Second poem in a row I've opened a collection of Borges' poems and found a word to start me. When you think of Borges, with his bottomless knowledge of myth and bottomless well of mythical creation, it may seem a poor reflection on duncehead simple-minded me that the word was, in fact, "myth." But there you have it. When a girl is starting a new poem, she ingests the sure witchery without looking back, the sure transformation from emotion to word with gratitude and unquestioning acceptance.
I began:
The poem moves on to the hereafter and the here and now. Writing some days later, some drafts later, I realized that what satisfied me most about the poem--it's obvious hint of self-revelation--worked against the poem opening to the universal and becoming more than confessional. So (with the second stanza added here) I changed pronouns:Myth is the man with the hook
cramped on the door handle of
my family's red Rambler. Seems
I'm about to leak the hue's variant,
a worser rose oxidized in
Mulholland's moist night air.
Myth is the man with his hook
cramped on the door handle of
your family's red Rambler.
Seems you're about to leak the hue's
variant, a worser rose oxidized in
Mulholland's moist night air.
As a reader I'm now more excited about the poem, where it's heading. I have a tingling sense of participation. Granted, I'm easy, a willing participant, happy to be suspended in disbelief, more so after the change because I'm a "you."Your death will be a mystery because
you don't drive on Mulholland at night.
This poem, currently "Poem for Mr. Sage," weaves death, the caring and uncaring universe, kindness, callousness, connection, family, a lover. I think it does, anyway. I believe the poem stands a better chance of being what I just promised it was, with the pronoun substitution. YOU, dear reader, are invited in through more stanzas, more transformation.
