Best Referential Poems
I enjoyed wrapping my mind around his words
Stretching my thinking
At times coming unglued
Reaching towards oblivion
While keeping my feet in multiple worlds
Standing on sinking ground
While leaning on granites precious solidity
The substance of imaginations inconsistencies
Tugging on the heart strings of a well played heart
Wondering along the pathway of dreams long held at arms length
Hoping to understand
Taking that backward look while moving forward and upward
Words are his gift
Dropped like psychedelic bombs
Ripping at the fabric of convention
Pain wrapped in sheepskin
Joy pushed through pencils point
Leaving me in awe
Dancing and stretching along
Bouncing against his liquid walls
Till I come out the other side
Understanding
Landing
Blessed
More than I was before
Yet part of myself
Stays behind
Trying to catch my breath
Dedicated to Drake
Submitted to Debbie's Guzzi's Referential Contest
"Closer" By Chris Aechtner reminded me of Drakes Work
and Drakes unusual word combinations thus inspiring
the above piece.
Philosophers, down the ages,
Have strenuously tried
To figure out language:
Their numerous narratives polarize
Into two Grand narratives, a binary:
Language is referential / differential.
This binary has yielded numerous derivatives.
On the referential side, for instance,
There’s the view that language is an instrument,
As advanced notably by Aristotle, Bhamaha and Dandin.
On the differential side, we have
Saussure’s notion:
Language is a system of differences
(without any positive terms).
Derrida, for his part, widened it:
Language is infinitely differential,
As suggested by his coinage differance,
which implies: language is
slippery, radically unstable,
which, in turn, gave rise to
mind-boggling derivatives
in this postmodern world!
Some of them are: Derrida’s (own) freeplay
of the (autonomous) sign,
Bloom’s (willful) misreading,
And Lyotard’s (incommensurable) language games
(which we all play in this postmodern space willy-nilly)
All these differences have led
Often to acrimonious disputes,
Couched, of late, in a language
that abounds in ambiguity
and neatly underpinned by illogic!
The predicament of these philosophers (old or new) is:
What they and we all observe
is not language-in-itself,
but language as seen by us—
which is similar to what Heisenberg said about nature!
These disputes remind us
of the dispute among the six characters,
in the age-old parable,
which reportedly originated in the Indian Rigveda.
(but now found in several belief systems).
It’s the parable of the six men
(as narrated by John Godfrey Saxe)
Wherein the characters tried
To figure out an elephant,
which, unfortunately, none of them
Had the faculty to see:
So, one called it soft and mushy;
for another it was like a snake;
for the third, it was fan-like,
And so on.
Thus, they “disputed loud and long,
Though each was partly in the right
…and all were [rightly] in the wrong!"
***
On that cloudy weekend in June
I hear a soft and graceful tune
from the grey bird on the tree
branch
Singing sweet lullabies felt
blessed in the moment
My body tingles of joy at sight
Gazing out through
my open door,
Letting thoughts fly free
Releasing love out into the horizon
Heart filled with emotion came
over me
Grey bird stood playing its tune
for awhile and on the wings of
letting go
Then as the rain fell from the
sky the grey bird flew away
gracefully
I blew a kiss to the clouds and
utterd these simple words of I
Love You father ( who's now in
heaven ) and yet I hope to hear
that grey bird sing again once
more for me
Farewell, love your son
Poem contest for Debbie -referential
If God is something that you think,
It is only a process that you drink;
Wittgenstein's answer of yes and no,
Does only referential justification show.
Societal concepts are never jokes,
But at other people make pokes;
They're straight with direct meaning,
So have an implied, absolute feeling.
David Lehman said Wittgenstein,
Was quoted by dons as sane,
And I just think he restated that,
Language is within society, fact.
God is not physical in any way,
'Cos ontology can't have it's say;
It can't describe the dais God,
Using predicate logic most odd.
But all things are describable,
And sets with no God table,
So we can easily conclude,
That he is just us being rude.
Reference: Wittgensteins Ladder by David Lehman
Life is like a pure glass goblet
Molded from the beginning
Etchings are added like memories
Each one carefully placed
Home is represented by a firm line
Showing the beginning of life
Followed by the ups an downs of growing up
Here the pattern begins
Love and marriage follows next
Children added to life's total
The hearts and tiny flowers
Are etched upon the glass
Old age quickly follows
The etcher with expertise
Entwines the flowing line
So that the picture is all as one
Life's pattern is etched for eternity
Unless carelessness causes
the glass to be shattered, gone for evermore.
Inspired by : Figure Fusion written by Robb Kopp
Penned 30 June 2013
Pattern creator weaving through semantic gridlock. Synaptic blockage has me dining on feedback. Consuming concepts of Id's bleeding out a dissociative psychocollage.
No Map No-Thing.
Images overlapping gaps of referential perspective all lapping up my awareness [{that is overclocked thinking thoughts at lightning speed}]
I have Become.
