A Poem: "Echo of Elephants"

Echo of Elephants
By Jenna Reimer

We are born into this machine;
A madhouse of thieves and fakes
That prowl an exhausted land
Riddled with deceased trash.

We live and breathe these ruins.
We hear the sadness from the pack of hatred,
We crawl and pace and scream
Not knowing what death is,
And never knowing we are already dead.

The stench of rotting flesh,
The cry of old men and tired women,
The dead eyes of children,
Is the music of this life-
This life of misguided hope
And expired dreams.

Such a deafening sound.
Such a crumbling beauty,
Is the echo of elephants.

Contemplation. Contemplation. Contemplation.

The term contemplation seems to have become a far too familiar state of consciousness that has engulfed the entirety of my life; whether to do this or that, say this or that, without coming to any sort of reasonable conclusion, has turned into an unremitting struggle for me. The notion of “making a decision” has always overwhelmed me. Perhaps this anxiety is due to the fact that I have this amazing ability to believe the fate of my life rests on the most minuscule decisions, and if I don’t make the right decision everything will collapse and be utterly detrimental to myself and the rest humankind.

This idea of contemplation reminded me of a poem by Henry King called "A Contemplation upon Flowers." The poem exudes a sense of awareness, a sense of being entirely present within the confines of reality and knowing that life will come to an end; it is a futile illusion to always seek some sort of imaginative future that appears to be inconceivable, unpredictable and, generally, unachievable. The flowers King speaks to are content with living in the earth, the soil in which we as humans dread to join. We all have this common imagination that tends to become overwhelmed with despair regarding “the end” so we inevitably overanalyze the present, and past for that matter; we feel as if we must become something beyond ourselves in order to feel satisfied and content. Perhaps I am fearful of this feeling of being unfulfilled, rather, the fear that others will perceive my life as being unfulfilled. It seems I am more concerned with other’s perception of my life so I am constantly contemplating my current state of being in order to appear to be “the best Jenna I can be”… how terrible eh?!

I am somewhat alright with my life at the moment, it has been worse, however I want more but not for myself but for others? Is that strange? Selfish? Selfless? All of these terms seem to fit my issues as a matter of fact, but not justify them. I don’t have any sort of epiphany to conclude with so I will just end with Henry King’s poem and hope it inspires all of us to embrace a moment in time that comes and goes like the whispers of a spring wind.

A Contemplation upon Flowers
By Henry King

BRAVE flowers--that I could gallant it like you,
And be as little vain!
You come abroad, and make a harmless show,
And to your beds of earth again.
You are not proud: you know your birth:
For your embroider'd garments are from earth.

You do obey your months and times, but I
Would have it ever Spring:
My fate would know no Winter, never die,
Nor think of such a thing.
O that I could my bed of earth but view
And smile, and look as cheerfully as you!

O teach me to see Death and not to fear,
But rather to take truce!
How often have I seen you at a bier,
And there look fresh and spruce!
You fragrant flowers! then teach me, that my breath
Like yours may sweeten and perfume my death.

Lattice of Sunlight Through the Trees

Finally school has ended for the summer and I am able to start indulging in writing poetry and reading some fantastic literature I wasn’t making time for. I recently bought the collected works of Wallace Stevens and have been utterly inspired to say the least. His poetry seems to concern the transformative power of the imagination. Stevens’ style is entirely exotic, whimsical and infused with a sense of light and Impressionism; his words are soft and quiet yet explanatory, much like the unfinished brushstrokes of the impressionist painters.
So far, my favorite poem has been “The Brave Man.” I can’t explain whether it was the power of repetition, or the dark and ominous imagery, that struck me the most; I found it both ironic and brilliant to relate such a shadowy vision to describe the sun. The sun becomes an entity that is able to exist victoriously, impervious to the hand at man, at least during the day time. The poem is beautifully written and implies a sense of dependability where the sun never tarries, and always continues on its path.

That Brave Man
Wallace Stevens

The sun, that brave man,
Comes through boughs that lie in wait,
That brave man.

