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I
have selected a poem entitled “Peculiar” to illustrate his style. It begins with a quietly sarcastic congratulatory remarks about our world, with its disposable literature and the “steel cages” of our skyscrapers built where ancient ruins or sacred sites once stood--perhaps a subtle mourning for the time when we were closer to myth and art in our lives.. The poem transitions into a veiled discussion of our modern media... “something
exciting passing through a thick curtain of boredom...a buzz that never stops...that quells the Muse and lights phosphor windows...” Ah those ubiquitous television sets in every home in America!
Richard’s use of trite expressions like “rich and famous,” “walking wounded,”
“captains of industry,” and “homes of America” fit neatly into a poem that is lamenting the cereal box culture we live in, bright, exciting, yet little more than clichés on cardboard as far as substance
goes.
He talks about a veil that hides the faces of the dancers--a barrier to truth in some ways. And I suppose we
are all the “walking wounded” in this Brave New World, dressed in the same cloth and visiting art and symbol only in our dreams. Is that a veiled reference to Keats’ Grecian Urn-- “a colored vase decorated with pastel satyrs”...? What is it that we seem to chase after so persistently in our culture, so tantalizingly near, yet never with in our grasp?
This sentiment reminds me a bit of “The world is too much with us, later and sooner, getting and
spending, we lay waste our powers...” In the last stanza I see Richard on the BART train, thinking about all of this on his way to work. He tries mightily to build his own shimmering bridge to the truth, and it
is sometimes very interesting to walk that bridge with him.
Enjoy his “Peculiar” verse, and other selections in the pages that follow, or read
more of his poetry at www.poetryrag.com
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