deepundergroundpoetry.com
The Autobiography
1.
Under all
that open
buttermilk
sky:
2.
tooling carelessly
down an
open road:
what a peripateetic
existence.
3.
Dad
knocking kicking
around for automotive
parts, to support us.
4.
Mom
joking singing
dancing her way
to a Brock Candy
Co. outlet: her
beauty-parlors askance.
5.
We
me and my
sister feared
screamed to
avoid the
handscrabble
life of
nickle-and-
dime saving:
making do.
6.
The quintessential
tale of every mid-
western kid: from
Illinois hick
to Chicago
poet
to university
servitude
urbanity lacking:
7.
a romantic
longing that
haunts.
Nothing sexual.
An agrarian
landscape,
a prelapsarian
existence:
8.
never feeling
fully at home.
An idealized
vision of life
receding in the
rear-view mirror.
Under all
that open
buttermilk
sky:
2.
tooling carelessly
down an
open road:
what a peripateetic
existence.
3.
Dad
knocking kicking
around for automotive
parts, to support us.
4.
Mom
joking singing
dancing her way
to a Brock Candy
Co. outlet: her
beauty-parlors askance.
5.
We
me and my
sister feared
screamed to
avoid the
handscrabble
life of
nickle-and-
dime saving:
making do.
6.
The quintessential
tale of every mid-
western kid: from
Illinois hick
to Chicago
poet
to university
servitude
urbanity lacking:
7.
a romantic
longing that
haunts.
Nothing sexual.
An agrarian
landscape,
a prelapsarian
existence:
8.
never feeling
fully at home.
An idealized
vision of life
receding in the
rear-view mirror.
Published 23rd Jun 2012
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likes 2
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comments 7
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Commenting Preference:
The author encourages honest critique.
23rd Jun 2012 7:41pm
Well, since I´m from Chicago I relate to this on so many levels, strong poem as always. I know you like critique but this doesn´t need any
25th Jun 2012 5:16pm
Thanks Matthew. Your support and encouragement are always welcomed.
marcella1
marcella1
wonderful walk down memory lane indeed. As soon as i read the first stanza, it came to mind 'Under milk wood' by Dylan Thomas.
excellent use of the word 'peripateetic' but i think it's spelled this way--> 'peripatetic'
use(less) fact: Did you know that Aristotle's school was called 'Peripatos' as well? The reason for this was because he encouraged his students to walk whilst thinking as he believed it oxygenated the brain and helped concentrate one better.
excellent use of the word 'peripateetic' but i think it's spelled this way--> 'peripatetic'
use(less) fact: Did you know that Aristotle's school was called 'Peripatos' as well? The reason for this was because he encouraged his students to walk whilst thinking as he believed it oxygenated the brain and helped concentrate one better.
25th Jun 2012 5:15pm
Thanks for the comment. Actually it's not "memory lane." It's imaginary. Thanks also for the help spelling. The fact is not "useless." Did you know (you probably do) that Aristotle, like St. Paul to the later Wittgenstein, hardly wrote anything. What we have are notes by students and/or scribes.
marcella1
marcella1
25th Jun 2012 6:17pm
imaginary? i'd never would have guessed. It's written so vividly as if it sprang from your memories. Hasn't Wittgenstein wrote/published anything? I know that the last few years of his life he left only notes which he hadn't finished. What about Tractatus though?
27th Jun 2012 5:27pm
Yes. The TRACTATUS was his doctoral dissertation, written mostly from the battlefield during WWI. He was a CO and thus picked up dead bodies and body parts. When B. Russell received it he said something like "I don't understand a word of it. It must be brilliant." W. used to run (literally) from the classes he was teaching at Cambridge to go see a movie, sometimes the same one over and over (like I watch G. Clooney, although I'd never compare myself to W.) Do you read much philosophy? Sure sounds like it. If so, maybe we can talk about it a bit.
marcella1
marcella1
27th Jun 2012 6:28pm
im studying philosophy. a part of my degree is philosophy.
yes i'd love to! sounds like you're into this stuff.
yes i'd love to! sounds like you're into this stuff.
