Saturday, January 02, 2010

will

when we lost the tracks
the time scarred
and the content
-blinding light of the snake god
was spoken through

boots dragged in snow
a nonchalant vow
manifest in desperation
hours of conversation
reduced to these

transitory bodies
suffocated and drowning down
another chapter
of laughter
and the forgotten

a room that is or was
typing, chatting and silence
images for faces
a memory of wasted
scars

left behind
in embraced convalescence
existence before essence
a movement or shuffle
misplaced
and left to

write and
repeat after loud-speaker
or whisper forever
that only sound
is manifest

and in these tracks
we will be found

13 Comments:

Blogger Jackson said...

I like the off-rhymes in this poem, giving it unity

and the last two lines are a poem in themselves

...but... your new blog title sucks. 'Attempted' poetry made much more sense than 'poorly written'. If you honestly think it is crap, why publish it? It's bad enough that others judge our art, without us doing it ourselves.

11:08 AM  
Blogger Ray G said...

Because all poetry is shit.

4:51 PM  
Blogger Jackson said...

Response 1. Just poetry? Or art in general? Or humanity and all its outputs? Hell, why not really go for it and claim that absolutely everything is shit? Then you may as well just die, or get a job in advertising.

Response 2. In that case, 'poorly written poetry' is a tautology. By my definition of shit, anyway.

Response 3. Perhaps what you're actually trying to say is that poetry is not worth discussing. In which case, I reiterate, it's not worth publishing.

PS I still have a zine to give you. But it's just a lot of shit. Mostly Perth shit: every word a vile diarrhoea.

2:37 PM  
Blogger Jackson said...

PPS oh and I still think the last two lines are a poem

If it's shit, it certainly isn't worth editing

2:43 PM  
Blogger Ray G said...

it is shit because it is what comes out. nothing more and nothing less.

feel free to take it seriously. ha!

1:44 AM  
Blogger Jackson said...

I still say drop the cringe. How is anyone supposed to read a title like 'An attempt at humanity', and poems like this one and some of your other more focussed pieces, and not think the author was genuinely trying to express something? And had actually put some work into it? I hope you're not trying to claim that all these stanzas just slide fully-formed out of your metaphorical arse at 2am as you're hunched in ecstatic anal agony over the electronic public toilet?

11:11 PM  
Blogger Ray G said...

they do. and then i sometimes clean them up.

but most of it is just the dribble that comes out.

and to be honest. i'm bored with it :-)

3:10 AM  
Blogger Jackson said...

Hmm. I've only read a little bit of it but I'm inclined to think your verbal diarrhoea is becoming less boring (for the reader, I mean) over time... perhaps your diet is more varied or your intestinal ecosystem is evolving.

How come your political poems aren't on here? Such as the ones you performed at the Amnesty night?

11:23 PM  
Blogger Jackson said...

PS This is my (pomo-wanker?) definition of poetry: text in which the form matters at least as much as the content.

Now *I'm* bored with it... only logged on to email a client. Where's my guitar?

11:35 PM  
Blogger Ray G said...

i wrote the amnesty poem just before i read it. i never typed it up and lost it. it's better that way.

4:10 AM  
Blogger Jackson said...

Sigh . It was thought by various people to have been a good poem. But I'm tired of disagreeing with you. I just get sick of the way writers like yourself (and Paul, and even sometimes allan), who CAN write originally and perform well, devalue your work and even cringe from the whole idea of being heard and read, while the world is full of poetasters who constantly put themselves forward having no idea how tedious their writing is.

On the other hand, people say you should keep everything, all your drivel and drafts, but I have thrown away almost everything I wrote before I had babies... but not all of it... and more importantly I didn't decide what was worth keeping until long after I wrote it.

5:17 PM  
Blogger Ray G said...

thanks janet. but i write for myself and not others. if i find the poem i will put it up.

i changed the name of the blog :-)

1:31 PM  
Blogger Jackson said...

Yes and the question mark is an interesting addition.

We all write firstly for ourselves. I think all genuine art is like that. The compositional process itself can be deeply satisfying (like a good shit, indeed).

What we do with the output, and why, is a much more interesting question, and perhaps one that has many different answers.

A truly honest answer to this may not be something you would post on this public forum, but in the light of your preceding comments I'd like to know: why do you blog?

1:32 PM  

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