Burma
= Myanmar.
Junta = government,
deathmonks skilled in the
oops i mean killed in the
acts of endless compassion
i didn't ask for any of this
i just want to have children
or twist here in my sad desire
and write stuff about it
but this is too complicated
i quit or
give up
you married the wrong person
we sold weapons to shitheads,
the whole world's on fire;
yet i don't quit,
or give up
since hopefully you're right and
somehow we can still love
at least
as much as we
don't
or at least just a little bit more than we hate
more than i hate
the thought of this
world,
ending on my watch.
i came across the two-year old draft of an email
i never sent
to someone who was alive then-- and who now
is like the myanmar monks
or maybe who now is
myanmar monks
recycled for us all,
broken in compassion,
hope,
and belief,
and so i sent it out anyway
into the void
a dead letter, sent to no one
and up to the minute
newsfeeds
from around the
maddening
lovely
globe.
12 comments:
"we sold weapons to shitheads"
Trouble is, it's always the shitheads who want to buy them.
Cheer up, though. The world isn't going to hell in a handbasket. I doubt it's ever been much different than it is right now. (That's supposed to be optimistic - but maybe that's not possible)
Being optomistic, it gives you cause to do a great piece of writing.
And while I almost never give critiques on poetry (it seems beyond it most of the time), getting rid of the word "oops" would make this better for me. But that's just my opinion. Otherwise I really liked this. It seems honest.
Sky, I do find what you said optomistic.
I agree with Macro, I like it. (very much)
The images are very clear. It's dark but with the soft light of hope underneath.
of course there are edits...
:)
Let them eat their cake: We're dead.
ha! true, true, to what everyone said. except for what cara said. this is a perfect, finished, edit-less piece. :)
(actually, i was so unsure of its finished-ness that i hesitated for two days to post it.)
macro's right-- no "oops".
ultimately, i'd say this is a semi-hopeful piece (or at least one that WANTS to be hopeful), but that explores tragedy along the way. i was thinking partly of ren's comments on that post about the concentration camp guards, and how our capacity for love and for good is at least equal to that for hate and evil.
Ha! That explains why I wasn't following the other comments on the darkness perceived in this piece. I love what (I think) you're trying to say here Lorne. You make the world and its going ons feel so fluid and so open. Although there is reference to pain, it's placed within the context of humanity's age old task of balancing its pain with its loveliness and lightness of spirit. You could take out the oops, maybe it's better without it, but I think it's indicative of that lightness and that playfulness that counters the guns.
That's the reason I don't usually critique writing. That's a good point Ren brings up. Also, she has given me an idea as to what it is I liked so much about this poem. It's probably the pain. Nothing gets me more than an honest expression of suffering. I find comfort in the fact that other people feel it. Not that I want people to suffer, just I can relate to it and know none of us are alone in that sense. And that's probably why I singled out the "lightness" (oops)in this case. It works, just not in the melencholic way I was drawn to. That make sense? I like sad stories and music. They give me strength in some indescribable way. You know like sitting painting a picture listening to the blues. There is an energy that isn't nescessarily negative or bad, dark maybe, but not in an evil way. Ahhhh, while I'm going on at length... I remember talking with a certain favourite prof at Univ. who asked '...what ever happened to melencholly? Nowadays its always depression, and you need to take a prescription, where as before, with melencholly, you would just have to swim across the channel one night to go and find your lover".
ha! very nice.
how true!
maybe oops should be whoops.
na, that's too Brittney Spears.
perfect, she's very contemporary, a role model for us all(puke), and one of the top twenty hits on the internet.
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