On Seeing the First Few Minutes of ‘The Doors’

by Ralph Dumain

I was working all day, I was working,
and all of a sudden I snapped.

I remembered that moment when I replaced random feeling
with structured understanding, hoping not to forget the primeval.

Did you not see and could I have forgotten
that with words I was seeking my own kind of love?

My soul was in my mind that saw too much.
I was scarred by the secrets of environment.

I was whipped by the shapes, the colors, the garments,
the technical implements, the relations of people, creating a world.

There were faces and motions, hardness, softness,
the cruelty of iron or the smiles of thighs,

Creating feeling or killing the soul.
Defiling the sublime, starved for love.

There were regions of glaciers necessitating computers:
programs to trace the movements between things.

So I used language not fingers to arouse the brain,
knowing what to say to pull you closer to infinity.

Laboring into the future, building with tools
of all kinds: metal, wood, nails, words.

You didn't know that I already knew
my experience was always in excess of my logic.

In absence of sexglow the potential energy
of the alphabet triggers mental ecstasies,

Signifying some caress jumping across synapses,
then the smiling lips, then the gentle hand,

Leaning towards that moment never known
when desire becomes love.

Ralph Dumain
5 February 1994
8:15 pm EST

©1994, 2000 Ralph Dumain. All rights reserved.



In Memoriam:
Dedicated to Lisa Rogers
25 August 1961 - 15 September 1996

In Memoriam: Lisa Rogers (25 August 1961 - 15 September 1996)
(on Lisa’s 50th birthday)

In Memoriam, 15 Years Later: Lisa Rogers (25 August 1961 - 15 September 1996)

Sound file: R. Dumain introducing poem, excerpt from interview with Jim Pray, Buffalo, NY, 4 June 2006

Sound file: R. Dumain reading poem, excerpt from interview with Jim Pray, Buffalo, NY, 4 June 2006

Sound file: Ralph Dumain interviewed by Jim Pray, Buffalo, NY, 4 June 2006
(offsite, complete interview)

Heather & Amy recite this poem on YouTube


Home Page | Site Map | What's New | Coming Attractions | Book News
Bibliography | Mini-Bibliographies | Study Guides | Special Sections
My Writings | Other Authors' Texts | Philosophical Quotations
Blogs | Images & Sounds | External Links

CONTACT Ralph Dumain

Uploaded 18 August 2000
Sound files added 10 June 2006
YouTube link added 7 January 2008
Links added 15 September 2011

©2000-2012 Ralph Dumain