Lucky

[white camellia]

I
am
Lucky!
The man, my master, is safety, love,
and gift when a personal God's
servant is free from unknown enslavement.
Such a vision I have of life
but it hardly understands me:
"nothing
to
be
done,"
it only says that.
But I try to want what?
The burnt-out ends of my desire
wrapped with one same worn-dress,
the pentacle mirror glazed with morning dew
assumes one same dull-nude a thousand times,
mocking all my private fancies that are
diluted by the dominant mode of conversations, a flood of orders
and I am convinced that this is to avoid falling.
One is assured of certain falling when reft of expectations.
But I am lucky to have a sole expectation throughout my life:
never
be
sold.

[Kelly_Sprout]

I like very much the underlying message (having a master without being a slave; owned [implied] but never to be sold.)

I struggled with some of the syntax, which I think might have been written because English may not be your first language, but actually, that's ok! The struggle forced me to delve deeper into the meanings I found in the poem. Don't change anything! The odd sentence structures seem to actually work for you in this poem.

[jon1jt]

What I'm really attracted to in this work is it's unique structure, the stacking and cascading feel, giving the poem an abiding rhythm. The poem is beautifully written as well.

My favorite lines,

the pentacle mirror glazed with morning dew
assumes one same dull-nude a thousand times,
mocking all my private fancies that are
diluted by the dominant mode of conversations, a flood of orders
and I am convinced that this is to avoid of falling.

A small suggestion: omit "of" from "avoid of falling" ---not a big deal

I can't quite get at the root of this one, it slips away every time I search for an anchor for interpretation. The feeling is overall somber and resolute, certainly not rejoiceful, even the end. White Camelia, wordsmith; she is. :)

[white camellia]

I struggled with some of the syntax, which I think might have been written because English may not be your first language

Thank you so Kelly for your insight into this poem. But can you tell me what is the "some of the syntax" that you are struggled with? I think I can make improvement accordingly, or for future reference.

[white camellia]

A small suggestion: omit "of" from "avoid of falling" ---not a big deal

I just took your advice.


I can't quite get at the root of this one, it slips away every time I search for an anchor for interpretation. The feeling is overall somber and resolute, certainly not rejoiceful, even the end.

Is it really rejoicing to be a "slave"? Or a "slave" has certain ambivalence toward his or her master who loves his slave or not? Is it really lucky to have a personal God...I was striving for an answer while reading the play "waiting for Godot" by Beckett. Lucky seemed to have got the substitute of Godot (God), his master, Pozzo, while the other two men still waited from day to day. Lucky was highly intelligent but his creative resource was destroyed by physical violence that was reflected by his incoherent speech. Some say the master, Pozzo and the slave, Lucky together represented a man who was fighting with himself for the dominancy as Beckett was greatly influenced by Hegel's view on the individual.

[blp]

...Hegel's view on the individual

...as in master/slave dialectics?

The philosopher Slavoj Zizek now has his own TV show, The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, here in the UK, unbelievable as that might seem. Compelling viewing. Last night he was talking about the artificiality and constructedness of desire, desire as something learned, which seems to relate very well to this, especially 'But I try to want what?' The situation of slavery makes explicit a condition of desire being unknown until dictated, a condition that is always, according to Zizek's logic, present. Lack of a dictated object for desire may cause anxiety. In a sense, the slave delegates responsibility for (and probably anxiety about) defining desire to the master. This would be at least one factor that makes the power relationship between them ambiguous.

I like this a lot. The beginning and end especially have an Emily Dickinsonish quality, playful, apparently matter-of-fact, but complex.

[white camellia]

So pleasing to see you around, blp! Thank you for your pointing out this interesting view.

Yes, it is probably the very dialectic roles of master and slave that stabilizes the relation and works it out in an absurd way:

CLOV:
There's one thing I'll never understand.
(He gets down.)
Why I always obey you. Can you explain that to me?
HAMM:
No... Perhaps it's compassion.
(Pause.)
A kind of great compassion.
(Pause.)
Oh you won't find it easy, you won't find it easy.
(Pause. Clov begins to move about the room in search of the telescope.)

The reason for the slave to obey may be simply out of compassion for without his presence, there seems no fulfillment of a dictated desire that the master needs.

CLOV:
So you all want me to leave you.
HAMM:
Naturally.
CLOV:
Then I'll leave you.
HAMM:
You can't leave us.
CLOV:
Then I won't leave you.
(Pause.)

As desire can be something that is learned, a slave is trained, or tamed. Growing accustomed to react only to commands, he knows not any desire until it is dictated.

So it seems both human and inhuman. A slave is not a slave when he passes this great compassion to the master. Who is a slave then?!

[blp]

Well, you might be enslaved by your compassion without realising it rather as in the passage you quote here where the slave doesn't know why he always obeys. It's all complicated by the activity of the unconscious.

[miss tenderness]

my singing friend, I read it a quick reading and it's just amazing. I promise I'll come back but with criticism:D,talented gal.

[white camellia]

My Tender, no matter what it is, as long as you come back! :D

[blp]

Hey, she didn't come back!

I like the very end a lot, but then, I like it because it sounds like a statement of defiant individualism, when actually, ironically, the assurance of never being sold is something coming from the outside, from the person who has already bought. Properly, I suppose it might be 'never be sold...again.', but I prefer it as it is.

[white camellia]

I know dear Tenderness must be somewhere and I wish her all the best...

I guess Lucky believed that he belonged there instead of a mere bargain of his master, not knowing where he came from, thus nowhere to go if sold.