What is the truth of power?
What can refute all lies?
Look at a meteor shower
In clear midnight skies.

Between the fluffy clouds
In Arizona sky -
Between the fears and doubts -
Between the "you" and "I" -

Carrying time and matter
From the galactic heights,
Into the skies they scatter
And sanctify the night.

Meteors, stone and metal,
Burning up in their flight -
Look at their skill and mettle!
Look, and gain second sight!

Look at the sparks in heaven!
Look, and see with your eyes -
Six, seven, eight, eleven -
Look, and be mesmerized!

Hailing from worlds unknown -
Rich with the universe -
Ice, fire, earth and stone -
Passion and speed and force!

Look at the truth they carry -
That they wish to impart -
See how they wish to marry
Earth with galactic heart!

Meteors, bits of planets -
Parcels of cosmic dust -
Iron and gold and granite
From an uncharted past -

Here they come into present
And bring inside their core
Pieces of the Incessant
Into Forevermore.

How do I rise to meet you
Before you burn in flight?
How can the human greet you
And understand your plight?

How can the stars and atoms,
Each one its own world,
Be in their essence fathomed
And in their truth unfurled?

Sun lights us, and we heed him -
Sun is the source of light -
But how much greater wisdom
Dwells in the star-drenched night?

Measure them, know them, see them -
Numerous like the sand -
Capture what they conceive and
Try, try to understand

Everything that they know
All that they have within -
Know them as they bestow
Their sainthood and their sin.

Meteors, flying toward us,
From the unknown worlds -
Messages that night forwards
And with its chill enfolds -

Mysteries wrapped in darkness -
Catch them before they burn -
From the unfathomed, chartless,
Space, they to us return.

And with your head in clouds -
Or on a satellite -
Meet them; yes, meet the crowds
Of meteors in the night -

Look at them as you tower
And fathom as they fly
The reverse meteor shower:
Souls reaching for the sky.

Ilya Shambat
https://sites.google.com/view/ilyashambatpoetry

On Friday, March 31, 2023 at 9:09:45 PM UTC-4, Ilya Shambat wrote:
> What is the truth of power?

What does that even mean?

> What can refute all lies?

A good question. The answer would be an omniscient being... which is a logical impossibility. As a nearly-omniscient being, I know.

I should also like to say that this is a very good line.

> Look at a meteor shower
> In clear midnight skies.

That sounds very pretty, but I doubt it can answer either of the questions posed above.

> Between the fluffy clouds
> In Arizona sky -
> Between the fears and doubts -
> Between the "you" and "I" -

Oh, crap.

Still hyphenating line breaks? Are you too lazy to hit the hyphen key twice? Or do you want readers to think that you're an idiot?

For the sixteenth time, line breaks are not hyphenated -- they use what is known as an "em" dash. An em dash is created by typing two hyphens in a row: --.
And let's not even talk about the "fluffy clouds"!

> Carrying time and matter
> From the galactic heights,
> Into the skies they scatter
> And sanctify the night.

Pretty good -- although they technically don't scatter *into* the skies, as they are already in the skies. They scatter *through* the skies.

> Meteors, stone and metal,
> Burning up in their flight -
> Look at their skill and mettle!
> Look, and gain second sight!

Do us both a favor, and take this stanza out of the poem and burn it. Meteors lack both skill and mettle -- as lumps of stone and metal, they are inanimate.

I have not heard that one gains second sight from watching meteors? Is this some Russian folk legend, or are you just making it up?
> Look at the sparks in heaven!
> Look, and see with your eyes -

This begs the question: What else are you supposed to see with?

> Six, seven, eight, eleven -
> Look, and be mesmerized!

I like the numerical jump in the first line. It not only reads well, but implies the meteors are passing so quickly that the speaker is unable to count them all individually.
> Hailing from worlds unknown -
> Rich with the universe -
> Ice, fire, earth and stone -
> Passion and speed and force!

This stanza is not a complete sentence. Have you been hanging out with the Donkey again?

Between the being an incomplete sentence, the overload of misused hyphens, the non-rhyme of "universe" and "force," the obvious observation that meteors hail (pun intended?) from worlds unknown, the misattribution "passion," and the overall pointlessness of this stanza, I strongly urge you to purge and burn it as well.

> Look at the truth they carry -
> That they wish to impart -
> See how they wish to marry
> Earth with galactic heart!

What can one say except... WTF???

Meteors don't carry truth, they don't wish anything, and the marriage Earth with the galactic heart (whatever that might be) smacks of saccharine and hogwash.

