Comments on: Actual Size Abstraction

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:29:39 +0000

Sorry,just noticed, the last line of the Transtromer poem above ahould read: “The bridge: a big iron bird sailing past death” not “bird iron bird” as I typed it.

BIRD IRON BIRD

Shall I set as background
to my life an actual size
abstraction rather than
how the whirlpool sliced
and bridged me how I held on
to that bird of death
after all you were with me.

By: jd

jd — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:32:45 +0000

I see it (after the fact) as a vortex or whirlpool.

By: Pablo

Pablo — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:17:07 +0000

That image looks a lot like when I was in NYC last week among the concrete canyons. I looked up and saw a slice of the sky.

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:43:57 +0000

Yes I think it’s the hiddenness
what’s hidden the poem/poetry’s
finally “toward” or after, as in
expressionism, where some exploded
detail of murky reality starts
to melt away a little
but can’t quite reveal
what isn’t visible anyway
death tucked
inside it.

By: jd

jd — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:33:04 +0000

I like the Transtromer poem, how straightforward it is until it turns in the last line toward mystery.

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:07:10 +0000

I like this very much. I saw it and some time/days later saw this by Transtromer and remembered your picture:

FROM THE THAW OF 1966

Headlong headlong waters; roaring; old hypnosis.
The river swamps the car-cemetery, glitters
behind the masks.
I hold tight to the bridge railing.
The bridge: a bird iron bird sailing past death.