Like sparks trailing
from a million, billion fireflies,
a single thought
limns a trillion suns.
From the first small bonfire
flickering across four million years,
whose light imprints itself
upon the canvas backdrop
of a feckless, barely cohesive Infinity,
the matter of man, no more than
the past, transmogrifies the future --
denies the import of "real" or "black"
or any other type of matter.
Yet existing, it defines the local locus
Of now and when and how and then.
The freezing cold of space
burns like energy
backfiring on itself.
Somewhere,
celestial lightshows
flare across parsecs
of near emptiness.
Liquid oxygen fuels
the laboring lungs
of multitudes,
singing out the music of the spheres,
maestros of a trillion symphonies,
platelets in the lifeblood of the Universe.
Like a Coriolis wave that imprints itself
upon a formless sandstorm,
a thought burns itself
into the very fabric
of Eternity,
opens like
a budding flower,
and initiates
its own realities.
Author notes
This is my conception of existence on this plane.
Written December 2nd, 2005
A contest entry
- What is the answer to life, universe and everything? by Dark Otter.
600 points, ended August 12, 2008, 15 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - One Easy Prompt, Prewrites--Contest by No Quarter.
400 points, ended July 31, 22 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - A Few Options & Pic Prompts. by TheSpiralGenerator.
400 points, ended November 28, 22 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 47 of 47
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The background on this poem makes this very hard to read. It's too flashy.
But I did read it anyways and I absolutely loved it.
Thank you very much for entering this lovely piece, and good luck!
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great job and thought provoking write (though the background gave me a headache XD) loved these lines
"Like a Coriolis wave that imprints itself
upon a formless sandstorm,
a thought burns itself
into the very fabric
of Eternity"
thanks for entering and good luck, very enjoyable write -
I agree, a very inspiring piece. Holds a lot of depth. I liked the views on Celestial things. A pretty write. Thanks for entering and good luck.
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Some delicious imagery and wordplay here. Deeply thought and interesting poetry, thanks for yet another great entry Jim
Jeff
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a masterpiece and truly inspired and inspiring response to the prompt ... a wonderfully intriguing title that promises a thoughtprovoking exploration of the outer-inner universe ...
elegance and sophistication in style, vocabulary, imagery reflecting substantial and profound content ...
a more than very well deserved trophy !!!
congratulations, maître ...
maa
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I agree
Well done on the depth. Presentation is excellent too
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That's what we're talking about!
Finally, somebody to get me to the 'Restaurant at the end of the Universe'. The background and the prose work well together. Your understanding of the nature of reality appeals to me. A 'universal consciousness' that speaks of the sublime. I 'grok' this to its fullest extent. Some great thought and prose rolled into a single piece.
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I love how you percieve this..
I love how you pinpoint how empty 'black' is in this poem. space is a poem in itself. This is amazing
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fabulous last verse! it gave me chills...the beginning was a little confusing for me and it feels like i need to read it again to fully comprehend your ideas, but your prose was just magnificent!
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As always this is very insightful and powerful. I have one question though, when you said locus, I assume you meant the latin for location or position? Or did you mean the position of a gene on the chromosome. Depending on how you meant it, it would seem as if maybe its not nessesary for this piece. The rest of the poem was as normal wonderful in its images, powerful, and really gave an idea of how great a talent you are. Nice job.
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Sorry, but I didn't ever make any mention of this one in relation to any of yours. I'll bet you're thinking of someone else.
I get e-mails all the time from people on here, often people I don't even know, so it's highly likely that that's what happened.
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well i've just added limn to a list of words i'd like to incorporate into my vocabulary.
the background is pretty busy. it helps when i hit the escape key so all the flashing and moving around of the background stops. the white text also interacts with the white stars of the background such as to become difficult to decipher in some areas.
not sure about "local locus" for some reason.
i like the following line, however. i enjoy the play on temporal and spatial foci.
the stanza starting with "Liquid oxygen" strikes me as being about whales and their place in the cosmos up until its final line. this stanza thus far is the most enjoyable for me in the poem.
i've bookmarked a wikipedia article on the Coriolis effect which i'll read at a later time. so, until i read that, which looks like quite an involved read, i'm not going to know what you mean by "Coriolis wave". my guess is you're refering to the hurrican-like spiral motion of the star clusters we refer to as galaxies.
the poem is kind of interesting. there are aspects of it that feel too technical to me, however. i've had to look up a few words and even read an article or two in order to increase my sense of what this poem works to convey.
i believe you told me about this poem in relation to one of mine. can you recall which poem that was so i could go back and read it with this poem in mind?
