You have to be good.
You have to see the blood
on the page to know you’ve worked
hard enough, your art
a Rorschach splot
in which each reader sees himself
and the earth turning
and the mystery he calls God.
You must be the illumination
in the cave at night, in the forest
at midday. Yours the tapestry
that will hang three hundred years,
yours the story told by tapestries.
This, your small ambition.
Author notes
p. 40
Comments
1 - 15 of 15
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ambition (striving, dreams, knowing) no matter how small .... is never small ... good and blood and art that turns the earth or illuminates is subjective ... but only those that DO it, know and recognise when it comes along ...
the thing i love about my favourite favourites list is the ecclectic striving and knowing ... if we retain the voice that is our own - how on earth can we be wrong ? ...
(i seek splotch ... why splot ? ... but i am not sure and google confuses) ... always enjoy yours ... gina
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Nice take on immortality.
I think though the work lives on but we do not. WE do however provide objects of dialogue and interpretation and these things change as the generations roll by,
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what John said: 'cept, the small ambition is wrapped in a huge bit of Hubris.
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I can't tell, from any of the comments, if it's clear that "small ambition" was meant to be ironic. 'Cept maybe yours.
Thankie, LuteMan
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I like this piece Zara and I love that closing line, just great...
al
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Such a luminous gift this is!
Cris
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This makes me think of an interview I recently watched with Leonard Cohen. He was very serious about his writing, it was work to him, I think many poets miss the fact that it is work, maybe those are the poets who don't touch us as much, I don't know.
I personally, work hard attempting to touch people with words...not that it makes me a good poet perse, but I can relate to this.
Very ambitious
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Oh, was that in the movie "I'm Your Man"?
Someone in that movie talks about Cohen's work ethic, how sometimes it would take him YEARS to complete a song. God, if I could write like him . . . .
But yeah we give it a good attempt, right?
Lovely to see you, Suzi Que.
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Oh this was an easy one to figure out I think, when I returned to poetry, Wild Geese was the first poem I read. Good one to pick to post 
People who seek to make art, who seek to make things like art, or to act or to dance -- or sing, etc. are fucked up for the most part -- so fucked up I'm convinced that they might be the only normal people on earth. Of course, art is available to everyone but some seek or find solace in other places, some just ignore it and for others art seems to haunt, possess be an unrelenting irritant, the unscratchable itch, the mystery of god and gods and God.
Lute once said that all the poems of the poet make up the tapestry. So everyone has a tapestry if they have poems. Passiovine subscribes to the, I believe it is Henry James model, you only need one reader who you reach to make your work a success.
I have lots of thinking left to do on this subject --possibly lots of shitting as well.
We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.
Henry James
Hope your cold is better today.
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You can just imagine my horror when I opened the book to Wild Geese. It was one of those "I might as well quit right now" moments. But that's just it: you know you can't write the perfect poem or even one a tenth as good as the one you just read, so you give yourself permission to write poorly. Then you write.
Of course I posted this one just now.
Now go shit, would ya?
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i love love love the small ambition... no matter how big or how small our efforts it is after all for us firstly...
yes, we like praise from others, we like to feel the ambition rise to an applause of sorts....
but sometimes, the blotches and scribbles only make sense to us... and us alone
i see this ... it is bloody good ink
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I think the biggest irony in writing our thoughts, poetry - all of it, is that rarely do we sit back and say, "I know that one is fantastic." Most of us hope that it is and are thankful for the accolades we receive - thankful that our words are received clearly and with appreciation. I think we sometimes see our works as small ambitions, but never really realize their value as great poetry to the silent readers.
At any rate - I like the thoughts you bring to us as inspired from your reading. It is bringing forth original poetry that has all of us considering verses we would not otherwise have brought if not for your muse prompting ours.
- It's always such a pleasure to read you...
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artistic desire is a bitch ....isn't it?.. small ambition.. maybe... and maybe we all hold it, what's wrong with wanting to live among history?
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yes it is.
nothing.
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Small ambition?
We all want to be remembered.
John
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