A burning flame
Turned to frost
Hard and cold as any frost could be
I am the Tree of Sadness
Shaped like a heart
But dark and hollow inside
Brisk blossoms hurrying away in the wind
Once a flowing passion
Now a dried-up stream of
Discolored dreams
Deserted in a blinding dust storm
Driven from holy churches and sacred shrines
A creation of perfect disorder
From the dispassionate womb of nature
I'm a fog laid out over the land
Like a bed-roll a shroud
A shadow impersonating a friend
A despairing hopelessness
I am desire, genesis of loss
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I definitely second all the glowing comments to this point. This effort is excellent food for thought. Best of all to me is the final line: "I am desire, genesis of loss." True enough. Desire requires at least the risk of loss, and the near certainty of it over time.
The great existential question to arise from that is whether it is better avoid desire (Buddhism's answer, if I've understood it correctly) or accept that desire may be "spilt religion," the drops of which may lead to the cup from which it spilled.
Author C.S. Lewis's finest work, IMNHO, is not any of his apologetic efforts, nor his fiction (neither the Narnia stories, nor his "adult fairytales") but his first work, The Pilgrim's Regress, which he describes as "an apologia for Christianity, Reason, and Romanticism." In it, he asserts a praxis of desire and ethics, embodied in his two main characters, the mildly hedonistic John and Mister Vertue (I'm not sure what Lewis thought of Kierkegaard, but it sounds like they had a few things in common.) At the end, the two must swear blood brotherhood and experience many deaths together.
It's a fine story, but here and now everyone must give their own answer. No answer is certainly an answer as well.
"Now a dried-up stream of discolored dreams" what a fine interpretation of Dante's "STYGIAN dregs" for the psychoanalytic age, Rich. With this poem you have continued the ancient tradition of the tree allegory, this time in verse. I love it when a poem sends one back to antiquity to decipher its oh so modern imagery. Well done!
Hi Ricky - I commented on your poem from your log in page, how silly. I'll repeat some of what I said. You write absolutely beautiful totally fictional dark poetry. Great job...June
Hi Ricky - you certainly are the master of majestic, creative dark poetry. Thank goodness I know your works are fiction or I may get worried. For the funniest, corniest fellow I know (this side of Seinfeld,) your talent for darkness astounds me. Fantastic!.....Juney
I sort of missed the point to some extent--should read several more times before I comment! This is about someone already dead, isn't it. When I'm down I sometimes think in those directions too. Still, it's always nice to get back up again. Good fortune to you!
Wayne
Hi Rich
So excellently done as always, but my so pessimistic. Well, sometimes we have grounds for seeing the darker side of life, after all, it's part of us, especially as we grope our way older. But having got it out of our system, how much better to go back to the light. I hope you're not too down, buddy. I know you have enough problems for six men. May better days come!
Your friend,
Wayne
Welcome !
