evo devo three

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Evo Devo — Writing More Poetry

Mad artist that I am, I experimented shamelessly with randomness to compose poetry through much of the early nineties. However it didn’t take long for me to recognize that the unbridled abuse of randomness mostly results in … nonsense. Some of which, by the sheer law of averages, is fun to read, but most of which is … not.

I never abandoned randomness completely. Every once in awhile, it’s fun just to string words together, and then restring them, and then run them through the washer and the dryer and throw a bucket of root beer over them and hang them out on the line to really get wind stiff and see what happens.

delicate guiding eyes gliding off the diamond skies

    body upright

    touch the ghostly vision remaking

    luminous indigo dappling opal

    elegant gesture of affection

    one hand lifted at end of slender arm

    beam cascading behind beneath

    torn carapace of the spectral climbing ivy

    over ladder rung by rung

    consciousness muted yet alert

    shining ray of light caressing warm yet forceful

    on point every facet of the gem

    searching for the ghost within of mother

    mother deep within your being only rising to the touch

    when necessity of child becomes apparent

    ivory green and curlicue brandy spiral

    squirm in delight beneath the sun star

    lilting deep in magic

    floating effervescent lifting

    returning the daughter to the sun

    pirouette in colour changing flight

    bird song made conjunction

    deafening inner beauty of light

    raise your hand to touch the gem stroke the ice

    feel the yearning burn below rising

    heart and feather unite intent

    soar to sky surround the cloud

    melody make the source ecstatic

    moment of birth

    love in the diamond the ghost the sun her eyes

    never forget

However …

After much perusal of what I was turning out, I realized the pieces that always worked best were the ones which had the clearest emotional intent to begin with. If I was feeling something I needed to express, the emotion would usually shine through and inform the work with greater meaning. But there also were occasions when I thought I had a clear intent and the randomness method actually worked against its expression. Till I finally got so fed up I would just toss it all away and write clearly what I wanted to say …

And after a couple of years of playing with little more than words and how they combine, suddenly I realized I was much better at saying what I wanted to say than I had been before.

This led to an interesting period of new development. Going back and reworking random pieces to make my intent perfectly clear, and writing new material in which I wasn’t afraid to play with words and images, but which focussed primarily on expressing an emotion or thought that was clear in my mind to start with.

The catherine wheel

opening up, looking back, spinning the wheel

is chaining yourself naked

not entirely between the spikes,

hooking your eyes and heart open

as the fireworks begin to explode

electric sparking daggers too close

to body, heart, and eyes;

and then the rotation starts ...

Slowly at first, then building speed,

until you reach a blinding velocity

but still your eyes and heart are hooked open

and fire sparks in blazing sheets

and all of you is burnt within from without

and without from within until you lock — 

        hold yourself rigid in just one place

and the catherine wheel rips free,

slashing you as it goes spinning outward,

spinning wider, wider into space

until it cannot touch you

but still you are its center

and still its light burns bright

for all to see

    as you collapse

        now blinded

            by just your tears ...

Somewhere around here I articulated for myself the seemingly profound observation that if you’re serious about this art, writing poetry does not mean using emotions as your vocabulary, it means finding a vocabulary for your emotions.

And I stand by that statement.

I go in waves. Sometimes I write a lot of poetry, sometimes I go a year or two without writing any. However, having worked through all this process to develop an approach I was finally comfortable with and felt I could use to turn out material I wasn’t embarrassed by, something else happened to me for awhile which fuelled the experience further.

Death had her near-John experience. Either not knowing or not admitting to myself what was happening at the time, with blood backing up into my lungs and not as much of it as I really needed reaching my brain, I found myself constantly writing poetry for over a year trying to make sense out of what was happening to me. I would take how I felt, experiment with language to try to see how I could define the experience, and then read it over afterwards trying to decipher what the larger picture was. Little of what I wrote made sense to me at the time. But after the whole open-heart surgery thing and spending most of a day more on the other side of the boundary than on this one, suddenly all the imagery became clear.

Owl

i.

Eagerness for mutual consent lying in our gaze

abruptly vanishes — I recognize with shock

there can be no commonground between man’s eyes

and a bird’s. You watch me, still, eyes wide,

huge, round, yellow, with piercing black centers.

I know now. You writhe backwards, arms, breasts

twisting, transforming, an explosion of feathers

into flight — the sheets of the bed torn,

my body clawed, blood on skin and white silk.

The woman brought me to the bed — but the owl departs.

What did her passion take from me?

Why was I hunted — memory strikes like a spear.

Her eyes. Just before the change.

There can be no understanding.

ii.

Outward wounds healed, I walk again

beneath grey skies and buildings, contemplating

loss and commitment — could I commit

to that savage grace, would I endure?