The Lone Madman stripping down the day and rearranging pieces my own way
DreamingDriftingDrowning in a sea of suspended belief. Jumping Juxtaposition! How to navigate such a clash of colloidal moment places?
Negation of orientation is a hidden freedom. In the Disconnect expect a mighty Vertigo; it briefly will swallow YOU leaving only the leafy sensation that is the essence of hollow. Immersion is complete. no more Self memory. No-Thing is concrete. Just a simple drop in the Bucket. This is We. This is dissolution. Attaching Desire and Control on Potentialities is disillusion.
.
Never looking up to see the sky
A "Robin's eggshell" color
Nor noticing or appreciating
The sun's golden hue
As it rose each day
Only seeing, breathing, feeling work~
Labor intensive work~
Capturing each thought
Holding bondage each breath
As each long hot day passed
Turning into years of misery
Early in the morning about the breaking of dawn
"Backed by a choir of ten thousand crickets"
Their voices mixed in with the music "reached up to touch heaven with a song"
Their heads bowed looking at the cotton crop
That held them prisoners for a lifetime
Wondering if, if there was any hope of redemption
Since they were tied to the land in bondage to scrape out a livin'
What is the rest of the story for it is unfinished 'til this day
"Closer" by Chris Aechtner
"Robin's Eggshell"
"Cotton Pickin' Paradise" by Tim Ryerson
"Backed by a choir of ten thousand crickets"
"Reaching up to touch heaven with a song"
Sponor: Debbie Guzzi
Contest: Referential
I based it somewhat on my parents telling about how they worked as children in the cotton fields, corn patches, gardens, etc. Then they left the farm and went to the cotton mills and some of the descendence from these two families rose above the poverty of both places..There was one doctor, one Lt. Colonel in the Coast Guard, and many more occupations scattered thorough out families that came from that poverty situation..
POINTS OF VIEW
Took kids for fresh air to zoo and laughed - are we or they behind bars?
Monkeys studying a parade of human specimens for their amusement:
Point of view was a novelty for kids -
Their cage locks were welded tight.
Stone walls and iron bars do a prison make
If our minds are the rigid stone and bars.
Can monkeys fly? Do fish walk?
Perhaps, I said. The kids laughed and then took photos
Everyone laughed and denied their own photo - That’s not me!
Of course it’s not. A two-dimension static image of a three-dimension dynamic person.
The camera makes monkeys out of us.
Cameras always lie...as a quoted scripture exerpt mayseem toprove anything.
You can’t expect to understand a stream from a single stone pebble;
You’ve got to see the whole flow and ebb for a truer picture.
Let go of expectations. Expect nothing. But always hope for everything.
We stopped at the ice-cream vendor.
An optimistic realist expects nothing and is never disappointed -
Expect nothing. Not even the unexpected.
Your mind full of stones will always bar progress of spirit.
Be empty of preconceived notions. New viewpoints are essential.
With no fresh air, no winged ideas, no wind of change, comes
Mildewed destruction of your spirit’s health. Poison to your system.
Be the deep-flowing fresh stream, washing limitless pebbles :
And if you get out of your depth, kids, then
Don’t fail to come crying to me.
...............................................................................................................
Written 1 July 2013 for Debbie Guzzi’s contest REFERENTIAL
Exerpts used are from CLOSER by Chris Aechtner
“caged snapshots of mildewed expectations,....on wings of letting go..”
Afghanistan…the land of occupation…?
From Britain…to Russia…to America…no love…a dove…?
Some military actions…referential contractions…
Moral destruction…resistance of fractions…
Country so poor…exposure to more…
Land mines…air strikes…the likes…
Hey man…what is the plan..?
Years of being a stronghold…as we are told…
From the Taliban to Al-Qaeda…the resistance seems wider…
The country…so hungry…
For survival…see the arrival…
Of foreign forces…any resources…?
For food…shelter…education…clothing…transports…?
The report…of the UN…the world food program…UNICEF…
Corruption…drugs…thugs…any hugs...?
The children…the pawns…in the storms…
The bombings…so damning…the innocents…the guilty…
The wounded…the dead…the counts…still mounts…
The cries…the lies…the truth…the root…
The news…the views…the critics…the rhetoric’s…
The politics of change…the range…
Of assessment…of the situation…is it a nation…in depletion…?
The costs…for the arms…it alarms…
UNSUPPORTED CODE
The Universe is the only self-referential reality
in the phenomenal world.
It is the only text
without context.
Thomas Berry
And yet
could no the same
be said of time
as text
without spatial context?
And could this universality of time as text
also become our co-gravitating unity
through co-arising diversity
of spaciating polypathic context?
Octavia Butler
defined God
as Change.
Time changes
or is eternally timeless;
a dead vacuous universal text
swelling and contracting
changes within timeless time
through eternally imaginable context.