Green and gloomy eyes
In the dark forms of the grass
Run away.

The good stars,
Pale helms and spiky spurs,
Run away.

Fears of my bed,
Fears of life and fears of death,
Run away.

That brave man comes up
From below and walks without meditation,
That brave man.

A Poem: "Here"

Here
By Jenna Reimer

Time is a soft sigh.
It is a quiet spoken breath,
Echoing than disappearing
With its resonance;
A hushed sigh - a silent silhouette.
It is a light dust that skims an undiscovered text
That embraces a powerful poem.
The Endless verses of written words
Suck the marrow from all that seems concrete.
The poet's voice becomes lost
Amongst a furry of illegible drafts
Where words shift and dance
Across infinite pages.
Pages that drift atop the breath
Of seamless, hollow sighs;
Sighs that die with every inhale
And exhale.

A Poem: This Thing

This Thing

My words that disappear
Into a thousand faces,
Faces of myself and of you,
Are a mere pith
In the corner of my eye.
The way I live and write -
Waiting to die and to breathe
That intolerable pain of being,
That wretched wrestle to continue,
I realized
I have created very little.

Video of the Day: "To Autumn By John Keats"

A Serene Sunday… Thoughts on Life, Nature and Poetry

It has been a beautiful weekend with magnificent weather, finally! I am feeling particularly strong mental and determined, despite some obstacles I must conquer this in the next few days, to have a wonderful week. A new found perspective on the joy of life is finally overwhelming my soul and I am making a conscious effort to do one thing a week that frightens me (yes, it’s a clique therapy goal but sometimes it ok to follow some psycho-babble bullshit once in a while). My life has been far too structured for far too long and it is time I start living my best life with serious intention and no expectations.

In the wee hours of the morning, sitting on my deck having a cigarette and watching the crimson sky transform into a lucid blue, William Wordsworth’s poetry popped into my head. His appreciation for natural world and ability to capture its imperfections inspires me to understand that beauty. The poem’s lyrical movement exemplifies the idea that poetry is an emotion engulfed in tranquility, where imagination is the key that unlocks the innermost depths of the human spirit; the imagination is best awakened by celebrating the wonders of nature.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -and gazed -but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

A Much Needed Update!! - A Poem

The Barren
By Jenna Reimer

In the end you are weary of this abandoned world.
Among your fetishes in a weak and soulless flame
That fume a sky of clouded doubt and unknown,
Where a fury of scarred electric stars and blazing moons
Exist in a furnace of cobalt and crimson hollows,
You tremble in a league admit a blinded fleet.
Drifting ashes brush the faces of preset men
Wanting to walk home and simply retire.
Yet, you launch into a solemn slumber,
Aloft the drift of deep delirium in an exiled sleep;
Dying in a tamed and watchful sorrow.

F*ck It Friday... A Poem

The Lattice
By Jenna Reimer

Unable to escape the lattice;
A net that remains a barricade
From all that is out of reach.
I peer through the mesh
Where crisscrossed shadows
Paint the floor of the other side;
Bleak Figures lurking amongst
This grounded darkness
Dash like a running hare
Leaving no trace of its presence.
Time running like the muddied waters
Of a February river
I cannot see through the murk.
The lattice is far too high to climb,
Too long to trek, too deep to dig.
To have these hands, these feet,
These eyes, this tongue
Are fruitless amid such uncertainty.
If I have learned anything in this life
It will be that there is no lucid light,
No clear shadow,
And an endless knowledge of doubt.

F*ck It Friday... A Poem

Tree Figure
By Jenna Reimer

A tree stands before me;
Barren branches crowding a marked sky,
Unmoving below a merciless twilight,
I sit beneath it within the shadow of a wind.
Knowing all the things I have known once
Disappear into an entreated bliss.
The tree’s boughs grow into my breast,
Swallowing my limbs of fickle fury.
I was a tree among the woods.

