Mythos & Marginalia

2015 – 2025: a decade of days


  • poetry to be formula-free

    “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind,
    of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”

                                            -Albert Einstein

    Too long now I’ve been trying to find the essence of poetry, to break it down to a simple format or formula, and completely understand how it moves and why it speaks.

    It can’t be all that difficult, I supposed, for if something as significant as the Special Theory of Relativity can be explained so simply and eloquently, why couldn’t then be poetry.

    E = mc2

    In demonstrating that mass and energy are the same, Albert Einstein used but a few letters to universally explain. Admitting though, at the time, the concept itself was somewhat above the average mind.

    Physics, calculus, and specialized sciences have always made use of equations to express a question or solution for every occasion. In mathematics, a rule or principal is frequently spelled out in algebraic symbols. With math, or chemistry, equations quantify anything large into something more compact, like poetry does within the boundaries of language.

    Formulas are easily understood by those familiar with the topic, but difficult for those without specific knowledge. One need not acquire specific wisdom to understand, enjoy, and write poetry.

    Simply stated (without an equation), prose and verse is about life. Poetry is logic.

    Although logic, and life itself, gets complicated, it is more easily understood in poetic form. Like life itself, poetry is not a concept unfamiliar to us; it is expression of the soul and of the senses. We have been surrounded by poetry since we were mere babes, weaned on nursery rhymes and raised with music, popular lyrics consciously or subconsciously showing us rhythm and meter and cadence and phrasing. Each of us has an inner knowledge of poetry, whether we admit it or not.

    So, like Einstein’s E and m and c, can we not find an equation for poetry? It’s not a complicated question like Why doesn’t the moon crash into the earth? Or it shouldn’t be. So I continue searching for something that should be rudimentary, but with a subject so seemingly simple, why has this search become more of a quest?

    Each day, with an open mind and a cluttered desk, or a wandering mind at a sunlit park bench, I try to put my thoughts to rest. I imagine it should be simple like the X and Y of equations gone by, but will chose my own letters and continue to try.

    My L can represent Love and my S might be sorrowY may be yellow (colours are a precious tool to play with, and to borrow). V, of course, is volume or velocity, and T, well time is a given, as now it might be.

    So I come up with something that seems to make sense, except mornings, before coffee, when my mind is so bloody dense.

    P=S ± (T+e) /V x L [m/L + s/L + f/L ]+A x π+g x M

    Poetry equals Senses plus or minus time and emotion, divided by the velocity of our motion. We can only feel those feelings at times we cannot express, but they are there, they are whole, even when they’ve gone amiss.

    And then there is Love; mindful love and soulful love or lustful love, dying love, a love not returned or acknowledged, even so it must so be added. Love goes to the highest power, for it may be the most basic tenet of poetry.

    Your attitude, on any given day, impacts the circumference of your being; easily marked with the symbol Pi, it’s not how hard you live, but how hard you try. Throw in a little geography, the places we’ve travelled or the settings of which we dream, and with it all it is mind over matter. So make it matter, as poetry does.

    Now, I’ve never been much with mathematics, or any of its sub-genres or derivatives, preferring study of the less absurd; the uncalculated pleasures of the profound written word.
    But my lesser knowledge of calculus, or trigonometry, cannot take away from what is a part of me.

    So I, in many ways, use a basic math. You add feelings, time references, and thought, divide up your musings and subtract the words that get in the way. Then it gets messy, for many times the words preventing you from moving ahead are unspoken and can’t be said and therefore must only be represented by an X, Y or a Z, but can’t always be summed up with an M or a C.

    The thing is, I don’t want my letters to simply represent something, I want them to be part of it; a piece of everything poetry is and what it stands for.

    My letters form words, and yes my S might not be sorrow, but it can also sizzle, sensual, or a shadow. The T is part of temptation and tsunami, and is even part of style. And the beloved X works well for a xenophile, or an easyexit, the text on which we rely. My words are whole and my words are true, they represent a life shared by me, or by you. Whether linear, or constructive, or lyrical verse, words become quite ubiquitous, or sometimes even terse.

    So as simple as poetry is, it can seem very complicated. There are no equations, quotients, and its powers can’t be expressed by number. It cannot be squared, it simply has to be free and a poem cannot be summed up by an E, m, or C. Poetry in all its forms, be it whispered or spoken from pages torn, in all the states or divinity might better be expressed by nothing less, or more, than infinity.

