A WOMAN'S ASHRAM

why go through all that just flush your cell phone.Just kidding.Later with a real comment.This is good. ........o

You and I have been in the same ashram, dear Boni. Kick-arse, sublime poem, congrats! Instead of *discarded* rooms, how about *drowning* rooms? Love, Anna "...when it agrees with reason and it will benefit one and all, then accept it and live by it." ~ Buddha

How are you? I haven't been commenting like I should, but have noticed some wonderful things flowing from your pen... this one is very simply... excellent! just had to tell you! Richard

its all been said before me I offer my regards and awe wonderful write ... your in the groove huni rock it ;) love and hugs Jayne x x

Well My hats off to the moon becouse I did'nt find this one simple with words like: abstemious,simulicrum,and trunk But This is how I see it. Please let me know if I hit the mark or have an arrow in my ass.And putting arrows in the posterior is undoubtedly easy for somone who chooses as an avitar an elephant balanced on a beachball with the words "the key" Becouse the greatest balancing act of all is love.Well here goes. To me this is all about unrequited love through the metaphor of religous devotion. Elucidate if you please to the enlightenment of the faithful.

Conegratulations on Spotlight Boni ... love Jayne x x

hi this is one hell of a write a bit out of my reach but in awe all the same ,,,,,,,ziggy

I can't tell you how much I liked this poem. I love it when you give me new words to look up in my dictionary! Congratulations on spotlight! Always, Cat

Good stuff, and congrats on earning the spotlight! You go girl, and enjoy your moment! Loved this especially: with dead-stopped clocks behind broken locks of discarded rooms filled with their eternal silence, deafening out the droning, dumbing down the knowing, Wow! Best Mike

It is nice to see this poem continuing in the high standard that you have set for yourself. The second stanza is particularly powerful. Congradulations. I see I will be say that a lot in the future. Sorry to steal the spotlight from you - your steady climb up poetic cliffs is deserving of the spotlight. Brian

am drawn throughout by the words and flow Thank You

I see from all the comments above that one more may not make a difference but hey, I have to put my two bobs worth in,lol. I enjoyed this powerful write and all has been said from above, so I will say, keep up the great word. Excellent and very insightful. Love Lyz. XX

I tried to make sense of this, Bonita. Please correct me if I'm dead wrong here. Breathe. After reading this through a few times, I’m left with questions. At first glance, the write seems to be a tribute to worldly, masochistic, restraint in the reverence of God. Flagellation, persecution, being burnt at the stake,- the extremes of religious ‘behaviour’/punitive consequence, extreme in the sense of self-preservation, but beautiful, bizarre drama in our strange and myriad ways of yearning towards the divine. These bits are portrayed very well, I think. However, there is a strong sense of aggression coupled with some feminine aspects in the write which I find interesting. The beginning introduces the life of the monk practicing restraint to discipline the self. The second stanza caught my eye as it continues from the first ‘be abstemious like a medieval monk..’, and then the binding of feet, forced upon women of the imperial courts, and the shaving of the head (can also be seen as a removal of femininity),- demeaning practices performed by those in power, not necessarily by one’s own personal religious convictions. Yet, the ‘I’ in this write welcomes this treatment, the ‘traitor’ to the human world of torturous oppression, misguided faith,- would even waste all dignity, the soul to get through to ‘You’. Defiant as hell(no pun intended), but also fanatical,- enduring pain to an excess in exchange for heavenly accept and martyrdom. With this in my mind, the third conclusive stanza poses the problem: when faced with sweet smelling ideas of ‘You’ pulling ‘I’ up, the will to sacrifice oneself is a strong symbolic tender, a ‘simulacrum of sanity’, or a ‘means to survive the suicide’. What was once an act of reverence has become a will to force, tumbling down the rabbit hole. Now, I’ve taken a theological angle on this write, and it’s a little grim. On one side there is a lot of sarcasm on the nature of sacrifice, on the other, a good dose of insinuated anger towards a patriarchal god. There’s nothing innocent about pungent perfume, and ‘a foreboding fallacy - this forever fantasy..’ contains some Freudian elements, put in context with other aspects of this write, which highlights the age old power trip of certain churches. I like the idea of ‘You’ being the reflection of the self, like talking to oneself a mirror, another is that of an ode to an impossible love affair, as a prayer in vain, sacrifice all in raw want of what cannot be held,- brings a smile into it as well. But in the end it depends on who, or what, you decide is ‘You’. It could be almost anything, which is both liberating and confusing. Though I’m curious about your initial intention here, I think you’ll have to stand in line with all the others in the debate about this meta-poem. A few suggestions, I’d give up this sumptuous life to join an Ashram sleep on nails or cold floors under darkened skies, with dead-stopped clocks behind broken locks of discarded rooms filled with their eternal silence, deafening out the droning, dumbing down the knowing, flagellating this tempestuous longing - just to be within reach of You. be abstemious like a medieval monk or bind my feet, first breaking bones to shorten my trunk, shave my hair to burn - a “Joan of arc” on a raging fire as would I, a traitor - profligate my soul to meet my maker… You —- to burn - a “Joan of arc” a raging fire (drop the ‘on’ and it flows) as would I, a traitor - profligate my soul to meet my maker…——- there’s nothing left to give save silent sacrifice - the pungent perfume of innocent incense wafting, ever spiralling upward to an imaginery heaven - a simulacrum of sanity must suffice to fight a foreboding fallacy - this forever fantasy of You….. ——there’s nothing left to give save silent sacrifice - the pungent perfume of innocence/incense (I’m not against this, just ‘innocent incense’ stays on the tongue a little long, I think) wafting, ever spiralling upward ——– What do you think? Yours, Espen.