> Meteors, bits of planets -
> Parcels of cosmic dust -
> Iron and gold and granite
> From an uncharted past -

Ignoring the imbecilic hyphens, the first three lines are very good -- superfluous, but good. The last line is both silly (one doesn't chart the past) and fails to rhyme with "dust."
> Here they come into present

Here comes Tarzan along with them.

An English-speaking poet would write "Here they come to the present." Then again, he wouldn't write it at all, seeing that it is palpable nonsense. They can only exist in the present. Even if they have an "uncharted past" they are not materializing out of a different space-time continuum.

> And bring inside their core
> Pieces of the Incessant
> Into Forevermore.

Again, one can only sit with jaws agape and wonder WTF???

"Incessant" is an adverb -- not a noun -- and certainly not a place.

You had a good idea, but it has degenerated into treacly, meaningless symbolism that leaves one wondering if he is reading the verses of a six-year old.

> How do I rise to meet you
> Before you burn in flight?
> How can the human greet you
> And understand your plight?

The third line should read "How can a human greet you" -- because that's how English works.

I can understand why a human might want to rise up and "greet" a meteor shower -- but why would he wish to understand their plight? And how does a meteor shower even have a plight to begin with?

> How can the stars and atoms,
> Each one its own world,
> Be in their essence fathomed
> And in their truth unfurled?

I don't know? Perhaps a telescope for the stars and a microscope for the atoms?

Science is really not your forte, Ilya -- and the quasi-religious, and hopelessly vague symbolism you're attempt to attach to a meteor shower is cringe-inducing.
> Sun lights us, and we heed him -
> Sun is the source of light -
> But how much greater wisdom
> Dwells in the star-drenched night?

Hopefully enough wisdom to know that "Sun lights us" is yet more Tarzanspeak.

> Measure them, know them, see them -
> Numerous like the sand -

No, no, no! The sand is not numerous. The sand is numberless (at least its grains are).

> Capture what they conceive and
> Try, try to understand

"Capture what they conceive and" is an excellent line (and one of those rare occasions when a near-rhyme actually works as well as -- if not better than -- the real thing).

The repetition of "try" in the following line, however, is an example of blatantly obvious filler -- and, as noted elsewhere, filler is an earmark of amateurism.

> Everything that they know
> All that they have within -
> Know them as they bestow
> Their sainthood and their sin.

This stanza should make like a saint and achieve martyrdom -- IOW, burn it!

The first two lines are repetitive, and annoying attempt to grant wisdom to something you've already defined as being inanimate "bits of planets," "cosmic dust" particles, "iron," "gold," "granite," "earth" and "stone."

And the first two lines form an incomplete thought: they introduce a subject without a verb: All that they know and have does what?

> Meteors, flying toward us,

Yikes!!!

> From the unknown worlds -

Which begs the question, where else would they be coming from? Amazon?

> Messages that night forwards
> And with its chill enfolds -

Ugh! These last two lines are terrible. Your poem's narrative has already run on longer than its meager message can afford. You are running out of ways to rephrase the same repetitive, pseudo-Christian abstractions, and the dire lines immediately above are the result.

> Mysteries wrapped in darkness -

Aren't mysteries always enshrouded in darkness? Captain Obvious, anyone?

> Catch them before they burn -

"Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket" is a wonderful line from a Perry Como song -- but the reason we can see meteors at all is that they *are* burning.

> From the unfathomed, chartless,
> Space, they to us return.

1) The meteors cannot be returning to Earth, because they did not originate on Earth.
2) "They to us return" is an abominable inversion -- another earmark of a rank amateur.

> And with your head in clouds -

"In THE clouds," Tarzan. "In THE clouds"!

> Or on a satellite -

I doubt that many of us would desire our head to be on a satellite.

> Meet them; yes, meet the crowds
> Of meteors in the night -

If the "meet"/"meteors" pun is intentional, it's a real groaner. Nor would even a million meteors constitute a crowd.
> Look at them as you tower

As we tower over what? One doesn't just tower -- he must tower over something.

> And fathom as they fly
> The reverse meteor shower:
> Souls reaching for the sky.

So... souls are meteors flying backwards?

