No matter what, there is no love like self love. There is no relationship that should be more important than the one we have with ourself. I hate lying to myself, telling myself I will get out of bed on time, won't eat the rest of the ice cream, will work hard if given a little bit of time to procrastinate. I have been working on being completely honest about stuff like this lately, and also on not taking myself too seriously. Here are a few poems/ quotes that I have run into lately all around this theme. The first a
witty Miles quote: "Some
day I'm gonna call me up on the phone, so when I answer, I can tell myself to
shut up." — Miles Davis Next a
melancholy bit of prose I wrote a few weeks ago when I was in a funk.
"nights like this (telling the rain)"
on nights like this, All
i really need is me.
And some rain coming
cool through the warm air.
Instead of shying away,
i turn my face up to it
letting mist fall on my bare skin.
i feel like saying to it,
"cut this pain that never goes
in half for me,
and we will see exactly
what it is to feel love.
i want to live without
longing for what could be."
the rain makes it
easy for souls to
breathe, And
bit by bit i
can bear this
world
again.
And finally, a poem by Derek Walcott, a poet I happened across for the first time not too long ago. Read it aloud and see if it does not bring a smile to your face by the third stanza.
Love after Love- Derek Walcott
The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
It seems that my two most recent poems have been inspired by a pomegranate. Last night I devoured one single handedly not sharing at all with my company. A few hours later, I was cursed (or blessed) with the incredible urge to write poem after poem and could barely process all the ideas coming out of every pore of my body. Of course, this urge to write could have been a result of the emotional state of mind I was in yesterday, but I prefer to believe that the fruit had some sort of power in helping me.
I love the feeling of historical richness that biting into a pomegranate brings to me. The first thing I associate with pomegranates is the Greek story of Hades and Persephone. When I was a young girl I became enthralled with Greek mythology, and the uniquely intertwining stories that always had some elements of tragedy within them. As a child I would read and reread the stories where a flawed character made a tragic error and urge them to change their actions. I thought that by doing this a character could at least once escape their seemingly inevitable fate. Alas, this never worked- Daedalus could warn Icarus all he wanted but his son would still fly too high. I could yell at the page at the top of my lungs but Pyramus would still assume Thisbe was dead. And no matter what instructions he was given, Orpheus would still give in to the temptation to look back at his beloved Eurydice.
In "Persephone and Hades", Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was abducted by Hades and brought to live in the underworld. Persephone's mother, goddess of the earth, was so distraught by this that the earth became barren and the people living off it began to go hungry. Zeus was determined to fix this trouble and forced Hades to return Persephone to her mother. However, the Fates had a rule that whoever consumed food or drink in the underworld would be doomed to stay there for eternity. And before being released to Hermes, Persephone had eaten a few pomegranate seeds, and as a result would have to return to the underworld for a season each year; this explains why there are months that the earth is barren and why we have seasons.
In addition to being present in this popular myth, the pomegranate is a common symbol in other literature, art, and in religion. It is one of the oldest fruits known to man, and in Judaism it states that Eve consumed a pomegranate in the Garden of Eden. There are references to this fruit in Shakespeare, Homer, and Pliny, among others. It has been described as a symbol of friendship, fertility, and prosperity and also associated with the images of Christ and the Virgin Mary in Christianity. Also there are a few references to the pomegranate in the Quran as a fruit in paradise.
Here are the two poems I wrote last night. They may seem less artistic if you read them thinking that I only referenced the pomegranate because at this point I had a huge crimson stain on my pants. So, despite the intro forget that I even ate pomegranate last night!
I'm getting much better at writing down thoughts (musical, or otherwise) as they come to me. As a result I am losing less of my thoughts which is a great thing. Here is a little something that came to me a few weeks ago that I feel like putting up before I head to sleep.
