Cloudthings

Feb 14, 2009 ⭐ View statistics (Premium feature)

Wisp of clematis

Lost in the wisp of clematis

You pixelled your image to me

Such a light touch in the world

The art of the moment, a seed

The will – o – the – wisp and the wish

I leaned my soul against you

and you immersed me in your kiss

— Cloudthings, Feb 14, 2009

About This Poem

About the Author

Region, Country: Australia, regional Victoria, AUS

Favorite Poets: So many... Rumi, Spike Milligan, Keats. Many of the Neopoet clan, past & present. A myriad of song writers, Dylan, Jackson Browne, Lior, & I must add the poetic influence of painters, sculptors & creators across the world... Life really, especially the sky.

Critiques

themoonman

17 years 3 months ago

Cloudthings...

I thought this quite beautiful poetry... the will-o-the-wisp and the wish... loved that line... clamatus... are you referring to the flower, I believe you are and the spelling for it that I get is clematis... but you are from a different country and spellings and meanings sometimes are very different...please do tell me if I've read this piece wrong... Richard

Cloudthings

17 years 3 months ago

Aussie variety

Hey Richard... oops I 'd like to say Clamatus was an Australian variety, but I'm afraid it was a wicked oversight on my part so thanks for correcting me. & I'm glad you like the writing... I probably like that line the most myself. & ta for being so gentle on me forgiving me for being Australian with wierd spelling (chuckle - kidding of course)... I shouldnt write when I am so sleep deprived, but it seems the only time I get to spend on Neopoet is when I really should be sleeping. Cheers to you though.. I meant to go look at your latest I read one that made me feel a little sad.. hope all is well with you Richard. cheers Anni I wish to walk gracefully..... so as not to spill water.

prayersbyPatty

17 years 3 months ago

Cloudthings

The will of the wisp and the wish... Very much enjoyed that line also. This is good. I enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing. Patty

Cloudthings

17 years 3 months ago

Ta & congrats

Thanks Patty I also really enjoy the works I've read of yours.. Congrats on the spotlight again too. I do wish I had more time to read & reply on this site, it's a busy time, I'm hoping to visit more at leisure when things settle. Cheers Anni I wish to walk gracefully..... so as not to spill water.

Arrow

17 years 3 months ago

I find the first line perplexing-

"Lost in the whisp of clematus" because I always picture clematis as lush and colorful. Wispy clematis seems unnatural and how could one be lost in something that is hardly there? (I am just thinking on paper.) Maybe lost in the wish for clematis, the wish for verdant entanglement? Although, people get lost in fading, fraying dreams all the time. . . ? Maybe lost in the wish and the wisp simultaneously? That's a rich line. "The art of the moment, a seed" - this is my favorite line. Reminds me of those old paintings (Flemish?) that used chiaroscuro and captured an ordinary moment in a certain slant of light. Well, there is a lot here.

Cloudthings

17 years 3 months ago

Oops a thesis on the splendid Clematis & it's spermlike wisps

Always enjoy your comments Arrow... (Actually I am probably a tart for comments from anyone on this site... probably we all are at some level)... but you will get that from my latest note on your Avocado work... mmm yum) Sigh ...my "swollen heart - no matter" Still, I should explain the Clematis I had in mind was a single wisp - they are divine all bunched up, the seeds of Clematis, when the lush colour is spent... Always reminiscent of a Dr Seuss image or concept, & most of all (& here is my weird sense of humour coupled with a healthy dose of irreverence) they make me chuckle because the single seeds when plucked from the “tufty” bunch look to me like lovely fury, curly sperm… hope that doesn’t offend… Indeed I guess they are in actuality! I digress as I commonly do, so the Clematis in the poem is actually referring to a single wispy seed, lovely whimsical strands... heh a curly arrow Arrow! Designed to swirl its curly way serendipitously in the wind to seed a new & lovely lush vine somewhere. Perhaps it makes more sense to you now? As for being lost in it... maybe more weirdness but I can get lost in the most intangible & wispy things possible.. I am a creature of cloud; I can follow in there until they dissipate. & things far more obscure, so Clematis … easy, though that was referring to the lovely tufty cluster swirl… a maze to ponder & intriguing as well... I do love that little batch of lines you offer though: "Maybe lost in the wish for clematis, the wish for verdant entanglement? Although, people get lost in fading, fraying dreams all the time… ? Maybe lost in the wish and the wisp simultaneously? That’s a rich line." It is as are the previous.. & in fact that poem related to a circumstance I already new was somewhat pathetically hopeful & hopeless at the same time.. I could explain because I know it must sound cryptic, but it would mean more blab from me & I feel most people get the duality of love & longing.. Lets just say the fact that the poem focuses on the Clematis at the dry, seed spreading spent phase is probably clear enough indication.. But even things that pass (as all things do) leave seeds or fertilastion for future so there is never emptiness or waste in reality. Now I have explained... dam! & I feel I have taken so much time there is little to explore the "Flemish" paintings! I will have to do some research now… love it, these interactions feed my soul & my hungry mind. I am including a Wikipedia page for reference since it shows the seed & you can see what I am on about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clematis Thanks for your comments, a delight to consider as ever. Anni I wish to walk gracefully..... so as not to spill water.

Rob Graber

17 years 3 months ago

Meter

Love the tripping trimeter here, itself a "light touch in the world" indeed!