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It's moving over into religion too. The Vatican has come out in favor of evolution and against the totally fradulent "intelligent design" promulgated by the radical right.
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This is what Carl Sagan would write if he had fallen in with Burroughs. Just an amazing write. I must admit it even sent me to the dictionary.It's all been said above so I will leave you with a hearty, "DAMN, I wish I wrote that!"
Peace, Rob -
Actually, both of those things are self-evident. You just have to stretch your mind a bit and think outside the box. I was thinking of stars going nova and imploding with the energy backfiring on itself. They wind up as a black hole, if they implode too far, as you probably know. As far as the liquid oxygen, that's a poetic fight of fancy. I conceive of the multitudes as angels or at least as quasi-corporal beings, and what I was thinking is that they would lubricate their throats with something liquid. Oxygen is what we breathe, and by extension, possibly could be breathed my other creatures on other worlds as well. The whole thing just flew through my mind and landed on the page.
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Fabulous
Sweet Jesus. This is fantastic. I have considered trying to write a poem about science, but you have actually done it. I usually call a piece well-written if there is one part of it that just gets me right here. This one has a couple-three of those.
First and last stanzas are very, very strong. I am particularly impressed with the first. You put feeling into scientific ideas, and as I am a scientist myself, that appeals to me on a very personal level. The Coriolis wave was especially a pleasure. Ah, the mathematics of shifting rotational frames... How I love physics!
As a scientist, I also have questions, however.
1. It could be you did this to make a point, so let me know if/where I'm missing something. What does "burns like energy/backfiring on itself" mean? I want to know how to interpret it. Unless one decides to consider relativity, energy is largely an abstraction in the name of mathematical convenience. How would it backfire or burn?
2. What does the "liquid oxygen" idea symbolize (I love that whole stanza, by the way)? It sounds like a reference to the fuel of the stars, but that would be isotopes of hydrogen (tritium, deuterium).
In spite of any questions I might have, this is as strong as anything I've read in awhile.
~Morgan -
Ah, but you're wrong. Because you (or anybody else) can't comprehend a number that large doesn't mean that it has no meaning to you or them. It has a very specific and explicit meaning to anyone who can comprehend the rest of it. The human race has been around for close to 4 million years, and most people know that (unless they live in Kansas). Large numbers, in other words, have specific meanings to most people, even if they can't intrinsically grasp the actual sizes involved. They still get the emotional corona that goes with the word.
Edited on Dec 15, 12:39 because 'typo'. -
Here's an interesting article on the first humans who walked upright:
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- A team of U.S. and Ethiopian scientists has discovered the fossilized remains of what they believe is humankind's first walking ancestor, a hominid that lived in the wooded grasslands of the Horn of Africa nearly 4 million years ago.
The bones were discovered in February at a new site called Mille, in the northeastern Afar region of Ethiopia, said Bruce Latimer, director of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio. They are estimated to be 3.8-4 million years old.
The fossils include a complete tibia from the lower part of the leg, parts of a thighbone, ribs, vertebrae, a collarbone, pelvis and a complete shoulder blade, or scapula. There also is an ankle bone which, with the tibia, proves the creature walked upright, said Latimer, co-leader of the team that discovered the fossils.
The bones are the latest in a growing collection of early human fragments that help explain the evolutionary history of man.
"Right now we can say this is the world's oldest bipedal (an animal walking on two feet) and what makes this significant is because what makes us human is walking upright,'' Latimer said. "This new discovery will give us a picture of how walking upright occurred.''
The findings have not been reviewed by outside scientists or published in a scientific journal.
