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A brokered silence

The more I read, the less I understand
In ciphered scrolls of men and withered lore
Bombarded, as a specious reprimand
We came to fall on books, but learned no more

So much, too full the void inside is fed
Allusions wrapped in images unknown
Packed dense as wheat into our crowded heads
When all we crave is quiet time alone

There is a time, when all theses days collide
Into a maelstrom of incomprehension
And stripped of humble roof the mind can’t hide
From all the unfurled webs of self-invention

Who will reach through this deluge with a hand
of hope at last, to feed one more contrivance?
By turning to that lonely Judge of man
Who answers all our cries, with brokered silence

Style / type: 
Structured: Western
Review Request (Intensity): 
I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Review Request (Direction): 
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
Last few words: 
A pause in days, where the endless noise and activity in that web of our own creation and supplication. The never-ending torrent of words that form the stream of electric consciousness that we call the web. It now creates us, links us and defines us, none can escape it (otherwise we wouldn't be here reading this) and we all worship daily at its feet.
Editing stage: 

Comments

incredible writing
language use
feel
in this write
and its all true
electric consciousness...
Title works
contact has a great beat feel
to it.
full the void! excellent line!

thank U!

A little bit more...succinct this time? I find myself technology tethered from time to , and the irony of actually stating this here isn't lost on me! Luck has it that sometimes we can just unplug, head for the hills and find a secret little spot, where there are no cell towers, zero signal, and nothing but endless blueggums, hills, sky, little signal fires here and there from fellow escapees, looking for that silence.
When I get up there, I imagine what life was like for the first free settlers, struggling to feel the land and it's harshness and rewards, and the vast continent before them - and it's great indifferent slowness, stange seasons and mystery. Glad u liked.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment

trails run up to college univercity.....I went up there with four other nerds
bright men on this meditate thing they do.....my beautiful step kid that I got along
with then said...you know that guy...I said yes...she said..hes handsome....
Im not....she was surpised that the beautiful took me on.....its not about the outer
although that is great...but of the inner...just as much effort goes into that too....
no cells...everyone just sitting like hippies listening to the water...it was great!
all have wives....super money making jobs...cept me....but my jobs is great...
and the hill with its forest where I occasionally go with my Sharpie trophy dog...
my woman is super brilliant but anxiety issues otherwise she would be super
boss....very brilliant...I expect no less....wont go with less. not to be snobbish
but they can flank.....like whaling....you shall get into the bow Mr Peters and row
With Mr Darcy firing over your shoulder with the harpoon gun!! U didnt have a
choice at times.....you either adapt to other survivor cliches or spend nite in jungle
alone...I adapted.... bosses I work for are independent wealthy....no logo company...drive beemer rag top..have beautiful kids..are great bosses...intellectuals whom are not tyrants...

thomas hardy.....studying nature like John Milton
feeling it all like Sexton and chasing the rush like Plath

passion.......poetry is like cooking
like sledding down a hill in winter
I used to fling myself on vehicle
and yes...we even had those aluminum
saucers made famous in national lampoons

sleep on beach is nice if you got wood
sleep on rock with nothing but single blanket
is bad...I scraped moss for my then baby
and I....a good sleep though....
on highway trip...
I have lived man...
I am that aged thrush...

but its a good memory!!

thank U

I still would enjoy a more consistent meter, but this is still good poetry. The rhyme scheme worked so well I think it deserves it.

W. H. Snow

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley

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The metre was supposed to be iambic pentameter, ab rhyme scene, a couple of the feet stretch out a little (perhaps they were daring to poke their toes out, cheekily, but you saw them ;) ) - structure isn't so bad, and didn't hurt a bit. I will keep returning to this one is think.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Chris.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment

Great write - word usage and theme
i really have nothing to crit, but i saw your comment re ianbic pentameter, so thought i could maybe assist by pointing out the verses that I dont agree with...

