She is Lost

[Hawkman]

I have no tears, it is the sky that weeps,
she is lost, she is lost.
The pity of the clouds
seen in the water at my feet,
broken now by interlocking rings
as raindrops fall
to soak my hair and wash my grief.

I hear the wind which echoes my despair,
she is lost, she is lost.
No more I’ll hold the hand
whose warmth and softness
found a home in mine, or feel
those arms that clung with tender need
or kiss the lips that whispered promises of time.

I know the sea just mocks a thwarted craze,
she is lost, she is lost.
The surging tide has undermined
the cornerstone of hope,
the tower of dreams has fallen,
lies as rubble in the thoroughfares of sleep,
serenaded by a heart-song’s failing beat.

The winter now can never know the spring,
she is lost, she is lost.
Without her warmth no seed will grow,
the light she gave denied by her eclipse.
The soil that would nourish love’s last crop
is barren in the deepening shade;
its heart was sown with salt when she was lost.

[everyadventure]

Hawkman, I'm surprised by this piece! Or maybe I just haven't read enough of your work.

I thought this poem moving, and with the exception of "the sky that weeps," thought your phrasing original. I liked the word "pity," much better than "sadness" or "sorrow." I liked the imagery of the "interlocking rings," their transient nature reflecting the subject of the poem. And the heart sown with salt... certainly not a line I've heard before.

I enjoyed this one, even though it left me feeling a little gloomy...

[PrinceMyshkin]

There are images and phrases here as masterfully structured as any edifice I can think of! My one dissent or quibble would be that you delete "she is lost, she is lost" from the last verse, as we have come to expect it and without it here, more weight falls on "lost" in the last line.

[aliengirl]

A very beautiful poem, sad but not depressing. The whole poem is exquisitely crafted especially the first and the last stanzas.

[Delta40]

I like the comparison of grief tuned to echo so strongly with the elements

the cornerstone of hope,
the tower of dreams has fallen,
lies as rubble in the thoroughfares of sleep,
serenaded by a heart-song’s failing beat.

The winter now can never know the spring,

very moving piece Hawk

[blank|verse]

This is a very heartfelt piece, Hawk.

It reminded me of 'The Voice' by Thomas Hardy (http://www.tetrameter.com/hardy.htm), especially your use of the refrain.

I think it also shares a slightly archaic feel, particularly in its use of pathetic fallacy, which overall is too heavy for me; the poem is a bit too melodramatic. It might be worth contrasting Auden's 'In Memory of W.B. Yeats' (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15544), in which he also uses pathetic fallacy but is aware that this is just his fanciful poetic construction.

Nonetheless, there are some imaginative phrases:

The winter now can never know the spring,
which I liked in context, and has overtones of (but is different from) Shelley's 'If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?' which concludes his 'Ode to the West Wind' (http://www.rc.umd.edu/rchs/reader/westwind.html), of course.

[Hawkman]

ae Thanks for reading and comenting and for liking what you liked, although I'm sorry you don't like skies that weep. I agree it's not a jolly piece, so sorry for filling your day with gloom :D However, I'm sure you found something to laugh at elsewhere :) As for surprising you - Well, perhaps it's a good thing to keep the audience guessing :devil:

Prince Thanks very much for your positive comments. I confess I'm inclined to agree with your observation about the last stanza. It would definately read more fluidly with the refrain removed, but I'm not sure what to put in its place. I wonder if it would be better just to accept that the final verse should consist of only six lines when all the rest have seven. I continue to think about it.

Warrent Officer Ripley I'm most gratified that you seem to like it as it is, so thanks for that and for telling me so. Glad you enjoyed it.

Delta Many thanks, I'm glad you found it so affecting.

b/v Many thanks for stopping by to endure my melodrama :D I am aware that it can't have been to your taste! Seriously though, I'm grateful for your observations and especially the links. But in what way do you think I'm not aware of my own fanciful poetic construction? Sadly I'm not Auden, if I was I'd have written Stop all the Clocks. I'll take the Hardy allusion though.

When following your Auden link I stumbled upon Ginzberg's Kaddish Part 1. Rather a rambling "in memorium" but I wonder what your take on Ginzberg is. I know practically nothing of his work.

Anyway, thank you all again for reading and commenting.

Live and be well - H

[blank|verse]

Thanks for the response, Hawk.

But in what way do you think I'm not aware of my own fanciful poetic construction?
You (as in Hawk) may well have been aware of this, but there is no indication the narrator of the poem is, and as a consequence comes across as rather too introspective and egocentric; a bit too 'woe is me'.

