A Photoshopped Picture

I have been ill. As my strength returns, I have begun looking around and here is your poem without a comment. It is hard to understand why it remains lonely. As usual, it contains terrific ideas. The first three stanzas carry the goods, especially the first and third: ‘Cause it lies in the cliché of an ordinary day. ... I see the crime I know I’m guilty all the time of the vanity of having of the want to believe in the worlds in which I haunt The forth stanza isn't bad; it just doesn't have the oomph to follow where the third stanza leads. That is a constant dilemma with brilliant creations: maintaining the brilliance. Sometimes it is truly a creative pause (whatever that means). More often, it seems, it is our own hesitation to take cognizance of our own thoughts or allow the thoughts broadcast rights. I sometimes simply ask myself, "What is the fear? What is the implication?" And the powerful ideas are just there, waiting for us, like ripe plumbs for the tongue. Here, the forth stanza is a visual temptation. It is a plum or an apple of sorts. But this is somewhat inaccurate, at least so far as my experience issues. Temptation seems less a motive than compulsion. I find that my subconscious governs. If my conscious mind tries to rationalize a choice that my subconscious will not accept then the conscious choice must be brought into compliance, for the subconscious is the smarter of the two. The subconscious is the realist. It feeds the conscious personal truths as the conscious is ready for them. "[T]he want / to believe in / the worlds in which / I haunt", in a Texas religious context, is a somewhat sordid silencing of the continuing subconscious desire for intelligent curiosity (a kind of honest investment in the attributes of the body (intelligence + the senses) ). It is the story of Eve and the apple of knowledge. And that story has so many versions. There is the admonishment version: "Don't eat the apple!" There is the invitation and acknowledgement version: "Humans will eat the apple and are, typically, as a consequence, shunned." And in this latter version, the shunning is automatic. The knowledge, all on its own, its what separates the knowledgeable from the ignorant. And, there is a community version of the story: "We all eat parts of the apple; we are all shunned in part by the social process. Know this and be comforted. We are a community." I read your writing with constant interest. Brian