In darkness |
Philosophy
and Nonsense
(Thoughts about writing,
education, and experience.)
Presented by Forrest D. Poston
 The first goal of teaching is to strengthen, deepen and refine our intrinsic love of learning. All other goals and all methods must stem from that idea. Any that do not support that goal must at least be questioned and adjusted, if not eliminated. Otherwise, we are not teaching but training. Think, I dare you.
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there
may be dreams. |
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Tailless Trains and Other Echoes Tangent Laden Bones ache and tell of storms to come; other aches speak of storms long past, storms and aches of another kind, immune to the medicine cabinet. But we are familiar companions now, these aches, and storms, and I. The coming storm rumbles greetings, sends the wind with tales of power and disaster. I smile and tell the storm of you. To the Gray Like childhood friends, words have moved away. Games we played grow into work as dragons, bears, and tigers vanish into lairs, leaving emptiness, a sinkhole swallowing imagination, a black hole inhaling each idea, leaving wonderless landscapes like the gray, snowless winter, stripped of glistening, barren even of the dream of Spring. Faces and Phases Primrose Moon A younger man saw a younger moon, more than wax and wane, a pale, mute metaphor, grayscale on black, watering dreams blooming like a field of evening primrose, but no metaphor stops time or toll. Perhaps even metaphors age and wane, bloom, brown and die, or perhaps tonight I will find one more primrose blooming brightly beneath this moon, this soft, silent, waning moon. Harvest Moon Even the moon burned red, so red, surely the trees were aflame in the young night, burning wild and fast, but no. Only the moon burned, coloring sky, hills, and dreams, not with fire but borrowed light. Beautiful, bright illusion, red rose the moon, growing pale and cool with time. The sky darkened, moon fading to white and gray, horizon of hills to black. With time, we said goodbye to the burning moon, fading sight lost to the night, and each other. The Midnight Piper This rain fell before, on another night, the same dark. The wet melody plays like a midnight piper, and I follow again, this time to younger days, to memories of dark asphalt rivers, glistening beneath dim streetlights and flowing into the darkness, the mystery, the hope in the infinite unseen. So many nights, that piper lead me, promising something could be found, something, never what, never where, always beyond sight, beyond the curving, wet, dark veil. Each night ended with nothing, nothing more than unanswered questions and wet shoes. This night, I let the piper play. Yet buried beneath so many mundane days and nights, the unsettled quest within resonates with the rain and wonders. Age may bring wisdom, or merely weariness and doubt. Warm, dry, I smile at youth and foolish dreams, trying hard to be sure, say, "Safe", say, "Mature", but the piper plays, and the music in the rain makes me wonder if perhaps I always stopped the dance just a step too soon. Memory, Dream, Reach I have thought about the moon, reached for memories from when the moon was more than real, a charm or totem, always changing, yet utterly constant, dreams made manifest and reason to dream. Some hint of magic might still answer, some drop of that wonder that makes children reach, dare to fall. Surely there is no power in the moon, no magic, but the memory of a dream, might make the heart reach just once more. We strive in the sun but hope in the moonlight. Drink the Moon Tonight, I’ll drink the moon, bathe in the stars, let the night soak deep, soothe the burns and sorrows gathered in the day, ease away the sting of words, worries, and weariness. Tonight, I’ll drink the moon, forget literature, love, and loss. Dawn will demand I rise, renew, risk my hope and heart again, but tonight, I’ll drink the moon. The Moon Stayed The moon stayed through that night, not for me but with me all the same, satisfying, if foolish, perhaps because foolishness can cure some angst, or treat the symptoms. The moon is no companion, but the spirit doesn’t care, the need reaches, sees, and claims. Sometimes, that must be enough, enough to wait, enough to dare sleep, to dare the dreams that wait, and those that wait no longer. No Intent (One Version) Grant the moon no intent, yet may it play upon the eye, the heart, the mind; no dreamer but inspiration for dreaming as words inspire the mind to tell stories. Grant the stars that move so slowly no choice, their twinkling an illusion, yet light and illusion flow to the mind, and we yearn and reach out, but the stars that fall, though not stars at all, make us wish and love, ache and fall. Grant the moon no intent, though cool and coy it may seem, slowly dancing with the clouds, not so distant as the stars, more gentle than those that fall, like soft words, melancholy stories that let us dream deeply, love slowly, ache gently. No Intent (Another Version) Grant the moon no intent- this one night perhaps I will dream a different dream beneath her light, dark but soft upon the skin, a caress of night air, a kiss of May fulfilling April’s promise. This one night, this one dream speaks of summer, forgetting winter past, believing not winter to come. This one night beneath this silent moon, I will dream a young man’s dream, soft grass upon the hill, a caress, and a kiss. Kin to the Moon Master of disguise, the moon changes faces, full to a sliver, even pulls a disappearing act. We laugh, cry, sing, entertained nightly. Yet the moon always presents but one face for our pleasure, showing it in changing ways, while all behind the face stays out of sight, hidden by the play. Perhaps this secret tells why we play along, at least those kin to the moon. (These two poems were originally