IN - to | a MAEL | - strom of | in - COMP | - re - HEN -hension
Suggestion
and meet in maelstroms, blinding comprension

WHO will | REACH THROUGH | this DEL | - uge WITH | a HAND
(Imo reach through is ok.... you really only need to get rid of the trochee at the beginning here)
So who'll reach through this deluge with a hand

Love judy
xxx

'Each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They are.'
(Rudyard Kipling)

Rereading this, and the stresses you mention stand, which I guess reinforces the importance of reading this stuff aloud as much as possible, to get a feel of the metre. I will duly, probably come back and tinker with that last verse at some point. Food for thought, thank you.

Take care,

Chris.

PS - Look forward to diving in and reading through all the above commentators new work. I really need to get back to Neopoet more often..

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment

Missing some of your comments. I would like to hear your opinions on many other poems.

W. H. Snow

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley

Learn how, teach others.
The NeoPoet Mentor Program
http://www.neopoet.com/mentor/about

If I had to choose one, it would be Jiddu Krishnamurti; If you do not know of his life and work, there's tons online. He is the most honest human being I ever read...he just gave lectures for 50 years, we read the talks. His "philosophy" of the brain and our behavior, about our inability to see ourselves within the framework of relationships...he's used a lot in yoga studios I've heard. He's like a modern Rumi. I am a follower of his, which means I follow nobody. He would have us reach a state where we recognize the tree is all its wonder, without classifying it with any preconceived thought. This cannot come from books.
I cannot find any comment to make on any verses...the end of the poem allows the reader to leave the philosophical and enter into the poetic.

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

Being an opsimath, and always been interested in Philosophy, not in any academic sense, but it was always in the general reading from the pre-Socratic, the continental rationalists, the enlightenment, the British empiricists (I slept as a youth in the tomb of David Hume..!) and also finding solace in Lao Tzu, Emerson, and Buddhism in between, trying to wrap my mind around Hegel and the dialectic, through to phenomenology, the existentialists, progressive socialists, Rosa Luxembourg springs to mind, it's not that I'm shopping for a solution, I just find that all these points of view, encompass a greater whole, and like the dialectic of nature, ultimately all human thought is leading to something (we hope, at least enlightened) - I think that we can learn a lot from anyone who's made it their life's business to try and understand and improve the human condition. I have reservations, when there is one single 'prophet' who has it all worked out, but it certainly informs more holistic thinking and reasoning, it's a shame that philosophy is not taught to kids in schools, I mean to say, that we don't start out by encouraging kids how to think about ways to live well.
I had a friend back in the UK, a mechanic, who was from Iran, and who had to leave after the revolution, and described himself as a dialectical materialist - when he was imprisoned for civil disobedience in not paying the unfair 'poll tax' of the Tories, the guards, couldn't spell it for the card depicting 'religious denomination' on his cell door! One of the warmest, greatest teachers i ever knew, had read so widely, all the philosophers - he words to me before I came to Aus were' wherever you go, whatever you do - always try to improve things before you move on'

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment

goes hand and hand. like music and mathematics.
I can't think of a major poet, of any gender or any country, who was not well read in whatever philosophy was available, starting with Greece. (I suppose there were some who only knew religious philosophy, like Hopkins.. a small minority) In a way poetry IS the artistic outlet for philosophy; the music of words and thought.
Your story of you're Iranian friend..man, this planet is so full of cruelty and lack of compassion...
at least, sometimes, I feel we are on the way to redefining ourselves. Things are a little better.Freedom of expression exists in some parts of the world, openness to accepting the diversity
is starting to happen with all this technology...I try to be a little optimistic. It's hard!

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

each other, and you know that they are never too far away, electronically speaking anyway. And very true, now that I come to think of it , the two do seem intrinsically linked though history, even to the point where some philosophers advocated poetry as a better form of communication than anything else (think Heidegger, Dasein - although we know the ultimate outcome there, and that of his mentor) - and Hopkins, yes - wasn't he ordained in a former life? I can't recall the details, but loved his sprung rhythm - had to include this:

A nun takes the veil

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

Right back to the task at hand!

Cheers.

Chris.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment
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