[Glenn Wright]

I see now why I was confused. I was projecting an interpretation onto the poem. That damned affective fallacy gets me every time. Now I see that the “tangled” messiness of life is inherent in everyone’s microcosm. The beautiful eternity of “ancient gods,” and “one faint lingering star” in “the bluest sky” are part of a “macrocosm” that we can only briefly glimpse and never really possess, although the speaker urges us to try. I’m still feeling a connection to Keats. That still leaves me not really understanding “eyelid fire,” but is that closer to your intent? (It’s a challenging poem!)

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Mark,

This is very good. Very lively and alive. Except for the curtain raiser.

Don’t let’s talk about the ancient gods
and all that crap, I’m sure we’ve got enough
on our plates,

I get the premise, but the expression is a bit forced. Hard to explain what bugs me, and I'm doing a very good job of not being able to tell you.

And why do the husbands come in with a pejorative modifier and not the wives? Huh? ~,:^)

Rick

[R. Nemo Hill]

I had the same reaction to the opening, I found it off-putting, an easy and somewhat misguided target.

Nemo

[Mark McDonnell]

Matt, Rick, Nemo, Glenn, Carl…

Thanks for the further thoughts. You first three have convinced me the opening isn’t working. That it was too easy, flippant, or performative. Or something. I think you’re right. I don’t know if this will ever be much more than a strange, mutant squib of a poem, but writing and revising it has brought me some pleasure.

I’ve given a revision a go.

Thanks all.

[David Callin]

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

I’ve given a revision a go.

And to great effect. I think that's much better.

Cheers

David

[Matt Q]

Hi Mark

I also much prefer the new opening. Nicely done.

A thought: you could replace the word "dream" in L1 with something else, and the context would still tell us it that it was a dream. For example, if I read this:

Surfacing from a lake of sacred fire
this ticking dawn, you shake the bedding loose
to find only the window's light, the room,

I'd know that being submerged in a lake of sacred fire either had been the content of the dream, or more generally was a metaphor for dreaming.

Not that I'm suggesting "lake" here, necessarily, just flagging up that you have some scope for something other/more than "dream".

L3, maybe "to only find the window's light"? The metre is tighter. Sense is maybe a shade different but still seems to work. Maybe.

best,

Matt

[Glenn Wright]

I like the new beginning, Mark. It’s much more tightly focused. You got rid of “boiling,” which made me think it was going to be an eco-poem about global warming. I especially like “ticking dawn,” which suggests both a clock and a bomb. Good revision.

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Mark,

I would hit that new opening one more time.

I don't like "dream of sacred fire" and "the shattered planet hurtling still through space," breaks up the observation of things one actually sees, as opposed to thinks about or somehow knows, upon awakening.

Fire might work, but I think "sacred fire" foists this into a space you want to avoid.

RM

[Yves S L]

Hello Mark,

For me, the last four lines are an interesting use of the list syntactic pattern, but the rest of it feels to me like familiar blocks being arranged in familiar imagistic/emotional patterns, sort of like mysticism for the every-man using stock symbols including that of the planet hurtling through space. I can see how this might resonate to someone in this emotional space of undifferentiated, vauge yearning for something more, but for me it is too much smoke and mirrors and pizzazz.

If I separate out all the rhetorical tricks and attitude, what is being said, a variation on a theme of Plato's allegory of the cave, that there is a another reality behind mundane appearances? It is as good a theme as any, depending on how it is handled.

I think compression might help this: cutting it to the bone might make it more alive.

[Carl Copeland]

Hmm. I was skeptical about “Wake to macrocosm,” but “Wake your macrocosm” just baffles me. How does one do that?