through my 80 pages and took out another couple of quatrains as I deleted this one here.

So, that's my mental process here. An overstuffed sofa remaisn an overstuffed sofa.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

That's why I mentioned the Wasteland John. Of course, there are other examples of juxtaposition, for instance the haibun. Interesting you are attuned to note 'uneven' metre in a line, but a gear change from rhyme and stanza does not produce disharmony for your reading experience. I do feel there is more continuity in this edit, less Bartok more Mozart. I don't think it is a matter of 'overstuffed', but I do think a reader plugs into a rhythm/voice.

[jisbell00]

Thanks for coming back, Phil, and thanks for your insight. Yes, The Waste Land is much on my mind in constructing this - not least the facsimile where you can see how Pound took a hot mess and turned it into a masterpiece. So it is possible to build by juxtaposition, the kaleidoscopic method. As you say, there is also the haibun, so it's been going on for some time.

Yes, ti's curious that I am so sensitive to ti-tum ti-tumness and so at ease with these jagged edges! I do hear harmony in them, they don't bug my ear. Which maybe they should. Gear changes galore, from rhyme, from meter, from rhyme scheme, fmro topic! And i ride along happily.

Less Bartok more Mozart is a great way to put it and i accept the observation very willingly. Good to hear the whole does not feel "overstuffed," that's how the unedited Waste Land looked to me. Eliot was trying to jam everything into the jam hole, as we say in frisbee.

Cheers,
John