Saturday, April 2, 2016

The Martian Perspective and Poetry

Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.             
                                 
                                               - Jack Kerouac


“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
                
                                        -  Joseph Campbell





He once wrote,

              Martians used to preach
              Of days they would reach the earth
              Now they’ve given up
              Finding what it is worth.

He was wrong, there had never been a serious consideration for Martians to explore the earth as it looked like a dying planet. “How did they get such an impression?” , he wondered. And so the journey began for him to comprehend how this perception could evolve.

Out came the yellow high-liter with the history and sociology books as well as the laptop googling thousands of trends and facts about the evolution of earth’s inhabitants their attitudes, institutions, political structures, beliefs, culture and changing. Charts, graphs, narratives and all types of analytics were created to visually illustrate the doors of perception. Then a wave washed him up onto the shore of enlightenment.

“Poetry! They have never read or heard our poetry! Poetry is the language of our hearts and souls, the living proof of the existence of the sacred within sentient beings. ”

He also thought of music as the voice of the divine but continued to wonder what the Martians might think of earth and her inhabitants if they read and heard our poetry, as it was the root of what would become songs. “Poetry is evidence of: our compassion and passion; our love and desire for peace and concern for the common welfare; our devotion to and appreciation for the beauty and wonder of all that mother nature provides; our humility and hopefulness; our resilience; our ability for our own spirits to transcend our vessels of clay; and, our enlightenment of and faith in a great magnificence who is the reason for every aspect of the universe.”

But with this awareness he also became depressed, as he knew that many in this world had lost their sense of poetry and most poets had been minimalized or trivialized. Many contemporary poets had lost their voices or desire to have their inner voice heard. Some "would be poets" had been led to join that carousel where reaching for a brass ring became the objective rather than being an authentic channel of passion. Furthermore many had become silent out of fear of being ostracized for being a voice from the wilderness. There were some champions who would fight the good fight but they seemed to die young.

“Maybe if I just continue to encourage others to allow their authentic selves and voices to flourish through poetry, that may be enough . No need to worry about the Martian perspective now as we all have a greater challenge at hand…to save ourselves.”



                         Understanding Poetry – Dead Poets Society
                   Immediately NOW watch the next click…don’t wait!

                   Why do we Read and Write Poetry – Dead Poets Society



Now Some things for pilgrims and Martians to consider


                      Song Of Myself – From Favorite Poem Project

                                              https://youtu.be/hPLHVQpm1JA


               We Real Cool – From Favorite Poem Project

                                              https://youtu.be/_t_kkjAhDNw



                            The Favorite Poem Project
                            http://www.favoritepoem.org




"Poetry is an act of peace." – Pablo Neruda


"To be a poet is a condition, not a profession." – Robert Frost



Introduction to Poetry



I ask them to take a poem   
and hold it up to the light   
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem   
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room   
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski   
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope   
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose   
to find out what it really means.




Soneto de la Noche

By Pablo Neruda

Cuando yo muero quiero tus manos en mis ojos:
When I die, I want your hands upon my eyes:
quiero la luz y el trigo de tus manos amadas
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
pasar una vez más sobre mí su frescura:
to pass their freshness over me one more time
sentir la suavidad que cambió mi destino.
I want to feel the gentleness that changed my destiny.
Quiero que vivas mientras yo, dormido, te espero,
I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep,
quiero que tus oídos sigan oyendo el viento,
I want your ears to stiil hear the wind,
que huelas el aroma del mar que amamos juntos
I want you to smell the scent of the sea we both loved,
y que sigas pisando la arena que pisamos.
and to continue walking on the sand we walked on.
Quiero que lo que amo siga vivo
I want all that I love to keep on living,
y a ti te amé y canté sobre todas las cosas,
and you whom I loved and sang above all things
por eso sigue tú floreciendo, florida,
To keep flowering into full bloom.
para que alcances todo lo que mi amor te ordena,
so that you can touch all that my love provides you,
para que se pasee mi sombra por tu pelo,
so that my shadow may pass over your hair,
para que así conozcan la razón de mi canto.
so that all may know the reason for my song.
- Pablo Neruda, trans. Nicholas Lauridsen

Choral representation of the above poem

https://youtu.be/GVZJVgX5jN4



Ulysses

  
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

         This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

         There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.






















Amdg



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