Disillusionment of the Street

[blp]

Turn a corner to the high street
and you're on an avenue of glancing ghosts.
They're so transparent.
You can see right through them
to the stupid things they like.
Ground as figure, a unified field
of dumbness.
Like us, but not us.
Like us, but they
don't like us.
You can see what they do like
through their glassy heads;
and it's not us.

The people say, I don't know why
I feel so bored with everything.

I don't know what I want or need

Or, I just really want this x,y,z stupid thing.
DJ promoting something in a mega record shop
claims to dream just like a Japanese cartoon:
So if your dreams are full of giant pandas on
roller skates robbing record shops at gunpoint–
or is that just me?

I don't know why
and though it happens every day

to lie about your dreams
does seem obscene.

[Sweets America]

I love this poem, blp! This part is nice:


Like us, but not us.
Like us, but they
don't like us.

I love the general tone of the poem, this division between the speaker and the rest of the world, it is well rendered. I like also that the speaker is not alone either since you use 'us'. The ending is great too. :thumbs_up

[blp]

Thanks, Sweets!

[PrinceMyshkin]

It strikes me that there are two main schools of poetry on this site: those who write poems of high artifice - the best of which do not appear to contain artifice at all - and those like this fine one which appear to be made, to borrow Sweets' phrase, of the "poetic debris" found on the sidewalks and even the gutters of our mental and physical meanderings.

[blp]

That's true, Prince, though there's a bit of artifice here too. I'm not even sure it's that well hidden.

[PrinceMyshkin]

That's true, Prince, though there's a bit of artifice here too. I'm not even sure it's that well hidden.

Maybe "artifice" was an imprecise choice of words. "Elegance" might have been more apt...

[blp]

I see. Yes, I guess I'm not much of a one for elegance.

I meant there's a key to the whole thing. You know when you think you're playing a guessing game of some sort and you think you've made the clues really obvious? It's like that.

[Pendragon]

I thought you were writing a message down the side, BLP, as I spotted the word, "God", but that fell apart! It is a good gag, especially with off-set poems like this great one, to hide one like Al Hirschfeld is known for hiding the name of his daughter, Nina, in most of the drawings he produced since her birth in 1945. They are fun to try to find!

You mentioned a key, and I thought I had it. Dang! Well, it's a good poem, anyhoo. :thumbs_up

[blp]

Thanks, Pen. No, that wasn't it. :D But then, maybe it isn't that obvious.

[Il Penseroso]

Well now that my curiousity is stirred I have to forego critical comments and do my best to guess this "key" you speak of.

My impression of it is that the poem appears very song-like in structure, particularly in the end and where Sweets pointed. I think I could pull something out of that in combination with the DJ reference.

Anything close to what you intend?

[blp]

Nope. Would you like some clues?

Go on, well here's a couple:

The main clue, is, as they say, in the title. Which is not unlike another title.

Also, think decorated nightgowns.

[SleepyWitch]

ow nice, I'm really curious now and I don't have the faintest idea what other title you're referring to and what decorated nightgowns are.
wouldn't it be fun if the glassy thingies those guys see were their own reflections , i.e. they are just as stupid as the ppl they despise? :confused:

[blp]

Yes, Sleepy. The glassy thingies are the people's own reflections. They're on a shopping street, looking into shop windows.

[Pensive]

Interesting poem, blp.

My favourite parts are:


Like us, but not us.
Like us, but they
don't like us.


I don't know why
and though it happens every day

to lie about your dreams
does seem obscene.

And


I don't know what I want or need

It's a plain ordinary sentence but says so much.

[blp]

Thanks Pensive. You're right. I especially like getting these plain, ordinary, yet meaningful sentences into poems and generally like the way people's ordinary speech can be poetic.

[white camellia]

Ghosts are lovely, people are more.

[blp]

Not all ghosts; not all people. Not haunted people.

[Il Penseroso]

too bad we can't post the Stevens poem for comparison

I'm still not sure I get it though (actually I'm pretty sure I don't) - but I do like it

[TheFifthElement]

and last night I dreamt of baboons and periwinkles.

Cool poem blp.

[blp]

That's it. That's all it was. The Stevens poem is the key. But it's probably not clear enough. Stevens starts with a ghosts metaphor and ends up talking about dreams and so does this one. It's just that the ideas of a wild dream life and individualism, which Stevens laments the absence of, have become key strategies for selling us stuff.

[Pendragon]

Glassy reflections--ghosts...

Like us, but not us.
Like us, but they
don't like us.

Where was my mind? But then, I don't read Stevens. Still, I should have found the term "Ghost" written all over the upper part of your poem, BLP... :blush: The clues were there...

[blp]

That's OK, Pen. If you aren't a Stevens reader, it's not surprising it didn't come across.

[blp]

and last night I dreamt of baboons and periwinkles.


Liar! ;)

[TheFifthElement]

Liar! ;)

Damn, caught out again! Actually it was tigers in red weather, or blue, or something like that.

[blp]

Damn, caught out again! Actually it was tigers in red weather, or blue, or something like that.

Really? Me too.

Creepy.