Cloudthings

17 years 3 months ago

Thanks Rob… such succinct

Thanks Rob... such succinct praise... it means a lot. I respect your feedback & appreciate it, even if it were to be less embracing. Cheers Anni I wish to walk gracefully..... so as not to spill water.

Nordic cloud

17 years 3 months ago

Pickled pixies

Am I old fashioned? I only stumbled where the word pixelled came into the poem, it fixed things other than clematis seed-swirls in my mind and distracted me so that when I first saw this poem I left in haste. Now I am being honest with you aren't ? Otherwise I enjoyed it all very much. Softly, gently drowned. Yours Ann of Norway

Cloudthings

17 years 3 months ago

Here we are, dancing amongst these pixels

No problem Ann (you can't be too old fashioned or you would not be here dancing amongst these pixels yourself dear one!), The poem was inspired by a photograph my friend had emailed me of a bunch of Clematis seed tufts he had taken when we had gone for a walk around our lovely lake here in Dayleford... This is where the "Pixelled image" comes in. Pixels are the points of colour & light that create the pictures on the computer screen (there may be a better explanation than that, but that's my understanding... I always find it an ironic amusement that so much beauty can be brought to us via these little electronicly driven elements... Clematis seeds are the most whimsical & mysterious things, there they were offered up on my screen.. electronicly... it was something that moved me to pull that aspect into the poem... I believe it could fall under a "postmodernist" aproach maybe, the lovely old fashioned & ageless process of seeding & flowering & the contemporary process of emailing beautiful photgraphic images. Anni I wish to walk gracefully..... so as not to spill water.

prayersbyPatty

17 years 3 months ago

Pixel

refers to the dots (seeds if you will) on a matrix that make a picture on a computer.How many pixels make a picture clear? about 300, for a small picture to go really far so there are no blurry areas about 500. The more I read this the more brilliant it becomes. Everyone's picture on this site are pixelled therefore visible. If I kept enlarging them you would see the dot matrix. Computers 101. Patty.

Cloudthings

17 years 3 months ago

Beautifully described ... Thanks Patty

Ahh yes Patty thank you, this is brilliant... see we don't just enlighten eachother regarding poetry on this sight, I do love these interractions.. Yes, I love the whole pixelated aspect of our interactions & our pictures on here & there seems an odd irony about the whole thing as I mention above... & thank you so much for your caring message of concern I have responded & apreciate your thoughts greatly... & I am in no way concerned ( I have finally reached a stage where I am comfortable with what I do & know that anything anyone else does or doesn't do to acknowledge my efforts is just a bonus or something to learn from... I quite liked this poem, I don't actually get to that point with much of my work, they are birthed & come out differently don't they)... I found a fantastic little book by the way, inspired by your lovely poem & some comments by Ann (above) some time ago & some other interaction around Haiku which were really fun... an internet forum where Haiku poetry was posted & each person had to begin with the last line of the person before them... Anyway I am LOVING my Zen Poetry book, lord knows I could stand to get a little more succinct! Yours is a fabulous photo by the way, I bet there is a good story that goes with it. Anni I wish to walk gracefully..... so as not to spill water.

Rett

17 years 3 months ago

cloudthings this is beautiful

I totally understand the whisp you are talking about and you captured it well. I say whisp because that is way we pronounced it in the countryside where I grew up. Like Patty, I also understood the pixelled reference. The more I read it the more I like it. Well done Cloud. Respectfully, Rett: "Next time you think you're perfect, walk on water." If government is the answer, it's a stupid question!

Cloudthings

17 years 3 months ago

Whence the whistful whimsy whisps worry weirdo wenches!

Hey Rett, Thanks, apreciate your support & I totally agree, I really think if any "W" word needs the H beside it it's whisp... though I checked it & had to correct even will - o - the wisp... It just feels wrong without the H... funny old language English sometimes.. I did think of posting the "pixelled image" here as testament instead of my own image, but I figured things move so fast around here, people would be left wondering what the hell it was about.... might be fun though, to post a new image to match any poem I post... might think about it.. my last might be a tricky one to pinpoint though... an illusive kind of longing is difficult to paint visually... there's the beauty in words... oh how I love 'em Cheers Anni I wish to walk gracefully..... so as not to spill water.

Nordic cloud

17 years 3 months ago

I did know what pixels were

I only felt that they were somehow not so poetic, the 'call me old fashoined' bit was Dame Edna!! Here I wrote to someone last year:- "Description if electric (pixelled) messages I will show you below (see what i mean?), I will send them to you,flying through the air with the electric signals that we now translate everything into- that's all it is, electric impulses: static (electricity is described in this way but then it can mean the opposite?) and moving, bright and dull, like a pizzicato of sound patterns dashing through the clouds and across the seas; how do they not bump into one another? All very puzzling. To imagine seeing them is mind boggling isn't it? What chaos if a bird has the capacity to hear it, or what a mess if one has to fly through it all visibly, and all this excess that I send to you, takes part in this Jackson Pollock of an abstract sky, or universe-painting; in places a Fontana with great holes in the surfaces, in places a Turner-storm of colours, in places an intricate, complicated fugue, even more intertwined than Bach's music." And the sounds are there forever out there..... So I DID know what they were. Yes the clematis is beautiful and I shall never look at such a seed whorl without thinking of you in the future. Like that lovely plant, we have none in Norway, called 'Travellers Joy' can you imagine a better name? It too has the same kind of crazy hair-do don't you think?