Posted by
the fabulist
at
11:45 PM
I just finished reading my first Charles Bukowski collection of poetry. It was very contemporary and yet at the same time very existential--I guess that's still a preeminent philosophy these days. It's funny; in one poem, he mentions Camus' The Stranger, which is precisely how to characterize most of his poetry. Apart from when he expresses his feelings on the art of writing, life in Bukowski's words seems painted exactly in Meursault's colors.
This poem is easily the best of the set:
This poem is easily the best of the set:
a residue
stuck in mid-flight,
wickedly sheared,
dreaming of the
dactylozoid.
turned away,
fashioned to stop
on zero,
flamed out,
hacked at,
demobilized.
where is common
laughter?
simple joy?
where did they
go?
what a vanishing
trick,
that.
even the skies
snarl.
what rancor,
what
bitterness...
the cry of the
smothered
heart,
now
remembering
better
times
wild and
wondrous.
now the sad
grim
present
cleaves.
Most of the poems felt incomplete because of their abrupt, photographic quality. This one didn't. Feels encapsulated by a definite regret.
Today, I kept grappling with memories that now only induce a decent amount of shame--enough to make me randomly burst out, "Fuck"s and "It's okay, it doesn't matter"s. My sister was thoroughly annoyed. I, for the most part, was bent on forgetting; yet, as the day went on, I only kept recalling. It'll fade at some point--but for now, I'm helpless against my own emotional masochism.
I'm doing pretty well, though. I think the more I internalize this, the faster the healing becomes. After all, I can't spend every day whining about the same old thing. Writing helps clarify the fact that my own sadness is an annoyance better left jarred in a poem, rather than hanging in the air.
I just hope my thoughts now catch up to my common sense when the time comes. I always do what I want, but I'm not sure if what I want to do is really compatible with the sensible thing to do. The road less traveled by, apparently, does make quite the difference. Whether good or bad--well, I guess there isn't really a good or bad, just an is. It will be.
I'm trying my hardest to tiptoe around the real matter at hand. But thankfully, others have written on the subject far more beautifully than I ever could.
Today, I kept grappling with memories that now only induce a decent amount of shame--enough to make me randomly burst out, "Fuck"s and "It's okay, it doesn't matter"s. My sister was thoroughly annoyed. I, for the most part, was bent on forgetting; yet, as the day went on, I only kept recalling. It'll fade at some point--but for now, I'm helpless against my own emotional masochism.
I'm doing pretty well, though. I think the more I internalize this, the faster the healing becomes. After all, I can't spend every day whining about the same old thing. Writing helps clarify the fact that my own sadness is an annoyance better left jarred in a poem, rather than hanging in the air.
I just hope my thoughts now catch up to my common sense when the time comes. I always do what I want, but I'm not sure if what I want to do is really compatible with the sensible thing to do. The road less traveled by, apparently, does make quite the difference. Whether good or bad--well, I guess there isn't really a good or bad, just an is. It will be.
I'm trying my hardest to tiptoe around the real matter at hand. But thankfully, others have written on the subject far more beautifully than I ever could.
One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
-Elizabeth Bishop
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment