Everything fades so fast. In delirium the world is a blackbox theater. The drama is fleeting pictures of intensity. A man wearing a green straw hat opens his mouth to speak, but his face is gone before I can grasp it. Then there is the void again: my memories fall into oblivion, I cannot find the presences and places I have held onto. Maybe they have shifted and moved on to the future, where they lay waiting for me to pick them up, wash them clean so I can reclaim them and the seeds will blossom once again--in that new world, the sun shines a brighter light.
If only we could navigate through the currents, not for a moment fall back into the agony of things. I love to tread through the impossible because everything is a challenge nothing is at stake if you do not hold glimmers of hope. It is not about hope; it is about moving along each day that unfolds, towards another time and space that I will not foresee.
* * *
In the last few months I have read mostly poetry. It is not a sign of sadness as much as proof of my decelerating attention span. I want to take the world into my hands and live it, hold what I discover and leave.
Last week I read three collections of poems by British poet Paul Farley. From what I have read his poetry is observant, compassionate, quiet and quite versatile. Here is one that makes me smile. From Tramp In Flames:
The Westbourne at Sloane Square
You again! Of all the bomb-scarred stonework
and air vents underfoot I knew by heart.
You, still going strong in your black pipe
above the passengers and mice-live tracks.
You, flowing through eighteenth-century parkscape
into an ironclad late-Victorian night.
Pissed and standing on the eastbound platform
I was a tin soldier who'd fallen in
to London's storm drain, sent spinning around
the Circle Line long after closing time,
and all along I've carried these trapped sounds
I hear again and recognise deep down.
How many miles of shit have you crawled through
since we last met? I'd do it all again.
We've less choice than we think, the likes of you and me.
Blind water, borne along or bearing through,
escaping in a hurry for open sea.
To think we start as innocent as rain.
If only we could navigate through the currents, not for a moment fall back into the agony of things. I love to tread through the impossible because everything is a challenge nothing is at stake if you do not hold glimmers of hope. It is not about hope; it is about moving along each day that unfolds, towards another time and space that I will not foresee.
* * *
In the last few months I have read mostly poetry. It is not a sign of sadness as much as proof of my decelerating attention span. I want to take the world into my hands and live it, hold what I discover and leave.
Last week I read three collections of poems by British poet Paul Farley. From what I have read his poetry is observant, compassionate, quiet and quite versatile. Here is one that makes me smile. From Tramp In Flames:
The Westbourne at Sloane Square
You again! Of all the bomb-scarred stonework
and air vents underfoot I knew by heart.
You, still going strong in your black pipe
above the passengers and mice-live tracks.
You, flowing through eighteenth-century parkscape
into an ironclad late-Victorian night.
Pissed and standing on the eastbound platform
I was a tin soldier who'd fallen in
to London's storm drain, sent spinning around
the Circle Line long after closing time,
and all along I've carried these trapped sounds
I hear again and recognise deep down.
How many miles of shit have you crawled through
since we last met? I'd do it all again.
We've less choice than we think, the likes of you and me.
Blind water, borne along or bearing through,
escaping in a hurry for open sea.
To think we start as innocent as rain.
A PSALM OF LIFE
ReplyDeleteWHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN
SAID TO THE PSALMIST
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.