e dietro le venìa sì lunga tratta
di gente, ch'i' non averei creduto
che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta
~~~
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
~~~
For Esme
~~~
Oh, Eliot -
with eyes full of shadows
and a body as empty as the universe
I cry for you
January is more cruel than April
with the universe bleeding snows
Do you know of the wind
that tells the tales of memories?
The cold, bitter wind that shreds
dry skin and bones, until the soul is dead
We're dead
The thunder said something monumental
and we're frightened.
Down we go from summer to winter,
seeing fear in the dust and wind
seeing death in the riverbed
The hyacinths that grew along
have wilted in the cold
The world no longer grows
You're aged, telling tales
like old men who sit by the fireside
with no purpose, no thought or depth
You chatter to the wind
with a dry, voice
a dry brain
shivering in the cold
Long ago you disturbed the universe
and made it tremble
But now there is only a silence
deep with your heart
You are stone and bone -
a ghost running towards shadows
Perhaps your being is like falling asleep
It happened, came to a dream
and you're awakened by the tempest
that screeches and swallows you
Old men ought to drown
after exploring the chasm - the caves of eternity
and the infinite
and with one final whimper - - -
This is the way your life ended
your life ended
your life ended
This is the way your life ended
not with a bang but a whimper
Author notes
Who knew that death had undone so many?
A contest entry
- Anything you want by whispernthedark.
745 points, ended August 22, 2008, 42 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Critiques by Melissa Gayle.
1650 points, ended September 4, 2008, 24 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 7 of 7
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Not too keen on the beginning but the rest was well done -
that ending stanza had too many 'ended' for me.
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I love the last stanza and the way it resonates.
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i re-read with the comment you sent me in mind.
i really do think it's good. better than good. good is banal.
but, my opinion stands on the final segment.
i like how it reads with " and one final whimper- - -" as the closing.
opinion only. i understand with absolute clarity the intention and weighty purpose of the last stanza. i had said it was a near-direct lift, and it is....
but realize the amount of thought that went into it. at the same time, it negates everything preceding it. all that glorious allusion and language, released of importance because it's meant to eat its self. i suppose it furthers the point of the piece in doing so, but places you within the ranks of irony as well. an ouroboros . a celestial effigy set before a star's implosion, a alex grey painting dripping with kerosene hanging above a curious kid with matches. the poem is in fact nothing in the end. a void where eloquence once stood.
let's not pretend that eliot was hemmingway.
he was simple, but even under the scrutiny of his own lens, he was effacing. he knew what he was. anyone who has taken the time to inspect the seams of his work is aware of what he was.
an editor. a man without an identity who was capable of penning some of the most amazing and accidental lines in modern poetry. i like the haphazard image of t.s.. he's human.
you are rather brilliant for posing the poem in this fashion. it a bit like a literary version of a visual artist's performance piece. smart, but esoteric and as you stated.... nihilistic.
the poem was never on the whole terrible. to think that, i would have to have no comprehension of literature what so ever. or at minimum, heavily favor the works of margaret cavendish and company.
please receive my words with candor- i am pleased as punch to have evaded the ire of your original comment.
-natalie
pps. i do dare beg to differ on the idea that the poem's worth would be lost were the last section to go missing.... you underestimate the tone exuding from every line until that point. it can stand alone. it's more than apt for such a challenge.
ppps. "even bad press is good press" -Woody Allen
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whimper
i understand that this is a tribute. bravo, hats off to you, ticker-tape parade and all that...
but:
hate the t.s. eliot cut and paste job at the bottom.
your poem is strong enough without the near-direct t.s. stanza.
this is as honest as it gets.
it is terrible and detracts from everything YOU actually wrote.
using key words works just fine, but to lift an entire section is awful. not homage, just regurgitation... maybe if the original was not as good as it is? maybe then? re-evaluate this please.
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Overall, thank you. At first I was put off by the comment. The response I had written was actually far angrier. Part of it was AP's fault for having cut off part of the comment at the top of the screen, ending it:
this is as honest as it gets. it's terrible.
Therefore I thought you were referencing the poem at whole.
Anyway -
I didn't even copy the lines verbatim. If you've actually read The Hollow Men I am sure you are aware of Eliot's ending. My ending is different. Why did I use it?
It is the final trivialization of Eliot's life. Understand that as stellar of a poet as Eliot was, he was like every other human - mortal; he lived a finite, essentially pointless life of language and thought. He himself admitted it at the end of East Coker in "The Four Quartets" Who really cares if he attended Harvard or won the Nobel Prize. It doesn't matter.
Death does that to you. All right, so he's revered as the greatest poets who ever lived - but mostly just in a class of intellectuals who can admire/appreciate and UNDERSTAND his complexity. The average person might not even know who Eliot is...
let alone could they understand his writing. God knows I lack understanding of Eliot, and I'm focusing mostly on his writing in college. I can understand simple aspects of Eliot's language, but I'm just as lost as the next soul.
As for the rest of this poem. It is full of allusions to Eliot's writing. Why? Ironically the opposite of the ending. It is the irony of the poem. While I am implying that Eliot's life is trivial and doesn't deserve homage, I am saving him from "the tempest" The death, the "good night" that Thomas speaks of (referenced The hyacinths stand as a symbol of birth and fertility (Hyacinthus was sprouted into a Hyacinth flower after his murder) The "old men ought to be explorers" line in "The Four Quartets" (East Coker) is alluded to, as well as many references in The Wasteland (also referenced as symbolism to Eliot's personal 'wasteland' existence)
I contrast that with the references from, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", a poem about passion, finding yourself, and youth. "Do I dare disturb the universe" and "I'll show you fear in a handful of dust" are referenced as vitality images of Eliot's life.
Truth be told, the literary meaning of this poem would be unannounced if it weren't for that ending. It is the final trivialization of Eliot's existence, casting him off into the shadows. Just as he wrote about the world ending I wrote about his life ending. It happened. While the actual meaning would be well known without the references, the allusions mold an allegory - creating a nihilistic meaning. We understand death is part of life, however I am, to a degree, considering life banal.
Anyway, thanks for the comment.
"So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."
-T.S. Eliot, "The Four Quartets: East Coker"
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This is an amazing write. Your imagery is sharp. At first reading I didn't care for the repetition in the last stanza, but after reading it again I think it is very effective. Thank you for entering the contest, good luck.
♥
whisper
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wow this is brilliant.
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