Bhagavad-Gītā

[jisbell00]

Bhagavad-Gītā


Watch the tree flicker into non-existence.

I have no truck with folk who say the woods

are permanent. If some child on the beach

builds castles and then shatters them, you may

say “Here’s a castle,” or “Here’s none.” In truth,

there’s just the building-and-the-shattering.

Arjuna surveys the five hundred warriors
eagerly facing him on the field of battle.
His heart grieves at the thought of so much bloodshed,
for he will surely massacre them all.
And the Lord Krishna appears and speaks to him,
describing to him the manner of right living
over the course of about two hundred pages.

All the while, the five hundred brothers
jump up and down and wave their weapons.
They cannot see how this battle will end.
As Arjuna grieves, the Lord Krishna consoles him, saying,
“Arjuna. You cannot kill these five hundred warriors,
for I have already killed them.
They are all already dead.”
 

[CalebPerry]

This is a good poem, a cut above some of the poems that you have posted recently. I would have commented sooner, but I was getting a little weary of the religious themes. But right now, with a clear head, I definitely like it and feel that it makes an interesting point.

This line ...

[ over the course of about two hundred pages. ]

... is the only one that doesn't strike me as poetic.

Two hundred pages of what, exactly? The Bhagavad-Gītā? Suddenly referencing the text you are writing about just doesn't work for me. Other than that, the poem is a keeper.

[jisbell00]

Thank you, Caleb! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yes, there has been a fair share of religion in this MS., though intertwined with madness at all times. I don't know another wya to recount my experience. I do think the new title The Fractured Self may make that all more apparent, besides doing something to explain the fracturing on the page.

You are quite right it's the 200-odd pages of The Bhagavad-Gītā, in W.H. Auden's version, a little volume on my shelves. I quite like that line, which has now drawn mixed reactions - one reader found it very funny. I'll keep it for now but am in suspension.

You are also right to see some philosophy here - I'd thought i'd read building-and-shattering, the beach anecdote, in Nietzsche, but my search through Nietzsche never turned it up. I find it resonant.

Cheers,
John

[CalebPerry]

The problem with the 200 pages line is, first, that some people won't know what the Bhagavad-Gītā is (like me -- I had to look it up); but secondly, the line just isn't written in a poetic way. It's as if you jump from poetry to prose for that one line. So, don't remove it, just make it more lyrical.

As long as I'm writing, I might as well tell you that I managed to offend everyone on the other forum (all three of them!), and they won't critique my poems now. I manage to offend people even when I'm trying to be nice. But all of them had chips on their shoulders, so I guess it was inevitable.

[jisbell00]

Ah, well Caleb, that is the funny part. At the start of the book, there's a battle ready. Everyones' on the battlefield. At the end of the book, the batle happens. For the intervening 200 pages, Krishna talks about philosophy. It is hilarious. It is bathetic. SO I wanted bathos in my poem at that point, hence the line and its casual chatty nature. It's why my other reader laughed out loud.

You've annoyed me before, as likely I have you! But you've yet to offend me. Everybody's different! Sorry to hear about your other experience.

Cheers,
John

[CalebPerry]

Well, I'm sorry that my knowledge of religion and the classics in general is so wanting. I've been thinking about this. While Alicia Stallings (and apparently you too) was reading the classics, I was escaping from my life by reading comics. It put me at a disadvantage both as a writer and a reader.

[jisbell00]

HI Caleb,

Not a lot of Westerners get around to the Gita, so I wouldn't worry about not having read it.

It is good stuff though, and inadvertently funny.

Cheers,
John