What can one say except OMFG?
> Ilya Shambat
> https://sites.google.com/view/ilyashambatpoetry

I find your poetry to be exceedingly frustrating, Ilya. Each one contains a handful of extremely good lines -- but you inevitably bury them in a landslide of the worst twaddle imaginable. I find similar flashes of brilliance in Ed Wood films as well. Wood might have been a great director, if he'd taken some English and creative writing courses, and had the budgets to bring his visions off. And you have the potential to become an excellent poet -- if you take some English courses and loose all the icky, gooey, quasi-Christian abstractions that have been gumming up your poetry for the past few years.

On Sunday, April 2, 2023 at 5:34:24 AM UTC, Michael Pendragon wrote:
> On Friday, March 31, 2023 at 9:09:45 PM UTC-4, Ilya Shambat wrote:
> > What is the truth of power?
> What does that even mean?
> > What can refute all lies?
> A good question. The answer would be an omniscient being... which is a logical impossibility. As a nearly-omniscient being, I know.

Michael knows poetry reviews!
>
> I should also like to say that this is a very good line.
> > Look at a meteor shower
> > In clear midnight skies.
> That sounds very pretty, but I doubt it can answer either of the questions posed above.
> > Between the fluffy clouds
> > In Arizona sky -
> > Between the fears and doubts -
> > Between the "you" and "I" -
> Oh, crap.

Yes, and English grammar says the "Between the 'you' and 'I'" needs to be "between the you and me."
>
> Still hyphenating line breaks? Are you too lazy to hit the hyphen key twice? Or do you want readers to think that you're an idiot?

Ibish practices economy in hyphens.
>
> For the sixteenth time, line breaks are not hyphenated -- they use what is known as an "em" dash. An em dash is created by typing two hyphens in a row: --.
>
> And let's not even talk about the "fluffy clouds"!
> > Carrying time and matter
> > From the galactic heights,
> > Into the skies they scatter
> > And sanctify the night.
> Pretty good -- although they technically don't scatter *into* the skies, as they are already in the skies. They scatter *through* the skies.
> > Meteors, stone and metal,
> > Burning up in their flight -
> > Look at their skill and mettle!
> > Look, and gain second sight!
> Do us both a favor, and take this stanza out of the poem and burn it. Meteors lack both skill and mettle -- as lumps of stone and metal, they are inanimate.
>
> I have not heard that one gains second sight from watching meteors? Is this some Russian folk legend, or are you just making it up?
> > Look at the sparks in heaven!
> > Look, and see with your eyes -
> This begs the question: What else are you supposed to see with?
> > Six, seven, eight, eleven -
> > Look, and be mesmerized!
> I like the numerical jump in the first line. It not only reads well, but implies the meteors are passing so quickly that the speaker is unable to count them all individually.
> > Hailing from worlds unknown -
> > Rich with the universe -
> > Ice, fire, earth and stone -

Other worlds don't contain "earth."

> > Passion and speed and force!
> This stanza is not a complete sentence. Have you been hanging out with the Donkey again?
>
> Between the being an incomplete sentence, the overload of misused hyphens, the non-rhyme of "universe" and "force," the obvious observation that meteors hail (pun intended?) from worlds unknown, the misattribution "passion," and the overall pointlessness of this stanza, I strongly urge you to purge and burn it as well.
> > Look at the truth they carry -
> > That they wish to impart -
> > See how they wish to marry
> > Earth with galactic heart!
> What can one say except... WTF???
>
> Meteors don't carry truth, they don't wish anything, and the marriage Earth with the galactic heart (whatever that might be) smacks of saccharine and hogwash.
> > Meteors, bits of planets -
> > Parcels of cosmic dust -
> > Iron and gold and granite

No granite has ever been found in a meteorite.

> > From an uncharted past -
> Ignoring the imbecilic hyphens, the first three lines are very good -- superfluous, but good. The last line is both silly (one doesn't chart the past) and fails to rhyme with "dust."
> > Here they come into present
> Here comes Tarzan along with them.
>
> An English-speaking poet would write "Here they come to the present." Then again, he wouldn't write it at all, seeing that it is palpable nonsense. They can only exist in the present. Even if they have an "uncharted past" they are not materializing out of a different space-time continuum.
> > And bring inside their core
> > Pieces of the Incessant
> > Into Forevermore.
> Again, one can only sit with jaws agape and wonder WTF???
>
> "Incessant" is an adverb -- not a noun -- and certainly not a place.
>
> You had a good idea, but it has degenerated into treacly, meaningless symbolism that leaves one wondering if he is reading the verses of a six-year old.
> > How do I rise to meet you
> > Before you burn in flight?
> > How can the human greet you
> > And understand your plight?
> The third line should read "How can a human greet you" -- because that's how English works.
>
> I can understand why a human might want to rise up and "greet" a meteor shower -- but why would he wish to understand their plight? And how does a meteor shower even have a plight to begin with?