Serene Saturday... A Poem

To Sleep
By Jenna Reimer

I must sleep – though my body will not allow.
Waves of wind draw shadows of dead leaves
Strewed about my window,
Drifting in a breeze singing of tomorrows;
Leaf upon leaf, leaf upon earth.
Birds cry in the blustery breeze
Thundering crossways that once held them
Suspended in the air.
An untamed chill steals my essence
Falling into a bittersweet place.
The roar of a furnace, the fleeting traffic,
Heavy feet treading the walkway:
It lessens my limbs and softens my brow;
All to release me into a feathered slumber.
An opened door rattles and swishes
In the final spray of that very wind
Who disturbs the resting.
My eyes fall into my mind, my mind
Falls into a troubled state of dreary;
Lips slightly open, enough for a breath of wind-
Let me dream while night goes by,
And never goes by.

"The Swollen River" By Jenna Reimer

Cloud over rain, rain over cloud;
The fury of earth’s breast bone
Proclaims a sweet dominion
Rooting down to the river’s edge.
It is here, where I lie
The time rises
Into the irrational mind;
Where naked bodies are buried
In illusions of transcendence,
Fluid beneath the air’s lucidity
And timeless breath.
The sun has dawn on this realm
Where nothing is clear.
Truth has no means as death lives
In deaths arms with no solution;
To say this is clear would save us all.
It is only when my body drowns
In the rising river, and the rain
Hollows in full and continues,
That I will come out of this
knowing no one,
Nor they me.

F*ck It Friday... I'm Sick and Feelin' the Scene

It is far too uncommon that a postcolonial poet is able to escape the proliferation of political and African content flooding his or her poetry. I was initially emphatic in my belief that, as much as I appreciate postcolonial literature, there was far too much emphasis on the societal and political state of one’s colonized country; the writing didn’t seem to have real existential leanings where there was an stress on the individuals quest for the meaning of life and the struggle life’s strange tides bring forth.

Before I knew it, I came across a poet from Nigeria, Ebereonwu, whose poetry left me in awe by way of his crazy imagery and outlandish context. I found myself wondering whether his work was a product of psychedelic drugs or psychiatric issues. He tragically died in a car accident but his work shells out a rash and somewhat “fuck you” attitude which mirrors his unique style. When asked why he wears his typical guevera styled beret, he replied: "It's a matter of choice. In a world where people are used to copying what everybody is doing, they are bound to see me as a radical. All the changes in the world are not brought about by people who behave like their grandfathers." What a cool dude eh? A man who never tried to render unceasing ideas and say what’s on his untouchable mind; what other mind could write lines too tart for the tongue: “The Cobra’s venom is my cough syrup” (“Mankind,” The Insomniac Dragon).

The Following is also an excerpt from The Insomniac Dragon

HERE

Your spittle harpooned the shark of bigotry and norm
Your voice unsettled the moon even in its abode up high
In your mortal strides, you caused cherubs to fret and sigh
You’ve gone now leaving behind your prepuce and your venom

THERE

It isn’t the fool anymore, let them know
It’s the wise and strong that treads where angels fear to go
So with your pen, cause ripples over there
Unsleep their slumbering stare

Say Whaaaa Wednesday... 15 Minute Free write

Always fun to take 15 minutes and just write whatever pops into your head! You'd be surprised with what comes outta the mindless chattering that goes on up in that noggin of yours!

6 Feet Underground Scene

He’s got himself a homemade cigarette /
a nighthawk sitting slumped waiting /
for a dog day tomorrow /
he’s tried it all but it ain’t no use /
he thinks to himself /
“this town only dwells buzzards / whose feathers are a concerning green” /
a nicotine cloud hanging in his memory / offers no direction out /
he’s gonna be burning 6 feet to the underground scene /
where they dress in calico / with crimson blood shot eyes /
time to kill and places not to be /
no one goes there without baggage / wanting a soul to spew their lies /
knowing he’s burned out all his one night stands /
he sighs /
women strangled his heart and scratched out his prays /
keeping his dreams from sneaking up behind him /
pouring out their perfume / with a barrette in their hair /
they slips out as fast as he drinks his bourbon /
tearing the teeth out of the night /
with no thank you card /
the waitress interrupts his reverie / with a sideways glance /
her graveyard eyes punch through his mellow dramatic trench /
with grey strips tearing onto the caffeine soaked floor /
she knows he’s poisoned all his waters / put them in a suite case /
next to his switch blades / the man is no more than a boy /
with a toy pistol shooting nightmares /
he’s been 6 feet underground all along /

