{"id":4718,"date":"2015-06-14T22:24:59","date_gmt":"2015-06-14T21:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4718"},"modified":"2016-01-11T15:22:09","modified_gmt":"2016-01-11T14:22:09","slug":"two-poems-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4718","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Waking Up<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your first question, not yet,
\nnot quite yet being
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>awake, is not quite out
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>of the question or your mouth
\nand isn’t the fictional
\nwhere am I?<\/i> of old stories,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/i>but as one or more of your eyes
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/i>confesses and re-admits
\nlight as a matter of fact
\nand the existence of a self
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/i>has dawned on you once more,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/i>it’s far more likely to be
\nwho am I now? <\/i>since where<\/i>
\nis meaningless till you
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/i>as the restless embodiment
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/i>of time can wonder why
\nyou’re here and have to admit
\nthat light is light again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 
\n
\nOur Choice of Words<\/strong><\/p>\n

In all languages studied to date, the word for \u201cgood\u201d<\/i>
\nappears five times more often than the word for \u201cbad.\u201d<\/i>
\n\u201cLong\u201d and \u201ctall\u201d occur far more frequently than \u201cshort,\u201d<\/i>
\n\u201cmany\u201d than \u201cfew,\u201d \u201cdeep\u201d than \u201cshallow,\u201d \u201cwide\u201d than<\/i>
\n\u201cnarrow.\u201d \u00a0What do we make of these facts?<\/i>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>John E. Pfeiffer, The Emergence of Man<\/i><\/p>\n

In very many good, long, deep, wide ways
\nwe keep smiling and praying and pretending,
\nkeep bragging and magnifying and stretching and going to great lengths
\nto advertise what we desire or hope to get rid of,
\nand maybe we think as little as possible
\nof one short, shallow, narrow, very bad place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Waking Up Your first question, not yet, not quite yet being \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 awake, is not quite out \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of the question or your mouth and isn’t the fictional where am I? of old stories, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 but as one or more of your eyes \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 confesses and re-admits light as a matter of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[320,322],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nTwo Poems - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4718\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4718&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Poems - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Waking Up Your first question, not yet, not quite yet being \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 awake, is not quite out \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of the question or your mouth and isn’t the fictional where am I? of old stories, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 but as one or more of your eyes \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 confesses and re-admits light as a matter of […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4718\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-06-14T21:24:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-01-11T14:22:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Wagoner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"David Wagoner\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4718\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4718\",\"name\":\"Two Poems - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-06-14T21:24:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-11T14:22:09+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/c524043d56f185fdccad91fb2360c60d\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4718\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/c524043d56f185fdccad91fb2360c60d\",\"name\":\"David Wagoner\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"David Wagoner\"},\"description\":\"David Wagoner has published 20 books of poems, most recently After the Point of No Return (Copper Canyon Press, 2012). 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