"The very essence of mankind is creating rules with no intentions of actually following them ourselves. But we keep on assuming that everyone besides ourself maintains some sort of strength over desire. And the fact that we continue to make these rules is where I begin to lose my faith in man"
Maybe it is just the mood I am in today but I feel like sharing some more of my writing. I am happy about this because I am usually afraid to share it with anyone. So if tomorrow this post is all of a sudden deleted it means that I have had a change of heart. So here are a couple in a few different styles. __________________________________________________________________________________
"Questions" - J. Allen 7/2009
This one is a little bit e.e. cummings with the parentheses and grouping. But the subject matter is. . .I don't know exactly what. I guess a lot of what I write is impacted by love. I am very much a romantic but try to pretend like I am tough skinned and unfeeling a lot of the time as well. (Two very conflicting things). Here is number 1 hope it is enjoyable.
“there are days when i long to ask you questions but fear that i will drive you away.”
(a preponderance of questions was almost always bursting from her).
“Questions that maybe you can handle, maybe i am confusing you with people similar to you when i assume you can’t”… You’d motion as if i should go on or you’d open your entire soul to me (in a fully endearing way).
“Well,
they’re questions like ‘Just you and i, would you like that someday?’ or ‘Have you ever noticed that my feet like to slide across red satin oceans and find your feet to have some company in the night’ or ‘What do you think the shape of a child of ours’ nose would be like?’ or ‘What exactly do you see upon my unlined face? What does my eager smile say to you?’ ”
Our time hasn’t come. While at times we are almost unable to see this (due to the amount of blood boiling in front of our eyes) deep down inside our stubborn, inflexible, argumentative beings, we know it.
“ ‘Just you and i, would you like that someday?’
I would.” _________________________ "What Else"- J. Allen 7/ 2009 I wrote this the same night that I wrote the previous poem. The mood is clearly similar.
we both enjoy a soft breeze blowing across our skin.
beyond that, what else really matters? ___________________________
The last poem I will share is from July of 2007 i never actually gave it a title.
"Listen. sit back. open your eyes as you close your ears to the noises that wouldn't be here if it weren't for our species. The world was fine long before humans, maybe even better off. And it will be again long after you and I are gone. How beautiful were our cities before we got to them? Before we moved mountains and filled in rivers and carved away the earth where it didn't suit us. We could have bathed in any of its waters we chose. Before our harsh toxins with unpronounceable names. We would live as the animals live, as we were meant to live (for we are simply animals, are we not?).
The slow, old, sick animals die. The animals living in places prone to drought die. But we make ourselves poor by giving aid to those who live in places where they wouldn't normally survive. We make the old poor by making them pay to live, then we force them to take on an $8.00 per hour Wal- Mart job in order to buy cat food and their grandkids' Christmas presents.
We shouldn't be like this. We weren't meant to be like this. We were put on this planet to live like animals, to have the sole purpose of our lives to be survival. How did we come this far with such a terrible attitude and no need to remember the valuable lessons of history?
I see so much wrong in the world and in humans, yet let's acknowledge and then dismiss all of the wrong that exists, (for only then can we begin to process it and possibly come up with solutions). How can we have solutions? By using what we have and animals don't. Our minds. Our memories of the fates of every society before ours that has fallen. And our memories of the great creations that these cultures, too, had.
Not by using our vices- our greed our hunger, our need to be better than our neighbors, but by using simple compassion. We have souls and hearts and the ability to make our actions better the lives of others in our species. We can make the world better only by love. By smiling at whoever you see walking down the street. By always holding the door for the person behind you even if it takes twenty seconds out of your day. Your life is already years longer than it would have been if humans had never met civilization. And you have already accomplished much more than you would ever have if our sole purpose in life were to carry on the species. So breathe. Stop. Look. Listen. Love.
