Episodic

I hear the strains of Star Wars through the wall
And so I think of you. Why should this be?
You weren't among those sitting next to me
When I first saw it; I can well recall
I saw them all before you, knew them all
And every recollected memory
Is missing you in it. Why should I see
You in my eyelids then, or hear your call
When I hear Williams? Oh, alas, I know:
Your love for it is deeper in my own
And so my love for you has deeply sown
Your image there, so as those old chords grow
I cannot help but think of you, and grope
Within my heart for you with some New Hope.

On Tropes: Why

A topic that has recently become of interest to me - or rather, recently returned to interesting me - is that of the trope, or standard form of expression, in poetry. This may perhaps be obvious from my immediately previous poems on Cupid, but those are only part of the reason this has bubbled up in my consciousness of late, and they might indeed be better thought of as an effect than a cause. I am interested in three things in this post: why we use tropes, how they work, and what effect they have on the poem. Clearly these are deeply interrelated, but I will treat them as separate questions at least formally, for the sake of organization. As I like shorter posts, I will split these apart: this is the post on why.

Why do we use tropes?

Tropes can be a sign of laziness: they are easy, they are shorthand, they are simple. But that can also mean efficiency: evoking a trope conjures up all sorts of things in the reader that would otherwise take up more space, more imagination, more effort, all of which could be spent (potentially) more productively on developing whatever the trope is supposed to bring with it than with duplicating the effect of the trope itself.
Tropes are also a form of cultural connectedness, of communal memory. I see a trope, and I recognize it, either from specific poems, songs, or other art, or from a general cultural and social awareness. This cannot be duplicated: Cupid has echoes that nothing else has, because he/it has accumulated them over years, generations, millennia of people using that term to express meaning. No original invention brings that baggage with it, for good or ill.

Tropes also enmesh us in historical connections; poems that rely on tropes can call on hosts of other poems that have also relied on the same tropes, can play off of them, give homage to them, or reject them, but always have access to them in a way that a poem that eschewed that trope - or chose another - cannot. A poet wishing to engage, either positively or negatively, with what has come before can hardly avoid the temptation to use a trope to do so.

There are many more reasons, I'm sure, that could be introduced here. I will suggest a final one before moving on to the next installment in this discussion: we use tropes because tropes developed for a reason. They are effective, moving, and deeply embedded in if not our psyches then our cultural memory. A trope can be an extremely useful tool for expressing what it wants to express; not only are they catchphrases, shorthand, or an engagement with the past, but they are also the image that they are, and that image is often extremely powerful in and of itself.

Dot Matrix

It's strange to miss that little bright green dot
That always makes me smile at my screen;
Sometime's it's red, or orange, but that spot
Is what I treasure - when it is not seen
I don't know what to do. It's very odd.
I want to conjure it - to conjure you.
And even though I know, and give the nod,
To why you're missing, I can hardly do
Without that little harbinger of joy
That brightens up my day with its small light;
You'd think that happiness would quickly cloy,
But my heart searches for it every night.
I'm sure it will return, and I know when,
And oh how happy I will be again.

Karenina

A pleasure is a pleasure anywhere
But every pain feels local, and specific.
Pain is the nearby lake - lies only there;
The sea of joy is large as the Pacific.
Yet human minds are strange: this very thought
Excuses us deriding joy and pleasure
As being too diffuse to be well-wrought,
And focusing on pain in greater measure.
Like hipsters all, we value only that
Which seems unique and local just to us
While that which is more general falls flat
And is a reason to fidget and fuss.
Therefore a swift solution I suggest:
Reject our inner Tolstoy, for the best.

Cupiditas

Then greedy Cupid, looking to expand
Th'apartments he had built within our hearts
Caused us to come together hand in hand
That he might pulverize us with more darts.
And doing so, endeavored to increase
Our great degree of love, and make us touch;
The which, I think, though his efforts should cease
Would have unaided worked itself as much.
And we became a union out of two
So he, expansive, might in double room
Putter about and do what he must do.
But oh, poor Cupid, for he made his doom:
When we embrace his exits sealed him tight
And he is trapped within us every night.

Second Stage

But Cupid, not contented with a home
So small, so petty, as my own poor heart
Began again, in search of lands, to roam
And see what real estate lay on the mart.
Being aware - as how could he not be? -
Of where and how he'd struck my heart before,
He went with secret curiosity
To see the idol that I would adore.
But there a sudden snap of second cold
Drove him to buy a double residence
Adding another room unto the old
Within her bosom, for his own defense.
Yet in his restless youth he would not stay
But lives in both of us for everyday.

Migratory Birds

Cupid, declaring that the Gulf Stream was
Too hot for him that generated heat
Crossed over the Atlantic, as one does,
To find new lands and make new lovers meet.
There he discovered winters colder still
Than any he had ever know before
And in a bleak December took a chill
That burned in him, tormenting him full sore.
He strove to find a shelter for his head
Since frostbite threatened his still naked form;
He hurried in the snow with growing dread
For fear that nobody would keep him warm.
But I looked out, and into me he sprung
Filling with love my ever-speaking tongue.

Timon

Man's comfort comes from friendship truly given
Not bought, not owed, not exercised by right,
Simply self-wrung from hearts that would be riven
Did they not give their free love in delight.
If this is sun, then forcéd love is night,
Dark and obscure, half-lit by mere reflection,
Feigning to be a substitute for light,
But only serving by a misdirection.
Only the blind mistake for true affection
Such a deceit, and every soul has eyes
With which to see, and offer up correction
To those whose hearts love only in such wise.
Therefore I joy, whose friends give in my need
Not out of duty, but from love indeed.

Spend

No matter how long everything may take
We have the time. Oh, do not worry, dear,
Banish every minimus of fear,
And be thus certain: we can always make
The time sometime. A time to bake,
A time to wander, time to peer
At strange new things, a time to veer
Wherever we may wish, to sleep or wake.
In all this time we need not ever be
Aware of passing hours or the clock
For whatever we do, whether ad hoc
Or planned, we can do with impunity.
We have the time, and it is ours to spend
To any purpose and for any end.

<>

Empty parameters don't signify
Despite their best intention to so do;
They touch only themselves, self-modify,
And doing such, never create anew.
Rather they feed on their own flesh, and taste
The bitter mockery of self-deceit
Pretending that they have not been a waste
Pretending they consume some other meat.
I see them void and wish it were not so,
And therefore seek to give them aught to touch;
For touching others, they begin to know
Their own true purpose, and because of such
Cease to be cannibals, and join the system
Of words and other symbols, that have missed 'em.