I turn and burn.
If it could be said that for a brief while, I tried to become, or allowed myself to become, or simply just became a glow-worm (again?), calling, calling, asking to be found, hoping to be found, hoping, then I think it could be said I must now turn out my light. To not-hope. To stop. (Risible metaphors, risible thoughts, risible hope. Risible me.)
It seems I am irresistibly drawn to the hope for love, circling its flame. Would I, will I always come back, to burn myself over and over again? How risibly many times can one puny moth go into
cinders? How risible can my metaphors get? How risible I?
Many, and very, it seems. I am not blind.
I fear I would do so so many times it would be too many
times. I know I cannot afford to become manic (happy) or messed up
(unhappy) (again). A level of level emotions only, for me, is what I think – fear
– believe – must be, though I don’t want to believe. Or think. (I just want to
love. No! stop)
Falling in love is probably a thing I should never allow
myself – or at the very least, if it ever were to happen (again!), never to
allow myself to act upon my falling in love, if I do, if I were to, if I should fall;
instead, if I do, if I were to, if it happens, should it happen, should I fall, just to keep it to myself, never
acting upon it, never moving towards taking it anywhere, never allowing a
movement except perhaps within myself, but movement absolutely remaining within
me, never to come outside of me, into the world of action, deeds and words, for
therein will always lie
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is
nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgment not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
Okay, so Eliot wrote about religion, not love. So? And? Interpretation is in the mind of the beholder, verily.
Besides, isn’t religion a kind of love? Love a kind of
religion? (Risible thoughts. Risible words. Risible me.)
NB I do not own, nor do I claim to own, the copyright to the music on this video, and hence sincerely apologise to the Native American(s) I am ripping off by publishing it here.
So go buy the cd. Run along.
5 comments:
Whether you allow yourself to fall again or whether you don't (and you probably will - and if you don't you will still burn, yes you're (me too) one of those) I want another 'e'. Or if not that then something with line-breaks. Thanking you in advance.
More "e"s? Listen, you Hardest Taskmaster (and my Muse of the Severely Restrained Writing Exercises), I was just planning and even, well, okay, admittedly, even gathering "data" for the "a's and o's" you challenged with me five years ago at the old "e"-post-place. Yes, I recall we did it too; if I remember rightly, It was Small Crimsonhood – but over there, you distinctly throw a challenge to make something of love and longing out of a's and o's. You think just because five years have lapsed I could resist one of your writing tasks? No sirree. So just watch this space, and leave off with your e's for a bit (I'll put it in the exercise queue, okay?).
But what is "something with line-breaks"?
And I hope you noted I wailed for a more tight-lipped editor over at the e-post, with an askance-glance at my beloved salon-critic (can one say such a thing in English? One can, in Finnish – look: salonkikriitikko). "Salon" here not being a beauty parlour (although that might work too, for one's beauty lies more in action than in looks, what-what?), but rather a literary salon where artistes laze on divans covered in Oriental mats, decadently fiddling with opium pipes and absinthe spoons. Just like us, yes verily.
You make sure to keep well, okay? Okay. Or else.
x
You have line-breaks you have poem. Simples. And don't let anyone tell you that it's just chopped up prose. Poetic sensibility we'll just take as read - well in these parts we will.
Oh - Ah, yes of course, you *do* owe me one with just a and o. But you are so exquisite with the e I am thinking there should be a small collection of those. On the other hand, a small collection of Restricted Verse would be something rather wonderful.
I am having enough trouble with the unrestricted type. Fiddling with a strip of prescription drugs as we speak.
x
Now prescription drugs are the right ones, as they are legal. Yes verily. So keep fiddling.
I couldn't write unrestricted verse; I only write verse at all to writing tasks/exercises/challenges (set by you – nobody else has ever really set me a writing task/exercise/challenge. So we've only you to blame. Shame. On you, obviously). My clumsy line-break stuff does not count as poetry – at the very best, it can perhaps count as bad prose poetry. Take it from me – I write/wrote it, so I should know). Your strugglings, however, my Poetess of Signs, bring forth the real McCoy, and just you shut up with any mumblings to the contrary.
But you're right – a small collection of Restricted Verse would be a fun thing. And fun is what life should have more of, true, unadulterated fun, like children playing, innocently and to their hearts' content, with the hidden, unrealised drive to learn – which is the task we are set in life on the whole, isn't it: learning. Says the "learning scientist" [picks herself up off the floor, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes].
I am by no means exquisite at anything so please don't even start. The a's and o's will arrive in the fullness of time, although do not hold your breath – I'd hate for you to go blue. And perhaps something with line-breaks, too.
I note, however, with some dismay, that I could't even get the Crimsonhood name right – there's a's, o's and i's in that. How the buggering hell did we do that? Were we just novices, who allowed themselves three vowels? One should have made a folder (or a small collection) of all the things we did. The Belle Sleepeth is a title I do remember, and the, erm, poem in strict form that you had me write once. Ghazal! That's the name, yes. Hurrah. The holes in my head aren't as big as I thought.
And you know, sometimes I wish I had the in memoriam I wrote to my first cat, on your comments pages. Not because it was anything special as a piece of writing, but because to me it did describe my love for him and our relationship quite well.
Today, I have some explorative factor analysis to do. Yes, believe me, I am as scared of it as can be. I am a dork, obviously, for my data isn't going to break if I start analysing it. When I start analysing it. Which is today. Verily.
(I may have to collect some a and o data first though. It is restful for my mind. So I thank you for that – something I would never have thought of doing, if you hadn't put it in my mind all those years ago.)
Multi mwahs
x
Okay – and just so as you know, my beloved maccy, which, for a while, was just going screen-blank, for no reason, but which has stopped doing so – or had – just did it, just when I had started to collect more e data - and to my great surprise, it was actually going somewhere, without repeating the previous one –
– yes, you guessed right, the fucking thing went blank, wouldn't return without being switched off and back on again – and guessed if I, the Queen of Hysterical Saving After Every Word, had saved the fucking document at all.
Yep, no.
Bollocks.
Cannot repeat, it was stream of consciousness, as it came to me. Data only, but still.
Fuck. Is all I can say. Glad you don't mind profanity.
Laters Späters
x
Post a Comment