How can you make someone's life better if you are too concerned about yourself? Look outside yourself. When someone asks you how you are don't just tell them. Ask how they are. Your coworkers, friends, family, the cashier at the store. If someone tells you to have a nice day tell them to have one as well. Again, we have time in life. Think about all the time you spend on the internet each day, often impacting no one but yourself. Take it upon yourself to find reason to care about even people you assume you wouldn't be able to care about. Hold the elevator door. Smile at the person in the elevator with you. Ask them how their day is going. This is compassion. This is love.
And what if we all teach our children to do this, and they teach their children? And children are taught to love their planet and love their neighbors? And understand that there is one spiritual element to this world, though people around the world may regard it slightly differently. And get that this spirit is the reason scientists haven't fully developed a way to measure raw human emotion. And know that there are beautiful nuances to each and every language that give insights into culture. And by learning a language we can understand our fellow man.
Let us all become citizens of the world and refuse to accept cruelty in any form!" The girl yelled this from the highest mountain, for she was frustrated with the people she saw daily complaining about their world but never trying to change it. She waited for a minute almost hoping she would get an instantaneous response or a resounding cry of agreement heard round the world. She heard only the sound of a chip bag being blown by the breeze. She sighed wondering what she alone could do for the world.
Nearby a young man left a coffee shop and paused slightly before he crossed the street. He casually was checking his email on his mobile phone while also checking his reflection in the glass of the store front (assuring that every bit of his designer clothing was in place). He turned his head slightly before he crossed, making sure that his face was at just the right angle to be viewed by the young woman who was about to cross the street also. Meeting her gaze and holding it for a moment while giving her a slight grin, he finished crossing the street, drank the last of his coffee, and threw his cup that read "please recycle" straight into the trash.
Well, who doesn't love a good story? Whether it's eavesdropping stealthily on the people behind me while I wait for Starbucks, a good read, or that trashy tv series I find myself catching up with online I love getting trapped in a good story. I say trapped because that is fully how I feel when reading a book, watching a movie, even listening to a friend's tale of a recent occurrence. Oftentimes, I will find myself emulating a certain character's plight- almost projecting their circumstance onto my life. Other times I am reduced to a type of addict, burning through page after page to get resolution.
There is a certain reassurance, though, in a story because no matter what genre it is or how suspenseful it is there is always some sort of predictability. Two characters so perfectly infatuated that they will clearly be together even if they are put through numerous trials to do so. A dictator that has ruled unfairly their whole life will eventually be overthrown. I find myself wishing on many an occasion that life could be more like the stories which I obsess over. That I could read the back cover and know that it would all turn out a certain way. Or when times were getting rough I could flip to the epilogue and have some idea of how things would end up.
The problem I have with life is that I know exactly what I want from it. I'm sure many people have the exact opposite problem. It becomes a problem because I am a little bit of a perfectionist and push myself way too hard and freak out when I don't get better at something instantly. In other words a little reassurance that my life will end up near where I'd like it to would be amazing. Of course there's foreshadow like in any story, but a lot of times that can just be to add suspense, right? And there's always irony when something you are doing blows up in your face or goes exactly the way you don't want it to, but I have come to terms with that in recent days. . .
Here is the second part of Mona Van Duyn's "Endings" I find her description of a story quite applicable to my present predicament. In her words:
disabled in mind and feeling, I flail and shout,
"I can't bear it! I have to see how it comes out!"
For what is story if not relief from the pain
of the inconclusive, from dread of the meaningless?
Attached to this is a link to Mona Van Duyn reading both parts of this poem
Endings Part 2
Setting the V.C.R. when we go to bed
to record a night owl movie, some charmer we missed
we always allow, for unprogrammed unforeseen,
an extra half hour. (Night gods of the small screen
are ruthless with watchers trapped in their piety.)
We watch next evening, and having slowly found
the start of the film, meet the minors and leads,
enter their time and place, their wills and needs,
hear in our chests the click of empathy's padlock,
watch the forces gather, unyielding world
against the unyielding heart, one longing's minefield
laid for another longing, which may yield.
Tears will salt the left-over salad I seize
during ads, or laughter slow my hurry to pee.