Leslie Aiello, an anthropologist and head of the Graduate School at University College in London said, however, that the new finds could be significant.
"It sounds like a significant find, ... particularly if they have a partial skeleton because it allows you to speculate on biomechanics,'' Aiello, who was not part of the discovery team, told The Associated Press by telephone from Britain.
Paleontologists previously discovered in Ethiopia the remains of Ardipithecus ramidus, a transitional creature with significant ape characteristics dating as far back as 4.5 million years. There is some dispute over whether it walked upright on two legs, Latimer and Aiello said.
Scientists know little about A. ramidus. A few skeletal fragments suggest it was even smaller than Australopithecus afarensis, the 3.2 million-year-old species widely known by the nearly complete "Lucy'' fossil, which measures about 4 feet tall.
Scientists are yet to classify the new find, which they believe falls between A. ramidus and A. afarensis. The fossils would help "join the dots'' between the two hominids, said Yohannes Haile-Selassie, an Ethiopian scientist and curator at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History as well a co-leader of the discovery team.
"This discovery will tell us much about how our 4-million-year-old ancestors walked, how tall they were and what they looked like,'' he said. "It opens the door on a poorly known time period and (the fossils) are important in that they will help us understand the early phases of human evolution before Lucy.''
The specimen is the only the fourth partial skeleton ever to be discovered that is older than 3 million years. It was found after two months of excavation at Mille, 37 miles from the famous Lucy discovery.
"It is a once in a lifetime find,'' Latimer said.
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Well, your certainly a better writer then I. Granted, compared to you i do tend to come of quite verbose. Whilst my vocabulary is quite limited here an expansive use of words is applied without losing any of the message, in fact, even accentuates the point quite succinctly.
Someone states above that they prefer more emotion in poetry but i personally feel this piece is laden with it, perhaps they missed out on some of the intricacies of the vocab. Words like limns, which i have only ever seen once before (keats) implies emotion, perhaps not the simplistic "love,pain,death" emotions they are so used to. I see it as awe. Ther eare certain points i deslike, such as "lifeblood". THe poem so strong and poignant falls on this laxidasical turn of phrase. Similarly you've tried to show scale in a scaleless universe. Its utterly pointless to say a trillion symponies or a billion billion suns simply because, that number, boogles human perception, no normal mind understands the number 1 trillion.
All in all a good write, some minor inconsistancies, and yes, i tend to be a critic. -
This is a rather strong write, with some great lines such as:
Liquid oxygen fuels
the laboring lungs
of multitudes,
singing out the music of the spheres,
maestros of a trillion symphonies,
platelets in the lifeblood of the Universe
very nice work, my only other comment would be that the piece gets off to a clumbsy start with the million and billion repeated in the first 6 lines, In my opinion, and that's what your looking for, the poem would be stronger if it simply start on line 5.
From the first small bonfire
flickering across four million years,
whose light imprints itself
upon the canvas backdrop
of a feckless, barely cohesive Infinity... -
Makes sense in my book. This is tha kinda stuff that makes me appreciate life even though sometimes it stinks but hey we all got problems. And that background wit tha glitter thats clean right thurr. Great Job
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A very unique write indedd! i enjoyed reading it and the sparkly backround made me laugh, good luck in the contest and it felt like i was going to a diffrent world when i read this, mind you colour always gives me inspiration,
good one
xxx
mars -
I enjoy this poem very much. I felt like I was drifting into space and touching the stars as I'm reading it. I am not into physics and astronomy but this one delights me. Thanks for sharing this here. Eris
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Awesome job done here. It's such a relief to read something that is so good, and something that drifts away from the cliche topics which I myself fall into most of the times. This is different, and more advanced than the typical poem I read here, which makes it quite enjoyable. I appreciated the opportunity for a great read.
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It's a good natural poem. I'm usually not a big fan of this kind of poetry. I mean something about stars or nature, but you worded this well. It lacked a certain flow that makes some poems more enjoyable. I enjoy more emotion in poetry, bu this was very beautiful. Good job!
