Let the Flies Go

[PrinceMyshkin]

Out of other poets’ words
we make our dream homes
in the improbable South

where sinuous vines
sprout flowers more intricate,
more visible than God.

The sun shines on every face of the earth in turn
while we, like mad log-rollers
on a violent counter-current,
race to avoid being seen.

The sun was ever our enemy,
searching out our secrets.
We hold iniquity tight to our chests.

We want to be the other saints,
the ones who are never celebrated
except, perhaps, in profane ceremonies.

Let the flies go where they will.

[Hawkman]

My Prince, this required multiple readings and each reading led me in a different direction. Plenty to reflect on here, I feel. So it seems the flies decided not to settle on you! - H

[PrinceMyshkin]

My Prince, this required multiple readings and each reading led me in a different direction. Plenty to reflect on here, I feel. So it seems the flies decided not to settle on you! - H

That might be because the poem had two distinct sources: 1) an article I was reading on Louise Glück with several quotations from her poems and I was mesmerized by and envious of her voice, wished that I could do something like that, and 2) Blinding Light, the novel I'm reading by Paul Theroux in which there are brilliant, hyper-vivid descriptions of Ecuadorian jungle life, rife with unfamiliar vegetation and myriad different swarming insect life.

I'm rather proud of the last line, which came out of no logical deduction from what had come before it and yet felt so right.

Thanks for your comments.

J.

[thecatwithfish]

I love the last line, it made the poem for me, that kind of abstract simplicity is fantastic... I'm not sure what to make of this, I only read it once and as Hawkman said it will require some reflection.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I love the last line, it made the poem for me, that kind of abstract simplicity is fantastic... I'm not sure what to make of this, I only read it once and as Hawkman said it will require some reflection.

Thank you. I note that you are new to these waters but from your comments on my and a few other threads, you've made a welcome splash!

[AuntShecky]

Gosh, I admire the intricacy of your intellect, but I'm sorry to say I don't understand this one at'all.

For instance, why is the South "improbable?"

The image of the flowers is pretty, but isn't everything "more visible than God"?

Despite all the predictions about climate change and shrinking ozone layers, the sun isn't always the enemy -- we'd run out of our food supply and ultimately die of starvation.

And with Opening Day coming up this weekend, I hope some certain outfielders disregard the advice to let "the flies go where they will."

[PrinceMyshkin]

Gosh, I admire the intricacy of your intellect, but I'm sorry to say I don't understand this one at'all.

Per my message #3, that might be because of its mixed parentage



For instance, why is the South "improbable?"

If you lived in Montreal whence the "snowbirds" fly to Miami Beach at the first hint of winter, you might better have understood this, but I meant it in general as a reference to some utopian south some dream of, the more improbable the more desired.


The image of the flowers is pretty, but isn't everything "more visible than God"?

That was a possibly gratuitous swipe in my long, long battle against those who virtually 'see' God




Despite all the predictions about climate change and shrinking ozone layers, the sun isn't always the enemy -- we'd run out of our food supply and ultimately die of starvation.

Well, I saw it as the enemy of the perverse persona of this poem, a man who wishes above all to flee, to hide, to be, in essence, an anti-saint.



And with Opening Day coming up this weekend, I hope some certain outfielders disregard the advice to let "the flies go where they will."

I wonder if you could trace the baseball metaphor throughout this, e.g. read the "dream homes" as the equivalent of a dream team?

[Hawkman]

Hi Prince, what I picked up on was a touch of envy and a subsequent guilt over that envy and a desire to hide. perhaps partially true at least?

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

Hi Prince, what I picked up on was a touch of envy and a subsequent guilt over that envy and a desire to hide. perhaps partially true at least?

H

I'm astonished that you should have seen those although of course I spoke openly of the envy in an earlier response, but yes, I've been having something of a quarrel for some time now with my poetry. There's a famous saying by WB Yeats (my idol in many ways): "Out of our quarrels with others, we make rhetoric. Out of our quarrels with ourselves, we make poetry."

But what, I've asked him mentally, do we make out of our quarrels with poetry?

[Hawkman]

But what, I've asked him mentally, do we make out of our quarrels with poetry?

Why, my Prince, we make prose. ;)

H

[blank|verse]

Thoguht-provoking as always, Prince, but it reads rather disjointedly.

The first two stanzas are nicely evocative of a poetically-inspired, Romantically 'improbable' (but not 'impossible') utopia. I'm reminded of Coleridge's fantasies of setting up his 'pantisocracy'.

Then it switches to concerns about the sun, but I don't follow the link between the two. I'm not keen on the image of the 'mad log-rollers' in context - it brings a Bugs Bunny (or should that be Tom and Jerry?) cartoon figure to mind, so is rather against the thoughtful tone of the poem.

I would disagree that

We hold iniquity tight to our chests.
These days, it seems a lot of people (fuelled by celebrities and the media) are only too keen to brag about how badly behaved they've been.

I'm not sure about the last line. It sounds good; but to me you are saying that people want to be like the devil, the one worshipped in 'profance ceremonies' - so surely the flies would already be metaphorically present?

Hmm...

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thoguht-provoking as always, Prince, but it reads rather disjointedly.

The first two stanzas are nicely evocative of a poetically-inspired, Romantically 'improbable' (but not 'impossible') utopia. I'm reminded of Coleridge's fantasies of setting up his 'pantisocracy'.

Then it switches to concerns about the sun, but I don't follow the link between the two.

I thought or hoped the sun image followed from the prior reference to the south


I'm not keen on the image of the 'mad log-rollers' in context - it brings a Bugs Bunny (or should that be Tom and Jerry?) cartoon figure to mind, so is rather against the thoughtful tone of the poem.
Unfortunately for the poem (or your reading of it) I didn't intend or see that image as funny in a cartoon-like way although certainly there is comedy in the futility of their efforts.


I would disagree that

These days, it seems a lot of people (fuelled by celebrities and the media) are only too keen to brag about how badly behaved they've been.
True enough, although I was thinking that there were some shames we prefer to keep to ourselves and maybe, even, the holding them tghtly might suggest that we treasure them.


I'm not sure about the last line. It sounds good; but to me you are saying that people want to be like the devil, the one worshipped in 'profance ceremonies' - so surely the flies would already be metaphorically present?

Hmm...

Oh, you are much more aware of literary associations than I was. I was rather thinking of the flies as the natural aspects of decadence & decay rather than in their association with Mephisotopheles.

[Buh4Bee]

I always read your poems a few times Prince. I'm so glad you enjoyed writing it. The first three stanza's had me quite jazzed than the meaning began to fizzle.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I always read your poems a few times Prince. I'm so glad you enjoyed writing it. The first three stanza's had me quite jazzed than the meaning began to fizzle.

Thank you, and I can see why you (or anyone) might have a problem. The last three lines of stanza 3 are meant to provide a transition to the rest of the poem but it is indeed an arbitrary-seeming disjunction. I couldn't really feel it myself reading it over just now.

[lallison]

Of the three poems from you that I've read, i like this one best. For me, it casts a bit of sunlight on ambition and on, well, what it is we do here, in this forum. Sad and very sweet, even with flies buzzing around the sugar. Thanks

[PrinceMyshkin]

Of the three poems from you that I've read, i like this one best. For me, it casts a bit of sunlight on ambition and on, well, what it is we do here, in this forum. Sad and very sweet, even with flies buzzing around the sugar. Thanks

Many thanks, L. I'm tempted to refer you to other of my poems that I'm proud of but will leave it you to find them or not.

Jerry