The Knowledge of Stone Revised, Even the Title
- joybragi84
- Aug 8
- 3 min read
Updated: 7 hours ago
Following the advice of my mentor and friend, Patrick Gillespie, I have removed all but the most pertinent adjectives from this poem. Three are left: nuptial, marble, and gelded. They provide very important meaning to the poem, so they must stay. I left the rest of the words I had without attempting to correct the metrics or rhythm. It still suits the rhythm of song in my hearing. I also changed a few verbs. The grass and flowers now "tend" in the first verse instead of waving, and our Love is yielded instead of given, in order to stick with the farming/gardening images. I removed some unnecessary punctuation that I have never noticed before today. I also left or added the ambiguous "it" in the second line of the last verse. Is "it" Love or Stone? I think the reader gets to decide. Those who love only themselves do tend to sit and love alone as a stone does. Just saying.
A reader asked me what this poem is really about. It is actually one of the rare poems that I have written that is connected with my dad and his final resting place. This poem was originally written 10 or 15 years ago after I had gone to the cemetery and weed-eated around and cleaned up his tombstone. The "symbol of Love/in nuptial embrace" is the engraving of wedding rings on the stone, which shows the date my mother and father were married. I'm not a fan of cemeteries. I think we need to do something different with our deceased loved ones and their memories. I have no memories of my dad in the cemetery where he is buried and going there does not spark memories of him during his life. Nothing in the cemetery promotes and encourages life. That is what this is about. Try to sort through those convoluted feelings! As always, ENJOY!
The Metaphor of Stone
The grass and flowers
Tend the breeze
Like Love that’s ours
To till and tease
Before we yield the Love we own
To the metaphor of Stone.
Stone seems perfect enough,
Mounted in its place,
A symbol of Love
In nuptial embrace.
And trifle about, Stone will not
Nor will it ever rot.
Not much like Love is Stone,
For it is still
And sits as well alone
As marble markers will
While grass and flowers wave
Above the gelded grave.
Here is another poem that I revised just today. Again, I am revising all the poems in Atheists and Empty Spaces. I don't know why, but I appear to simply be doing them in the order they are in the book. That is really odd! Anyway, here is another poem. ENJOY!
A 21st Century Song
(How Poetry Is Donne)
Find and fetch a flailing line,
Hang a rimester worth a hoot,
Dance upon a chapbook’s spine,
And tell me if it feels a foot.
Train pendulums to alter time,
And nonrecurring words to rhyme
And still
Fulfill
The current poet’s yearly spiel.
If you care to hear odd things,
Commotions crudely borne,
Listen as that poet sings
Like a murder of crow in the corn.
Then, if you can learn it, please repeat
The unformed lyrics--but be sweet.
What ear
Can hear
After gleaning verse so queer?
If you find a meter, give it back
If it tempts you with a beat.
Its sire is a silly hack
Who’ll sell his poetry to eat.
The true poet, whose food is pure,
Writes only in a pulse obscure
And swears
Her ears
Are rhythmically attuned to Jazz.
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