The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 2/4/08

[BlueIris]

"Neverland"

I don't wish you were one
     of the Jackson Five 
tonight, only you were

still inside yourself
     unchanged by the vampire 
moonlight.  So eager to

play the Other
     did you forget
Dracula was singled out

because of his dark hair
     & olive skin?  After
you became your cover,

tabloid headlines 
     grafted your name
to a blond boy's.

The personals bled
     through newsprint,
across your face.  Victor

Frankenstein knew we must
     love our inventions.  Now,
maybe skin will start to grow

over the lies & substract
     everything that under-
mines nose & cheekbone.

You could tell us if
     lonliness is what
makes the sparrow sing.

Michael, don't care
     what the make up
artist says, you know

your sperm will never
     reproduce that face
in the oval mirror.

—Yusef Komunyakaa

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear BlueIris...

This is such an insightful, interesting poem...

What an unusual way of looking at Michael Jackson's surgeries...

I love this line:

Now,maybe skin will start to grow over the lies & substract
everything that under-mines nose & cheekbone.

Just beautiful...

Thank you!

[BlueIris]

2. The last stanza is key.

I first found this poem in 1999, and when I got to that last part, I had a major "A-ha!" moment about Michael Jackson and his motives.

[Westegg]

3. "The Little Boy lost"

Father, father, where are you going
O do not walk so fast.
Speak father, speak to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost,

The night was dark no father was there
The child was wet with dew.
The mire was deep, & the child did weep
And away the vapour flew.

---William Blake

[BlueIris]

4. Ah, Blake. The romantics aren't really my favorite writers, but Blake is cool.

[Westegg]

6. I thought it odd how the Blake poem...

...I'd read only hours before somehow (at least in my warped mind) tied in to your Michael Jackson poem post. Which was fantastic, by the way.

Ya know, it really is swell to have a place I can come and read poems and post poems. Thanks for that.

Agreed, BlueIris: The Romantics aren't my fave either, but there is something about Blake that I've always admired. His vast efforts to combine images and words-- his understanding of how powerful that combo could be. A proto-filmmaker, in a sense. His modernism was not appreciated in his lifetime.

[BlueIris]

7. What I like about Blake is that odd balance he managed to strike

between morbidity and beauty. And he did that for the most part without over-doing it, like some of his contemporaries.

[Westegg]

8. He felt that "odd balance" to his very core...

...I think. And because it was so much a part of him, he never had to strain intellectually to recreate it through his art. Thus, he never over-did it, as you rightly point out so many others did.

I've always considered Blake and Beethoven to be quite linked in this regard. One could argue stridently against that comparison, I suppose. But I have my reasons.

[BlueIris]

5. Kick.

[BlueIris]

9. Kick.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

10. bkmrking to read later

thanks.