Fragments of a Poem

Hancock Beach, Martha's Vineyard

These fragments are an appropriate entry for this week.  I am working on a new poem to capture my experiences this past week on Martha's Vineyard. I am trying to focus on positive images and themes and as you can see up 'til now, most of my poems are emotional responses to situations.  What I am working on now are poems that reflect my everyday experiences, including my vacation.  I hope to have something more next week, but in the meantime, this poem describes my attempts to get 'behind' the meaning of the poem to get closer to the unreflected experience that was the genesis of the poem. That is Dawn and her brother in the photo on the best beach on MV.  In the original, the word 'empty' in line 13 was 'Algerian' - homage to Camus and his essays on growing up on the beach under the blazing North African sun.


        i
The poem  pure and simple
Unadorned   like Sunday afternoons
old wall clocks   tick tock tick tock
the day moves slowly.
I long this Sunday afternoon
to write a single verse
uncluttered  empty vessel
into which is poured
the reader's secret longings.


       ii
The sterile line  unclouded
unblemished verse   like an
empty beach     like . . . .


       iii
The pure  word   wherein
all holy beings lie
in repose, from which is
poured
the reader's secret longings.