    “Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.”
                                                                            -Albert Einstein

  • look away

    Gather, you beggars. Assemble 
    like pigeons, seeking morsels of kindness 
    on these filthy city streets. We notice but do not acknowledge.  
    Or apologize. 
     
    I cannot deal with all I see. 
     
    Any spare change? No answer. No chance.  
    I saunter by in my warm parka, well-rested, belly full 
    of breakfast. I know no hunger, though not immune  
    to the pang. Sunglasses shield my eyes.  
    I have witnessed too much. 
     
    There, but by the grace of God, go I. 
     
    They remain. Unrecognizable 
    even to those who have loved them. A person’s sister, somebody’s  
    brother, somebody’s child. A somebody;  
    another vacant bed or private hell 
    another excuse or story to tell. 
     
    We do not want to hear. 
      
    Nor dare to breathe. Ask no questions. 
    I am only what I ask myself to be. If 
    charity begins at home, what then of the homeless? Nothing. 
    I know where I will sleep tonight. 
     
    Ashamed. I do little but look away. 
     
    Filthy pigeons stare back.  
    Then scatter. 

  • faith

    Coffee, fresh shirt, plans and rationalizations 
    see us through another day. So it goes,
    each day commences with hope.
    It has to. Something has to. 
    Deadly sins we keep within; bigotry, dishonesty, 
    infidelity. Silently, we weather a toxic environment.
    We live. We learn. How long 
    until the coffee becomes bitter, 
    or cold? When will a shirt 
    become creased, or stained? Which knowledge is lost
    and what remains? When do old habits return 
    as mistakes? Again.
    Have we become complacent to lies we are sold, 
    or those we spit out? And we do. 
    Rarely do we say what we mean. Each sentence 
    a vapour trail. The previous, the past, 
    or the pathetic catches up by three, or by five.
    This is how we live, or how we will die.
    No aspirations. No sorrow.
    Dawn to dusk, twilight then starlight. weary
    or resentful, we will rest and repeat tomorrow. 
    Again. Hope returns. It has to. Faith.

  • Love of the pencil – 2B or not 2B

    Overused and underappreciated, the common pencil does not get the credit it deserves.

    We rave about advances in technology, the introduction of shiny new tablets and mobile devices, and we often hear about how the pen is mightier than the sword, but rarely do we hear someone speak affectionately about the pencil.

    “A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blowtorch.”
    -Michael Ondaatje

    The pen gets all the credit, but the pencil does all the work.

    With a crayon, we learn to express ourselves with scribbles and bursts of colour long before we can even understand the concept of vocabulary, but once we have found our voice, the pencil is the next brave step we take in communicating.

    Probably the most important writing we will ever do — the process of learning how to form each stroke, dot, and curve of those 26 letters — was done with a pencil. That’s when we begin to arrange the alphabet into something meaningful; it’s when we try, it’s when we dare, and it is when we make mistakes. We learn, then, to rely on the eraser conveniently attached to the pencil top.

    I’ve always liked pencils. In fact, I prefer a pencil to the pen. Most likely, it’s because I am left-handed and abhor the stain that builds up on the flesh as you write from left to right, dragging the underside of your hand across all you have accomplished. This factor alone has precluded me from ever using a fountain pen (easily the most admirable of writing instruments) so I have, through the years, developed infinity for the common pencil. Yes, the pencil leaves a shadow, but it is easily washed away.

    Above all else, it is the utilitarian nature of the pencil that keeps me connected. The pencil is always available. The pencil is uncomplicated; it does what it does, and does so without promising to do any more.

    There is nothing confusing about a pencil. There are no caps to remove (or lose), no buttons to press, and there is no complex inner mechanism involving springs and tubes. A pencil has no clip and it slips easily into a pocket, or behind the ear. A pencil is economical and was designed to be used to its fullest efficiency. When the tip becomes dull, you sharpen the lead and continue to write. As the pencil, again, becomes dull, it is once again sharpened. After repeated sharpening, as the nub becomes too tiny to fit comfortably in your hand, you simply take a new pencil (indeed a moment of celebration) and begin anew.

