I don't think I am a poet although I would like to be one so I could write sublime verses such as this, Romantic Poetess. I am an artist only now learning how to use words to paint.

I don't believe everyone is a born poet, but I know you are. You always move me. xo

Learning to read and hear poetry on OS has been a great gift, there's so much more to poetry than I ever knew. Long have I disliked words as they're so often used for falsehoods or lures. The poet lets me find their true meaning, and hear what they are speaking. What a gift.

Well RP I shall never sleep peacefully again , thanks very much:
“a crop of poet potatoes roaming the earth…
Poets screaming to get out
A morphogenic field of poet potatoes circling the globe
Whole inside the potato like Jonah inside the whale”
I suppose it could happen.
My dead dad used to have a potato garden & he said,
“James, here is what’s what re. the spud:
When stored in the home,
mature potatoes are optimally kept at room temperature,
where they last 1 to 2 weeks in a paper bag, in a dry, cool, dark, well ventilated location.”
I heed him, cuz he was my daddy.
But once in awhile, I take a mature potato
out of the bag & toss it in the oven!
so with the juxtaposition of images & synapses being diverted hither & yon,
what I need to worry about
is a poet perhaps inflamed, heated up to extreme temperatures?
I suppose tis good for many of the poets.
I sure as heck hope so.
Starchy gal, u!

Oh, I am so glad you got out of that potato, and you let your Muse roam free. She speaks sooo eloquently. You've made a masterpiece of words that travel from inside the mind, to the shelter of the interior, then the escape, only to arrive back with the beloved muse, inside the mind once again. Beauty one, girl. R. Heart.

" poet must always look under the low-lying energies

Using words

To raise them to the sublime

Perfect. / R

I think it was Plato who said Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~R~

Poetato.

Wordsworth thanks you!

Who is a poet?
In other words, YOU.

"A poet must always look under the low-lying energies

Using words

To raise them to the sublime"

DAMN. That's it right there. Which is why you can write about what a poet is. Being such a bloody powerful one yourself.

I think I'll save that quote to help me remember that though I do not write poetry, the words I work with should be raised to the sublime, lest the Romantic Poetess stop by...

RP: Thank you for commenting on my football/sweater poem. YOU have proven that poetry is often found within the sweater! Love!

Now THIS is poetry. I can still feel the drill bit trying to find something useful up there.

I can rhyme and wrangle,
Words that often dangle
Undirected and yearning

Give 'em shape and meaning
Intention or a leaning
Hoping not to mangle.

Poet? Who knows. Inspiration, like the wind, sometimes blows.

"The thought of a crop of poet potatoes roaming the earth
Is quite frightening"

ieeeeeeee!!!!! :D laugh, oh lord the visual that gave was priceless

"Performing her job while we sleep
Where there are no pens and paper to record them"
ahh..the frustration. I loved this RP.
Especiallay "raising them to the sublime." And you know how to do that.

"She fills our dreams with words
Clouds our minds with questions"
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Using words
To raise them to the sublime"

. . .as you do, dear Romantic Poetess!

R♥

I am no poet as I can not take brief words and create a feeling or make you smile.
You can.. and do it well.
HUGGGGGGGGGG

You've nailed this. r.

Open Salon has allowed me to appreciate poetry again. Thanks. Beautiful.

Sublime!!! I love that picture. The drill bit going into the mind. Painful but necessary.

What is a poet? Well, I know you are one. As Miguela says, your verse is sublime.

You are a wonderful poetess, RP...I am not sure if everyone has that gift? Next time I peel a potato, I'll listen carefully if there is a poetess trapped inside, and try to set her & her poetry free. I always knew there was some kind of magic to the humble potato...

The muse that uses diamond drill bits

Spinning with a deep buzz

Etching patterns in the poet’s frontal lobe

Thank goodness it's in the frontal lobe and not the right brain. Hmmm? Does one need a frontal lobotomy in order to become a poet(ess)?

