The question of what, really, is original thought and if there is such a thing. |
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RekindlingI am a re-kindler, a plagiarist it seemsof other’s thoughts, taken as my own Today, just today in the car, an illustration Something was said of dreamlike quality and I forget the example, perhaps an angle of the sun or both thinking the same thought and I mused that perhaps death was merely waking from the dream I drove a while and came back to it I really liked the ambiguity of that thought, said I may want to work on it a bit, find a place to give it length and breadth Been done said she, already commented upon and I was stunned, really are you sure? Been done and I pondered, is original thought as rapturous, if it’s been done For surely there is rapture here for me in this imagining of death as waking from the dream of life But I’m a reader and it’s been theorized that every perceived sense is cast in memory My god, it’s made of me an architect of other men’s labored drawings, a re-kindler, blowing breath on old coals Is nothing new, can an egg be un-scrambled, am I leafing idly through other men’s pages? Reversing Vonnegut, lifting a phrase of Doctorow, to slide it between the slices of my sandwich? I reject that, for who would paint, having seen Picasso or sculpt in the same world as the Pieta? It’s a damned good thought, this view of death and I may work on it yet, but still . . . |
This poem is included in Jim Freeman's poetry collection THE SMELL OF TWEED AND TOBACCO available here in print or as an e-Book in your favorite formats. |