published in "Block's Magazine", Muskingum Hilltop This April air soothes, liquid When the insomniac soul (For those interested in the process of
writing poetry, Another Quest
(And for those young writers who think writing ends, And dawn comes The day wakes Night, Death, and Other
Dreams
A Call For a Father Dawn coming soon, darkness yet holding sway, when the phone rings. “The doctor says you should come.” Bags always packed, we leave with practiced hurry. Determined, stubborn, he wins again, defies not merely death but doctors, stymies tests, refutes statistics. We have more time. We have two years of defiance we love, pre-dawn calls we hate, knowledge we fear. But another dawn has come, a day sunny and safe, a day for errands run slowly, knowing when the phone rings, it will be no worse than a bill collector. Ginny met me at the door. The call had come about 2PM. There was no more need to hurry. Abandoned Dreams We followed the familiar road, clear and known, choosing turns with speed and abandon, young, certain, and immortal. We slowed little as the road changed, asphalt to gravel to dirt, still laughing as day faded to night, as dirt faded to grass. And the road ended, rising into the unknown into weeds and briars and a high horizon that made no promise. Young, uncertain, impatient, we left the hill untouched, unchallenged, unknown. Like the rusting car we passed so often, we abandoned all by the dead end road, dream, daring, youth, and parted, each to our divergent way, each into the arms of time, each to our own harsh dark. Beyond the Door Night breathes beyond the door, calling once more, waiting, knowing I must come eventually, knowing mystery and hope bring the hunger and the hunt. And so, she breathes and laughs, not so tender this night but tempting, for the night is infinite, and where nothing can be seen, all things become possible. Sometimes hope rises not with the sun but with the moon. She laughs, and the hunt is on for secrets, the secret of the grail, the door to Camelot, the hidden end of a rainbow, the magic word, the hope that this exhausted dawn breaks not merely the night, not the spirit but the hardened mind, lets in not merely light but revelation. Joseph M. In the unreal hours of the night, he is about. Before dawn begins to whisper and weave again the fabric, when the merest threads hold the veil, he is about, this ancient, gaunt, ghost to be, draped in flannel, shuffling in darkness without and within, crying and croaking names no longer within our call, except, perhaps, in these unreal hours. And I lay in bed, wrapping my youth and covers about me, listening to the past, the present, perhaps the future, shuffle and call as the shrunken giant roams, mind departed, spirit trapped in the tar pit of his body, struggling for release. Gary We waited in the gray morning, knowing that no sun would break these clouds. We waited in the solarium, knowing that no sun would burn this fog. We waited as nurses went up and down the hall, in and out of rooms, white against the stubborn gray, the sound of footsteps coming and going, seeming to never stop. This coming had always been known, though slow, slower than any would have guessed, always coming, always known. The night had brought the end of knowing for him, the silence of the mind, waiting only for the body to admit what was known. The footsteps went up and down, up and down, and stopped at the door. Waiting ended. Memory, Realization, and Wonder She does not wait upon the Mossy hillside. The long climbs finds naught but her name among the stones, a reminder, slanted, low and gray. Long it has waited; long it will wait, but she is not there, though, perhaps she waits still, somewhere other than memories, few, faded, and fluttering along the mist-teased edge of an aging mind. She has not spoken, but perhaps somewhere she waits still. She has not spoken, but perhaps she watches still and still. (Here are a few very early works, mid 1980s to about 1990.) University Cemetery, Eugene, OR Tumbled stones loose their names Another Dawn Purple, pink, and ignorant, dawn But what comes through Night Breathes Night breathes beyond We do not So one of us hungers, Acceptance (written long, long ago) Maybe I could bleed a little, but Burnt offerings are out of style, lamb is expensive that god I've read about. Maybe if you like me A Visit With the Romantics (also from much younger days) Sometimes
I visit my world's Untitled (from around 1981) I gave myself a call to see how I had been. Imagine my surprise to find there's no one in. E-mail Back to the Home Page |
Writing and Education Autobiography Challenge Considering Conclusions Considering Introductions Four Meanings of Life Godot and the Great Pumpkin A Major is More Minor Than You Think The Poetry Process (A look at 4 versions of a poem.) Thoughts About Picking a Major Quick Points About Education Quick Points About Writing Reading Poetry and Cloud Watching Revising Revision Reviving Experience Reviving Symbolism Using an Audience Videos What Makes a Story True? What's the Subject of This Class? (Being revised.) Why Write? Writing and Einstein (The Difference Between Information and Meaning) Writing and the Goldilocks Dilemma Links to Other Sites |
Other Essays and Poetry Something Somewhat Vaguely Like a Resume Alec Kirby, Memories of an Earnest Imp Being Like Children Beyond the Genes (Dad) The Blessing and the Blues Bookin' Down Brown Street The Cat With a Bucket List David and the Revelation The Dawn, the Dark, and the Horse I Didn't Ride In On (an odd, meandering, semi-romantic story) Getting a Clue Ghost Dancer in the Twilight Zone The Hair Connection and the Nature of Choices I Believe in Capra The Mug, the Magic, and the Mistake Roto, Rooter and the Drainy Day Sadie on the Bridge Trumpet Player, USDA Approved Videos Poetry Selected Poems The Poetry Process Links to Other Sites |