Thank you all for your comments
You are encouraging my poetry in the very best way
Just a point of clarification on the frontal lobe
I know that poets aren't supposed to explain
But I am not a rule follower unless they are my own
And I am finding myself breaking those as well
A place on the left frontal lobe called Broca’s area
Allows thoughts to be transformed into words
Without words
This poet is lost
RP

Hi RP, my flame of truth,
This is very much in a new plane for you. You always bring such a new point of reference, of buried energies brought to the surface, the way March crocuses thrill that place behind our heart, telling us that we will taste that light, sun and -- somehow -- are reborn with all of those wondrous roots hungry to break beneath our feet.
You have, again, pleased my sense for what we must do. How good it is be rooted with you, and others that share these dreams that await. Roots thirsty for sun, rain and what is shared in this sleep.

If only Emily would recognise her poet? Do you think she has a poetic bone in her body, RP? Hmmm ... methinks not!

I love the 'mechanics' of your poetry, RP. **wink, wink**

A real poet would be sure than everyone is a poet. That old " I'm a poet and I didn't know it poem. Poets have been called members of the "rhyming tribe" though rhymes have been declared unfashionable for poems nowadays.

High suicide rates for poets due to the fact, I'd guess, that not everyone is a poet at all. But, you are RP.

Thanks for giving me good food for thought.

Romantic Poet. It took this long to get here.

My contraption waddles as slow as a duck.
I spent some quality time reading ref poets.
Shelly and Wordsworth - literally captivates.

I took a old Romanticism era book to Canada.
Believe me? You'll appreciate their writings.
I may get a seasonal facelift and look better.
I go to buy Alpaca socks and they run away.
Aftr a facelift it's good to visit Manhattan.
There may be a Friendly Ugly Duckling.
Howdy. You extend my frontal lobes.
The Mind circumference goes far.
It's (Mind) not between earlobes.
Mind/Muse can send us aloft.
You know and Experience it.
Thanks.
Happy delayed Bird day.
I mean Birthday. Ay. ah!
My gadget is snail slow.

Dear RomanticPoetess:

mysterious
beat
freezing out/snug inside
what is told here is that you have to go out
& frighten the non-poet potatos
who also had to go out
to the shadow box of poets
taking with them enough life
to still juggle (consider yourself juggled).

Oh under the muse,
going out with dilgence to look under something
as the muse bodes
and then to find your salvation.

blessings,

This is pretty fun and a wide-ranging walk, from the whimsical to the serious and insightful. The potato part is on the whimsical end—I can't help thinking of the marshmallow man in Ghostbusters for part of it. Nothing wrong with whimsical. Plenty of poetry is that. And I almost needed it after the drill photo. The text about the drill was fine, but the picture was more coercive of how I was required to conceptualize the text and it made me cringe a little in a way I don't think I would have without the picture. Still, the part I like the best here, just as a matter of personal preference, is the last paragraph/stanza where you are perhaps a little more serious in talking about the difficulty of recapturing dreams from the waking world. I think that's a pretty accurate account of a very real phenomenon, nicely expressed.

Yes, yes and yes...

She fills our dreams with words

Clouds our minds with questions

Performing her job while we sleep

Yes, especially this!....

Where there are no pens and paper to record them

And we awaken to forgetfulness

Sometimes she grants us access

To bits and pieces buried deep

Shelley-esque: "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."

A poet can paint feelings others don't realize they have. Being romantic is a must, RP. Excellent piece, R.

RP: Beautiful as usual.

Miguela: You speak of using words to paint. I once got up in the morning and decided to do just that. This is what came out:

http://www.oocities.org/ilya_shambat2005/clouds.htm

There is a risk that the words

May seem to have come from an unbaked potato

If the poet tries to elevate the words...


always a concern.


yet: words come from the Logos Within,
that which Mr. Fucking Christmas Himself,
Jesus h. Christ,
preached ON
and from.

i aint no jesus boy. hardly!
i more a boo-dah boy
or a Low -sue.

ach, i do not car e much how i am in the Theological
Spectrum
to be remembered.