But as clot melts toward clearness a black fate
may fall on the screen; the movie started too late.
Torn from the backward-shining of an end
that lights up the meaning of the whole work,
disabled in mind and feeling, I flail and shout,
"I can't bear it! I have to see how it comes out!"
For what is story if not relief from the pain
of the inconclusive, from dread of the meaningless?
Minds in their silent blast-offs search through space--
how often I've followed yours!--for a resting-place.
And I'll follow, past each universe in its spangled
ballgown who waits for the slow-dance of life to start,
past vacancies of darkness whose vainglory
is endless as death's, to find the end of the story.
For some reason or another I often have these massive upsurges of optimism where I believe that I can solve all of the worlds problems easily. I seem to believe that numerous world leaders have overlooked some key thing that I somehow am aware of... I know that this is quite childish but maybe it is exactly what the world needs? When I was little I remember asking my dad why we had money. I thought that if every human got everything that they wanted for free, and would do their job for free also, then there was no need for money.
Now, I realize that there is no way that this system could ever work because of human nature. The elements of greed, a lack of moderation, and a mastery of moderating our pleasures and desires have all been present in humankind, at least humans as they exist within society, for thousands of years. Plato's description of the phenomenon of moderation is entirely applicable to modern society. Summarized (and boiled down) from Plato's Republic: Moderation is a kind of order. It is a mastery of pleasures and desires. Man can be stronger or weaker than himself. The soul is divided into a rational and irrational part, the irrational part is divided into desire and impulse. . . As soon as I write this I can apply it to so many typecasts of people in our society. Waiting in line the day the new iphone comes out. Needing to have a certain type of car, clothing, to be seen at a certain place. It is so disappointing the extent to which members of society (especially in the middle class) feel the need to keep up appearances. . .
Lately, I have been thinking that if people spent 15 minutes a day simply reading the latest headlines of the world's news the world would be a much better place. I honestly believe that if every human being on our planet considered themselves a citizen of the world- before they considered themselves a human of a certain race, a certain gender, a certain religion- then a great amount of the planet's troubles would be eradicated.
Now, to the point and finally getting this overdue blog published . . .
Last fall I was given an assignment to write a vignette in the style of Yasunari Kawabata in my writing class at Berklee. We were supposed to write about a single moment in time or single experience. The class had just finished discussing the Dalia lama's essay "The ethic of Compassion" and I was thoroughly absorbed in it still while walking down a busy Boylston street to get to work. The vignette that resulted describes this walk from my classroom at Newbury and Mass ave to my office. It is entitled "pedestrian". However before I include it I will also include a quote:
"World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not the absence of violence. Peace is the manifestation of human compassion.-Dalai Lama"
"pedestrian" -Jenn Allen 10/2008
the girl was not thinking so much as she was living. as she walked down the street she pondered the world.
oftentimes, while walking, she attempted to answer impossible questions by using her thoughts. the problem she often encountered with this was that the city was mostly full of life, of colorful things that often caught her eye and caused her to forget her present thoughts. thus, the girl never did think so much as she became caught up in the happenings around her.
the girl was sensitive, but was shy about her sensitivity. she had encountered conflict and anger while a small child, and as a result whenever she experienced either she would usually react by feeling sick to her stomach and crying numerous tears. after enough exposure to conflict in her life, the girl had so many scars from previous wars that she eventually grew a shell to conceal her vulnerability from the whole world. because of this shell, she never let another human see her shed even a single tear, determined to never let anger have its victory. she lived constantly in a mindset of cheerfulness, and was attempting to think through how she could learn to be unconditionally kind to all beings.
on this particular day her thoughts were almost entirely unfocused. the weather was partially to blame, it was pleasant for late autumn. she had worn her rain coat because before the day had grown warm, before sunshine greeted her unlined eager face, there was a cold fog over the entire city.