They "plight" their troth in "marry Earth with galactic heart! "

> > How can the stars and atoms,
> > Each one its own world,
> > Be in their essence fathomed
> > And in their truth unfurled?
> I don't know? Perhaps a telescope for the stars and a microscope for the atoms?
>
> Science is really not your forte, Ilya -- and the quasi-religious, and hopelessly vague symbolism you're attempt to attach to a meteor shower is cringe-inducing.

ibish does not know science. He needs more trips to the library to study.

> > Sun lights us, and we heed him -
> > Sun is the source of light -
> > But how much greater wisdom
> > Dwells in the star-drenched night?
> Hopefully enough wisdom to know that "Sun lights us" is yet more Tarzanspeak.
> > Measure them, know them, see them -
"See Me
Feel Me
Touch Me
Heal Me"

> > Numerous like the sand -
> No, no, no! The sand is not numerous. The sand is numberless (at least its grains are).
> > Capture what they conceive and
> > Try, try to understand
> "Capture what they conceive and" is an excellent line (and one of those rare occasions when a near-rhyme actually works as well as -- if not better than -- the real thing).
>
> The repetition of "try" in the following line, however, is an example of blatantly obvious filler -- and, as noted elsewhere, filler is an earmark of amateurism.

Ibish channels Heart:
"But try to understand, try to understand
Try, try, try to understand, I'm a magic man""

> > Everything that they know
> > All that they have within -
> > Know them as they bestow
> > Their sainthood and their sin.
> This stanza should make like a saint and achieve martyrdom -- IOW, burn it!
Excellent criticism!
>
> The first two lines are repetitive, and annoying attempt to grant wisdom to something you've already defined as being inanimate "bits of planets," "cosmic dust" particles, "iron," "gold," "granite," "earth" and "stone."
>
> And the first two lines form an incomplete thought: they introduce a subject without a verb: All that they know and have does what?
>
> > Meteors, flying toward us,
>
> Yikes!!!
> > From the unknown worlds -
> Which begs the question, where else would they be coming from? Amazon?

Ibish puts articles where they should not be and leaves them out of where they should be used. "From unknown worlds," not "from the unknown worlds." Also, meteors don't fly.

> > Messages that night forwards
> > And with its chill enfolds -
> Ugh! These last two lines are terrible. Your poem's narrative has already run on longer than its meager message can afford. You are running out of ways to rephrase the same repetitive, pseudo-Christian abstractions, and the dire lines immediately above are the result.
> > Mysteries wrapped in darkness -
> Aren't mysteries always enshrouded in darkness? Captain Obvious, anyone?
> > Catch them before they burn -
> "Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket" is a wonderful line from a Perry Como song -- but the reason we can see meteors at all is that they *are* burning.
> > From the unfathomed, chartless,
> > Space, they to us return.
> 1) The meteors cannot be returning to Earth, because they did not originate on Earth.
> 2) "They to us return" is an abominable inversion -- another earmark of a rank amateur.

There's another "the" used where it should not be.

> > And with your head in clouds -
> "In THE clouds," Tarzan. "In THE clouds"!

"The" is not amused by being so misused.

> > Or on a satellite -
> I doubt that many of us would desire our head to be on a satellite.
> > Meet them; yes, meet the crowds
> > Of meteors in the night -
> If the "meet"/"meteors" pun is intentional, it's a real groaner. Nor would even a million meteors constitute a crowd.
> > Look at them as you tower
> As we tower over what? One doesn't just tower -- he must tower over something.
> > And fathom as they fly
> > The reverse meteor shower:
> > Souls reaching for the sky.
> So... souls are meteors flying backwards?
>
> What can one say except OMFG?
>
> > Ilya Shambat
> > https://sites.google.com/view/ilyashambatpoetry
>
> I find your poetry to be exceedingly frustrating, Ilya. Each one contains a handful of extremely good lines -- but you inevitably bury them in a landslide of the worst twaddle imaginable. I find similar flashes of brilliance in Ed Wood films as well. Wood might have been a great director, if he'd taken some English and creative writing courses, and had the budgets to bring his visions off. And you have the potential to become an excellent poet -- if you take some English courses and loose all the icky, gooey, quasi-Christian abstractions that have been gumming up your poetry for the past few years.