weirdelf
weirdelf
Oct 22, 2012
This poem is part of the workshop:

Mindful Memorable Freeform: The Challenge

(Read More...)

I scream (V2.1)

I scream
I scream like Munch's canvas
like Sartre and Camus
I scream at this meaningless existence,
I scream for you

Lets not make facile excuses
lets acknowledge the nihilism of death and life
lets be true to the worlds abuses
true to our pain and joy

Shallow illusions,
bogey men and saviours
fuck 'em all
we are in thrall
to knowledge of vacuity

About This Poem

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: Sydney, Australia, AUS

Favorite Poets: The Romantics

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More from this author

Comments

judyanne

pain helps the art doesn't it
awesome write = very powerful

- keep writing it out, it helps

a small suggestion re the let's in the second stanza - the second two need apostrophes, but i'd suggest you drop the third one altogether

- and btw, did you mean to repeat 'pain and joy' ? - it sticks out a little too much for me

love judy
xxx

weirdelf

I dropped all the "'" in lets, though they vary grammatically.
Yes, I wanted to re-inforce pain and joy, it's kind of a bottom line.

Ian.T

Ian.T

12 years 6 months ago

I couldn't care a crap who you scream like, as I don't know them ..
It would be sufficient to just say that:-

"I Scream, so that I can hear my real self"

The rest of the piece was totally irrelevant, now what young Elf ???

Thinking of you and hoping that you will seek out that person and find him the peace he is screaming for, Yours Ian.T

weirdelf

she has seen me passionate and angry, joyous and in pain, but never heart broken before. This is me heart broken.

Ian.T

I can hear the scream here and it is not good,
but know that we can see you there..
I know that your are broken hearted, and the children are waiting
They will bring to you the stitches of unconditional love when you are ready.. Then they will hold you, and mend that heart, or just put temporary stitches in whether you want it or not.
Maybe I will ask one of the older ones to visit you Exora will put you right,
he has no form just a beautiful blue light, the trouble is they don't kick ass
they only give love and energy.
Well my friend I don't know what to do with you over there, can't reach to give you a hug, or a slap, just talk to us when you want to.
We have eternity on our side, Yours Ian.T

weirdelf

Google those people I named and read them or look at their pictures.
I believe the Existentialists had their hearts broken by reality, but survived, as I do.

Ian.T

A bit brain dead here "Edvard Munch" and that famous picture, please this old farts memory it was on holiday.
I wont stay will research tomorrow, meanwhile you take care and just be you, Yours Ian.T

loved

loved

12 years 6 months ago

one whole .....

I love the fuck !
you explore
missed you Jess
since ages ...
autumn has also set in
the snows will be in
before again
you scream
now in your dream

....'''''Shallow illusions,
bogey men and saviours
fuck .......................................'em all

S

This started out pretty well then kind of petered out at the end. Of course it's hard to maintain a scream's volume...........stan

Geezer

Geezer

12 years 6 months ago

look up those artists that you mention, but I tell you that I first thought of the painting Scream!
You will famous some day, for being driven insane by the ineptness of the rest of the world. ~ Gee

Geremia

Not tol worry--we are all insane.

Anger and rmotion. Is that you, Jess? lol
I like the volume and insensity of this piece.
May i suggest somethng you mght consder. In the verse below,

Lets not make facile excuses
lets acknowledge the nihilism of death and life
lets be true to the worlds abuses
it is who we are

1.eliminate "facile"
2 nihilism is to death as absurdity is to life
3 may want to incorporate somewhere "the terror of existence"

But I am starting to re-write something that belongs to you. There is nothing else I see that is not good. But more "poetry" neeeds to cme from form; otherwise we border on prose or invective in this case

joe

By the way, you know that Sartre received the last rites of theR.C. Church on his drath bed.. So much for nihilism.
And what you may not have seenin my poetry, is MY existential scream.

Geremia

See link:

Sartre's death-bed conversion? « Bridges and Tangents
bridgesandtangents.wordpress.com/.../sartres-death-bed-conversion/
Jul 31, 2010 – A few months ago I posted about Jean-Paul Sartre's faith and said that the story of his death-bed conversion is just an urban myth. There is an ...

Geremia

I will try the link again. The suggestion is that Satre's deathbed conversion is an urban myth.

But, NO ONE is that strong ofconviction when one faces the unknown.Deathbd conversions are common--we're only human. It can't hurt :) ,and what does it matter to die holding on to your convictions? When you kick. something happens..Better safe than sorry ::}} , I try not to write about it anymore.

COPY and paste to your browser;
Sartre's faith « Bridges and Tangents
bridgesandtangents.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/sartres-faith/
Feb 21, 2010 – There is an urban myth that Sartre had a death

weirdelf

Never, ever, no matter the form of my death, I will not turn to god.
The entire concept is a mockery of the human ability to strive for knowledge and not submit to primitive superstition.

That being said, I do practice shamanism, but I regard it as a metaphor for things science has yet to explain.

Geremia

Who's talking about "God"? It's a matter of leaving all the anger and shir behind and fndiiiiiing peace, It can be simply a matter of a necessary human "ritual" to help us thru. Although, to tell the truth it didn't do anything for me==just scared the shit out of me. Nobody told me I was dying. I got so pissed off, that I decided not to LOL.

