shades drifting

[DieterM]

my shoes are worn out
from dancing and running up hills
to sit on benches and sofas has become
my favourite pastime
in my winter cave retreat
I turn to humming childhood lullabies
or listen to the sound of water
dripping slowly from the timeless ceiling
everything is covered with rust
and mould and memories
time and again, the torch flickers
hours go limp
clocks tick backwards
silhouettes and shades drift over the opposite wall
and draw me a brave new world
I know the tide is rising…
yet all I can do now
all I want to do is
sit and watch and listen
and nod with contentment…

[Haunted]

Good job D, very evocative, especially here:

hours go limp
clocks tick backwards
silhouettes and shades drift over the opposite wall

[virtuoso]

It is as if everything is so tangible, but your state of mind has relegated them to passive objects in a stage play. I like the ironical twist of life drifting by as time recedes into the doldrums. May your new year be more adventurous!

[YesNo]

It seems as if you are meditating and this is what comes to mind. Are the water from the ceiling and the rising tide related?

[Hawkman]

Hi Dieter, There is a curious tension between the positive and negative elements of this poem.

Some good strong imagery here, though one might observe that these images are negative in tone and reek of decay: warn out shoes; cave; winter; rust; mould; flickering torches with backward ticking clocks and limp hours; shades and an ominous rising tide.

On the positive side we have lullabies and memories, sofas and contentment. But look where the contentment comes… right after a catalogue of negative imagery. Coupled with the winter image, the foreshadowing of a rising tide and the isolation the narrator infers within the text, together with the conveyance of memory as a succession of images passing before his eyes, one is reminded of the adage that one’s past life flashes before one when dying. What we are left with is an impression the “contentment” a person is said to feel when slipping away into the warm embrace of hypothermia.

The overriding impression is therefore one of surrender and finality.

With regard to the execution of the poem, I might suggest that both ‘cave’ and ‘retreat’, are, perhaps, superfluous. I would observe that ‘retreat’ is unnecessary as the sense of withdrawal and isolation is adequately conveyed throughout the text. In context, the ‘cave’ is a nicely figurative image especially when combined with winter. I also feel you could comfortably dispense with “time and again” which is rather a well-worn phrase and doesn’t really add much to a flickering torch. If the torch flickers, then the action might well be considered to be on-going. It can certainly be read as such.

A deep and intriguing offering, this, Dieter, and it pays to give it more than a cursory inspection.

Live and be well - H

[prendrelemick]

"my shoes are worn out
from dancing and running up hills
to sit on benches and sofas has become
my favourite pastime"


^This rang a few bells as Time hurtles me towards old age. I expect the rest to happen too, you have really got something here.

I do agree with Hawkman about the cave and the general imagery of cold and damp, it sits contrarily with the last three lines. (for myself, I'm hoping for a nice bungalow.)

[Spiros Zafiris]

..hello D.M...>as a poem. it is quite lyric..the N's recounting
baffles me slightly..when i was younger, I'd write similar poems
but 'contentment' was not especially mentioned..clear voice, though..sp
~

[DieterM]

Dear friends, I'm awfully sorry to answer so belatedly. You know what it is – all the eating of foie gras and smoked salmon and whathaveyounots, all the gulping down of much-too-expensive champagne, and all those quick last cigarettes before New Year strikes at midnight… erm, only to reveal that resolutions one keeps are very much overrated (in my case, at least – still smoking away although it's Jan 11…)

Anyways, let me tell you all that I wish you a wonderful 2016, may it be filled with sunny holidays, bare-breasted girls (or dudes) to your liking, pay raises and good things galore :-)

Glad that you seem to like my latest poem. I was somehow in a meditative mood, alright; and when you feel that way, you shouldn't re-read the Cave Allegory by good ole Plato. Because that's what happens. A melancholic poem with quite a lot of different readings, as I see. I thank you all for your suggestions, too. I will keep them in mind when I'll edit the poem (in due time, as always).

The vision I had, to be honest, was that of someone (me? anyone?) sitting in a cave with not-so-comfy surroundings and watching shadows on a wall, taking them for a maybe more pleasant reality than the "real" reality he's left outside; just as Plato described it in his Allegory. Everything else, the details, pictures and so on, came over me just as the tide I mentioned in the poem. Whether this tide is or is not linked to the drops falling down from the ceiling – to be honest, I do not know. Most of the time, I just scribble down my "visions" (sorry for this Castaneda-ish expression, and no, I don't do LSD) as best as I can. Sometimes, the result is okay and rings some bells within me (and with some of my readers); and sometimes it's, well, best forgotten and dumped.