e-e-e-esh, are you feeling more your usual self today, Prince? Life can crowd around us, but will, after awhile, back off, too.I hope your head is above water, that's all.
Upon a second reading I like it even better, a brilliant dark little poem about those not so brilliant but very dark moments that occasionally (thank God it's only occasional) occur.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
This entire piece is as open-ended as its first sentence. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The vision you present is simultaneously macabre and absurd and you give the reader no way out.
I had the same question as Sampson. This is such a vivid and lurid scene that apology is ineffective. As a warning, (R-rated) is unnecessary, given the title, which serves the same as Dante's inscription All hope abandon ye who enter here at the gates of hell.
Writing this, your title Darkness makes me think of Mark Strand's Seven Poems, the last of which goes:
I have a key
so I open the door and walk in
It is dark and I walk in
It is darker and I walk in.
The poem on the page is the key. We are warned by the title. You owe the reader nothing else.
Many thanks, Aunty, but do I really deserve this praise?Originally Posted by AuntShecky
Thank you, dear friend.
"a degree of mordant self-pity" in the last lines of your poem? I would rather expect you said "a degree of mordancy" tout court.. but whatever, there is nothing to regret - rather, as DanielBenoit put it: "I commend Prince's incredible ability to have so much in one poem." - much to be proud of... and --- to set sail for a new poem...
I think the title is brilliant, I think that first stanza is interesting and very good, but those closing lines leave me flat. It's just too close to a comic joke. I can almost hear the drum ba-dum. So I'm of mixed emotion here.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
All of the glowing criticism hasn't left me with much to say except I completely agree. This is definitely one of my favorite pieces of yours, Prince. Just absolute and utterly perfect; every line, every thought, the emotional and tonal complexity you imagine to evoke with so few lines is astounding. I can write 10 times as much without achieving half that effect. Just superb.
"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being." --Carl Gustav Jung
"To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due." --Neil Gaiman; The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists
"I'm on my way, from misery to happiness today. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh" --The Proclaimers
Many thanks, my very dear friend. My "usual self" is not something I could define but it certainly heightens my mood to get responses such as this one.
So happens I was looking at my neighbour's navel at the time. Thanks
In fact the writing of this one soon inspired a rather more hopeful one, "God, the Comma," soon to be posted.
Neither did I, frankly. Thank you.
"In fact the writing of this one soon inspired a rather more hopeful one, "God, the Comma," soon to be posted."
"soon" is a vague indication of time... or has God gone into coma....? in simple words, we are all hungry for more of your words...
This is an astonishing vote of confidence! I'd love to post it immediately, but--
But having decided to make another attempt to get some of my poems into print, I'm acting on the assumption that print publications won't accept anything that has been posted on a website.
Sorry it took me awhile to get around to acknowledging your response, for which I am very grateful.
Did you mean "comic joke" or cosmic joke? It was indeed intended as the blackest of humour, a bit of unbridled self-pity presumptuously projected everywhere, for which reason I had serious reservations about posting it at all.
No I meant a comedic joke. It was well worth posting and definitely dark. I'm getting fonder of it as I've read it a few more times. Still it seems a bit of a let down after such early brilliance. But perhaps that fits as well.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
With me there's often a negotiation between my conscious and subconscious. My subconscious will present a line or lines like the ending of this poem and I don't always immediately or even later understand it. Then I have to go with a semi-conscious (?) gut feeling as to whether the line or lines really belong there. Here, I might have been persuaded by the sheer wickedness of the thought, a not entirely worthy That'll get their attention!No I meant a comedic joke. It was well worth posting and definitely dark. I'm getting fonder of it as I've read it a few more times. Still it seems a bit of a let down after such early brilliance. But perhaps that fits as well.
Why, is my big question? Why has suicide become prevalent? The idea of your poem stands at odds with the basic survival instinct, so the reader needs to be informed what has caused this fundamental change in human nature.Why are there no precipices
when you need one?
Or they’re all occupied,
people doing cartwheels
in mid-descent.
I hear they plan to make suicide
an Olympic event
I understand your poem would be bleak and tragic, but for me the missing reason makes it hard to appreciate.
Yes, those last two lines require a large leap of intuition. To me they represent a bitter, self-pitying projection from the persona of the first stanza, a desperate joke that falls flat. And it does so because rather than confronting the cause(s) of his own despair, he visualizes it as a competitive 'sport' that everyone is engaged in.
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