so without thinking, she had began to cross a street a little too late, and she found her self stranded in the middle of a busy intersection. at this moment, her world, that most always had a general air of cool calmness about it, became a little frantic. if she had been thinking more than she was living she may have altogether avoided the situation.
looking to her left, the girl saw a large white van, one side was painted to indicate that the van carried medical supplies. seeing this van, she made an assumption, however afterwards it turned out to be drastically incorrect. she had assumed, seeing the van, that a transporter of items that could potentially save lives would kindly let her cross the street- and postpone their own travels for her sake.
she could not have been more wrong in her assumption. the driver revved his engine and the van lurched forward. the girl met the gaze of the driver and was surprised to read on his face a look of pure rage. she stepped back to avoid being hit by his van, only to see the driver abruptly halt. she rushed across the street, looking apologetically to the driver.
after crossing the street, she breathed in some warm air and sighed. just as her body was nearly returned to its present state, she heard a screech of tires and saw the van turn onto the street that she was now walking alongside. as he passed the girl, the driver opened his passenger’s window and shouted at the girl angrily.
the driver’s shouting simultaneously reminded the girl of every single time she had been shouted at in her entire life. this effected her like she was a tree that had been grabbed by the trunk and shaken until all of its leaves were on the ground.
she pretended not to have even heard the driver and continued her walk. thinking that feeling nothing would be better than feeling insulted and hurt.
the girl sighed, and realized that refusing to recognize all powerful emotions just because there were some that were painful was not as good of a survival strategy as she had thought originally.
Whether or not words actually do speak louder than actions, they are still very powerful.
Though the 21st century is slowly ushering in a new era- of over-sized, interactive, colorful advertisements and people: not enough time to call, so they text: not enough time to type threeletters, so they typeone- I still love embarking on a journey throughout most anything that a writer has given a deal of thought to.
As a child I would journey to the library on a hot summer's day and check out as many books as my young arms could hold. Then I would pile into the back of my mom's jeep. I would spend the rest of the entire day reading in my tree fort until all of the books were through. There was many a time when I would find myself making my way through several books at once. I have always loved a good story.
Though my life in 2009 is much more demanding than as a child, I still find time for words. I mostly find myself aching to discover poetry that I never knew existed, and searching for poems I haven't read or better translations of poems that I have read by some of my favorite writers. Some of these are: D.H. Lawrence, Pablo Neruda, e.e. cummings, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, T.S. Elliot, Mona Van Duyn, Joseph Brodsky, H.L. Mencken, Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac, and many, many others. . .
My goal in writing this is to share a small, medium, or large snippet of carefully put together words on a near-daily basis. Maybe if I am brave I will even share some of my writing. I think it is fitting if the first poem posted is the one that this blog takes its title from, which is a poem by D.H. Lawrence called "Under the Oak". To me, the speaker of this poem seems to be addressing a young lover any type of acquaintance. The young person's response "the night is wonderful" is incredibly naive and ignorant of all the terrible things predicted by the stars. The line, "but who are you twittering to and fro beneath the oak" is brilliantly juxtaposed with the heavy urgency and importance of lines preceding it. Anyways. . . Here it is!
YOU, if you were sensible,
When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one dreadful,
You would not turn and answer me
“The night is wonderful.”
Even you, if you knew
How this darkness soaks me through and through, and infuses
Unholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to distinguish
What hurts, from what amuses.
For I tell you
Beneath this powerful tree, my whole soul’s fluid
Oozes away from me as a sacrifice steam
At the knife of a Druid.
Again I tell you, I bleed, I am bound with withies,
My life runs out.
I tell you my blood runs out on the floor of this oak,
I am currently a student at Berklee College of Music where I am pursuing a dual degree in jazz composition and trumpet performance. Though music is my first love, I constantly find myself using poetry as an outlet and need somewhere to share my poems with the world. . . .
i, like all beings of the world, am still in process.
i believe that music has the ability to transcend barriers like no other thing in the world.