    It’s not like a pen, neither an expensive instrument that has to be refilled with ink, or a cheap one made to be used and then tossed away. The pencil leaves little waste behind, and much of it is biodegradable, while a plastic pen is destined to sit in a landfill for years and years. But let’s not bother thinking about the dead pencil after its work is done, let’s instead talk about the magic a pencil can inspire.

    Quickly and easily, a pencil can make dreams come alive. Somehow the pencil makes writing a wholly tactile experience. I’m drawn to the romance of the hearty scratch as the lead meanders across the paper, the pencil sounding out progress. The trail of graphite grey left on the page, whether 2B or not 2B, tells my story. With each pencil stroke there is less of me, but more of myself. You can hear it in the writing, unlike a pen with its smooth ballpoint.

    While thought, itself, begins the writing process, the pencil is the next step, transforming snippets and sentences from the idle mind into a workable form. My notebooks and journals are written primarily in pencil as I plan, plot, and structure my projects and poetry. These words, what is written right here, began with notes penciled into a scribbler, random thoughts I jotted down, latter riffing with the reason before sitting down a tapping out the details.

    Nothing else feels like the true connection of the familiar hexagon as you take a pencil in hand and place your thoughts directly onto the page. Should you err, the eraser is right there. Pens do not allow the same flexibility; a mistake is a mistake, and those mistakes are often not editable, or are not corrected as efficiently. Show me an ink eraser that actually works without leaving behind a silent smudge, or removing the patina from the paper.

    There mere fact that permanence of pen and ink allows less room for revision may be the cause of silent insecurity when using a pen. We are more cautious when writing with a pen. As human beings we all fear mistakes, even more so the inability to make corrections. With the pen allowing less latitude, I’m more inclined towards the pencil.

    Pencils take the likelihood of mistakes into account.

    Responding to mood and emotion, the same pencil can just as easily leave a crisp line as it can a powerfully thick mark. Each stroke leaves a track on the paper, and you can be as bold as you wish, knowing you can change up your phrasing and rearrange the words with confidence.

    Not only does a pencil have a purpose, its purpose is true. A pencil will work anywhere, in rain, in heat, even in the soul-crushing frigidity of a -40 degree Manitoba winter. And it will work until it no longer can, and then make room for another pencil.

    In these days of debate as to whether cursive writing should be continued in the school system, we might even want to take a step back and look at writing instruments, and the use of the pencil itself.

    Laptops and tablets are used in the classroom at earlier levels, denying the student the pure pleasure of using a pencil and letting their thoughts wander across the blank page. We are blessed with fingers and thumbs (the digit which separates us from the animals) to hold a pencil, and the manual dexterity to communicate with our hands, and to leave our mark. I’m not sure the thumb tapping and swiping allows the same development of fine motor skills (or the thought process for that matter). Handwriting: if we don’t use it, do we then lose it?

    Now, I’m not particularly fussy about my pencils. I do, indeed, have favorites brands, but mostly I write with what is available. And (in full disclosure of one of my few nerdy traits) I always carry a few spare pencils, with a sharpener, in my pencil case.

    Like a kid, I am attracted to the pencil colours and designs often available seasonally, but these less-than-serious offerings are just momentary infatuations. Though I have a couple of skull and crossbones pencils I save for particularly dangerous writing, I’m pretty much content with the standard yellow pencil.

    Much like people, it is not what’s on the outside, but the inner core that truly matters.

    “No one has yet tested the pencil to see how many words it can write.”
    – Xi Chuan

  • where thoughts flow and dreams escape

    You’ve been dreaming as long as you’ve been living. Restful or restless, the visions, images, thoughts and ideas that come to you at night play a major role in how we function during our waking hours.

       Dreams are a part of living and, for many of us, a reason to live.

       We all know what it is like to dream — a natural function, all done during the tranquil hours where the body is immobile — but few take the time to capitalize on the train of thought that flows through the mind while the rest of you is motionless.

       Your mind is a flurry while sleeping, recounting people; places, scenes and faces; deep thought and deeper fears are all a part of your dreaming state. Whether frustration-fuelled or alcohol-kissed, thoughts travel far and wide throughout the mist. Never is the mind still. Research indicates the mind may be more active, and more powerful, during sleep than it is while you are awake.

       We are always thinking while we dream, but how often do we take the time to consider how we dream, or why? Although it is an activity we partake in for more than a third of our lives, do we ever give sleep (or the act or art of sleeping) our undivided attention?