From: simran@inkstone.Eng.Sun.COM (George O'Toole)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Request: Poem of Admiration from a distance
Date: 5 Nov 1992 17:50:25 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems
Distribution: world
Reply-To: simran@inkstone.Eng.Sun.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: inkstone


Our dearly posthumous Mr. A writes in response to the above-subjected request for
poems of admiration from afar:


>		Love From Afar
>		---------------------------------------------------
>
>
>		The waterfall wraps around some shadow,
>		the violent foam boldly carressing some form,
>		some darkness in the overwhelming white.
>
>		I stumble on the cliff's side,
>		kick a rock or two, screaming
>		as I slip--but no response.  An echo only,
>
>		like a distant spoon on linoleum,
>		an acorn cracked by a deer's hoof,
>		a pencil snapped years ago.
>
>		Posthumous O'Toole, Defender of the Realm
>		11/4/92
>

This poem, I think, brings the unspoquen elokwence of our most salient
O'Toole's vision to the fore. Enwrapping without engulfing. Misting a
feeling about the shoulders like a gossamer shawl, never lacking for
detail.  Sparse enough for that intriguing thread ("yuen," perhaps, if
anyone cares to translate this reply into the Chinese) of care and
response, of insight and inquisitiveness to remain alive throughout the
three short stanzas.  (Now, I think we all should admit that while
keeping a readers attention for three short stanzas is not so terribly
difficult, keeping that ephemeral feeling and sepia tone consistent for
even this short a span is quite a feat.) Asides aside, I have enjoyed
few of Mr. A's posts as much as this. With this poem he seems to have
transcended that terrible burden of the impending death of so many of
our words.  (Ah, I guess that will be a subject of a later post, to
explain that last statement, for now I shall let it remain (hopefully)
enticing).

  So where were we. Oh yes. Having given y'all only an inkling of my
  pleasure at this poem, I will proceed to make my comments upon it.
The first stanza sets the tone. Waterfall wraps around some shadow.
First, what the hell does this have to do with love from afar. Yo! He
places us right where he wants us with this (not quite yet formulated
by the time we're at the end of this stanza) question.

   <The second and third "the"s in the stanza could be easily eliminated
    in my bold opinion>.
And what is that form being caressed <oops typo!>.

And we are pulled deeper with that disturbing stumble, the unrequited
scream, the slip. How far did he tumble, and there we have our thread again.
How far away is she (or he), this love? No response. We do tend (in our echoes) 
to imagine dream-voiced response to our far-projection of love.

Oh, and so brutally pulled back to our plastic reality in this 20th century
linoleum world at the beginning of the last stanza. But we are not left
there, and the mythic stag finds its way back to our consciousness through
a hapless acorn, though we are not allowed to remain in that realm either,
with the pencil snapping. Have any of y'all read Hofstatder's _Godel, Escher, 
Bach..._ ? Remember the tortoise figuring out how to hear Bach's practising notes
still verberating from bygone years. "Snapped years ago" brought that passage to
mind. though perhaps, given our ephemeral yuen towards love afar, we might 
wonder what, really, has been snapped.

   <We are left, though, wondering, (though it takes us three (or more) thinks
    to get there) what became of that dark shadow we were wrapping in the
    first stanza>.


And finally, in my own developing form, I leave you with:


Strong:
    an acorn cracked by a deer's hoof, \ a pencil snapped years ago.

    waterfall wraps ...

    kick a rock or two, screaming /   (the line break here is exquisite!)

Weak:
    some darkness in the overwhelming white.

    the cliff's side             ("side" doesn't do it for me)

Oops:

    "carressing"  --> caressing

    (I find no lines or images to fit in the "Oops" column, hurray!)



(signed) George O'Toole, maker of trouble.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems