When everything we see is bland and white
with platitudinous false prophecy
then look for method, study even light,
and by a prism
unweave the rainbow,
and do not fear to write in red on lime,
but if the colour scatters carelessly
then look for method, metre, even rhyme,
and by a prison
unlock a poem.
I should leave this for a day or two to see if I want to change it, but I can't resist showing it off. I've been trying to write the above as a blog post for ages, but there were too many interlinked ideas to be able to fit them all into a linear prose structure. Additionally, I've been thinking for ages that I should write a poem about atheism, but I kept finding that I didn't have any really good ideas. I suppose I ought to thank Maria for this post at Chromium Oxide Green, which made me realise that not having any good ideas for a poem about reality is kind of silly.
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4 comments:
My favorite lines are the final ones. Great concept. (Atheism allows for the idea of boundaries bringing freedom, yes? : )
Oh, good, the idea comes across!
I guess the concept of boundaries bringing freedom may be unusual in the general atheist landscape, but it doesn't require God, so, yes, an atheist viewpoint is certainly capable of allowing for it. Maybe it helps that I tend to be on the lookout for reasonable defences of conservatism, and that is certainly one of the more interesting ones. I'd call myself a liberal not because I think everything should be written in free verse but rather because I think you should be allowed to choose to write villanelles when everyone else is writing sonnets. (Yes, I could elaborate on that. Maybe it's a topic for a future blog post.)
Which final lines? Do the first two lines of the final stanza work? There's a reason for every word, but I'm not sure that the overall effect isn't clumsy. Oddly, in a poem that lauds the restriction of rhyme, I'm considering leaving the actual rhyme out of it and finding sufficient restriction in the smallness of the stanzas and the interrelations between the two stanzas. I'd like to keep the metre and the progression of ideas, but the rhyme may be warping it. Thoughts?
and by a prison
unlock a poem.
Those were the lines I was thinking of. First two lines... I like the first, the second seems maybe too conceptually overt and the word "platitudinous" perhaps a bit unwieldy.
Still, overall I like it.
Was thinking today that I wish I had tagged you in my 5 Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life meme. I created the report after reading a truckload of blogs and today realized the responding group was rather homogenous (read Christian). Anyway, if at this late time you'd still like to play, I'd love to hear your answers and find a way to fold you into the report if it works.
You're right about 'platitudinous'. And, yeah, sure, I'll take part in your meme :-). Just give me a day or two . . .
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