To Pass and Continue
“And…to pass and continue…I depart as air, I shake
my white locks at the runaway sun.”
Walt Whitman
Pursuit and loss cling,
long, to material gain,
always with bound wings,
never staked though, once achieved.
Together stitched, left wanting.
The graves built on need,
require and death; lack’s last gift.
Everyone’s abundant lift,
even passing, is light and,
sweet life. What is inside leaves?
20 thoughts on "To Pass and Continue"
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i know you started with WW,
but to me, this feel like you borrowed Emily D’s nib.
(i see your semi colon, cityboy..) 🙂
i hung on every word!
needs gentle unfolding to catch everything
you’ve managed to pack into this.
back for a second pass..
and a friendly suggestion.
maybe… ‘every one, abundant..’ or ‘abundant lift of every one’
something about both ‘ ‘s ‘ makes me wonder too much about personal ownership, instead of what we share in death..
That’s good ….it has to end on gift because that soft echoes ‘gain’ and throws forward to lift. I do agree that the apostrophe is not working in that sentence. Great feedback
Lol….I can never figure out how many syllables – every- has…..lol
Tankacrostics….lol….who knew
i know the feeling.. 🙂 can-tanka-russ!!
two knuckles on ev.er.y finger 🙂
‘each one with(or)has abundant lift …”(?)
each might hang well with even, and hints at
transcendental reach…
You are awesome 🙂
Thanks for the comment! Yeah Emily
Is another in thw series and they do seem to be starting to bleed into each other…..lol…didn’t know I was gonna do these/ can’t believe I have 8 of them. It’ll take some work but I like the series and I’ve already started working on the cover.
We’ll work on it more next year:-)
I don’t know about
all the technical stuff
I just FEEL this
is a damn good poem.
“pursuit & loss”
“light & sweet life”
Indeed
Thanks Jim.
Regarding the technical. You just made my year. I started the year fascinated at the way Anna Akhmatova was able to make form disappear in her poems and these short 10 line poems are in tight form and what you said just totally made my year.
Thank you
Thank you Coleman,
you’ve influenced me
“to keep it real”
that ongoing pursuit of the greener grass on the other side
Yes ! Thank you laverne 🙂
So much in these short ten lines. Causes me to stop and savor.
Love how you started and ended each stanza
Pursuit and loss cling
Together stitched, left wanting
The graves built on need
What is inside leaves?
🙂 thank you Pam, yeah! 🙂 what is inside leaves??
Lol thanks for reading.
A beauty, Coleman. I love the way you deconstruct and construct. As Dustin said, this feels more like Emily than Walt, but they were contemporaries, after all. A family relation of a sort.
Lol… yeah it does. Emily bled on this one. Lol
Tgats the thing with poets
When ya stick em they bleed 🙂
Thats second favorite thing about em.
Of course the first being that they are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
This hit differently! A pop culture person once said.
Thank you for reading spitfire1111
and I like that comment 🙂
Oooo! So compelling. I love the mystery and the mood the epigraph sets. Ache and longing.
Thank you Ellen for reading.
I’m trying to work on a series all with epigraphs.