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Awesome..truly awesome
Wow awesome poem. No wonder you've won so many contests and things like that. Very well done, I applaud you. Extremely well visualised, thanks for writing this . Also, thanks for commenting on my poetry. It's such an honour to be commented on by such a gifted poet.
Never Stop Writing,
~Moiren -
It's my Disiderata.
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Pure genius. Such cohesive thoughts wrapped in such lyrical language. Bookmarking this.
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WOW!!! Excellent work here.I read this off to a sound file applied some soothing music closed my eyes and floated through space. Just so you know it is deleted now never saved. You might think of doing it for yourself.It would make a great relaxation cd.
Roger -
No. Limns is a word. You can read it as "represents" if you like, but it means "to channel" as well.
Thanks for the kind words.
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at the gates of beginnings and ends
How deep is the heavens, how deep is your mind, as you ponder the existence of existence and the fire of all eternity, ;a
poem itself a canvas of the deep universe and of human creation.
A super metaphore, weaved with the image of moving galaxies..
just superb ,,painter of the dark and light..
(just one word 4th line "limns" , ) i do not know this word..
could it be illuninate my friend"
I super applaud this poem ....really reaches me , "are you sure you don't know an archangel" -
luminescent
good write!!! I like to look at the stars often and next time I do I will think of this poem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Keep it up!!!
U R THE Best!!!
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Yes, we come from the stars and return to the stars as the ancient cultures believed. I remembering reading our bodies are made of something near 98% the same elements as the stars. This poem has a philosophical feeling, as well as a scientific one, phsyics, without actually being overtly any one of those subjects.
Edited on Dec 04 because 'spelling'. -
Merry Xmas to you too. Thanks for reading and commenting.
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you done your home work I give you an A+ for your grade
thanks--kirby have a merry christmas -
Thanks for the heads up on the odd symbols. I've fixed it now.
And also thanks for reading and commenting.
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Interesting tile for this awesome write. Images created of all kinds of things that make us think. There are a few wiggly symbols in this write that should be corrected to make it read smoother.
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Just a little side note you might want to keep in mind. If you copy and paste you tend to get things like “ and ‘ turning out as weird little symbol things... As for the poem, the imagery in this part: “From the first small bonfire/ flickering across four million years,/ whose light imprints itself/upon the canvas backdrop” is quite lovely. I like the whole picture this poem painted in my head, its like being “in” outer space I guess you could say. ^____^ Thank you for sharing with us.
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re-reading .... really enjoyed this ... perhaps there are two too many billions ? (love the last stanza
lovely words pulled together to limns a reality. (i had to look it up) ... nicely done JD >>> GINA
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I feel so .... small ..... now.
This is a humbling verse. I LOVED it.
Excellent work.
~Pam
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Deep but on target in myown concidered opinion of human/no all living matter in existance.Einstein himself tells us energy is infinate.Everything that lives is energy.Vibrational string concept fuels this fact you have mentioned in this well.We in my thoughts are all part of the living I am ,and I am is certainly in all of us as well.Nice clear concise thinking in this!~~~Suseann
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Excellence.
Now this is the type of gem I aimlessly scan the Featured column for! A truely excellent poem with as much depth as proficiency in vocabulary and eloquence in speech. Descriptions send me straight to the heart of this illustration and cause me to ponder the true meaning of your words.
Do you mind it I add you to my favorites? -
Really great description of how the struggle within can overtake us. you really did a marvolous job putting it into words, that which most of us find ourselves screaming from within.
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wow this is very deep......losing ones self to the inner sactions of lifes thoughts and realizims.....make one wonder....wonderful use of exsquisite word images.....complex writing you have managed to cause me to ponder.....never knew you wrote such like this....I applaud your creative talent penned here...
jim
Mal
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Ahhhh, mine to. And thought takes form in the physical, becoming what we then think is real. All an illusion being played out from within...
Nice, esoteric piece Jim, and you were right, up my alley!
peace
doug
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Awesome - loved the ending stanza....just resonates in my mind. Best of luck in the contest! Becky
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ooo yes my kinda subject..... gorgeous words here ... this piece takes my thoughts to a reality we survive within, dreaming dreams ... i love the last stanza ... >>> GINA
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