YOU are too goddamned stubborn. Lighten up.

BettyBuff

Oh gosh!....It's the perfect image for being lost in a deep dark hell. I remember driving on a lonely road in America a few years ago, trapped in a very unhappy marriage...I stopped the car and feeling so alone, thousands of miles away from my close family...screamed & screamed & screamed...just to let all the hopelessness out.

Broken hearts can mend with time & patience. Mine did. The line...'let's not make facile excuses' is part of the healing process. It's underway for you. Good Luck.

Ells x

Geremia

Lets not make facile excuses
lets acknowledge the nihilism of death and life
lets be true to the worlds abuses
true to our pain and joy

These lines need work -- too prosaic.

1 get rid oof "facile" = too erudite and pedantic for what you want to put across
2. rop the LET'S--go right to othe he art of it:

exisitence is meaningless
empty excuses cannot erase
Man's abuses
or keep us forever blind
to the nihilism
that that has poisoned humankind

GO FOR THE SHORT ,SHARP,BULLETS THAT "PING" AND SURPRISE WHEN IT HITS ITS MARK OF UNDENIABLE TRUTH.

BettyBuff

Let's not make facile attempts at critique when a meddling mash-up of commentary will do, eh Geremia? There's a whole lot of truth in the word 'facile'...when it comes to end of relationship tragedies...how can it be too erudite AND pedantic? It nailed it.

'Betty'

Geremia

It ain't what we says in America.LOL The word "facile" is not cmmon to American English. Ends of a relationship e xpress themselves in "gut" terms. "Facile" takes aay from th e feeling--it is too "cerebral.."
Now, this was not a facile commentary. As fr "meddling", you're right. We are supposed to.

My area of expertise is language. I don't really write "poetry. A word may falll true in one linguistic community, and not in another.

Jess is to be applauded for his work as poet and mentor, but he is asking for stronger critique This is how I see it .

Thanks for the response my friend. This s how I --we--sharpen our skills.

S

"We are in thrall to knowledge of vacuity"?? OK we know you have a large vocabulary but shouldn't ease of conveyance trump showing off? But it IS better than 1st version .................stan

Esker

Esker

12 years 5 months ago

Its true..on a display and it wasnt screaming
it was just the wrappings had come open
over the thousand odd years..These were the
mummies they didnt burn to keep warm
as they did this regularly in the cold of the Egyptian nights
back in the day.. Or grind them into fertilizer...
I saw it on Television so it must be true..I saw the
mummy that was on tour then that Munch had
seen....He also sketched zoo animals and people
and had a real physical essence of the human
expression..

We shall all face death and pass over to be judged
and crituqued for Heaven or the Hell
by THE GREAT PROVIDER

I know people who pray for my souls safe journey to either
and or...I probably know those who are praying I go to Hell
(Ahh god bless them)

anyway Elf and others...I am praying for you!
even if you dont believe
because if you dont People get stuck in
Lah Lah Land and I have visted this place
and its okay..its just not that wonderful this time
of year...Kind of like Coney Island right now

It was a Hell of a lot of Fun

(once)

Bless You

K

The Scream

Shallow illusions,
I scream.

Bogey men and saviours
I scream.

The world's abuses
I scream

with
Camus and Sartre
I scream
no joy
no truth
no pain
I scream for the nihilism of life
I scream of Death

Death makes no excuses.

Fuck 'em all
we are in thrall
to knowledge of vacuity

Just a little turning around and a little bit of Ginsberg. It would even be better if you fleshed out the joy the truth and the pain, Jess. It's time.

~big hug and kiss

wesley snow

... so I won't unless it is to acknowledge that you wrote. I've been asking and it is good to see.

The whole thing reminds me of Frank Miller's first Batman series "The Dark Knight Returns" when the Joker has poisoned the Senator and he's out on a balcony, naked but for an American flag and screaming "We're bastards, so let's act like it!"

Ian.T

After 34 comments, and now you say there is nothing more to say, a complete double negative, one thing good came out of this I found a word that matched an operation I had heard about "Existentialists" but am so old that I prefer the existentialist philosophies where I am responsible for my own thoughts of existence, now I can understand "The Scream"
and the logic portrayed by two fingers held high against the governments of this world, that deal in their own gains and corruption.
Jess is a martyr to this belief of the high two salute, but he has forgotten one thing, that if you throw your hand in the air too hard, your feet leave the ground.
One day I hope we meet on a different plain La La I'm going to bed.
You all take care of yourselves, as there is no one else in this world that really cares a crap, except maybe a silly Humon called Yenti...

weirdelf

although it is existential angst expressed rather than a bourgeois fear of anarchy.

Particularly well spotted is the grammatical shift. Frankly it's my way of writing a second person poem, which I excoriate other people for, without being a complete hypocrite (maybe).

Frankly I have no idea how to fix it, because I really want the poem to be inclusive.

Ian.T

The grammatical shift in this piece is acceptable it brought the other person in, and it was a natural expansion of the wording.
To my way of reading there is no need to fix anything, unlike a few poems you have critiqued on, where the plot and the second person state coming in is wrong.
This flows over the edge to encompass "WE" instead of "I".
Some old singer use to sing "Keep spreading the news"
Yours Ian.T