A poem should not be understood as a mathmatical equation of neat parts that fit togeather for easy definition. In my opinion the best poetry opens more doors into deeper meanings then even the author is conciously aware of.The poem, in a sense, creates us from deep within by bringing more of what we are to the surface. How many of us know the poem before we begin to write.It takes on a life of it's own - directing our understanding in ways we had not thought before,beggining with a central idea, growing into the finished poem with our additional concious efforts in editing and refining. The new freeform styles expect from us a new inner disipline of form to replace the structures of meter and rhyme.That being true to ones self in the content of ones ideas as expressed. Poetry may not find it's coherence in it's continuity of ideas, but in the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas.Barry....o...

how did I miss this one? I got a chuckle out of the religiously misled comments above. I see this poem as the characterization of a type: the woman who sacrifices herself perpetually for her loved one(s). I myself have decided never to sleep on nails again, and I hope that we are moving away from this image of women. I had to learn that I am allowed to say "no" to a person I love, and I hope my daughter will learn that while still being a child (she's showing every sign of already having learned this). Yours, ~Nina

As is usual, i guess i am the off center point of view, in saying that i think we are moving away from one distortion, and into an opposing one of equal consequences. Knowledge abounds as wisdom deminishes. Science leaps forword as our sense to use it stumbles.I give my proof through the world we live in today.Full well aggreeing that in a lot of ways life is better.Anyway whats wrong with sacrificing ones self for there loved ones? Isn't this a foundational principle of family, and i don't mean the extreme sort in Bons poem? Barry ...o..

Wikipedia's definition of sacrifice. Sacrifice (from a Middle English verb meaning "to make sacred", from Old French, from Latin sacrificium: sacr, "sacred" + facere, "to make") is commonly known as the practice of offering food, objects (typically valuables), or the lives of animals or people to the gods as an act of propitiation or worship. The term is also used metaphorically to describe selfless good deeds for others or a short term loss in return for a greater gain, such as in a game of chess. Recently it has also come into use as meaning doing without something or giving something up.[1]

What fascinates me beyound the immediate issue at hand, is that we have one word that means two differant things to two differant people.Would you agree? So when I use the word it means one thing and when you use the word it means somthing else. OK ,How important to us is this in our understanding of each other and poetry in our judgements.I have to understand you, and you have to understand me. If we could accomplish this and follow it through to its logical conclusion we could eradicate war.Wouldn't that be nice.What is our cominality here ? On what point do we disagree. On what points do we agree.We begin to see the complexities involved in comunication. I think this is an important issue, considering that at this moment, there are enough nuclear weapons targeted on our most populas cities, that at the push of a button could obliterate life from this planet, and then everything would be a moot point. Of course I am against the enslavement of the mind of which you speak as you are not against the sacrifices I have used as examples.So where do we disagree or do we even disagree at all? I see this poem as the characterization of a type: the woman who sacrifices herself perpetually for her loved one(s). Your point of view .Anyway whats wrong with sacrificing ones self for there loved ones? Isn’t this a foundational principle of family, My point of view So you see sacrifice as forced giving and I don't read that conotation into it. So if I accept your conotation and you accept mine; then where do we still disagree? Or do we? If I substitute "give" for the word "sacrifice" in my point above would you then agree? When I substitute "forced sacrifice" into your point. Then I can agrre with it, and we are then in agreement on that one point. This illustrates the complexities of human relationships in micrcosm ,and the distances that must be overcome for human survival.It also illustrates the need for presision in our use of words in poetry.context and referance points must also be considered. What do you think? Barry ...o..

I can't believe your selling books! what next tickets? HaHa. I have to put that in so I don't get buried in feminists.The ha ha I mean. Your excited -- don't fall off the ball Bon.Barry ...o..

thanks for recommending the books. I remember an exercise our semantics prof made us do: We were to visualize what the word "table" meant. Need I say that no two people came up with the same image? Yours, ~Nina