With Auden, one finds more self-awareness; the outpouring of emotion is there, but so is the thoughtful reflection. To be honest, I'm here rehearsing an argument laid out by Terry Eagleton in his brilliant 'How to Read a Poem' (Blackwell: 2007, p. 8 - highly recommended), in which he notes that in lines such as 'The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests', "reality is what turns its back upon us, resisting our infantile demand that the world should serve as our looking glass." I'm not sure one could conclude the same about 'She is Lost'.

One could also note (and this is my own comment!) how Auden appeals to the rational, scientific 'instruments' (which all 'agree') to persuade us that his response is supported by fact. (But as for 'Stop all the Clocks' - the 'Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone' is one of the worst lines in English poetry!! :))

As for Ginsberg - I see there's a film about him set to be released (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/12/howl-trial-allen-ginsberg-film). (And there's also a nice LitNet-related comment in the second paragraph!) Personally, I find 'Howl' a load of hippy nonsense on the whole; but that said, he and other Beats established poetry as a strong, authoritative presence in the counter culture... something that's sadly lacking in contemporary poetry; but then, is there much of a counter culture anyway that isn't instantly commercialized, and raided of all credibility just to sell mobile phones?

[AuntShecky]

(Sorry for the delay in getting to this, Hawkman, as for the last 3 weeks or so my computer time had been dominated by writing a literary essay which currently appears in the General Literature forum on the LitNet.)

Here's my "take" on this particular piece. The refrain "she is lost" tells me that a rather tragic event has claimed the life of the speaker's lady love. It wasn't so mundane as her running off with the insurance salesman, say, but a situation causing the speaker to mourn. There is no problem with an "objective correlative" here.

Still, the scenario is one of grief, an extremely difficult topic to handle. Blank_Verse mentioned the pathetic fallacy, a pitfall which those of us who attempt to write verse should endeavor to avoid. If I remember Ruskin's essay accurately, he deplores the pathetic fallacy because it doesn't convey the human feeling of mourning effectively. It's false and maudlin. Your writing is seldom, if ever, maudlin, BUT we have to be careful in the use of personification, attributing the characteristics of animals or inanimate objects to human emotions. In your first stanza the sky can be thought to "weep;" it does, after all, rain from time to time. On the other hand, it takes a huge suspension of disbelief for the reader to accept the notions that clouds can feel "pity."

The opening line in the second stanza:
I hear the wind which echoes my despair,
does not strain credibility very much, for when we hear the wind (so to speak), we can say that it "echoes" pretty much what we want it to. The succeeding lines in this particular stanza, though, remind me too much of commonplace popular ballads, although the memories they evoke are endearing and true-to-life.

The first 4 lines of the third stanza go over the top, but the last 4 in that stanza are eloquent, like one of our mutually favorite lines re: "Childe Roland":
the tower of dreams has fallen,
lies as rubble in the thoroughfares of sleep,
serenaded by a heart-song’s failing beat.

If you wanted to, you could tweak the rhythm a bit in that last line to make the line actually scan with a "failing beat."

Finally in the last stanza, we've seen this image and/or notion many times before:
The winter now can never know the spring,
--------------------
Without her warmth no seed will growbut the concluding lines:
The soil that would nourish love’s last crop
is barren in the deepening shade;
it’s heart was sown with salt when she was lost.

more than make up for the ones preceding it.
You need to change "it's" to "its," though.

The last line is a killer, reminiscent of the classical allusions to Carthage, upon whose ruins the enemy sprinkled salt so that the mighty city would never rise again.

[Hawkman]

Hi b/v, and thanks for the link. I knew there was a good reason I hadn't paid him much attention. :D Thanks also for the reference. Yet another book I have no space for - lol. 3001 and counting....

Poor Auden, He must be kicking himself over that line in purgatory :devil:

Anyway, thanks for the expansion on the comment. Duly noted. Live long and prosper -

Auntie, Hi. Not sure I follow your reasoning with weep, clouds, pity. A little baroque perhaps but logical in derivation. Tears of pity - weeping, thus the puddles of precipitated water reflect the sky but the reflection is broken up by the ripples of further raindrops. One may not like the imagery but it is easily understood, I feel.

Yes, moaning/sighing winds are a bit of a cliche, but I specifically avoided both words.

I don't think Child Roland (or was it Harold) had to deal with the dark tower collapsing at his feet :D The sea/tide is just a metaphor for passion and is used to illustrate how that passion undid the N's dreams. Glad you liked the sown salt though, I was rather proud of that one :D Thanks for pointing out the typo :) I have corrected it.

Many thanks for sharing your thoughts and observations. I promise I'll get round to your essay soon. Been a bit busy today.

