incoherent, irrational
emotionally hypothermic
she initiates terminal burrowing
paradoxical undressing,
an illusion of warmth,
accelerates her demise
beneath the frosted
eyes of aspens
a final hallucination
circle of frozen angels
their wings long distorted
by the transformative ice
preside, their excruciating
silence heralds her
last breath, reveals
her true nature
Notes: This poem is a continuation of Ice Floe, originally posted in March:
Here is the writer who with all his heart and soul, with his art, in anguish and travail offers nourishment – there is the reader who’ll have none of it, and if he wants, it’s only in passing, offhandedly, until the phone rings. Life’s trivia are your undoing. You are like a man who has challenged a dragon to a fight but will be yapped into a corner by a little dog. from Ferdydurke
I’m an Executive Director with a doctorate in education, a consultant, painter, photographer, composer, poet, and vocalist.
Language casts sheaves of reality upon the social body, stamping it and violently shaping it… Language as a whole gives everyone the same power of becoming an absolute subject through its exercise. But gender, an element of language, works upon this ontological fact to annul it as far as women are concerned and corresponds to a constant attempt to strip them of the most precious thing for a human being – subjectivity. Gender is an ontological impossibility because it tries to accomplish the division of Being. But Being is not divided. God or Man as being are One and whole. So what is this divided Being introduced into language through gender? It is an impossible Being, it is a Being that does not exist, an ontological joke, a conceptual maneuver to wrest from women what belongs to them by right: conceiving of oneself as a total subject through the exercise of language. The result of the imposition of gender, acting as a denial at the very moment when one speaks, is to deprive women of the authority of speech, and to force them to make their entrance in a crablike way, particularizing themselves and apologizing profusely. The result is to deny them any claim to the abstract, philosophical, political discourses that give shape to the social body. Gender then must be destroyed. The possibility of its destruction is given through the very exercise of language. For each time I say ‘I’ I reorganize the world from my point of view and through abstraction I lay claim to universality. This fact holds true for every locutor.
All the things that really matter to us are impossible…Writing poetry is impossible. I don’t know how to write a poem. A poem – there has to be a part of it that is not my own will; it comes from somewhere that I don’t know. There is so much that comes out of what we don’t know and what we don’t have any control over. I think that one of the only things we can learn as we get older is a certain humility. – from Doing the Impossible
Chromapoetica
very very good. beautiful stuff.
Art wins, transforming heartbreak into a thing of beauty.
the trees are very beautiful, and the icefloes in the video are so deathly and beautiful, the wolf on the floe makes you want to reach out. you make powerful stories. this natural universe is wholly terrifying and beautiful.
The trees are near my home, I took the picture on a chilly October morning. I felt that way about the wolf too. Thank you dearly for the compliment.
“profound hypothermic declarations”
to
” their excruciating
silence heralds her
last breath, reveals
her true nature”
The beauty of the images is crisp and cruel. I still do not know who or what she is to have such a maddening exquisite death. I wanted her to be the aspen itself, but then I wanted the tree to live through the undressing and the freezing and earlier, the views of the northern lights.
I don’t either Susan, was she a persona, a tree, an art, a liminal being, an animal, a part of myself, a shaman? One of the joys of making art is the exploration and often I am dreaming with my eyes open, searching a space I cannot define to find something my heart and mind insist are real but my hands have yet to embrace.
Leave out my name and this is another poem.
😀 I will be by to visit today.
Rich imagery. 🙂
The one from March is wonderful to revisit.
:D.
emotional hypothrmia, terminal burrowing….great opening stanza…i really like the closure as well…the last stanza is tight…really crisp imagery throughout…the frozen angels…i feel it as well anna…well done
Thanks Brian, I’ve worked with the theme and images before, they keep coming up so I thought I’d explore them again.
most def explore…smiles..hope your week is going well…
You too, I can only imagine the heartbreak of losing a student.
I love this. THe image is beautiful. The poem is wonderful. I love the paradox of dying revealing our true nature in life. In the past, I’ve said that I sometimes think we spend our whole lives learning how to die. So in dying it is not the end of life but a transition – a reveal. Really nice work Anna.
It was a beautiful morning, the first real frost in early October. Yes, a paradoxical revelation, an eloquent statement. Thank you for returning and again for your inspirational images for Poetics.
I do like your writing style – so I’ll be back. 🙂
:D.
crystalline beauty. beneath the frosted/ eyes of aspens/ a final hallucination — brings the truth of transformation into the human realm. I love this.
Jane, that you love it makes its painful birth worthwhile, thank you!
I would say I’m sorry it was painful but that would be a lie. Like a newborn babe, this poem is pure delight.
Thank you, my artistic children are precious to me, so wonderful when they are found delightful.
great visuals here, literal and metaphoric. Love the aspen stanza, came out really nice. The mood is easily found here too and what an awesome photo, came out great. thanks.
Thanks Fred, it was an emotional, spur of the moment write. I generally avoid that method of production :).
I love the intensity of the emotion… the sadness, the hollowness, the mystery. A beautiful photo followed by haunting words that made me want to reach out and hug you (her). xoxo
Kelly 😀 xoxo.
She initiates terminal burrowing…a light bulb line for me…no one told me rebirth was so difficult. Fantastic image to accompany this piece, Anna…but I’m a little chilly 😉
Me too Tash but there’s a world of possibility in what comes next :D!
wonderful anna…the image is gorgeous and i just love how you make us feel it through your words..love the frozen angels..
