Poetry / Cold Harsh Day

A mind clouded by consciousness
So desperate to cling to reason
Resistant to itself
Denying imagination
Killing me it is

Damn certainties and sensibilities
And reaching after fact
Be gone you
Stiff matrons of maddening
Equilibrium

I’ll take my thoughts random
Black and violent
Tainted by desire
Mad with passion
Destructive and Bold
To die.

A slumbering city
Eases into nightmares
Of faceless masses
Eating away the core
Of originality
All for the illusion

I need a dream
Life outside of life
The warm embrace of madness
Rocking me gently
Into another cold
Harsh day

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October 27, 2005

tdleroy

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
10	0.0% (0 votes)	9.1%

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Age	Gender	Location	Last Login
31	M	Brooklyn, NY	October 17

tdleroy reviewed Version 1 - Read 100%% of the Item

I can see nothing direct about this poem. The context is masked by the mysterious tone in the poem. The one metaphor I like is the coffee one in the third stanza, but even that would have to be reworded to give clarity to the reader. I recommend reading some David Lerner or Bukowski to hone skills in directness within poetry. I know this review comes off as harsh, but hey, I have poems on here, so you can go read them and lambaste me if you’d like. In school I was told that when the writer is shy of his content the route he/she will use to disguise this shyness is mysterious wording. Everyone really wants a direct point. Maybe not everyone, but maybe some one-liners to hit some runs in. I hope this helps at all.

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October 28, 2005

by sickmnpmp

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
58	100.0% (30 votes)	37.1%

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32			April 25

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i appreciate the direct and honest critiques from both of you…without honest reviews this site would be little more than a mutual admiration society…thanks for the feedback.

I cannot defend this poem as being strong in any way or good for that matter, but I will provide an explication, at least some sense of what I was setting out to express anyway….

When I moved from L.A. to Phoenix I was confronted by an astonishing absence of a unique artistic culture…it may be out there but 5 years later I’m still searching. There are some great artists working here but the opportunities for exposure are extremely limited…something to do with with composition of the population no doubt…anyway, one night i sat to confront this reality in a poem and “Cold Harsh Day” was the result.

The first stanza is concerned with the overwhelming capitalist competition that seems to consume the city, as if success in business where akin to leading the good life. Since business is an expression of cold reason and logic it must supress the irrationality of dreams, the imagination, creativity even. So the artistic mind is caught in a kind of stasis as the market forces constrict the imagination.

The second stanza is a little tribute to John Keats and his idea of negative capability, “being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reachhing after fact & reason” (Letter to George and Tom Keats, December 1817). The ‘stiff matrons’ line is my own and i like it for whatever reason and i’ve never found a proper setting for it.

Third stanza is self-assertion, obviously…fourth is finally the revelation that the speaker is at odds with his environment; this is the tension and conflict of course…5th is the resolution, reaffirmation of imagination.

anyway, now that you can see what i was about maybe you can point out where i really fail…i think the organization itself is a problem, in addition to the diction and language issues Cabaretic has identified. I’ve never edited this and i wrote at least 4 years ago so i think its time to revisit this one.

thanks for the feedback

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