A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have been painted; while within the narrative, we have many apparent choices of exit, but when the author leads us to one particular door, we know it is the right one because it opens.
quote by John Updike
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An ode to Russ Ligtas’ butoh performance -He[sit]ation
You came in you came and you came when all senses faint as your name yes your name is all there is to it as it goes as it went through unseen doors of histories of which are painted on walls that captivate you with all you do and what you’ve been through as you cringe and you escape a silent scream as a tinge of reminisce lighted your dark memories of where you sit of where you spit your st[r]ing of wordless narrative.
poem by Liyo Denorte
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Without sounding too pretentious, I was sort of a slave to the narrative. When the narrative cracks in, I have to go where it takes me. I had to go to the Bohemian Grove. It was the obvious end to the book.
quote by Jon Ronson
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Of the individual poems, some are more lyric and some are more descriptive or narrative. Each poem is fixed in a moment. All those moments written or read together take on the movement and architecture of a narrative.
quote by Marilyn Hacker
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Behind The Arras
As in some dim baronial hall restrained,
A prisoner sits, engirt by secret doors
And waving tapestries that argue forth
Strange passages into the outer air;
So in this dimmer room which we call life,
Thus sits the soul and marks with eye intent
That mystic curtain o'er the portal death;
Still deeming that behind the arras lies
The lambent way that leads to lasting light.
Poor fooled and foolish soul! Know now that death
Is but a blind, false door that nowhere leads,
And gives no hope of exit final, free.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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FDR created today's 30 percent coalition. Obama wants to finish the job by turning it into a permanent ruling majority. There's nothing new about the Obama Narrative. It is the FDR Narrative on steroids. It is intended to lead to greater statism and political gain.
quote by Arthur C. Brooks
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Instead, I was interested in what I guess I could call narrative indeterminacy, in questioning the apparent, taken-for-granted authority of any particular representation of the events in question.
quote by Peter Straub
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L8,2212
There is a door which you open
you enter, and then it closes you
behind you
forever,
there is no force here,
but only volition,
you enter it
with all the warnings,
that the
possibility that it will close forever
has been told to you
over and over
again,
somehow, you do not make it a problem
you like a closed door, and you hate it
when it opens,
you love it when it is closed forever,
the room is nice
there is a certain loveliness
in there,
it has shiny floors,
it has a bright ceiling,
the lights are lovely,
like stars
in an open dark sky
the air is fresh,
the walls are comfortable
who wants to take an exit?
no one.not you.
when the door knows this, it will open
forever,
it decides to open for you
and it will tell you to go out and be
an outsider again and
be gone
for good,
you insist that you own this room now,
that a closed door is not a serious matter
and there is no way that you have to
go out
or be ousted,
the door has a stair with strong hands
and it will drag you out
it will pull your hair and drag your body
like hell
the door has learned its lesson
when the room is not a prison to someone else
there is no use keeping him there forever
for in truth the reason of the door's
existence
is to make you feel the prison and to suffer
and you know your lesson too well
there is no prison to a mind that is an open window
there is no suffering
to a lover of suffering
you see, it takes a little reverse psychology
for closed doors to open
for men to know that suffering is not suffering
at all
when one loves is tripping
when one thinks
otherwise
when one loves whatever happens
when one accepts
the one that is there and not look for something
that is always missing
why go for the unreachable?
why suffer for long?
life is life, and death is death
you are here, grab this here.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Typhoon
typhoons are not that strong
sometimes
they behave like
critics, passing by an
island, saying, hey you
are not an island after
all, you are just a hill
fit for a Bollywood
scene
I am in that island
feeling some itch
of its breeze, but i was too
busy then
climbing one
of the narrative trees
there
and he asks
is there such a thing
as a narrative tree?
i crack the nut
and drink the clouds
there
and he is filled with
so much
awe,
he gets itchy
and scratches
all the skins
and even the bones
he rattles like
a snake
and wants to bite
the narrative tree
has everything
to offer
gentle, and soft
and conversational
but he wants to deny
this kind of tree
saying
there is no such
thing as that
and this
oh my, what a man
he is
structured in his cage
not knowing
that he is meant to
be free
from the shackles of
his verse
from the narrow alleys
of his
rhyme
goodness, we do not
even try
grafting the metaphors
i love it here
this island where i touch
him not
but he touches me
i guess
that is envy.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Sanctuary
Density of the room
Filled with gloom
Ahead, nothing emerges
The four walls
Witness semen, blood, sweat and tears
The floors suffocate
The bed strains
Groans and moans
Were the past luxury
The exit door is history
Leads to our mortuaries
Confinement eludes
Rejuvenates prelude
One word is enough
To plough
Sanctuary
Is the calamity
PS: Get the right mood, tune in to Gary Moore's song 'Empty Room'.It would complete your reading of this poem.
