Cynicism

A word-unit of poetry has:

• direct signification of a word's multiple meanings
• signification by the implied 'category' in which the term is socially held
• subliminal signification through stimulation of similarly structured words
• subliminal pictorial dimension of the written word
• evocation of similarly "toned" words (as used productively in rap lyrics)
• evocation of the performative mode of the body implied by the utterance
• evocation of the trans-linguistic context produced by irregular juxtaposition of content and syntax

And this is all on the objective side.  The fidelity of a poetic meme to the tacit/implicit feeling state of the poet (Gendlin's focusing method, Nietzsche's "birth of tragedy from the spirit of music") is apparently ambivalent to most of the features above.    

Of course, thinking about Joyce, Dada & the modern age I immediately summon McLuhan to tell me about the shift from the literary-visual brain to the acoustic-tactile brain which is enhanced by use of electronic technologies.  So the soul of poetry, as an essence of communication, could be quite relative to the dominant communication medium through which it is accessed.  I often claim (!) that poetry died with the relinquishment of the typewriter.  Once it is digitized it becomes simply "more content of some kind". 

As for whether the vibrations of utterances are universal I would say Yes but in an increasingly rare form.  As we move from our dialect to current language to shifting historical language to historical language group to proto-linguistic vocal & gestures moves... we must find fewer and more basic vibratory commonalities... but not none.

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

Oh, yes, YES.... they are placebos, and then they are so much more.   The immediacy of the natural world is intoxicating to me, but to be able to share these memory and stories, and to explore the possibilities of the future, all of this is based on words too, and so much more.

Here is a swine anthem:

St. Francis And The Sow

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The bud stands for all things, even those things that don't flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing; as St. Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow, and told her in words and in touch blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow began remembering all down her thick length, from the earthen snout all the way through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine down through the great broken heart to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them: the long, perfect loveliness of sow.  Galway Kinnell

 --

 The fabric of my life is the cloth with which it is my task to polish the lens of my own perception.

Deep bow to you.  Thank you for bringing up the opposite in my reflection.  It is a hard road to travel, the one of "inquiry" as Byron Katie puts it.  It requires a kind heart and a gentleness towards one's self.  I think you bring up Katie's points here very eloquently.

Basically she says to substitute positivity where there is negativity (to put it loosely) such as in situations like these.  She asks us to find the quality of the heart, perhaps of the poem and the inquiry?, and then manifest the opposite.  It acts as a way to calibrate the soul and to find the opposites, which indeed lead us to the Witness which is beyond opposites.  I thank you deeply for pointing this out to me.

I used to hide myself from my mother because she would constantly tell me how wonderful I was even though underneath I could tell she didn't like what I was saying.  It was the worst kind of invalidation possible and has kept me from exploring my creativity to its fullest.  Thank God for journals right!?  And God.  She's pretty great too.

I was doing what you said just last night after I read this.  I took the notes from No Boundary about living "in the resistance".  To "increase the tension" of a particular negative thought.  So I started with just a "no" which moved into "I won't".  I did it over and over again, silently, while increasing the tension in my lower pelvis (where most of it is stored).  It really REALLY hurt but then it felt better.  I was pinching myself (and still am) like Ken says but once I realize where I'm pinching myself I can start to actively STOP pinching myself.

So thank you for leading me to that, tanya.  It was very kind of you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wallowing misery meets the bird in her tree

Scoffing silently at passerbies

Meeting her eyes, she breathes resfully.

The leaves fall from her tender branch

Across trodden paths of mysterious walkers

All hidden from her view as they walk so mindfully

To their places.

And in their echoing footsteps she hears

The crestfallen whispers of her son

Lost in the trail downtown

Wondering if he'll ever shine

Separate from his frown

Into the grasses from the meadows

In which he was born.

Deep bow and gratitude to everyone here.