The poet blogger, Anthony Wilson of the Lifesaving Poems blog, writes today about his encounter with Michael Symmons Roberts’ poem, Ultramarine. His blog post is here:
Anthony’s post reminds me of my first encounter with the same poem years ago. Roberts’ Ultramarine provoked questions about life and death, self-reflection (not to be confused with navel gazing), and [gulp] a necessity to write – to write (bad) poetry.
If a poem does that to you (like what Roberts’ Ultramarine did to me) – it’s good poetry.
When I say I do bad poetry, I say this not out of false modesty in anticipation of future praise. But I do say so with the lingering shame of those many, many letters of rejection taped to the bedroom wall of my younger Patsak self.
Nonetheless, I share my prose with you (below) – that you can get a feel for how not to write poetry. Also – I share this to share my self with you. Perhaps, Johnny too will discover it someday.
“Nobody” is everyone, a person without accomplishment, and also a reference to the Odyssey when the cyclops, Polyphemus, asks Odysseus for his name. - in case you wondered about the alternate title.
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Cerulean Blue
or A Self-Portrait of a Nobody
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I knew him well, better than you. Knew him
like a warm wool scarf wrapt around the face
on a cold January morning stroll
along Spuistraat, passing Magna Plaza.
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I knew the hidden smile sweeping the street
with tassels of saffron, burnt umber, thyme,
gold, sandalwood, dark plum and a little gray -
the man wasn’t as tall as Tom Baker.
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And the scarf had stretched beyond twelve feet.
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Knew him like the dull pain – its claws gripping
his ankles and its teeth burying into his calves
as he left the Willis on South Wacker -
an exhausting, inescapable friend
…
that persecutes, tries and tests your patience.
There were times he couldn’t take one more step
down a fragrant spring path in Cismigiu
and he would linger with a cigarette -
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as if he meant to. And maybe he did.
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I knew him like a Solomon searching
for a perfect blue – cerulean, in fact.
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Ultramarine may be a misadventure
like forbidden, swollen areolas,
like a shuddering gasp of completion.
With someone that does not belong to you.
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Does anyone?! Ever belong to you?
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Cerulean is ubiquitous – not cheap
like kitsch (to be displayed) in a Florentine curio -
I have struggled to find and share beauty through this blog. And I have failed. Often and persistently. A hundred or so failures for each paltry success. On the other hand, the traffic is fine – I remember when I also bemoaned having less than 10,000 readers in a month.
This is not a tragedy.
This is a joke. [grin]
But I am not joking! My effort and lack of success is the joke. Blogging is a comedy – sooner or later.
Laugh with me.
This is a ridiculous adventure. Absurd. Don Quixote is less foolhardy and he is lesser the fool. But I can not help myself. Perhaps, you find yourself in a similar predicament – unable to stop some foolishness or other. And if, perchance, you did or do…
Smile with me.
My failure as a blogger reminds me also of my failure as a novelist.
Laugh with me. Please.
My conceits are as boundless as my ambitions. And, perhaps, yours too. If so, laughter shall be our greatest solace.
Which brings me to Milan Kundera – a handsome man in a brutal manner. His face is fit for a Federal period scultpture.
The Czech author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, explains in his The Art of the Novel, that what defines a novel most of all is that it asks important, eternal and urgent questions.
Kundera recommends Don Quixote, a 17th (?) Century novel, written by Miguel de Cervantes. What I remember of the story, it asks, do I belong in a world in which virtues are irrelevant?
My unfinished novel passionately rejects Cervantes’ question. If we are here, then we belong here . Obviously, here is inescapable.
Even at the end of the world! Even in the midst of outrageous fortune, death, desperation, pain, fear and disappointment.
Or hell.
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If you’re in hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill said that. Right?
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If Mr. Churchill is right, how exactly do we keep going?
The enquiry does not recommend finis humanevitae. Instead, it leads me to further questions. …
They are not original questions, however. But they may resonate in the human heart. And I must admit that it’s very possible that no answer shall fully satisfy our curiosity, desperation and hope.
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Who am I?
What can I hope for?
What must I do (not knowing – with any certainty – who I am and what I can hope for)?
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Perhaps, writing them for you here – makes you want to click away. But if you ever sat or lay upon the ground with salty tears streaming down your face – don’t go yet.
Because I approach these timeless questions as they present themselves through opportunities and defeats on unwitting adventures of self discovery and our clumsy exploration of the world, others and the sacred. I search for these opportunities and defeats within the context of the human drama with all the passion, confusion, sound and fury of our experience as persons.
So, yes, there are explosions, the crack of an axe on exploding concrete, sex, love, hate, and everything else.
But I remain afraid to finish the work. I postpone yet another failure to connect, share, contribute to a community of servant hearts, and, ultimately, collaborate with others – to make this a better world and a world of we.
