aloof

i saw one man carrying
a box of something like petunias
and i saw that working woman
lugging a bucket of cleansing agents
they both had business to do
but neither looked like they wanted to.
through these slanted mouths just like mine
words uttered endlessly.,,,
all of us that are verbal are poets
sometimes i feel like a one-eyed
jack of diamonds
struggling within my aloof priviledges
not to become suicidal
if, ever, eye'm promoted

Reviews

[. serah .]

-- for me, this piece begins on a note of high-intensity compassion... and ends with the idea of struggling with self-inflicted (complete) self-erosion... -- i often think that there lies a 'self' between being 'selfish' and 'selfless' and it is our responsibility to protect and preserve that 'self'... because personal peace is our most valuable asset... without it, we cannot begin to contribute to public good... -- but these are just my thoughts... and i may be reading this piece only through the prism of my own perceptions... -- i could be wrong...

[r. f. jordan]

your perceptions can't, ever, be wrong. your interpretation of this piece is nothing short of brilliant. when you embark on criticism, you always come from one of five contexts that a poem can be critiqued on. that is to say, that you might be my favorite "reader-response" critic. what that means is that you can't, ever, be wrong about what pieces of mine you've read. as a matter of fact, your experience in reading this piece is, actually, more important than my brittle experience of having keyboarded it...as i edited this piece earlier this morning i realized that it lacked insight. in an attempt to quickly illustrate an opposite of what it is to be aloof, this piece's speaker actually had ballooned to an even greater sense of what it is to be aloof than i had, ever, intended. that's why i decided to turn this speaker in on itself as this piece ended. i'd written its beginnings years ago, but i've learned a lot about oppression since then. and i needed this speaker to oppress himself so he could be brought in line with all those who experience self-oppression as they move through their lives. i had to make those last five lines sing with self loathing so that i could bring this speaker in line with that petunia carrying man and that woman it opens up. i refer to this speaker as it because, in this piece, it carries no gender. thank you for your excellent review. always feel free to give me your experience as much as you want when reading this paltry stuff. never forget your brilliance...

[. serah .]

-- wow...!!! -- thank you so much for sharing your notes about this piece... -- i read it again just now and can comprehend it so much better... -- and thank you for your kind words... -- my only attempt in any review is to relay how i received a certain piece of writing... (i have no formal or informal training in critiquing' but now that you've mentioned 'five contexts', i'll look them up)... and thank you for being so receptive... (i'm not as receptive as you though i hope to be at some point in the future)...

[Érenn]

Hi Mr. Jordan a feed popped up with your comment on a poem, so I thought it could be someone's poem you commented on but it was your poem itself. That said I have stumbled upon something rare here, that is, a poem carrying a lot more than the words that have been used to express, in short a write of brevity produced by your pen here. I am absolutely in awe by the image you invoke and also the little tidbits of info you give here along with the main message itself. Anybody who is verbal are poets, here I believe verbal itself carries many forms and I am guessing that here it means anybody who is expressing his or her thought are poets. Anything can be poetry and anybody can be a poet, including animals here I believe, it's just that only language differs i believe.

Other than that fact I also enjoy the use of the one-eyed jack of diamonds. I question the fact. Why diamonds? why not clubs, spades or hearts? Is there a hidden meaning behind the use of it or was it just for the sake of flow? symbols I believe are a very key feature to all your poems and they carry hidden meanings, almost every other time. Or maybe it's just my curious mind who is trying to think overboard here, in either case that thing has definitely stuck in my mind.

Now moving on to what message I interpreted after reading is that this is all about one being able to believe in oneself but at the same time it also gives me the feeling of fearing to know oneself. One is afraid to find out their own identity and true self thus staying aloof about their own nature. The last line especially talks as if "If i found the piece of history that has been missing in conscious . would I be able to handle the truth or die from the monstrous facts revealed from my own self introspection" Again that is just what I interpreted, I could be wrong, but then I believe I understood what my mind wanted to understand. Funny thing the human mind isn't it?

Thank you for sharing ^^ I enjoyed trying to decipher this more than anything else ^^