Friday, June 10, 2005

Tutoring

Two new students
Into the hours of desperation
Of swimming, but not much longer,
In the unacknowledged
And unacceptable sea
Of unfathomable ignorance.
Here for the painful cure
Of superficial knowledge
Of ordinary matters of
The heart and mind and
The miracle of my
Shallow shoal soul shut
In the narrow confines
Of my broad body.
Despairing the lack of difference
They, like the ship above,
I, the sleeping leviathan below,
Storing up all that fat they need
And want me

To dispense, in a suicide pact
For those humble delusions of grandeur,
The luminous calories of thought.
Could I have dreamed
In the sublimest moment of the
Slender threads of responsive sleep
Sewing themselves in glorious
Gilt throughout the play filled
Foolishness of my childhood,
Even I would have laughed at
Me as the object of
Such practical folly.

21 comments:

Russell Ragsdale said...

Hi my Angel! This is loosely patterned after the style of the poet John Ashberry. Unfortunately, one of the criticisms of him is that he's difficult to understand. I'm not sure whether I agree with that but that's what they say. What's Muskoka? Thanks for the visit!

gulnaz said...

i have read it about thrice and each time a different comment comes to mind.
so the only comment i'm going to leave right now is that, i like it very much!

btw, 'Shallow shoal soul shut', reads like a literary tounge twister. :) brilliant.

and thank you for your lovely comments at my blog.

Russell Ragsdale said...

Hi Gulnaz! I'm glad you took the time to read this poem. Your comments are, of course, extremely important to me, especially as I experiment with different styles. Thanks for all the kind words, they are very helpful.

Been enjoying some reading on your blog lately. Really wonderful poems there!

Sue hardy-Dawson said...

It's funny when you reach the other side of the desk how you start to wonder what would I have thought of me, if I was who I used to be. My children sometimes tell me what they think other students will think of me. If they are cross their advice is not nessasarily (can't spell that word) constructive. But this struck a cord of empathy and I've read it several times

Russell Ragsdale said...

Hi Sue! I can't begin to explain how happy I am to have your comments. I just gave them their finals last night. Grading is such a nightmare! More to do again tonight. It beats me up rather badly but the university requires it!

Glad to have a kindred soul! Thanks so much for your comments!

gulnaz said...

russell, thank you for your encouragement, really appreciate it! :):)

and hey i enjoy visiting your blog too!

Russell Ragsdale said...

Gulnaz, it seems to me the pleasure is all mine!

Sue hardy-Dawson said...

Hi Russel I want to put a link to your blog but I don't know your ULR thingy and I tried with just the name and it didn't work. Help!!

Russell Ragsdale said...

Hi Sue! I'd be glad to have you link up! Here's part of the line that you can copy and paste in your template for your links: Yukelbel's Canon and that should give you a start on what you want. Let me know if you have any problems. Go to sombody's blog that has the links you want. Look at View on your tool bar and select source. Then scroll to the links section. You'll find some useful examples that you can just copy and paste.

Russell Ragsdale said...

Thanks Gama! You kind and wonderful comments are always greatly appreciated!

Russell Ragsdale said...

Hi again Sue! Blogger wouldn't let me do what I wanted for you so here is the URL: http://chowchainthoughts.blogspot.com/ now we'll see what old Blogger does with that?

Russell Ragsdale said...

Sue, as I wrote in the first post, the easiest way to do what you want to do is to open the coding from the View tab and cut and paste what you need. Good luck and let me know how that goes.

Julie said...

I think that is about my husband and I!

Russell Ragsdale said...

Julie, glad you found something in this poem. Thanks for the comment!

Russell Ragsdale said...

Hi my Angel! Glad you could take some time from your thesis proposal to drop me a line. Thanks for the info on Muskoka. Sounds like a great place!

Unfortunatyely there is less than a week before classes start in again. I'll have to see how many classes they want me to take this time. No time to relax just yet!

Thanks for thinking about me!

Sue hardy-Dawson said...

I hope I have managed but I wont know for 24hrs as it wont show just yet but have just put url into appro box and has worked before. All this tecno stuff means I need poetry theropy

Russell Ragsdale said...

Hi Sue! congratulations on all your hard work. For some poetry therapy go to the Poetry Hut (there's a link to it on my page) and look up Salt by Eugenio Montale (he just reciently died). For dessert you can got to the John Ashbury page (a Google search) and look up Daffy Duck in Hollywood. After that you'll be just right as rain! Great to hear from you!

Sue hardy-Dawson said...

Hurray did it, it works
ok so I know 14 year olds are falling over laughing at my incompitese and I know I can't spell worm very well but I arrived by link yipee

Russell Ragsdale said...

Great Sue! I went and tried it too, it works just fine. Thanks and Yipee indeed!!!

gulnaz said...

no new poems russell?

Russell Ragsdale said...

Gulnaz, thanks do much for your faithful interest! The muse and I are having a major dissagreement -- I think she is absoulutely fantastic and she thinks I am a stupid fat old man! We are, of course, both right but still I'm trying to get her to see reason!