Category: Footnotes

What Am I Missing?

If I stop and take
A minute to write
Or a photograph
How much Life
Am I missing?

If a notational ear
Or observant eye
Can pull from the landscape
Into Memory than my
Experience my be more enlightening…

What is your approach?
Coleridge’s observational reproach?
Or Wordsworth’s walking as he wrote?
Which will glean and which will gloss?
Who will find meaning? What will be lost?

I find myself quite often
At a loss for themes, my memory softened
If I take too long from my observations
The meter fades and the propositions
Wash away and become forgotten.

Yet if in the moment I focus too much
On this art I offer and the places I touch
Do I leave too little of this world explored?
And proffer false narratives for you to adore?
Not the depths of this moment I’m here to explore…

2021 Ars Philosophica Ars Poetica Art(i)fact Breaking Muse Footnotes Poems

Ithas (a sketch)

1 The son of the revolution was raised perfectly
2 Taught music and mastery of mind and body
3 A proud arbiter of the grand vision of The Republic
4 Soon to stand among the chosen few Philosopher Kings
5 Prometheus was a natural leader, a talented student and
6 A fierce fighter — His meter was measured and
7 His corps moved with the grace of the river
8 Yet, in his heart was a discordant song of sorrow
9 Stirred by the tours in the artist internment camps
10 Where those who dared to create were
11 Locked away and insured never to corrupt the culture
12 They were people – passionate, emotional, irrational yes
13 But people of his land, this country he was sworn to protect
14 Now from these people who threaten order with chaos
15 Now condemned for free will, free expression, challenging
16 The rational order of The Republic with their 3rd hand visions
17 Their expressions in word and paint and sculptures of the imperfect world.

2021 American Place Ars Poetica Footnotes New Mexico Poems

Remove yourself

It’s hard not to insert myself into
The Poem
Of course these are my feelings
Expressed herein
To de-objectify my experience
Is often a poetic sin
For how am I to communicate
These thoughts and dreams
If I don’t put myself at
The Center of Things
My desire to write has come
And gone but it is
My love of Nature that brings
Out these songs
I must denote these beautiful places
That bring me joy in these outward spaces

Ars Philosophica Ars Poetica Footnotes Why

Notes on Canned Goods

I initially started the writing that led to this poem by looking into the actual words that were used.

Fragility — the human condition is exorbitantly weak. We really don’t like that fact.

Boxes — Maria Kondo – put your life into neat little bento boxes— tidy up your life

Mental Boxes — when our emotional chaos is present, we work hard to categorize our responses. Tidy up our minds — but that is usually mental space filled with work and future planning. Very tidy, our future, in our minds, until plans are disrupted by social crisis.

De-coupling — Social Distancing breeds anxiety -especially for extroverts- by hallowing our our group response. When all of a sudden you take away the immediate, physically present, response that we have by being in the same room or the same table — when canned laughter is absent you realize that fake laughter that connects you is better than watching comedy dead pan. A comedian of one is not really that funny. We require social interactivity.

And a news conversation that has to wait for delayed interactions, stops people from answering naturally and responding fluidly.

Canned Goods

2020 Ars Poetica Footnotes Poems

this art is not yours

Stop it!
Why are
You do-
ing this?
Denying
Your Nat-
ure—you
Question
Your voice.

This Art
Is not
For you.
You must
make it
Work for
Others.

Without
Consumption
These are
Just words.
Without
Criticism
These are
Not poems.

2019 Ars Poetica Footnotes Poems Why

Poetry is dead?

I don’t
Want to practice
A dead art.

But you are practicing it
So how can it be dead?

Gone from the memory
Of the people. Lost
Are the words to them.
Confused by broken
Syntax and boiled down
Meanings. Un-reflected
Lives don’t contemplate
Their own depravity in
The face of those surrounding them.
Not enough words for
Comprehension available.

A failing of the Academies?

Lost to glowing gods
That speak of everything
And say nothing. No food
Left for the spirit of inquiry
Lost focus of the digitized mind.

Alas, poetry is dead unless we can resuscitate the culture.

American Place Ars Poetica Breaking Muse Footnotes Why

Command and Conquer

As I have been going through my recent practice and development of form, you will see a recurring capture of language. To some it may sound like I have some love for the cliche. But, I am drawing from William Carlos Williams here. I want to document the language. Capture the most common and local forms of reference. In my case that’s a southwestern mashup of red neck American English and Mexican Spanish.
I assure you it is intentional and if it’s off putting, good. Then, I’ve got your attention. Place without people is speechless.

2019 Ars Poetica Breaking Muse Footnotes Poems Why

A poem

Post author By Makar
Post date October 26, 2019
No Comments on A poem
Sticky post

A poem
Is a feast for strangers
From the future
A poet is a fortune teller
From the present
Seemingly prescient
Presently misunderstood.

Ars Philosophica Ars Poetica Footnotes Why

Notes on my experiments around Place

Post author By Makar
Post date October 17, 2019

I am starting down a series of paths to discover what this “thing” is that we refer to as “place”.
Experiment 1st draft – The Show Must Go On

I want to follow a series of poems on 1 PLACE down a structured path of revelation. 1. Place vacant objectified, absent of human interaction. 2. Place historical description of a place as used in history. 3. Place present place as it is used today. Modern representation. 4. Place potential a place can be or become something different. What comes about in a place during a music performance is dramatically different than if it were a theatrical performance. A place can be transformed and transformative.

American Place Ars Philosophica Ars Poetica Footnotes Why

Epistemology

Post author By Makar
Post date October 5, 2019

I am interested in place as place, a single objectified reality that is changed only by subjective interactions with it. This as a separate pursuit of the human experience that is influenced by place which is history and human presence objectified.

The park
Neon and forest green
Rolling blend of Kentucky blue
Clover and dandy lions
Shaded by old line of elms

The park
Neon yellow and navy
Zipping children chasing and surging
Tearing out clumps of Kentucky blue
In pursuit of glory

You can have a place
And use it too.