Distracting myself.

[tree_and_leaf]

Hum. Having been unable to get the wifi to work in the Bod - except it does now, God have mercy on me - I ought to have been productive.

Well I have, sort of, only of rather bad poetry, rather than of, say, dissertation, or research pertaining thereto. IT'S ALL MEISTER ECKHART'S FAULT.

All speech is a stammer, each word
Misses its meaning, I can write or tell,
Picture the library which surrounds me,
But you'll not see it; you'll only recreate
What I said from your own word-hoard.
My words and words of words float above
Their objects, un-tethered tethered balloons,
Trailing their meaningless cables.
There is no truth in words, at most a likeness.
And yet we long for truth, thirst for it,
Starve for meaning, stutter and try to speak
The right word at the right moment
Re-twist the knot of meaning,
Say all we mean to one another, moor us fast.
But we cannot. The only Word with power to do so
Speaks itself, speaks us, but how shall we take
The Word in our mouths and speak our speaker?


A very rough draft, and probably not that good anyway; still, I suppose writing something is better than spending an hour looking at lolcats (or whatever), right?

Comments

[sacred-sarcasm.livejournal.com]

I'm not really qualified to give an informed opinion - but I liked it. I was particularly struck by 'word-hoard', do please keep that in when/if you rework it a bit.

[tree_and_leaf]

Thank you - word-hoard is a splendid word and none the worse for being shamelessly borrowed from Old English....

Your icon, incidentally, is strangely appropriate.

[sacred-sarcasm.livejournal.com]

Ah, I wasn't sure if you'd made it up as a new sort of kenning (not sure if it's quite kenning - I have never done OE) or something you stole used.

That particular bit of Pratchett is always worryingly appropriate, I find! Have something more cheerful this time round.

[tree_and_leaf]

Heh!

Yes, kenning's the right term - though amusingly, the German for 'vocabulary' literally does mean 'word hoard' (or 'word treasury'). Words like that are one of the reasons I like German...

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

I like this - it reminds me of a sonnet by the late John M. Ford (http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/archives/003789.html), which is high praise.

[tree_and_leaf]

Rather too much, I should say, as it's an excellent sonnet - but I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I think this is a well-argued and scholarly poem!

[tree_and_leaf]

Thank you - though I'm not at all satisfied with the metre (or lack thereof).

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

My poetry-mechanics are rusty, I admit; but there is a natural rhythm there as one is led from Word to Word.