If this Universe is God's text
without further context,
then this co-emerging race through time's distinctions
prefacing Earth's voiceless extinctions
proves time's full infinite eternity
contextualizes nothing more or less complete
than timeless here
as now,
Remembering time's near completion
without date
or finite ego-measurement;
lacking too-reductive calculations,
deductive text within-
without inductive sacred context
for God's Left and Right
YangForm through YinFunction
Universe as Sacred Change
Way
Truth
Trust
Life
Love
Grace
EcoPolitical NonDual DiPolar Karma
Restorative Yang EcoJustice with YinYin-WinWin Peace.
Three travelers are
having breakfast at
the halfway home
cafe.
"Ever since," Says
the captain,"I take
my coffee black.You
know how it is,when
you go black you
don't go back!"
The soldier
said,"Make it
white,extra
cream!"He winks at
his comrade and
proclaim,"When you
go white,nothing
else seem right."
Table no.3 at the
corner call
out,"Refill
please.Straight
Mocha!" He lifts up
the mug,beckons the
fellas and say."When
you go brown,you get
the crown!"
Haha!Yes i know.But
that does not
necessarily make
them racial!It could
be preference or
even referential!
As a Christian,i
pray for Israel.It
is not really an
obligation,its a
chemistry.Like most
people,i too
certainly is in love
with Israel!Not to
mention the fact
that,it is an added
blessing on those
who bless Israel.
However,it is also
written,"He who has
eyes,let him see and
he who has ears,let
him hear." I have
both,its the reason
why am able to
discern right from
wrong.So yes,am all
united for a free
Palestine!
Does that make me so
wrong in being
right?Or so right in
being wrong?
(Based on the seemingly-paradoxical logic behind Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, in which the self-referential Gödel statement can only be seen to be true from outside the system.)
I cannot believe that this statement is true.
Don’t try to convince me; you’d turn my face blue.
I’m choked by its verdict whatever I do.
The freedom to see it belongs to just you.
The youth, wearing only boxer shorts,
is gazing with a sense of awe
at the small square object in his hand.
A smartphone!
It has a screen; it also has a camera.
Its lens has captured a mirror
with the boy within its frame,
gazing upon, contemplating,
perhaps admiring, even,
the screen of a phone that now is holding
an image of himself in the frame of the mirror
holding the object that has captured it
within the frame of the screen.
We see this image as
we wander social media,
where the picture of the boy
in the mirror in the camera,
which he gazes down upon
with awe, as if it were
an alien artefact,
is there for us to ponder.
The image has stolen his attention;
it has captured and confined him,
fascinated and entranced him.
He has fallen into a shimmering pool,
self-referential, gazing at itself.
It is another land.
Dinner was over an hour ago
Counters wiped clean, dishes are washed and dried
I hold my glass up to the light like a color slide,
and see the world, warped, and blurred through the half glass of rosy wine
It makes everything seem clearer, somehow, and sobers my mind
From our long silhouettes, we sit on the lawn, and gaze to the mountains,
talking quietly, and sipping the pink charodonnay
Dark of the shade seems to drink up the light of day
Summer carols being sung by two mourning doves,
are accompanied by a choir of crickets in the dewy grass
calling for reverence in honor of a dying sun
Soft voices are lifted in still air
The pink light seems to paralyze time.
We have found kindness here,
and somehow the grueling trials of the year
seem smaller than they did yesterday
Now the day turns toward the darkness
and we have rid our taste of the dry and bitter dust
of everything that has been said and done
The north wind shakes the trees
and the last leaf that clung so fast and tight
releases its grip, and disappears into the dusk
We shall never need to see where it lands
for we are forbidden strangers to the dark
Let us remain friends with the light
Let us unclench our old resistance
And after we have finished the last drop of wine
we will turn, and go inside
and thank our stars
for the pungent taste
that yet lingers
on our tongues
in case
we might
need
proof
that some years will harvest a bitter taste....
and
some
years
will
harvest
a
crop
blessed
by
the
sun
_____________________________________
For Deb's Contest: "Referential"
reference: Chris Aechtner's Poem: unclench fists
It seems I can’t escape this plot, this telling of the tell;
a mandatory element is a first-person write.
Just don’t make me the villain of this sordid villanelle.
I much prefer to narrate from deep down within my shell;
I like to lurk in shadows and remain tucked out of sight.
Alas, I can’t escape this plot, this telling of the tell.
It’s not that I’ve got much to hide; that’s one I can dispel.
But making much about oneself: a war I’ve had to fight.
Just don’t make me the villain of this sordid villanelle.
I’d rather paint a masterpiece or cast a magic spell
With heroes bold and brave and strong, with maidens fair and slight.
Alas, I can’t escape this plot, this telling of the tell.
Or tales about redemption from the fiery pit of hell
with pastures green to rest one’s head on clear and starry nights…
Just don’t make me the villain of this sordid villanelle.
And so, dear reader, though I strain to bring you in as well,
I hope you can forgive a man’s self-referential plight.
Alas, I can’t escape this plot, this telling of the tell;
just don’t make me the villain of this sordid villanelle.
----------
for the First Person Villanelle Poetry Contest
sponsored by L Milton Hankins
written on 08/26/2022