"About Time" is the third and last of the "About" poems in Star Sequence. This is in the What Might Be section of the book, so I thought time seemed like a natural for my version of prophecy. Heh The two other poems that are companions to this one are, "About Love" the second poem in What Is and "About Stars" the second poem in What Was. For the astronomy lovers out there this arrangement may make a bit more sense or maybe it makes sense even if you aren't a star nut. If you'd like to read the two other poems in the set, you can get at them easily enough by going to the Star Sequence blog and clicking on them in the Contents. Thanks for helping me out with the book, guys. Your comments really have helped me sort out the rough edges. If some editor out there actually publishes this book of mine, I'm going to have to send all of you a copy. :D
Shall we speak about time?
How it is elastic as chewing gum
as silly putty transferring precious memory
to foreign substance or just other planes
of existence. How the stars have their own time,
the ocean under the stars, the great whale
and the plankton all abiding by the cosmic clockwork
yet all in their own time. How a lifetime
can be a moment, a moment a lifetime
stretching out into the forever
like the thin gleam from a lighthouse
still here as one solitary
gust of wind kissing the face
of the ocean under the ticking stars
in a breath then gone
never quite the same again.
5 comments:
You should compile these pieces and send them to some of the Deep Science mags. Very compelling images in all of them.
This line trips me up:
and yet here now like one solitary
'yet, here' and now' seem to clustered and confusing. maybe replace yet with still and remove 'now'. Not sure but I'm certain you will figure it out.
Enjoyed
Thanks for the comments, Eve. Very helpful. You're quite right about that cluster. Since I seem to be on an editing tear, I tore into this a bit. See what you think. :)
PB, I feel like I should say more about this one…but I honestly cant. I’ve read this one several times and I wouldn’t change anything. I like it and I recommend going with it as is.
I caught the note that you are wrapping up Star Sequence. Let me know my friend if there is anything I can do to help you.
-Steve
I agree with Steve. There's nothing I would change in this--exactly the kind of poetry I love. Philosophical, introspective, esoteric. Dear God, man, I can't imagine a publisher turning down your book.
I'm not too sure of the use of 'how' at times. Maybe it was the way I read it but I seemed to have thought on reading it that the use of how would make it a question. Especially this part:
How it is elastic as chewing gum
as silly putty transferring precious memory
to foreign substance or just other planes
of existence.
It did confuse me a little not only your use of 'how' but your use of 'it is' as well. Just seemed to have stumbled over it and the arrangement of words.
I like your reference to the ocean under stars and the plankton. Not too sure of this - 'cosmic clockwork'. Of course 'cosmic is used for alliteration but the word seems to be quite new-age at least here or in my mind. So yes, that's about it really.
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