"The Possibility" Poetry Blog.

The Possibility

The lizard on the wall, engrossed,
The sudden silence from the wood
Are telling me that I have lost
The possibility of good.

I know this flower is beautiful
And yesterday it seemed to be,
It opened like a crimson hand.
It was not beautiful to me.

I know that work is beautiful.
It is a boon. It is a good.
Unless my working were a way
Of squandering my solitude.

And solitude was beautiful
When I was sure that I was strong.
I thought it was a medium
In which to grow, but I was wrong.

The jays are swearing in the wood.
The lizard moves with ugly speed.
The flower closes like a fist.
The possibility recedes.

               -James Fenton

 

     This poem is basically about a person's view on beauty and they are seeing it in an unusual way. James Fenton describes things that used to be beautiful, but now they are ruined because something about himself changed. The rhythm and rhyme makes the poem flow really well and it fits the idea; it flows like beauty, although, each stanza ends strongly with a different sound and feeling than it began with. The antecedant scenario may have been James Fenton contemplating beauty, the changes in his life that have made things uglier, or a new viewpoint of beauty itself. The tone is honest, a little melancholy, and reflective. It makes me wonder and feel a bit sad.

"The Coming of Wisdom with Time" Poetry Blog (10/23).

NOTE: I know this is a day late, but I was extremely sick all weekend and I wasn't even lucid enough to know that it was Sunday, let alone that I had a poetry blog due. Sorry!

The Coming of Wisdom With Time
though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
               -William Butler Yeats

     Often times we think that something that is shorter is easier to decipher, but shorter does not mean simplicity. I had to read this several times to understand what the words meant. It says that although there are many leaves, there is only one root and will always only be one. Then Yeats says through all the "lying days" - days of leisure- when this person was younger he/she swayed his/her "leaves and flowers in the sun." The last line says this person may now "wither into the truth." The meaning could be that when we are younger, we are like a tree and sway our many leaves in a sense, but when we become old, we remember our root- our greatest common factor in a way, and die knowing the truth.
     I'm not sure if this is a typo, but I found it interesting that the first word was not capitalized. And, obviously, the shortness of this poem is a very important structural aspect. This shortness gives it impact and is easy to remember.
     The antecedant scenario could have been William Butler Yeats remembering his youth and what changed when he got older. The tone seems to be wise and knowing and pensive.
     This is definitely one of my favorite poems that we've read so far.

"Mr. Fear" Poetry Blog

Mr. Fear
He follows us, he keeps track.
Each day his lists are longer.
Here, death, and here,
Something like it.

Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams,
What do you have for me tonight?
And he looks through his sack,
His black sack of troubles.

Maybe he smiles when he finds
The right one. Maybe he's sorry.
Tell me, Mr. Fear,
What must I carry

Away from your dream.
Make it small, please.
Let it fit in my pocket,
Let it fall through

The hole in my pocket.
Fear, let me have
A small brown bat
And a purse of crickets

Like the ones I heard
Singing last night
Out there in the stubbly field
Before I slept, and met you.
-Lawrence Raab

Lawrence Raab was born in 1946 in Massachusetts and often writes about human fallability and doubt and the fine lines of our lives. This poem definitely goes into those categories because Raab writes about the line between having fear and being given fear. The antecedant scenario was probably just Lawrence Raab being frightened and thinking about fear; maybe he was wishing for an entity to blame it on- "Mr. Fear."
The climax is a little difficult to find in this poem; it feels like it is leading up to something throughout the poem as a whole, but I saw the climax as being "make it small, please." It feels as though Raab is leading up to this point: let the fear he gives me be small. After that line, the emotion seems to coast down til he says, "before I slept, and met you."
This poem's tone seems to be a little pensive or pleading. He wonders about the nightmares and terrors we all get from this dark Santa-esque being and how we want the least amount of fear possible and go back to when we weren't afraid- when we had "a small brown bat and a purse of crickets like the ones I heard singing last night."

"I am the Moon" Identity Poem.

I am the moon.
Bright, changing, yet constant.
Less important than the sun
and less mysterious than the stars.

I am the moon.
I'm distant and covered in scars.
I watch from afar
too observant for my own good.

I am the moon.
Though far, I'm always present.
You may not see me when the sun is bright
but I 'm still there.

I am the moon.
Lonely at times
beautiful at others.
Silently shedding
          my light on the world.