Tag Archives: understanding

Max Gutmann, ‘The Self’

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The self I love
and try to be

is fashioned by a deeper me,
a me that’s crafted deeper still,

where things like impulse, taste, and will
derive, a dimly curtained core
of which I fathom little more

than that I fathom little, and
that I will never understand,
unfairly blank, unfinely bleak,

a dark obstruction as I seek
a fuller understanding of

the self I am
and try to love.

*****

Max Gutmann writes: “”The Self” strikes me as a strong piece of light verse, light because it’s almost entirely intellectual.It relies on form: its single-sentence, mirror-image construction in which the  beginning and end of each half reflect (on) the end and beginning of the other.”

‘The Self’ was originally published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

Max Gutmann has contributed to dozens of publications including New Statesman, Able Muse, and Cricket. His plays have appeared throughout the U.S. and have been well-reviewed (see maxgutmann.com). His book There Was a Young Girl from Verona sold several copies.
Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, A WordPress.com Website.

“Love yourself” by QuinnDombrowski is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Odd poem: ‘We Dance For Laughter’ by Albert Einstein

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We dance for laughter,
we dance for tears,
we dance for madness,
we dance for fears,
we dance for hopes,
we dance for screams,
we are the dancers,
we create the dreams.

*****

I can’t find anyone other than Einstein credited with this verse, but I also can’t find the source for it. Regardless, Einstein had an appropriate attitude for studying the universe: look at it and ourselves in the spirit of dance, learning, dreaming and creativity.

Photo: “Aðstæður til náms” by sfjalar is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Poem: ‘An Atheist Demands Access to Heaven’

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There flows in my veins the most ancient of ardours:
not power, or love, nor yet worship of God;
the fight that each tiniest baby fights hard as
fought earliest man: “Understand!” Pry and prod
with unquenchable flame of the world-disregarders
for Truth! – be it complex, destructive or odd.
If this fire is from Heaven, then Heaven I’ve earned;
so write on my grave: “This stone too shall be turned.”

This teasingly paradoxical little poem was originally published in the Shot Glass Journal, a thrice-a-year journal of 20-30 American poems and an equal number of international ones. Why the name? Because this is a journal for short poems, none over 16 lines. Most of the material they publish is free verse, but they like to have a full range of styles in each issue… which is good news for formal poets.

Photo: “Atheist Campaign on Tube Train” by Loz Flowers is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0