I write poetry, as a lot of you know, and it’s generally a pretty harsh and thankless field. Even the great poets are only recognized among other poets, and most not even that. I’ve noticed, on facebook, that when I comment on somebody’s post in rhyme, it is generally ignored, while some others can post a status update of “I don’t want to get out of bed this morning” and it will lead to a spirited debate with hundreds of comments. I can’t figure it out, so I’ll stick to my plan: I’m going to keep writing, in the hopes that eventually I’ll write something so blindingly brilliant it will be unignorable.
Today was a pretty good day. On my way to my first class, which turned out to be my only class of the day, the morning light was sharp coming over the buildings and actually lit up a patch of the derelict, pink, ex-military hospital that gives Invalidovna its name, and I thought “To see things in a different light, is more than just a metaphor” and I’m pretty sure that’s a good first line for a poem but I haven’t got anything more written down – that’s my task for tomorrow. One concept I want to get in there is that morning light is different from evening light, which is weird because you’d think they’d be exactly the same, parallels, but morning light means clarity, sharpness, new beginnings, brilliance, a lack of ambiguity, whereas evening light is soft, nostalgic, relaxing, a precursor to the darkness of night.
Anyway, after that I spent most of the day on facebook, and got two poems written there, which I liked, although they were pretty much ignored, and if you hate poetry, especially rhyming poetry, you can stop at this point because the rest of the blog is mostly cut and paste.
The first one was in reply to a post commemorating Galileo’s birthday:
Galileo Galilei
Was coerced, and forced to say
The the Sun moves round the Earth
I would have, too, for what it’s worth
To tell an itty bitty lie
To stay alive and not to die
Now, it’s alleged that he said
The Earth moves round the sun instead
Sotto voce, sort of muttered
“Nonetheless, it moves” he uttered
I don’t believe he said those words
Because, if anyone had heard
He would have been executed
And his voice more swiftly muted
Still, it’s irrelevant, just because
Whatever Galileo said
In his desire to keep his head
Indeed it does, indeed it does
And the second was a more general thought on the weirdness of having “facebook friends” who you don’t actually know in real life, or at any rate not that well, but we’re all kind of the same.
I see the family photos, upon my facebook screen
Of people who I’ve never met,and never even seen
In a park, beside a lake, as pretty as you please
Or in Uncle Bob’s back yard, between two leafy trees
The children standing in the front, their smiles are nice and bright
And the patriarch and matriarch, with hair so snowy white
Each in their position, each one has their role
They look just like my family, though I don’t know a soul
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