Five days spent alive
.............. original poem & images by @d-pend .......
I.
Olive facets gleam on gravel:
ambivalent golem of memory
let loose the splint'ring gavel
am'thyst to shatter—symmetry
of nuance, skitt'ring happiness
in foxtail dew—in stumbling soul:
adventure's warm regress,
life's balmy shoal.
II.
When life's color mutes itself
I am waiting at evening's height
to soak in sultry monochrome—
—of equilibrium.
III.
Yantra of skeletal cloud,
height of day and breadth of bone,
width of placid sorrow:
berth of waiting stone.
IV.
Soar in pain's retraction,
Live in the heart of motion.
Still—this pale eternity
grows livid, indignation
of the servitude of joy,
trappèd mammal, cursèd ploy,
lovèd pain, wintry kiss,
frost-embracèd chill of time
slowly ravel up my spine:
grasp my tapestry.
Weave me up, sublime
in subtle wise, in subtle sophistry.
All for naught—and yet—
naught remains now to oppress me;
all's said in one breath.
V.
A vast tunnel where birth yawns
in the guise of red silver:
I see naught, yet light leads me on,
just a slivered lens
of warm world on world.
written by Daniel J. Pendergraft
.
First published to STEEM
on February 25, 2020
.
Images created by
iterative compositing
"Five days spent alive" seems to say that in the face of death there is no glory, no adventure, no happiness, no sadness, no pain, no oppression, nobody to imprison us. Death is simply letting go. With the last breath, one crosses the tunnel to freedom limited by a new birth ... perhaps?
But, I am struck by the title... why five days? And I can't get the connection. However, I perceive that the colors change between life and death. In death, monochrome takes over, lividity is the skin tone and the symmetrical and balanced becomes normal afterlife escapes from the body, as there will be no emotions.
This piece was created by automatic/freewriting over several days... thus "five days" spent/spinned/spun on this Earth planet. This isn't my usual way of creating a piece, which tends to be more methodical. To be clear, there was to be no conscious subject, more a kaleidoscopic display of images coming to light. Then, the challenge—to edit and see whether the parts couldn't play well together. Is it success? I'm not so sure. Certainly, I see it as a weaker attempt. There was an intriguing sixth part cut out at the end that could maybe develop into a piece of its own.
Such things seem to happen, however, when we determine to write frequently. It is perhaps easy to write excellently after long accumulations of experience, when everything comes pouring out, as it were, all at once. But recently, again, it has struck me clearly that to be a writer means nothing more than to write. Onto that, I tack on "to share."
Reading again your interpretation, I realize the impetus for writing this is probably the vibrancy of life... or the lack thereof. That is, the heights of joy/ecstasy contrasted with despair/despondency. The colors of life seen through the lens of gratitude, and the dullness of self-inflicted suffering that erases them, makes them monochrome. Perhaps, there is also a melancholic poignancy to those bleak moments, the beauty of which wants to be recognized and expressed.
!ENGAGE 35
These came from freewrites? They are fabulous, I don't think they are weak one bit. When I freewrite poems I write tons of words, then take most of the words out, which usually leaves only the bones of what I was trying to say. Strangely, the bones are in order. This always amazes me. I feel like I am writing garbage, but in the end the message becomes clear.
Well, I'm glad you feel that way! I think writing, especially poetry, is highly psychological. The more frequently I write, sometimes the more critical I become of it. I start getting so close to the process that I become myopic and unable to see the forest for the trees at times.
The subtractive process you're talking about is something I'd like to use more. It feels quite nice once you get used to it. I tend to write in a more contemplative way, one line at a time, which is nice but also frustrating when you hit a block. Generating lots of text without needing it to be "final" can help get past those obstacles, I find.
!ENGAGE 25
@owasco you have received
25 ENGAGEfrom @d-pend!View and trade the tokens on Steem Engine.
@zeleiracordero you have received
35 ENGAGEfrom @d-pend!View and trade the tokens on Steem Engine.
You have pulled the floor out from under me with this one. I'm colliding and bouncing off the walls of my days, the monochrome reliefs of my slumberous nights, it all begins the same for us all, then diverges into joys and sorrows, toils and troubles (sorry when I'm freewriting a lot of cliches come out), a grave awaits each of us at the end. Excellent work. Thank you.
So what is this tag "iterative-compositing"? At first I thought it said "iterative-composting" haha
You get !ENGAGE 35 just for using slumberous. That's a quality word. Lol, iterative compositing is just a term I came up with for the process of making these images. I gave an example recently on my behind-the-scenes account on @dpend.extra if you're interested :-) Thanks for commenting! If I weren't about to go to sleep maybe I'd have something more profound to say about your poetic feedback but right now just appreciative :-D
A peaceful, deep and restful sleep to you. Thanks for the engagement!
I have to admit I was surprised and delighted when slumberous wasn't underlined as a misspelled word.
Thanks a lot for that sleep invocation @owasco. I got an excellent mini-hibernation in. Thus the mind working more clearly :P
See my reply to @zeleiracordero below as it applies to your insights on the piece also. And, this is an aside, but I dearly wanted to comb back through time and find the poems that I have used "slumberous" in (usually written slum'brous to keep it bisyllabic) but then I thought perhaps it would be more fun to keep that in the back of my mind, and while editing pieces for publication this year keep an eagle eye out for when they appear! :-D
Again with your connections to what I am just about to post! This is really bizarre. But cool very cool.
I combed back through some stuff of mine, chose one (well, four) to publish today, and talk about eagle eye...
I certainly will keep an eye out for your work. I love it.
Haha! The synchronistic aspect of life never fails to amaze :-) Thanks again for the support and discussion!
@owasco you have received
35 ENGAGEfrom @d-pend!View and trade the tokens on Steem Engine.
Hi @d-pend!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 5.350 which ranks you at #759 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 58 places in the last three days (old rank 817).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 91 contributions, your post is ranked at #25.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
Thanks for the stats @steem-ua, I'm intrigued that my placing increased that much. What I did I do? :-D