yet our boy Christos, jesus, joshua, whoever said somthing
profound:

""My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
[Why art thou so] far from helping me,
[and from] the words of my roaring?" (Psalm 22:1)"

. Quoting the first verse was a standard Jewish way
of referring to a whole psalm.
This psalm is regarded by many to be a prophecy
of the Messiah's suffering.
t ends with a declaration of victory,

"They shall come, and shall declare
his righteousness unto a people that shall be born."

ah i am so fuckin bored, mayge i shall declare all thid
Righteousness.
maybe.
of course it depends on hassles that plague my soul.

like goddamn library fines.

argh! ha : )

I try writing poetry sometimes, but then I read you, and see how it is done!

You use them well RP! They are never "half-baked!"

The thought of a crop of poet potatoes roaming the earth

Is quite frightening, no, maybe brightening, no, how 'bout whitening. Ok. It's hilarious. Love it. Thanks.

Wonderful .... but where are you?

Dear ume,
Well I remember that watershed post…from the divine & wild muse:

The Romantic poetess!
“A poet is a creature who wrestles with her muse
.. filling in the missing pieces of the underdeveloped synapses…”
Neoplasticity theory from our dear comrades in NeuroPsychiatry
Tell us : brain is constantly re forming itself,
Making connections…

New connections are not only possible, but of earnest great necessity.


“A morphogenic field of poet potatoes circling the globe
Whole inside the potato like Jonah inside the whale
No one on earth would sleep peacefully again”
An interesting fancy. A mighty metaphor.

“I believe that poets have a job
And that everyone is a poet
Some choose to ignore their calling
But even those who choose to listen to the muse
Know that she often hides in the least likely places…”

Holy missions are easily talked out of. By yerself. Yer mom. Yer gal.
Yer rationalistic materialistic secular humanist saintly friends.

Tis Nihilism to eschew the Sacred.
Nihilism was well forecast by the tummy ache blind boy Nietzsche.
He warned us.
Hitler.
Ovens


A loss of respect for life.

I shall watch a violent movie soon, to get my juices flowing.

Tonight: the gentle Michael douglas playing gecko.
Wall st the sequel, by the potato poet Oliver. Stone.

sorry i missed this originally, but so glad that ume pointed the way back here

"... everyone is a poet ..."
Can it be ... I wonder ...
Lovely pondering ... here ...

"I believe that poets have a job
And that everyone is a poet..."
There are wood poets, money poets, steel poets, driving poets, poets of the sea, flying poets, parent poets, poets of play, poets with knives who work in fire, food, liquor, wine and beer, anyone who makes something that adds value to the experience of our lives from the available mundane is a poet.

COMPOSING

My thoughts, when fashioned into words,
Words which twist and interlock
And echo on themselves in rhyme and beat,
When sounded, ring like choruses of bells,
Or waves that swirl and separate and meet.

Words and thoughts, when married into form,
When joined and folded into shapes
Wherein their grasp holds to each other tight
And yet extends a reach into the world
Engenders sorcery to make a magic light.

So, complete, these origamis of the mind
Encage, engage a coterie of notions
That weld into a small totality
Like a perfect little paper boat
To be launched onto an endless sea.

floating by in my barco de papel
with mhold's Poetato

wonderful stuff, RP ~ I'm going back to swim in the comments ~

I am gonna (re) Read and wander in the woods.
I got something on my Mind. It's too Premature.
It's some great old literature that I will go browse.
Welcome back.
I Wondered where?
Hi. O, Wordsworth.
We really need help?
`
I read this:
`
Epictetus Painted Too.
Yes. Words Paint Nature.
Plutarch Discered Nature.
Nature is Beautiful Poetry.
`
I reread and gather thoughts.
Eat Sweet Potato Greens too.
The Leaf is Succulent Crunchy.

What a lovely long-lived lingering poem of a post. Like a bird you hardly ever see and suddenly ... there she is !

It's not a safe occupation, but it's a good one. To borrow shamelessly from C. S. Lewis. Keep on cookin', RP.

~r~