He and I: Monday, 1:40 pm

[PrinceMyshkin]

A young man pulls at his cigarette,
one half-hearted puff after another.

The day slips by. An empire
could fall or rise between each puff,
he’d hardly be aware. Nor would he care.

He carries nothing much inside him,
I infer, but whatever it is,
is enough for him, and more.

And I sit, an onlooker, an observer, bored
out of my skull, trying to make something
out of this sliver of a connection.

[hillwalker]

A clever conundrum - what, if anything, connects us to each other and to the world as a whole.

And the casual way you write about it hides the amount of thought that went into crafting this observation.

[Jerrybaldy]

briefly treading water in the same pool.
Ignorance probably is bliss. Lucky must be the man with a small hole to fill.
BW
JB

[Hawkman]

I really like your observational pieces, Prince.

"The day slips by. An empire
could fall or rise between each puff,
he’d hardly be aware. Nor would he care."

I love this.

In answer to hill's question: Six degrees of Separation. Bar and I have never met. We live on different continents but we know poeple from the same family. The world is small, mysterious and wonderful. You never know when and where you will find a connection.

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

Many thanks, Hillwalker, Jerrybaldly and Hawkman.

[blazeofglory]

This is a mystic piece and it speaks of something deep and absorbing. This is the revelations you made and in fact this speaks of the great things that mostly unobserved and unsaid.

[breathtest]

the line 'one half-hearted puff after another' made me see this guy pretty vividly in my mind, it's a good descriptive line.

It's kind of split into the first three stanza's and then the last one, first three being about the man the other about you trying to find the connection and what to make of it. Like you're giving us what you see and invitinng us to make a connection.

I love the title, with the precise time and the colon, as if it has been recorded for analysis.

[angliholic]

With the help of the comments from others, I seems to catch on to this great masterpiece of yours after reading several times.

Don't we all try to find a connection to every other soul and the mysterious world?
The older I get, the more I believe that this world only exists in our mind or our dream!
When our dream is over, the world will disappear into thin air!

[Alexander III]

"The day slips by. An empire
could fall or rise between each puff,
he’d hardly be aware. Nor would he care."


This bit is brilliant !

[Bar22do]

One would naturally expect for the other's sliver of connection to weave with one's own... Unless this happens, there is no connection at all and not much to make out of it... The N could have shnorered a cigarette from the guy to attempt a dialogue and thus avoid imputing to him self-projected characteristics... but perhaps the poem is just about the N's own thoughts in which case he's not really an observer but an interpreter.

Best - from Bar

[PrinceMyshkin]

This is a mystic piece and it speaks of something deep and absorbing. This is the revelations you made and in fact this speaks of the great things that mostly unobserved and unsaid.


Thanks, Blaze


the line 'one half-hearted puff after another' made me see this guy pretty vividly in my mind, it's a good descriptive line.

It's kind of split into the first three stanza's and then the last one, first three being about the man the other about you trying to find the connection and what to make of it. Like you're giving us what you see and invitinng us to make a connection.


Breathtest: Thanks. I see it more as a split between the first stanzas and the last one, where the focus is more overtly on the narrator.


Don't we all try to find a connection to every other soul and the mysterious world?
The older I get, the more I believe that this world only exists in our mind or our dream!
When our dream is over, the world will disappear into thin air!


Thanks, Angliholic. I subscribe to your interpretation.


"The day slips by. An empire
could fall or rise between each puff,
he’d hardly be aware. Nor would he care."


This bit is brilliant !


Thanks Alexander. Those lines are ones where he and I are intermingled


One would naturally expect for the other's sliver of connection to weave with one's own... Unless this happens, there is no connection at all and not much to make out of it... The N could have shnorered a cigarette from the guy to attempt a dialogue and thus avoid imputing to him self-projected characteristics... but perhaps the poem is just about the N's own thoughts in which case he's not really an observer but an interpreter.

Best - from Bar



Indeed, Bar, the whole of the poem can be taken to be about the narrator. Although, in the incident I describe, the young man did take note of the fact that I was looking at him, everything I wrote can be taken to be a projection of my own state of mind, openly stated in the final lines.

But is there really a hard and fast line between an observer and an interpreter?

Thanks for your comment.

[Maryd.]

Oh wow, I love this piece. The ignorance of some people, is sometimes their sanctuary.
Well done prince.

[qimissung]

I like this. The things you write look easy, but they aren't really.

[PrinceMyshkin]

One would naturally expect for the other's sliver of connection to weave with one's own... Unless this happens, there is no connection at all and not much to make out of it... The N could have shnorered a cigarette from the guy to attempt a dialogue and thus avoid imputing to him self-projected characteristics... but perhaps the poem is just about the N's own thoughts in which case he's not really an observer but an interpreter.

Best - from Bar



Besides what I responded before, there's the Heisenberg Principle according to which the observer alters or affects what he/she observes.


Oh wow, I love this piece. The ignorance of some people, is sometimes their sanctuary.
Well done prince.

Thanks, Mary D


I like this. The things you write look easy, but they aren't really

Sometimes, Qim, they are easy to write, except for the ‘practice’ that went into the poems before the latest one

[breathtest]

Thanks. I see it more as a split between the first stanzas and the last one, where the focus is more overtly on the narrator

I think that's what i meant.

[blank|verse]

Well, you gave it a good go Prince, trying to grow crops on such infertile soil... but somehow you managed it!

[Bar22do]

Even the best possible observation within the dynamics of logical positivism, now unfashionable as I read, falls into the category of interpretation and tells as much about the interpreter (or at least about his/her tools) as about the interpreted, if it can tell. From this to achieving a connection the way is long as it seems to me, let alone to making something out of it.. Anyhow, I was just thinking aloud, prompted by your evidently efficient poem. Thanks a lot for letting me enjoy it.

Best regards - Bar

[Virgil]

I must have missed this one. It's interesting. I like the first half more than the second. It seemed more promising where it was going than where it ended. But there's good stuff there.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thanks, B|V, Bar and Virgil.

[AuntShecky]

Even the tiniest events in life can be "grist for the mill" in accomplished hands. This is a finely-realized snapshot of a moment which, among sensitive and observant souls, happens more often than we may think.

[Haunted]

I love how you mix casualness in the description with something philosophical and deep.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thanks, AuntShecky, and Haunted:


I love how you mix casualness in the description with something philosophical and deep.

"philosophical and deep" is in the mind of the beholder but the casualness is indeed what I aim for, although it might be argued that one can't aim for casualness.

Thank you.