In This Circumference, An Ode? – Poem of the Week

Moving on from last week’s surreal No Pink Armadillo, we reach the space of lyric poetry. I could probably find you a solid, intellectual, definition of the lyric poem. But that is almost like trying to define poetry itself. So it would be best if you just believed me when I tell you that In This Circumference, An Ode? falls into a modern lyric category. 

Lyric poetry comes out of the Greek poetry tradition–words accompanied by the lyre (hence, lyric), often written from the first person point of view. However, it might be easier to sum up lyric poetry as that which is not strictly narrative. Surreal work would therefore be a subset of lyric poetry. As would a whole host of other sub-types or schools of poetry.

An ode is a poem which is addressed to specific subject or person. So an Ode contained within a Circumference is a poem addressed to something that exists within that circular space.

This week’s poem is more about the passage of time than anything else, I suppose. But time is not completely divorced from the world around it — offices, trust, promises, future, grasping, emptiness.

In This Circumference, An Ode?

This is our wilderness, our sojourn
in the desert of email and paperclips.
Every day we have to trust, and every day
I fail the trust again. So faithless,
I’ve even given up crying. Why wail when
the response is only silence
and an always unfulfilled promise?
What is the future anyway, but a place we long to live too soon?
A calendar is just grasping hands,
today trying hard to hold onto tomorrow,
or a minute from now,
or the vision of yesterday…
This ode is owed after the project ends.
I’ve always had trouble following rules.
One cannot live long on stale wheat bread and wilted romaine.
Each day’s fullness distracts from its emptiness.

If you enjoyed In This Circumference, An Ode?

This week’s poem originally appeared in a 2012 issue of Fresh Hot Bread, a periodical published by the California-based Waverly Writers Group.

You can read more of my work on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.

Have a great week, and look for another poem next Monday.