poem by Sulaiman Mohd Yusof
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The narrative constructs the identity of the character, what can be called his or her narrative identity, in constructing that of the story told. It is the identity of the story that makes the identity of the character.
quote by Paul Ricoeur
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In my house
You enter a room to see a park
You close a door only to be led to another stairway
Leading you to another room with nothing but windows
You close a window the rest remains open
You close the windows and another door
In that park in the room where you just entered
Opens
Then you are confused about the roof that opens
To a river to the rocks where another door opens
To a wall with trees and birds and butterflies
This is weird you say, this is really weird
Then from the garage comes a wind that blows
Its horn like a car
I have just arrived offering you an explanation
For all these mess, these uncertainties, these self-made
confusions.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Doors Are Locked
From inside of this room
I shall not exit
I have locked the doors
To the world outside.
It does not matter to me what is happening outside, because
Behind these locked doors
Is the world that I live in,
This land of my dreams that
I have fabricated for myself alone.
I recall my father recently reading me a story-
Of a woman who created a world within her dreams-
There she lived and locked herself
Inside of the doors that
Barred her from all that is real.
My father's hope was that
I would find my way out from
This place he called the land of my delusions.
This place which he calls the land of my delusions has become
My only veracity.
From the inside of this room
I shall not exit-it is here I safely converse with
The voices inside of my mind.
The doors to this room are locked, but
I can still hear my mother weeping, and
I hear my mother cry out from the midst of her tears-
What has become of my only child?
Inside of this room, I have constructed a world.
The doors are locked and
I have shut reality out-
The doors to my room are locked and
I have lost the key.
My mother is still weeping as her one and only
Has lost the key that would open the doors
To the world outside-
My mother is sobbing; the key is lost and alas-
Her only child's sanity has also been lost.
poem by Claudia Krizay
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The Allegory Of The Cycle Of Doors
and so there is this door that appears before you
and you open it
and then when you enter the room
another door appears
this is the cycle of doors that keep on appearing and you
keep on opening
but the room still appears from a distance
always distant
from your eager feet to enter
you say to enter the room i must please the door
but the room moves away just the same
and the door tells you
to keep the room
you have to burn it and when the room is burned
the door finally disappears
and then both the door and the room shall tell you
now be happy
for you now have a house of your own
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Headed The Other Way
They were nowhere to be seen,
But now the sight defied analysis;
Picking up the story, we wrote this narrative,
Curling my writing utensil, defying the senses.
It was not overabundant but laughable
To see men in pictured form,
The form of animals and crossbreeds,
Looking at the walls, the facilities
And howling too largely for their size.
Behind them was a bloody walkway,
And then they pounced in that way
To avoid me, as if dogs too frightened
By their masters, picturing me as a planet.
The door showed itself open,
And I headed the other direction.
poem by Naveed Akram
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There Is No One There
in trying to forget he escapes from the house of pain
time teaches him about doors that he needs to enter
time leads him to the doors of pleasures and one door
leads to another,
different lights and warmth and glitter
different scents and dance steps of love
lust as he must say
later in his life,
some names and places
soon he is undressed and he sees his body and face in the mirror
his hollow eyes
his thirsting heart
his emaciated soul radiating the inner glow of what is about to be lost
completely
he takes the exit and turns back
to the familiar places of this heart
under the tree the bark where two names are written
a heart carved, an arrow piercing
there is no one there
there is no bird singing anymore
the clouds drift and then go away
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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It Isn't Traditional
Is it poetry?
Is it a narrative.
Is it part haiku,
With a dose of prose?
Who knows?
Is it what it should be?
And is it possible what should be,
Isn't and has never been.
And those wishing to see it,
Expressed properly as intended...
Have not a clue,
What those initial intentions meant.
Was it created to communicate,
Between elitists who prefered eating cake?
As they delighted in making fun,
Of the ones too socially powerful...
To know what behind their backs was being done?
