The Imaginary Voyage of an Educated Man
by
James Shammas
(Age: 44)
copyright 10-06-2005
Age Rating: 10 to 127
Somewhere between Rilke's narcissism
And Shakespeare's universalism
Floats Whitman's Brooklyn ferry,
Packed with its huddled masses and me.
We shuttle across, wrapped in the news,
Except me, approaching the 69th street pier,
Proust and Joyce under each aching arm.
Then it hits me-- I'm in the labyrinth:
Finnegan's wake, a Borgesian maze.
A learned man and a Mahayana monk,
I feel the boat to Nirvana swing back
To Samsara's shores, where a bodhisattva
With empty arms and an empty cup
Admonishes me, pulls me from the writhing
Words I've ridden like the waves and
Drops me in the center of the swirling sea,
Far from Nirvana or Samsara's shores
Where there is nothing:--
No man in the maze or beseeching god,
But for the glint of a lightning crash
Stuck like the sun in a child's drowning cry.
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I will say "amen" to what Jean George said. It also hits very close to home. To be a serious poet or a reader of poetry is to live in a beautiful fantasy like world made to your own specifications by our own hand. To come back is sometimes devastating, at least for me.
But enlightenment is the mundane, without words and pictures and desires. The poet must bring both worlds together no matter what he suffers. It is the nature of things. Ah so!
This was one of your best writings. It seems to tell me a lot about you. I feel that I really got to know you in this poem. Great job of connecting with your audience!
Jim...I can picture you, totally absorbed in your reading, your mind so completely involved with the thoughts and ideas whirling and swirling between the covers of your latest 'read', that the mundane world of the masses must appear almost surreal to you when you emerge, willingly or unwillingly from the depths. The aloneness a learned man can feel when he cannot share what he has learned is almost painfully disorienting when trying to deal with the daily chores of life.
You bring a slow smile, like the mind, your words touch a place, we are what we pick, and the poet sees more than than those that just walk in the world given us. For a moment escape tastes wonderful. I share your poem and thought. Special..Walt
"The pitfalls of an educated mind is to realize the ignorance of the world," my quote. This is a kaleidescope of a wonderful dream that whirls in a sophisticated mind. The vastness of the sea can swallow up the man, but unless he understands its depths, he will not comprehend the gravity of his voyage. For the sea is mysterious and deep, as is the unconscious. "And the tender cry of a drowning child," This is a fabulous line. We grown-ups tend to drown the child and thus we experience a multitude of ailments, psychosomatic in nature. Needless to say, this is truly a great write, for your intellect does not interfere with your work and so it appears as it should, devoid of rudiments and free to ponder and gestate. Brilliant, Doc!
Welcome !
