Evensong

[Hawkman]

There is no future, only
the perpetual now,
that moment
like a stilled heartbeat
stretched out across a plane
that only knows my absence.
A null between peaks;
a diastolic trough extended
well beyond its means.

In that place conscience
is a void – irrelevant,
a country visited by sinners.
But I have not sinned,
I do not know the anguish
suffered by believers,
delusional fanatics torn between
the torment of perceived misdeeds
and allegorical redemption in a sip of wine,
courtesy of mine host.

Of course I have regrets,
embarrassments that surface
in the watches of the night.
I try to forgive myself
and others,
the follies which we shared.
The absolution that I seek
found in forgetfulness,
illusive,
always out of reach.

And that moment begs distraction,
a ritual of deliberate remembrance.
Old photo album missals under coats of dust
steer me through the maze of memory;
images of ships,
half forgotten friends,
and colleagues
peopling another life -
edited, of course.

The gaps, spaces on paper
yellowing with age,
tell their own tales.
Faces deliberately excised
which still contrive to float before my eyes.

Perhaps it’s time to start again,
rewrite the liturgy,
forsake the church of reminiscence
and join a congregation of new pals,
I hope there’ll be a plethora of gals.
Time enough to make the same mistakes.

[Haunted]

I got a whiff of T.S. Eliot in this, it brings to mind Wasteland and the Love Song. Thought provoking.

[Alexander III]

Yea I felt a lot of T.S Elliot too, and I very much liked the poem.

But i think at times it is to prosaic, and it could use a bit of triming, but otherwise a strong poem.

[Hawkman]

"…Et cum illi pueri dicerent:
Σίβυλλα τί θέλείζ; respondebat illa: άποθανείν θέλω”

Haunted: Hi and thanks for reading :) Yes, I can see how you might find a connection to Eliot in this, in subject if not quite in style anyway. It's not the first time I've had the allegation of Eliotism levelled at me :D I think Prince did once before, though I can't remember which poem he was commenting on. But what thoughts doth it provoke? ;)

A3: You too seem to have made the connection to Eliot and I'm glad you liked the poem, though you felt it mildly too prosaic, but after Haunted likened it to The Wasteland and Love Song you feel it needs trimming? LOL!

I'm not overly generous with the symbolism here, I admit - but there is extended metaphor in the writing and I feel it says what I wished it to say, with my habitual irony and my tongue firmly in my cheek. ;)

Again, thank you both for reading and sharing your comments.

Live and be well - H

PS - Growltiger's Last Stand - my favourite Eliot poem :D

[Haunted]

Haunted: Hi and thanks for reading :) Yes, I can see how you might find a connection to Eliot in this, in subject if not quite in style anyway. It's not the first time I've had the allegation of Eliotism levelled at me :D I think Prince did once before, though I can't remember which poem he was commenting on. But what thoughts doth it provoke? ;)


Many :D

After such knowledge, what forgiveness...has come to a more personal level:

I try to forgive myself
and others,
the follies which we shared.
The absolution that I seek
found in forgetfulness,
illusive,
always out of reach.

And while In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo, the Hawk has his plethora of gals and Time enough to make the same mistakes.

Making the same mistakes is history repeating itself and that brings us right back to this:

History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving.

Of course the notion of absence / null / void is so inescapable...

Should I go on? ;)

[Hawkman]

Yes indeedy, you be thinking the right sorts of thoughts :D thanks for sharing them. I hope you enjoyed the poem, though in comparison with Eliot, I might claim to have been quite terse - lol

Live and be well - H

[Haunted]

Terse would be an understatement in comparison. Considering that the length of the Wasteland was already tackled by Ezra Pound, your poem is downright stingy :D. Yes I very much enjoyed Evensong along with its artfully intricate metaphors.

[blank|verse]

Yes, I think people are right to invoke comparisons with Eliot's The Waste Land (two words, folks) and Prufrock; this reads at times like a soliloquy of a modern-day Hamlet... which brings us back to Eliot (although I'm not sure how many people these days are that racked by the sense of religious guilt which pervades this poem).

It is a bit on the prosey side, although it's always hard to write free verse at length without such accusations. Personally, I wasn't too keen on the self-pity that crept into this; and I thought the 'pals-gals' rhyme at the end a bit of an aberration, shall we say.

[Hawkman]

Hi b/v. Not quite sure if the sense of "religious Guilt" you mention referes to my or Eliot's poem :D Certainly I would hope that you had noticed in mine, that although I have employed religious imagery, I have done so ireligiously ;)

I'm sorry that you read it as being self-pitying. I can't help feeling that perhaps you have missed the point a little. The whole thing reeks of self-depricating irony, the humour of which, I would have hoped, is emphasised by the "aberration" of the rhyming couplet and laconic final line. I would accept that there is a slight imbalance of the tone in the opening compared with the ending, in that it is perhaps less blatently humerous but the over emphasis of certain points was intended to be knowingly melodramatic.

Well, I guess it's not really your cup of tea, but I am, as always, grateful for the time you devote to my endavours and the effort you put into your critiques.

Thanks for reading and for your comments :)

Live and be well - H

[smerdyakov]

Hi there Hawkman.

I liked this. I started to get the sense of it in s4 and s5.
"Half forgotten friends...peopling another life" these are emotive lines.
Though these stanzas are less rich in language than the others they breath a sense into it and give the poem a heart. Good stuff.:smile5:

[Hawkman]

Thanks smerdyakov. I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

Live long and prosper - H

[deryk]

Reading about 'faces' being 'excised' was a dead giveaway to the T.S. Eliot. What you accomplish in the temporal sense with this poem is really quite impressive, as though you are giving absence itself meaning. The religious anecdotes didn't appeal to me as much, but were also very much a giveaway in terms of influence. I loved the editing of faces that occurs as a stark reminder of our own limitations to reminisce (among other things).

But beyond all that, I felt this poem was too short. :)

[Hawkman]

Thanks Deryk for taking the time to read it and for your comments :) I'm glad you seem to have enjoyed it (mostly) but I see I'm just going to have to come clean. Whilst I have read both the Waste Land and Prufrock, I can't claim to be able to remember them that well. When the analogy was made I had to look them up! So, there was no conscious effort of parody or homage in this piece. It came to me and I wrote it, so it's a case of convergent evolution I'm afraid :D

Sorry you felt the poem too brief. I see I'm going to have to return to my magnum opus, the Epic Tale of Dave the Viking, and post it here (if indeed I ever finish it - lol).

Live and be well - H