The Hunchback and the Id

[PrinceMyshkin]

The Hunchback and the Id

I awake when the earth
has turned its proximate face to the sun.
I finger the rosary of the hours to come
(as much as an atheist can) and
think about evil and good, and which
is which, and about
the hunchback on the hockey rink ,
and the man with the swollen id.

I could press on.
It must be obvious that I love to write,
that writing to me is life.
Each sentence or line is a probe
of the rubber dam
that keeps me from the inevitable dark.

But in the end it will always come back, quick,
to the hunchback floundering on the ice,
and the man with the swollen id.

[hack]

My Prince,
Thanks for the smile now, with my tea
And to your Hunchback, apology
For Id (and ego) flying past
That bumped him there
On looking glass

[MorpheusSandman]

I'm not sure about this one; the stanzas seem a bit disconnected and I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the "hunchback and the man with the swollen Id"...

[Bar22do]

Do you mean hurt Id? it is as if this poem presented some reading difficulties on purpose, as if, except for
"It must be obvious that I love to write,
that writing to me is life."
and in contrast with it, writing could not "save one" from the dark, as age arks one's back... it is as if you wrote this poem with a scratching pen... but, unless I make it up, there is a raison d'être for that scratching...
Not all poems need to be fluent, sometimes their strength is contained in stubbing...

[PrinceMyshkin]

I'm not sure about this one; the stanzas seem a bit disconnected and I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the "hunchback and the man with the swollen Id"...

It looks as if you and Bar have found me out! If the stanzas seem disconnected it is indeed because the first one had its own inner logic and the hunchback and the id emerged from something like a Jungian subconscious, but after a while I thought that that original first verse might feel too abrupt and I composed the 2nd one out of my thinking about the first.

I had no original conscious intent re the images of the hunchback and the id but in trying to defend the poem (from myself) I thought, loosely, that the hunchback is our imperfect physical selves, adequate perhaps until it meets up with a situation, such as a hockey rink, where it is clearly inept; by contrast with which our libido - swollen to suggest a priapic condition - which feels and delights in its own power.

"Swollen id" might have become 'engorged if' in its reiteration but that, I felt, would have made the phallic idea too overt.

Comments on Bar's post to follow...

[PrinceMyshkin]

Do you mean hurt Id? it is as if this poem presented some reading difficulties on purpose, as if, except for
"It must be obvious that I love to write,
that writing to me is life."
and in contrast with it, writing could not "save one" from the dark, as age arks one's back... it is as if you wrote this poem with a scratching pen... but, unless I make it up, there is a raison d'être for that scratching...
Not all poems need to be fluent, sometimes their strength is contained in stubbing...

No, not "hurt id". Rather, I imagined it as the indestructible libido, still strutting & eager to fulfill itself even after the body of the body (the hunchback) has begun floundering on the ice.

But I hope I have never sought to be obscure, notwithstanding a vulgar assumption passed down from many literature classes, i.e., that the more obscure a poem is, the deeper... that poems are something of a contest between coy poets and clever readers...but yes, I was not at all following any surface logical trail in writing that first verse but trusting to some half-hidden intuition.

[Virgil]

:lol: :lol: :lol: Oh did that have me laughing. This was outstanding!!! That first stanza needs to be framed:


I awake when the earth
has turned its proximate face to the sun.
I finger the rosary of the hours to come
(as much as an atheist can) and
think about evil and good, and which
is which, and about
the hunchback on the hockey rink ,
and the man with the swollen id.

[MorpheusSandman]

After reading your own interpretation of the piece, Prince, I reread it and while I do feel a deeper understanding I'm still not sure this one works. Maybe it's because I'm used to your directness and unostentatious metaphors that the obscurity of this one is a bit... I dunno, odd, maybe. I've tried to hone my analytical criticism over the years so I can put into words how art makes me feel and what it makes me think, but I feel like a flailing fish out of water with this one; so maybe you should just ignore me.

[hack]

I think the piece is humorous, slapstick perhaps,
but that is not an indictment I hope.
If it is half my library is gutted. Prince, I take it to
mean that there is only one man on the ice,
the hunchback. As the Id is unable to exist alone.
That is, without the previously mentioned "hunchback",
sorry if I smile, but a bloated primal hunchback
spinning on ice makes some people smile, or worse.

I know, in my heart, that it is wrong, but it is funny.

[hack]

I think the first stanza could stand alone.
You could leave it at that
and I would be happy with it.

[paperleaves]

Although I don't particularly care for the first few lines of the second stanza, I love this, Jerry. I think without those lines, the volumes you speak would still stand strong, if not stronger, in the midst of your creative genius. I love this and you!


love
Kate

[PrinceMyshkin]

:lol: :lol: :lol: Oh did that have me laughing. This was outstanding!!! That first stanza needs to be framed:

Always happy to provide someone with a laugh! Not sure, however, if by "framed" you mean put up on a wall, provided with more context, or sent to jail on manufactured evidence?

[PrinceMyshkin]

I think the piece is humorous, slapstick perhaps,
but that is not an indictment I hope.
If it is half my library is gutted. Prince, I take it to
mean that there is only one man on the ice,
the hunchback. As the Id is unable to exist alone.
That is, without the previously mentioned "hunchback",
sorry if I smile, but a bloated primal hunchback
spinning on ice makes some people smile, or worse.

I know, in my heart, that it is wrong, but it is funny.

Many, many thanks for your two responses - the poem and now this one. Is it really "wrong" for you to have found this funny? No more wrong, I think, than if you were to find me "funny" in person, especially when I was at my most determinedly 'serious'!