Grex Writing Conference

View Responses

Grex Writing Item 42: a poem
Entered by davel on Sun Oct 4 00:26:05 UTC 1992:

               INTEGRAL FORMULAS

All points are determined by circles:  and the paths
reversed     invert space     return time.
                                               We hiked up by
Devil's Thumb past an abandoned mine     a gaping mouth

framed by rotting timber teeth.     All around     the sky
yawned empty as abruptly we came clear of pines
onto spare tufts of grass.     Ahead     the stone grew high

in a great arch the Romans never reached     a vane
set on a wide rim from which we saw revelaed
the analytic pattern of the valley:  life-line

stream and heart-line road crossed the cupped palm     whose thumb     scaled
up to size     rose up ahead at an angle
beyond mere human flexibility.
                                   Time had wheeled

around to bring me there again     in the full
face of a five-year circle     in life begun
with chime-peal childish laughter:
                                       eyes still obey the pull

of a Gothic spire of grey granite     to run
again to sky;     they know there is no time or past,
only a helix around the axial sun.

4 responses total.

#1 of 4 by davel on Sun Oct 4 00:27:45 1992:

(This, & any other poem I'm likely to enter, is kind of old - like around
25 years old.  Sorry, folks, the stream's been flowing in other channels.)

#2 of 4 by chelsea on Sun Oct 4 17:41:20 1992:

I like the content but try as I may, I can't see the why 
of that layout.  What am I missing?

#3 of 4 by davel on Sun Oct 4 23:52:56 1992:

(First: rereading, I see I misspelled "revealed" when I typed it in.)
- Regarding content: some of the (central) allusions are obscure enough
  to be presumably invisible; I won't go into them unless great demand
  appears - anyone who notices them (any mathematicians?) may do so.
- Regarding form: you *did* get as far as noticing that it's a somewhat
  mutated _terza rima_?  If not, that may be enough ... as for the eccentric
  whitespace, I sort of see what I was up to, but why bother?  (This kind of
  thing is why I only entered this one instead of a couple of others - after
  all these years I think some of what I was doing was good & makes sense, but
  some of it
  some of it's positively embarrassingly sophomoric.  (And I was a junior or
  senior for most of it :-)  .))

#4 of 4 by nistel on Fri Nov 8 16:44:00 1996:

boy ! what was all that ? Or is it that I'm too dumb to understand ?
It was hard stuff I must admit... And a lot of what was written went well over
my head.  But yeah, it takes talent to write like this.  Though I wont pass
any judgement because its beyond my forte, I'd like to say: If you could, do
soften it up a wee bit. I sincerelywant to understand.

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.