Two poems

Two poems

John Bjarne Grover

The first poem - about the poet and the moon - is something I wrote (in 1994, I think it was) when I tried to make sense out of the most basic concepts of cuneiform in the received interpretation from Rawlinson - when I was struggling with finding some tendencies in the relation between form and meaning. I do not take it to represent the essence of cuneiform, but maybe it says something about the interpretational tradition. I also made a translation of Parmenides' famous proem which I translated and equipped with the idea of an ancient 'first-generation processor' on the form 'curl-haired cuneiform script and plough'. This old idea of the plough throwing the soil up and around is apparently contained in some nazi thinking, cp. the relation between the names of Adolf Hitler and Aron Edisvig. This seems to be contained somewhat in the first stanza here. In the second, there is the theme of the flooding: After the 2004 tsunami, one can perhaps see some reference to a 'Hindu sill' - or rather its converse, here a 'window sill'. This poem is very much traditional poetry without any elements of 'poetic revelation'.

The poet, when the moon is full,
leaves the plow behind the bull
and his window joins two half
hours into a single calf.

In the house upon the hill
oceans lick the window sill.
This is when the poets wish
to be sheep and to be fish.

The second poem (from 'The slades with the only turn', written on 27 January 1998 and self-published in the spring that year) is of a completely different kind and can perhaps be compared with the first for illustrating what I have in mind with 'poetic revelation' in contrast to traditional poetry. I had this poem as the front page text on my website (now the 'political page') for a year or so. To some extent, this poem can be seen to be somewhat of the opposite of the first. In fact the parallel text to it is in Luke 24:46, approximately the part 'pathein ton Khriston', the suffering Christ. I do not think that ancient 'cuneiform' is the solution for poetry, but I suppose there is much to gain from a study of the ancient script technologies nevertheless. But, as I discuss in an article on this website, it could well be that the received interpretation of cuneiform is not right. The other poems on this website are in line with the 'revelational' style of the following poem :

This bore poor door:
Gimmi a try.
We found out about this one:
Got the key,

got the yale.
He lives in black
of a man told in ping-pong-ing.
Keys in the garden.