They pumped sludge in your waters,
mainlined you with Novocain,
paved the meadows and felled the forests,
snipped the stem from your rollicking brain.
Now you lean back and mock these
wide-eyed pupils for which you've no use,
lambaste me for childlike hypersensitivity, but
I've just got the everyday
transcendental blues.
So 9/11 rocked your deep foundations,
made you question the company you keep.
But it was only a bad dream, and these days
everyone's fallen blessedly back asleep.
Embroiled in office politics and controversy,
each day combating a new rival and ruse.
But such amusements bore one to death
who's suffering from the everyday
transcendental blues.
Manic Cassandra wants to be my friend,
she says we've got so much in common.
But if she knows the troubles I've seen, how come
she can't penetrate to the crux of my problem?
Euclid never meant to hurt a soul.
It's the same excuse all tyrants use.
Your ordered world's so far out of control,
and I've got the everyday
transcendental blues.
Must I embrace every enemy?
Sometimes I find I’d rather not.
But we're brothers ‑‑ and more ‑‑ beneath the marrow,
ticking off each sand grain and fallen sparrow.
Every cactus and soaring hawk,
every silk glove, every fraying hem,
all the villains and heroic desperados:
they're part of me, and I of them;
all the wise men and many more fools,
those who trade in sorrows and sundry pains,
decades spent in baking deserts
or drowning under the bombs of hurricanes,
immersed in Brahman and cosmic tenderness
where heartbreak lingers, yet nothing's amiss,
all tragedy rectified with monocular glee:
only peace and love shall set souls free.
Was it like this for Christ and the Buddha
in wilderness crowds of somnambulists?
Driving miles and miles with both headlights on
through swirling mires of subconscious mists?
Down in dank basements before dualities
get broken into wars you can't win or lose.
But once your eyes have been opened
you can't turn away from everyday
transcendental blues.
20090928
Everyday Transcendental Blues
Copyright © 2009 Ernest Bloom.
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This piece is very pleasantly lucid and ah, shall I say, structural. The refrain of transcendental blues successfully establishes a charming and melodious flow.
ReplyDeleteThe first stanza is quite fascinating as you merge the individual, the human, with the massive- the state. The toxin-infested waters are the souls that in us dwell and the souls _are_ the decaying waters of the country. Unity is the word and I well believe this is the prevalent theme throughout the piece, the theme you establish with flying colors in the very first lines.
I must note on the whole that I exceptionally enjoyed this piece. The words felt natural. The meaning streamed past the tedious trepidations of my reasoning and fell right into the mystic zone of the knowing. The choice of words and images was particularly striking. Everything just fell together like a jigsaw puzzle and every sound felt just about right.
The 4th stanza stands out in this piece, stands out so much I silently regret the rest of the poem isn't as mesmerizing as this one but it matters not, the quality drop isn't too huge, not huge enough to cause a collapse of aesthetic balance, not for this reader, at the very least. It's hard to point out exactly what is great about this part. It's just literally masterful. The occasional rhymes propel the flow and emphasize the passion of the speaker for passionate he or she decisively is. The way you descend from the everyday items into matters of cosmic importance and seamlessly flow into the zone of Eastern philosophy- this contributes greatly to the feeling of unity and transcendence you are trying to excite.
Okay, enough of this flattery and adulation. Only last thing I want to say- this piece is very much nearing perfection for the sole reason that it's both simple and complex. It feels light on your reason but works magic on your understanding, sneaking in little pieces of mystic knowledge. Some of your poems, I notice, tend to stray too much into the scientific or the complex, losing precious fabrics of the poetics somewhere along the way- not wholly, but to a significant and somewhat crippling effect. This one is the bridge between the down-to-earth and the Heavenly. Of course, this is just my subjective opinion, yours to use as your soul but deigns for the soul must not be strained, hurried or hurdled- it must follow its own path through the quantum highways of the universe, or it's bound for one hell of a freak accident.