The Pyrrho of Martinsburg

Part 8 - Amateur Poetics

Contents

Amateur Poetics
Flow On, River
A Certain Peace
Philo Dispenses Advice
Celebrating Susan
Paradise Valley

AMATEUR POETICS

An amateur poet gets no, or very little,
money for their poetry

either directly or indirectly through
performances or teaching.

Usually they do not have professional
training as a poet.

They would not likely have an MFA or have
been apprenticed in workshops.

While they may have published some
poetry in small magazines,

mostly their poetry circulates among
family and friends.

Maybe they have put together a book
of their poetry,

paying the expenses themselves, may
even have sold a few.

While they may be serious poets in
their spare time,

poetry is not their career. Most of
their time is spent

making a living other ways. Poetry
comes from stolen moments.

While they may associate themselves
with any or no school,

they largely operate outside of the
poetry establishment.

They are marginal, wondering about themselves
and their strange habit.

Now they have broken out on the web
for all to see.

At least the other amateur poets might
be interested in their peers.

And it could be that the economics of
poetry on the web may

be compelling, even for the professionals.
If so, will there be

a blurring between amateur and professional?
There may no longer be the

winnowing by those editors who control those
precious, scarce pages.

For example, this poem would never be accepted
as a poem in a small magazine,

let alone squeezed into a hundred copy a
year eighty page masterpiece.

It is obviously a short essay broken into
jagged couplets,

but I am just an amateur and I control
my own publishing space.

So I can put it in
if I want to.

FLOW ON, RIVER

What do we say to the timers
and the rose waters?

Will the mud banks yield to
the gentle probings?

Is a real river a blue stripe?
We must let them be.

We must rise to the lust stained trees,
rutted with crumbling dust,

a sweat drop in the dim
light puffing what is left.

No one seems to accept the thesis
of obfuscation as self creation.

To stack word on obscure word
as a method of self definition?

Once in the river course, we slapped
the waters with our palm and said,

"Flow on, river, flow on."
It was a grand gesture.

A CERTAIN PEACE

There is a certain peace.
No great projects anymore.
No great unifying vision,
just various and diverse
configurations.

There is no harm in it.
Still what has been
learned is there.
Still what has been
desired is there.
Still some progress
is possible,
small improvements,
small steps,
small moves.
Still death and hope
for after death are there.

Let the sequence unfold.
Bless us, bless us,
in the deep well
of our everydayness.

PHILO DISPENSES ADVICE

Science comes: "You are doing well.
Just broaden your concept of experience
and be more aware of consequences."

Religion comes: "Give up dogmatism.
Emphasize moral and spiritual experience.
Preserve your rituals and myths as art."

Politics comes: "You have made some
progress. Now go and fully implement the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Business comes: "You have created wealth
and emphasized serving customers. Good.
But now you must balance people and profits."

Art comes: "You have enriched life and expressed
alienation. Now celebrate as well as mourn, embrace
diversity, and make room for the amateur."

Philosophy comes: "You have devolved to various
skepticisms. Accept it. Give up grand schemes. Offer
a service, maybe using language to solve problems."

CELEBRATING SUSAN

It was winter. There were
snowmen lumbering about.

She was a ball of light,
happiness in a crying time,

a memory of hippy girls,
earth mother skirts,

herbal tea, tingling bells,
incense and hopes, oh, hopes.

The car sped up behind her.
They hate her for mixing colors.

Those good sons scream by
as she makes her driveway.

Her heart pounds. How can love
lead to hate, hate, hate!

The Russians came and the Germans
came and the Africans came and

the Irish came and the Israelis
came and the soldiers came and

the children came to the Shrine
above the blue waters and the

peace they felt, the peace they felt.
She greeted them on the stone porch.

Oh, sweet little child of my dreams.
Hush, hush, don't you cry.

She fed the little thing goat milk.
I waited for you, dear, I waited for you.

Setting up at the fair to sell them
peace and diversity, she is out there,

enthusiastic, talking, smiling, dead
tired, and the taxes are late.

A dash through a San Diego apartment,
a dance in shadows as dusk fell,

the light through the curtains and
hair hanging down, movements in the dark.

She shouts, he mumbles, she shouts,
he mumbles, sweet man, dear lovely woman.

PARADISE VALLEY

Driving over the rise at night
the valley opens with lights.

And the tall old chapel on the
hill is lit up, and he sighs.

Home, home to the creek and the
terraces and the college hill,

home to the small restaurants and the
library and the bank and the house,

home to the bookshop, the small town
grocery store, the burying ground,

home to history or some view of
history, to self-created belonging,

the only real place in the world,
to the myths of commonplace things.