Is this my wish?
The product of a paper tree?
Is this the kiss of fate, a date with destiny?
Is he my roses' rain, my poet's pain?
My happy ever after? This beautiful disaster?
Once the sky has broken,
it's hard to trust the sun.
Even the rain, it's not the same,
a different pane, perhaps?
My moonlight haunts me still,
but doesn't cross the sill in this new place.
As though it cannot reach me,
does not recognise my strange new face.
My tired eyes are wide,
but still I hide and seek.
I dare not speak.
My tongue may cut the clouds,
may burst my make-believe.
But this thing is real.
I feel it in the dark.
It pulls me near.
I hear it accidentally slip from lips
in drunken whispers,
only to retreat into the
silent spaces that we share.
Scared,
but I know it's there.
Is this my wish?
Is this my folded, knotted, once upon a dream?
My familiar gleam?
I know it's true
that visions are seldom as they seem,
but I know it's true.
2 comments:
Woohoo!!! The Serpent's back - yay
Nice comeback too dude.
(shame it had to be the Jovi but we'll letcha off as it's been so long lol - as if he could write like this though)
Okay where to start? It's been so long...
Okay the structure:
The short-long pattern works beautifully as it weaves what can be read as 5 seperate entities together seamlessly. Love the opening and closing with stanzas of questions, and that forces home the power of the final statment more on one hand but also suggesys that you could read it as a question - as in, does the speaker really "know it's true"?
I adore the middle stanza because it seperates the physical imagery from the abstract. Either side are the long lyrical passages of gorgeous imagery but then threatening them in the middle are those 3 hammering sentences emphasising the force of the physical: "tired eyes" the "tongue" that could "cut".
My favourite part of the poem?
"My moonlight haunts me still,
but doesn't cross the sill in this new place.
As though it cannot reach me,
does not recognise my strange new face."
Gorgeous, absolute genius, it immediately lets the reader know what's going on here and it's heartbreaking at the same time - the things that you used to find solace in suddenly don't seem to work in the same way (this is only my take obviously so feel free to throw a cyber-turd at me if this is all making you want to claw your own poetic eyeballs out) but the brilliance of it is that I've never seen anyone so simply get at such a complex concept - that it's the elements fault. That the moonlight might not recognise you as you change is an incredible idea and I can't think of a more apt metaphor for the strange lonliness that periods of transition can bring.
Also adore the personification of the "thing" that thing we've all either heard or said at some point that seems to dissappear into silences in the sobering daylight - stunning.
And actually you've changed my mind about the Bon Jovi thing because I was gonna suggest if being really brutal and harsh that:
Is he my roses' rain, my poet's pain?
My happy ever after? This beautiful disaster?
is almost a criminal offence on the cheese front but actually throwing mr jovi in their kinda makes this comical and that sets up one hell of a comedown for the rest of the poem. Like when you see a play where there's a joke before a sudden execution - it kinda emphasises the impact ya'know?
The opening two lines are great together - and the paper tree motif I don't think I can get to what's behind it but it doesn't matter because it's a vivid enough image that the reader can invent their own. It's a beautiful piece and an ideal comeback.
You are my favourite living poet (including edward hirsch and that gorgeous lil bloke that fronts Herbal T & Pornography who's name evades me right now) please keep writing and then write more and then more. The blogosphere has become a lonely and barren place without you;)
withoutyou the web doesn't sing as it should...
and whatever you think to that...
"I know it's true"
xxx
Seconded!!!x
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