I remain afraid to fail yet again. As if I could pick and choose my failures!
Obviously, we do not.
I’m also reminded of some lines from a song by the Counting Crows, Mr. Jones.
Believe in me. Help me believe in anything. Cause I want to be someone who believes [that we can make a better world]
Free Silver for the Avengers FB Game, @12 Most, #dadchat, @GuyKawasaki and I won a book!
by Stan Faryna
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I wasn’t going to write a blog post today. I wanted to write my novel. Not the whole book. Five pages would have been SUPER awesome. But that’s not going to happen. BUT I do have four things to share with you that made my day awesome.
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This blog post sucks. Don’t write a blog post like I have done here. There’s no happy place here. That’s going to be your take away. Read the rest of this entry »
Below is the text of The Final Speech of the Great Dictator, delivered by the character, the Jewish Barber, in Chaplin’s 1940 film, The Great Dictator. The Jewish Barber was played by Sir Charles Chaplin.
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I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible- Jew, Gentile, black men, white…
We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind.
We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery ,we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.
Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair.”
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder!
Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate!
Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.
Let us all unite.
Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!
Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance!
Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
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Please join me in brainstorming about new vision for online communitieshere. Or join me for an adventure in sci fi.
I enthusiastically welcome your humble and/or creative contribution to creating our own brave, new future of we! …
Stan Faryna
3 October 2011
Bucharest, Romania
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P.S. Your $5 can make a difference. If you can get 10 of your friends to give $5 too, you will make an even bigger difference. Please help Nisha to help others.
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Faryna Podcasts recently produced by Adrian Klein:
1. Why do I blog: Faryna Podcast EP1
http://wp.me/pbg0R-kX
2. If Tomorrow Was Your Last Day: Faryna Podcast EP2
http://wp.me/pbg0R-la
3. Money Can’t Buy Happiness: Faryna Podcast EP3
http://wp.me/pbg0R-lv
4. The First Duty of Love is to Listen: Faryna Podcast EP4
http://wp.me/pbg0R-lO
5. Are You Ready for Love? Faryna Podcast EP5
http://wp.me/pbg0R-lX
6. Reading The Desiderata. Faryna Podcast EP6
http://wp.me/pbg0R-mr
7. What is Love? Faryna Podcast EP7
http://wp.me/pbg0R-mw
8. Confessions of a Freak-Geek-Misfit. Faryna Podcast EP8
http://wp.me/pbg0R-nJ
9. Do you love strongly? Faryna Podcast EP9
http://wp.me/pbg0R-nY
10. Empty-handed, Less Traveled Roads. Faryna Podcast EP10
http://wp.me/pbg0R-on
11. The Economics of Friendship. Faryna Podcast EP11
http://wp.me/pbg0R-oU
12. Do Not Be Afraid. Faryna Podcast EP12
http://wp.me/pbg0R-p9
Note: If you want to make a professional podcast out of your blog post, get in touch with Adrian Klein on Twitter or Facebook.
Click through the snapshot above to see the wide picture.
The uber Monte Carlo Club in Cismigiu Park, Bucharest.
Lumi living it up the night before the lights went out. A scene from my science fiction novel about the end times. The rough first draft of the story begins here: http://wp.me/pbg0R-98
Notes
Lumi as seen/vid recording through K-9s being worn by our protagonist, John.
Once upon a time, Max had a very different kind of life. In this glimpse into her past, Max is sunning on a yacht. Perhaps, listening to Hurt’s song, Silver Lining.
Click the preview image above to see the full photograph.
Max is a mommy, survivor, and sharpshooter in my science fiction novel about the end times. The rough first draft of the story begins here: http://wp.me/pbg0R-98
Notes
Before her husband was killed in a car accident. Before her daughter was kidnapped and her mother brutally slain. Max had a very different life. But things change. For Max, the dark time began three years before the lights went out.
Max being video-taped via Lumi’s K-9s. A possible scene in my science fiction novel about the end times. The very rough first draft of the novel is here: http://wp.me/pbg0R-98
Click on the cropped picture above to see the full picture.
Notes
After many months of her daughter being a missing person. After the lights go out and the world falls apart, Max is reunited with her lost daughter when she returns to Bucharest. And she remembers again. That she is a beautiful woman.
Fan Art
Media: Digital Art and Photographic Manipulations
Artists: Madalina Cristea
Creative Commons license for this graphic as follows: Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA
Note: You can submit fan art to stan(dot)faryna(at)gmail.com. Please provide contact information (FB, website, etc. so I can include it like I’ve done above). Unless otherwise specified, all works submitted will be considered as released by the author under the Creative Common’s Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA.
Posted by Stan Faryna 
Follow me on Twitter: @Faryna