"It Cries in my Heart"

(Yes, you are suppose to play the video while you read the poem)

The Genesis of the Butterfly by Victor Hugo

The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies.

"Trap Lines" By Jenna Reimer

The softest feet are crisply straying
Throughout a dark wood.
Thickets brush against the innocence
Of a young boy- tired and afraid.
Lost amongst towering trees,
The hierarchy of the natural world,
His mind strolls about thirsty.

What was once his open heart,
Caring for the secret livings
Of whatever roams the forest,
Is forgotten; the twilight of a sullen moon
transforms the earth
Into the frighteningly unfamiliar.

A keen wind flays
Screaming trees with a light snow;
Stifling the boy from hope to terror.
A childhood memory destroyed
By a dream of a doom
And a peeling sky that lost its worth
And abandoned him.

(Artwork: "Dark Forest" By Min Woo Bang; www.fineartamerica.com)

Face of a Fate

In the midst of a Chinook wind,
A dire reminder of a Northern January,
A gentleman strolls
down an exhausted street.
Drawing his cold hands
To his bristled head,
Combing the brittle hair
Through wheat thin fingers,
He then stops.
Glancing at clod on the sidewalk,
Appearing to be his unshed tears,
He takes a deep, veiled breath.
Keeping his distance from a place
Where all is too real, too human;
A land that assigns morality
By his own position in dreary time.
Once again, staring ahead down the road
The concrete softens with the heather sky.
Walking this clotted road
Whose cracks and wrinkles
Resembles the hope of his firmament
Makes him forget,
So he continues.

Madam’s Organ Blues Bar

A tired place; the walls are riddled
with photos of visitors whose toothless grins
reflect their false hope and forgotten dreams.
This bar, I visit often to watch and listen.
Tonight, two men were laughing violently
and I realized I am becoming apart of them,
apart of their laughter
with every inhale and short gasp.
Their breath disappears into their dark,
smoke incrusted throats,
their bruised lungs and forsaken hearts.
Our breath allied into a band of shit.
For a brief moment,
these men and I are together
within a world of thought;
where our false laughter and reusable relationships
become disgustingly real.
Where you give champagne to your lovers
and the shame of pain to your enemies.
Where Saturday nights
always end in a numb arm
from leaning on the back of a chair for too long
just trying to get hits with a pretty girl.
No one comes in here without baggage,
wanting to spill onto anyone who will listen;
I’ve heard it all.

Butch Deadmarsh

He was born tired and his head pressed
Hard against the concrete dead-end walls
Of mindless work.
His toothless grin; an apt title to his ignorance
And overly anxious laughter;
the sound of barricaded elephants
On their last leg.
No more than fifty dollars to his name
And a line of past dues and unsettled debts.
He sleeps, and eats, and drinks
And sings from a mouth clamped;
Emptied and topped off then emptied again,
Pouring his wretched breath onto those in his company.
The seat in the bar where he sits
Every Saturday, polishing the backside
Of the stool,
Is where he drinks a pint, till his memory
Drowns in a slew of senseless mourning,
Sip after sip.

The Clearing of a Mist

A day and a night and a day of mist
clears at a night’s sun fall.
A quiet wind whines overhead,
the city begins to resurface.
Damp roads appear to be lacquered,
cars still wet as any wave.
Glossy windows reflect the glow
of a sullen moon, of lamp posts,
like riddled fireflies
throughout a silent dew pond.
The melting mist reveals the worth
of metropolitan streets, only briefly forgotten;
but now silvered in droplets,
plastering a shinning city.