The Lever
This is a photo of a digging bar, weighs about 30 pounds, six feet long, with a point at one end and a little flattened at the other. You can move some big, heavy objects with this thing.
Almost all poetry writing is like dancing to me. I wait a while for the music to percolate through and I’ll spot a likely gal (idea) and ask if she’d like to dance, seeing as how her toe was already tapping and her head already bobbing. I know where the dance will occur. I know about how long a dance tends to be. I have a general idea how to dance and when the music stops, that’s a good cue that the dance is over. I try not to push things and if she wants to lead, that is fine with me. If she prefers I take the initiative, I’ll go with that. Every idea is different and requires its own approach. I am as patient as each idea requires me to be. And that is how I write (almost all) poetry.
There is a second type of poem that arrives fully written and I simply have to record it. This doesn't happen often, but often enough and it's a real treat to be a part of that kind of event. It also can make me feel a bit like an imposter to say that I wrote that poem when in reality all I did was take dictation. I do get some small clue that I was responsible for the poem when I take a closer look at it (after the scribing) and realize that parts of it had been floating around in my head, in my sleep, in my daydreams for years.
But the third kind, like the one below, are written from a place where ordinary thinking doesn’t occur. It’s like walking blind. You knowing where you are but not the direction you are going. Yet even with all that, the destination is not clear. Having a destination is usually integral while writing a poem. Anybody can start a poem, after all, but you’ve got to have an ending in mind if you want to complete one.
It comes from something as close to subconscious thinking as can be possible and still be conscious enough to follow the trail and write it down as it is happening. It’s the act of planning and doing simultaneously. When it happens, which is rare, this kind of poem is the result and I am just as curious as any first time reader as to what it means. This type is different because it has not been floating around at all.
Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”
I would appreciate any comments because I’m not sure what this is. I do know that with almost every poem I write, I’m swinging for the fences, so there’s that.
The Lever I try to raise my sights, to aim higher, to shoot for the largest target. Is directly vertical high enough, with a spread of shot equal to this world or should it be bigger still? Hell, even Archimedes knew no one had a lever that large but we began to think about it, to imagine it and that's the beginning, that's the important part. Someone finds the lever under a nebula, another finds the fulcrum, behind a dead star and soon enough very large things indeed begin to happen. From up here the lever could look like a bomb destroying everything, or it could be love, uniting everything. That is the nature of sights and where you set them. You can shoot high or you can shoot low and if you get it wrong very few people will ever know.
Thanks for presenting the idea of moving the world. I believe we are at time when we need to think big, or we will perish.
I don't know how to put it briefly so I won't try-I just identify with a lot
I think I'm yet to grow, into the first kind -if I have time and other things. I'm not sure I have them.
It's usually second or third, to me
needless to say-I also like the second. it's a trance-like thing.
Third-feels just like being me all the time. One does get tired falling down and it's hard to see what's written on the bottles on shelves etc. You know you'll hit the ground eventually-but you're not sure you want it either, neither you're sure it'll end the journey.
So yes, there's no destination, not necessarily.
I love enlightments-yet they're not destinations not always. You were just able to see a bottle, or somesuch, touch it when falling