My Dorian Gray---or Portrait of a Poet

thoughts that were rolling around in my head, but refused to start until Ang-X's poem "It's the memories" jump started my writing battery.

My Dorian Gray---or Portrait of a Poet

 

 

I can write what I can't

and can't write what I can

 

my fingers are calloused

from the keys of my life

spanning so many years 

of rainbows after storms

such damage

illuminated after the fact

 

there are facts about the facts about the facts

and so many things I am sure that I am not sure of

 

I age as I stay young

but look the part

 

the eyes have it

as they say

they are wrinkled

and somewhat passive at this point

they see, absorb, become intoxicated with existence

waning

raining rainbows

there might be a future when there is not

passive passing me in the darkest of night

 

a star shines when it doesn't

but doesn't when it does

and 

 

I can write what I can't

and can't write what I can.

 

 

erin-cilberto

1/13/2021

Reviews

[VelvetPotato]

This is so very paradoxical, I like it because it coincides with the madness of the times. Always an inspiration :)

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you, V.P.
j.

[light and ashes]

"a star shines when it doesn't
but doesn't when it does

and I can write what I can't
and can't write what I can."

One of things that I find most interesting in the universe is that our stars are just dead lights. You did a really good job with this.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your kind words, Light,
j.

[light and ashes]

You are very welcome, my friend.

[danielle.]

Indeed and what a great metaphor for perspective. So clever Jacob.
Elle x

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your kind words, Elle,
j.

[Stella Armour]

The Dorian Gray book and the film were quite scary really, especially the end. Somewhere the mental health got unwired and this comes through in your words ( not you personally).
The mind is a delicate thing with a fine line between sanity and madness; sometimes i think the slight madness in me is preferable lol.
I am young .... yes i am.... this aching body is just a figment of my imagination !

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your words, and really, Stella, I may be unwired...I feel the madness coming on....Pandemic and life in general...ah, the fight to stay sane.
thank you for your words and understanding.
j.

[Stella Armour]

Always a pleasure to visit your page :)

[.]

Dorian Gray was the original, Benjamin Button the follow up....does this poem make you the third in the trilogy? This speaks to me of both the process of aging and the process of writing...getting older, looking older but in many ways still youthful inside and that too in regards to writing, yet perhaps in the reverse process....all that was once fresh on the page now feels aged and tired, but such is the life of the poet. Nothing is ever cut and dried. It's a very complex piece, J! Love the Dorian Gray reference. You know I like the literary references in poems....something I am trying to recapture after a year of mostly academic writing. So in some ways, 'I can write what I can't' as well. Fine poetry, as always. :))

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I guess we are all just poems in progress...as Melanie sang..."I am not a poet, living is the poem"---
thank you for your insights, Jamila...

I wonder what it would be like to be Benjamin....
how weird to grow young...and at my age, 70, I would have a hell of a lot of growing to do.
:)))

[Patricia Wedel]

dearest Jacob... suddenly my eyelids have become like
those little tissue painted umbrellas that are placed in
an intoxicating drink... where a "toast" is made to the
"lovin" years where tiny tears danced down our cheeks.
Aging is a shadow of dreams where Chapters of Life
reveal the emotion lost and never found until the
twelth of never... but then again there's "hope". tenderly, Pat

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i remember tears...life has drained me of them.
thank you, Pat,
j.

[Patricia]

Love that book! Dorian Gray was oddly cool so are you my friend (but not odd) working it in a poem and your relationship to it/him and writing. Awesome

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Oh my goodness, I am pretty Odd not the least bit cool, but thank you...
and the poem appreciates that you like it.
j.

[emmajoy]

'.. passive at this point ~ they see, absorb, become intoxicated with existence ~ waning ~ raining rainbows ~ there might be a future when there is not ~ passive passing me in the darkest of night .. '

There is something special running start to finish here, j. I slowly considered your seemingly contradictory words that without thought, might might have seemed illogical. Life for anyone ~ even more, ~ a true poet, is a 'shall I or not' symphony, repeated bar by bar, changing keys. Perhaps tis how folk become as they look back, see what might have been but .. Is the Present the best time to analyse the Past, it can't be altered? That said, for me, this poem is only possible via life lived. And, what an Art is that!

* my previous words wandered, came to tidy.. hope your response is same or similar, jacob. previous

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your kind and insightful review, em.
j.

[Lorry]

The start and end lines are basically a day in the life of being me, but without the wise look having a proper beard brings.
I have tried, but anything more than a weeks growth and people just assume I've escaped from somewhere with maximum security in the title, or I'm just too stupid to be able to open the pack the blades come in.
I'm also kinda hoping that you are a secret pipe smoker, for that added look of authority it brings to any subject. Not believe me? You're lost and need directions. Do you ask the guy smoking a pipe, or do you ask the guy in the MAGA hat? (The defence rests, m'lord.) 😊
I know loads of facts, but filed the questions and answers to the part of the mind that is like the kitchen drawer that you put all the things you don't know where else to put them, but don't want to throw out in case there's ever an emergency that requires a pair of broken glasses, one chopstick and 84 various sized screws that were in there when you moved in, to solve.
It looks like a small drawer, but it's like the Tardis in there.
I'm sure I had more thinkles to speakify about, but I've forgotten what they are.
I'm feeling a bit like Algernon now, with how good at wording yoo bee Jaykub

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Well Lorry, let me just "answerify"---
I actually did smoke a pipe for several years...
Cherry blend...nice scent.
thank you for your response which has me smiling here.
j.

[Lydia Shutter]

You CAN write what you can't....because, my friend, you can write absolutely anything. So many wonderful lines in this. My favorite is " so many things I am sure that I am not sure of"...it seems as we age not only do the wrinkles multiply, but the questions about life do as well. Just when we should know it all, we start to "unknow" it all. Life is full of unexpected surprises....some not so welcomed. The day you can't write, I believe the universe will just implode! Excellent write. Lydi**

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I hear ya, Lydi...the older I get, it seems the more I need to learn...i feel stupider and stupider.
thank you for your words,
j.

[poetgurl (Plainly Meg)]

Perfect and well said, So true. Aging stinks, I see it more and more every day.
"I can write what I can't , and can't write I can" Love this

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you Ang-X....
j.