I have been reading Context Collapse by Ryan Ruby and I hope to periodically engage with the text via poetry as response, or using his lines as inspiration for my poems.
Here are my first few attempts (Note: I keep adding to this single post over multiple days).
And who are they, this multiplicity?
On principle: anyone allowed through
The door: as many ears can be placed
Close enough to hear the poet say: sing ….
— page 6, Content Collapse (A Poem Containing A History Of Poetry)
by Ryan Ruby
And what of the poet
with no audience
to speak of,
to speak to;
still, they write, as if
those ears were at the door,
listening for the singing,
a melody into the void
Some words just scatter
into nothingness; a poem
is as fragile as old furniture,
pieces broken on the floor
The poet invites the public to play
A hubristic game of hide-and-go-seek
— page 16, Content Collapse (A Poem Containing A History Of Poetry)
by Ryan Ruby
Game pieces and movement
on a board of squares; words,
just little buttons, and the dice,
our vice; our voice, of course,
spitting out rhymes in lines
as if gods were ever listening;
they are not, nor never were,
too busy as they are making worlds
we’ll never find faith to live in
.. the privatized public learns to sing
With its eyes alone, moving them across
The printed page in silence
— page 48, Content Collapse (A Poem Containing A History Of Poetry)
by Ryan Ruby
Is that the voice
humming at night
when all is dark
and stories return
from just beyond
the noticeable moment,
eyes closed, but still
in focus in hopes of
recovery of what was
once there, but now
disappeared?
When print is taking to its logical
Conclusion: free verse
— page 80, Content Collapse (A Poem Containing A History Of Poetry)
by Ryan Ruby
Place your pennies
inside the jar, and hear
the metal coins jingle
against the glass –
this jail cell beckons to
every poem, written;
it’s worth mentioning
that poets are free to write
but always remain captive
to the confines of their poems
He vows, his fingers pounding out this pact
On the keys of his new writing machine
— page 86, Content Collapse (A Poem Containing A History Of Poetry)
by Ryan Ruby
With broken nails and
callused skin, a writer
works with little more
than a word from which
to begin: a poem, a story,
a note to a lover scratched
on newspaper – it’s only later
that she wonders if it’s
madness or something more
that has his words, clicking
like a machine at midnight,
rapping at her door
Peace (and poems),
Kevin