Who knows?
Or...
Why is it today,
Anyone can say...
To decide to justify,
What etiquette abides?
When one chooses a method,
Using limited words to mention...
What from their own minds,
They describe and 'they' themselves wish to define.
And it is...
Poetry.
And it is...
A narrative.
And it is...
A dose of prose.
With a touch of haiku.
With a doing done as one would choose.
'But it isn't traditional.'
And what are those traditions,
You can say today...
Remains as an influence.
And 'still' exists?
Name just one!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Poetry, Not Prose
Tom Friedman says that we need poetry, not prose,
to get this country into better shape.
Although we surely know a rose would be a rose
if called by any other name, a grape
becomes much more when sublimated into wine,
and politics don’t matter till its message
becomes poetic. Prose won’t help to make it shine,
and all predications politicians presage
won’t come to pass unless they’re elevated with
poetic language that shifts paradigms,
and brings into reality what seemed mere myth,
promoting the prosaic with its rhymes.
We need a narrative that we can memorize,
not complicated data on a chart,
and yearn for tuneful songs that we can harmonize,
and poems we love learning off by heart.
Inspired by an Op-Ed article by Thomas Friedman in the NYT, November 1,2009, exhorting President Obama to be more poetic (“More Poetry Please”) :
More and more lately, I find people asking me: What do you think President Obama really believes about this or that issue? I find that odd. How is it that a president who has taken on so many big issues, with very specific policies — and has even been awarded a Nobel Prize for all the hopes he has kindled — still has so many people asking what he really believes? I don’t think that President Obama has a communications problem, per se. He has given many speeches and interviews broadly explaining his policies and justifying their necessity. Rather, he has a “narrative” problem….
“Obama’s election marked a shift — from a politics that celebrated privatized concerns to a politics that recognized the need for effective government and larger public purposes. Across the political spectrum, people understood that national renewal requires big ambition, and a better kind of politics, ” said the Harvard political theorist Michael Sandel, author of the new best seller — “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? ” — that calls for elevating our public discourse. But to deliver on that promise, Sandel added, Obama needs to carry the civic idealism of his campaign into his presidency. He needs a narrative that will get the same voters who elected him to push through his ambitious agenda — against all the forces of inertia and private greed. “You can’t get nation-building without shared sacrifice, ” said Sandel, “and you cannot inspire shared sacrifice without a narrative that appeals to the common good — a narrative that challenges us to be citizens engaged in a common endeavor, not just consumers seeking the best deal for ourselves. Obama needs to energize the prose of his presidency by recapturing the poetry of his campaign.”
11/1/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Thoughts After Sex
after sex
people sleep
that is the
usual exit that
people who want
to escape seem
to know and do
they sleep
the routine keeps
going like
house, office,
office, house
roads, doors
doors, road
after sex
the usual exit
is closed
you look at the
ceiling trying to
open another
door
but there isn't
any.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Wayang Kulit
the unique world of myths
symbols and religious beliefs
most difficult to understand
the puppet master, or dalang
tells his story by projecting
the shadows of the puppets
he manipulates behind
a white screen and a large lamp
he plays several characters at once
basically an epic narrative
shifting from Old-Javanese
to the High-Balinese
singing and hitting a box
to mark the rhythm
a good dalang
is a one-man-show
being in turns smart
funny and melancholic
borrows the frame
of his narrative
from the great epics
of Indo-Javanese tradition
the Ramayana
the Mahabharata
although other stories
may sometimes be used
he then creates his own episodes
usually concerning a hero's quest
for a magical weapon, heavenly secret or partner
the hero, accompanied by buffoons
succeeds eventually after tortuous adventures
in the wilderness and fights with evil giants
the two sets of puppets
the heroes on the right
the villains on the left
symbolise eternal struggle
between good and evil
but for the audience
dalang's ability to poke fun
at everyone through mouths
of the buffoons is no less important
than the narrative itself
poem by Ahmad Shiddiqi
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for John on his first frustration
let me draw you a house
with an entrance gate
leading to an entrance
door and some windows
to let in air.
just that, there will be no
exit doors, no exit gate,
all the windows open,
not designed to close,
that precisely is success
and failure.
there is a sense of
entrance triumphant
ditto an exit for some
ordinary and even
inevitable failures of
our lives.
the windows are some
of our other options, we
let in air to breathe
for a while. we must.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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