Via con Dios - H

[blank|verse]

Poor Auden, He must be kicking himself over that line in purgatory
One can only hope so! In his life he was troubled enough by what he'd written. Here's part of the unintentionally tittersome introduction to his Collected Shorter Poems (Faber: 1966):

Re-reading my poems, I find that in the nineteen-thirties I fell into some very slovenly verbal habits. The definite article is always a headache to any poet writing in English, but my addiction to German usages became a disease. Again, it makes me wince when I see how ready I was to treat –or and –aw as homophones. It is true that in the Oxonian dialect I speak they are, but that isn't really an adequate excuse. I also find that my ear will no longer tolerate rhyming a voiced S with an unvoiced. I have had to leave a few such rhymes because I cannot at the moment see a way to get rid of them, but I promise not to do it again. [My italics.]

[Bar22do]

Hey oh Hawk,

A few words of your poem echo (to me) my own "Maintaining" which I wrote long ago...
I came back from the trip exhausted, but am already interfering with your poems! I tried to free this one from over-sentimentality, but of course, dispose of the suggestions as you please! You can trash them, for example, but who knows, you might find here an idea for revision... I LOVED YOUR SALT LINE!

Greetings and my best wishes as always! Bar

So here is my take - I know, it isn't really you, it's not balanced etc..., but I venture (I can't provide any professional crits, it's only my guts and cisors!):

The sky seems to weep
she is lost, she is lost.
I see the clouds
in the water at my feet,
broken as raindrops fall.

The wind lashes my eyelids,
she is lost, she is lost.
Hurling a thwarted craze
the surging tide wrecks
my insane hope - a rubble
in a love song’s failing beat.

Winter now settles forever,
she is lost, she is lost.
Useless are seeds that lack
her warmth in the soil crushed
by a deepening shade,

its heart sown with salt when
she was lost.

[AuntShecky]

I don't think Child Roland (or was it Harold) had to deal with the dark tower collapsing at his feet :D The sea/tide is just a metaphor for passion and is used to illustrate how that passion undid the N's dreams. Glad you liked the sown salt though, I was rather proud of that one :D Thanks for pointing out the typo :) I have corrected it.

Via con Dios - H

Well, for I may have been right for once, though have been known to confuse him with "Childe Harold" as in "Harold in Italy" in the classical music game. But it is "Childe Roland" in both places--the original line from King Lear which inspired it and in Browning's poem.

Incidentally, metaphors having to do with the sea are among the ones Ruskin comments upon. Here's the link in case you want to read it some night when the Cable's on the fritz:

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/ruskinj/

Yes, your pride regarding the Carthage allusion is justified.

[Hawkman]

Well, for I may have been right for once, though have been known to confuse him with "Childe Harold" as in "Harold in Italy" in the classical music game. But it is "Childe Roland" in both places--the original line from King Lear which inspired it and in Browning's poem.

Incidentally, metaphors having to do with the sea are among the ones Ruskin comments upon. Here's the link in case you want to read it some night when the Cable's on the fritz:

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/ruskinj/

Yes, your pride regarding the Carthage allusion is justified.

Byron Auntie :D and I am reading your essay but so far have only done the first section. 'Fraid you're preaching to the converted though :D

Sweet Bar, Thanks for taking an interest :devil: I'll get back to you in a minute - Aum Shiva - H

[Hawkman]

Well Sweet Bar, Your version, with a few minor modifications, certainly reads more pithily than mine, but it does lack that element of Victorian melodrama which I was parodying. I particularly regret the loss of the falling tower, which was so reminiscent of Shakespeare’s interview with the apothecary in “Shakespeare in Love”. Hi Ho, and some shall fall on stony ground…

The sky seems to weep
she is lost, she is lost.
I see the clouds
in the water at my feet,
broken as the raindrops fall.

The wind lashes at my eyelids,
she is lost, she is lost.
Crushed my thwarted craze,
the surging tide has wrecked
my insane hope - now rubble
in a love song’s failing beat.

Winter then, forever,
she is lost, she is lost.
Useless are the seeds that lack
her warmth, in soil chilled
by deepening shade;

its heart was sown with salt
when she was lost.

If you like we can post this revision as a collaboration :D

Glad to have you back trawling the threads. :) Live and be well - H

[Bar22do]

But why should you always parody something (be it william in love!)!

Anyway, your minor modifications applied, I'm ashamed to say I love this poem! And - alright, let's go for collaboration! :smile5:

[Bar22do]

ah, but you have two "now" one after the other, I'd erase the first ( it's understood)

[Hawkman]

A: because it's fun :D

collaboration noted and approved!

Good catch, have modified accordingly.

Live and be well, sweet muse, may thy favourite angel guard thee. - H