The flame burnt hot but not brightly,

fusing our bodies together to prey on each other

without remorse, regret, ignoring barriers

real and imagined ... Much silence is needed

afterwards, body immobile, restoring, remembering.

Watching. For the next prey?

My attention pivots, wrenched upwards.

At the top corner of the building — a stone owl.

Not a gargoyle, not a living bird — an idol.

To worship. To warn. Others have known the fear

of being locked beneath her gaze. Others have fled.

iii.

With silken caress, long feathers brush my neck.

I turn again — face her, in human guise.

She is pleased. She is smiling. She accepts

my uncertain tribute. She knows more than I,

and does not share — kisses me instead, nails

arching, pulling at the skin on my neck, but not

piercing, letting me know — she casts her cloak

about me and I am yanked, flying, into the night,

never expecting, lost in the mystery

plucking me at will from a life I dared

believe routine. Dropped, unsupported,

just as abruptly — thrashing, flailing down,

out of control, panicked — as she prefers.

All the easier to take at will. I crash.

Body miraculously not broken. This time.

iv.

But she allows me one truth.

Despite her terror, I did not flee.

I do not always fear.

She does not admit equality, but ...

She does respect.

Which will not save my life,

but nourishes my soul.

It seems obvious now, but at the time …?

And, as this is a never ending process, what came next, writing post surgery, was another new twist on the whole deal.

Now I knew I’d spent a little more time in Death’s friendly arms than was probably good for me. Though I must say, it’s the getting there that’s a pain, the actual beyond is pretty cool. I had a normal blood flow to my brain again for the first time in years. I had developed skills in employing language imaginatively to express my experience. I felt I had a new consciousness in a new body, linked by some continuity to who I’d been before. And I’d thankfully maintained those language skills, although there was a bit of a learning curve when I first sat down to work post surgery, let me tell you. But the point was, given all this, what could I say about dying now?

I wrote plenty, and quickly, on the subject. But it took a few years to really hammer out the imagery I was most comfortable with.

danse m.

The bell tolls once.

with zither and kazoo the dance begins

a sad contemporary travesty

of a once noble Swedish art film

black and white with meaningful shades of gray,

she leads, thinking, Death is a matter of privacy

me walking in on her putting on her panties

seeing how big she thinks her ass really is

The bell tolls twice.

planting flowers on graves, telling jokes to headstones

being fucked by a cheap, drug-addled whore just one night for real

cowering in uncertain terror because the dog dying

was sadder than dad dying, yellow ichor slowly pooling

stained faces drawn taut, skin, clothing,

sheet reflecting the perilous hue, rolling a covered body by at six a.m.

more peaks and valleys sprouting than a mountain range

running a hand down her arm, feeling tumours beneath the skin

longing to set flame to the evil, to the fear, to the unfairness

to the release one wrong heartbeat away

but don’t live any differently

one wrong heartbeat away

how can you live any differently

The bell tolls a third time.

rise again from the comforting, timeless black

the dance plays on

now with full orchestra

and I know

            Death is the good looking stranger on the crowded street

            catching your eye unexpectedly

            with a smile.

Randomness, language, intention, imagery, emotion and theme. All the tools slowly coming together. So now, given actually having something to say, I could say it. But by this point, I was also hooked on the idea of sheer experimentation.

I started off experimenting, refined that to a legitimate poetic methodology, and then had the whole process take me away, beyond my control. Worked with that confidently after things calmed down to my satisfaction. But why stay satisfied? Where could I consciously take the process next?

***************

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

This week:

Theda Bara’s winning novelletta Thirty-One Across continues this Friday at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

When it all gets too surreal to accept, the Sunday teas and the unexpected visits to a lawyer should make as much sense as anything else right? Wrong.

A LAST WORD ON THE WORLD CUP!

Watched 46 of the 64 games this year. Never saw that many before, and I must say, it gives you a different view of the whole event. I don’t watch sports anymore. I used to. But now I limit myself to the World Cup once every four years. As a result, even though I have my favourites, I watch more to appreciate the sport played well than to live or die by the fate of any given team. Which was a good thing this year, as I went in primarily as a Spain fan. I will applaud any good play by whoever played it, even if it knocks one of my faves out of contention. So here’s a bit of what I really appreciated this year:

Most Enjoyable Game:          Ghana 2 Germany 2

Best Goal:          James Rodriguez, Colombia 2 Uruguay 0

Most Enjoyable Players:          Arjen Robben - Netherlands, Mathieu Valbuena - France, and Vincent Enyeama - Nigeria

Teams With the Most Heart:          Costa Rica and Australia

Thank you all.