Thank you Claudia, these short pieces can be difficult for me so your feedback is most appreciated.
The imagery you convey surely aren’t cold, alos like the frozen angels and that last stanza really brought it home, nicely done!
Thanks Pat, hope you know I was kidding with that rat link. She is one strange artist.
Beautiful, Anna. Loved the aspens, too.
Thanks Susan, I always enjoy your visits :).
A very tight & touching piece, Anna, angels carved out of ice with rocks for wings, as “she” makes her burrow; for me she was bruin, ready to take her last gulp of winter, and drifting into the miasma of hibernation, slowing her heart rate. What must bear dream of while in that stasis? Love the fact that so many of us are led by our words, taken to undiscovered countries while blindfolded, and when we peek out we are not always sure how we got there, or even where the hell we are.
Oooo miasma of hibernation, nicely put! I always wondered about animals that hibernate or go into torpor. Now I have to see who’s done the research on that and incorporate it somewhere. Also your description of artist as kidnap victim is spot on.
beautiful photo and lines to match… love those eyes of aspens
Thank you, they stare at me all day so they occasionally make appearances in my work.
Great imagery , a wonderful write Anna.
Thanks Ayala :)!
The trees are beautiful. I would imagine succumbing to hypothermia would be like a dream or hallucination to those who were slipping away. I Hope the Arctic wolf made it to the shore.
Brilliant.
Yes, paradoxical undressing, terminal burrowing and hallucinations all may occur during profound hypothermia. I too hope for the wolf.
Beautiful, Anna… especially:
beneath the frosted
eyes of aspens
a final hallucination
Thanks Laurie, great to see you.
so GOOD, Anna! wonderful imagery, loved it!
Miriam, you make me SMILE!
I like it all, but the first stanza stands out for me, principally for its aural qualities –
incoherent, irrational
emotionally hypothermic
she initiates terminal burrowing
the alliteration and various forms of rhyme/half-rhyme are very bright and propel the tercet forward
Thanks Luke, good to see you; glad your website is back up!
The language is basically intoxicating, as usual. I love the way you play with words and how you use them. Very much a craftswoman here, yet, yet you play with sentiment, which is somewhat unusual as of late. It’s interesting because of all the “frosted” “frozen” imagery. It plays quite a contrast. (And I like it; it’s so difficult to sentiment well.) “incoherent, irrational
emotionally hypothermic” –not quite, not at all.
Yes, I fall in love with the language of a piece first. For me the contrast allows the sentiment to strike instead of insinuate and coddle. Your feedback is always very interesting, thank you for taking the time to really engage the work.
Maybe the end of cold. k.
:).
cool 🙂
You’re a stinker.
lol . . . this is superb anna and the video is V.well put together with all the right ingredients.
I agree with luke re Stanza 1 and i love the wolf on water section of the video – an excellent pic word music combo!
Way Cool! 😀
I hope you amuse yourself :P. Thank you, that’s my favorite part too.
I love this:
“she initiates terminal burrowing
paradoxical undressing”
Thank you.
Oh, and that photograph is gorgeous!
:D.
..frozen angels that bring many, many things in mind… genuinely captivating stanzas…
Thank you Kelvin, very nice to see you again.
heartbreakingly beautiful…emotional hypothermia…makes one feel a bit dizzy…the images are spare and evocative.
What a fantastic compliment, I am so grateful.
I found this very sad. Cold weather, snow , ice all represent sadness and death to me… Those lacey trees are beautiful but they still represent an uneasy sort of menacing. Liked this poem.Makes one realise the fundamental differences between dwellers of the cold climes and those from the heat. We may feel the same things but we express it differently because of our environment. I will settle for sadness and death tropicana style…stinking humidity ,rotting vegetation and poisonous snakes:) but always with the smell of mangoes in the air.
PS
I think that sort of sadness and aloness can only be expressed in ice floes and dark northern
winters. Well done.
That’s a fascinating point. I do find there’s something about extreme cold that evokes that intense sadness. Thanks so much!
The ice stretches and cracks.. great aural qualities to this piece Anna.
Becky, you have a great ear for poetry so I deeply appreciate this comment.
Reveals her “true nature”? To me it felt like revealing her “raw material” as she disappears — a mesmerizing description of a cold, desolate death: spelled out boldly.
Could be, that’s an interesting perspective. Mesmerizing is a lovely compliment.
Indeed, ’twas a compliment.
Thank you :).
beautiful Anna… the photo and the poem that was born with it… just beautiful.
Thanks Laura, lovely to see you again.
Read the beauty of this several times Anna – a perfect capture of natures seasonall chill as she undresses flora for what is to come.
Anna :o]
Thank you, I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Hi Ann. I’m finally getting caught up on making some rounds–traveling and good cheap web access do not always go well together! I really enjoyed this piece, especially as I swelter here in the humid Australian summer! “Emotionally hypothermic” is a great line–so much so that if it were me, I’d change the use of “hypothermic” in the poem from March. Otherwise, the two parts work quite well together–and could stand equally well o their own. Great writing.
Yes, I didn’t initially intend to write a connecting poem so I could go back and edit the video. Lovely to see you again, thank you!