Descending into gloom- Part 1
Its been a rough day.
The travails of my body and the unrest of my mind,
Trying to grab this flimsy moonbeam in my calloused hand.
Am I the timid sheep left behind in this endless grassland
Of thirsty sly lions, unarmed?
Alone in a pitch dark room I awake, back arched
Tied against a thorny wall adorned with streaks
Of innocent blood of the fallen. Again I try in mild surprise
To prise open the rusty restrains that render me useless, weak.
That cruel flicker of the brightest light, teases and burns
My famished eyes, that cannot decide if it is but my blind prayer
Answered with slow upheaval, or just a desperate illusion.
In the vast sea of flawless sunflowers, I have struggled to bloom,
I have remained that hurt and confused sapling that the sun forgot to touch.
This ledge I now tiptoe on, my river flows by on one side.
My river flows carrying windswept hair, my tales of romance, laughter spawned eyes.
On the other side lies the barren new world whose wails I can no longer ignore
With a heavy heart I must step off my ledge, my back turned to my river in wordless goodbye.
1 comment:
This is a pretty literal poem, very raw, but then when it comes to a subject like this, visceral is the only way to go. I don't see a lot of metaphors or suggestive phrases here, but I do see a theme. There are 4 paragraphs here, and the subject alternates between helplessness and sacrifice - In the first one you refer to yourself as a helpless sheep in the presence of lions, indicating that there's not a lot you can do about your predicament. The second one oddly reminds me of the crucifixion of Christ, due to the restraints and the reference to the "innocent blood of the fallen", this paragraph captures the frustration and agony of being helpless almost perfectly - the dark room which refers to the frustration caused by ignorance, the thorny wall and the restraints both of which echo the unbearable agony of being helpless and weak, the mild surprise which indicates that some part of you doesn't truly believe that you're in this situation and hopes that this is all a dream and the bright light, which appears to be your salvation, but all the time that you've spent in the dark room while being tortured has rendered you incapable of deciding whether the light is legitimate, this failure of your own judgement is perhaps the most painful of them all. A near perfect metaphor. The third paragraph is again about helplessness, sunflowers are so tiny compared to the sun and when the sun herself neglects a sunflower, all it can do is bow and rot. Perhaps this refers to people who are supposed to be "elderly", "wise" and impartial, but ignore you for others? The sun is the epitome of equality after all. Another well constructed metaphor. The final paragraph seems to be about self-sacrifice, and accepting helplessness head on by diving down to meet it. All your experiences have forced you to confront your initial idea of what you thought the world would be like, and now you think that the real world is a barren land full of beggars screaming for water, and just beyond this wall that you straddled is a fresh, crystal river, your world. But there's a wall between them, which means to say that at no point do these two worlds overlap, this world is everything you hate, this is a very sad thing and it upsets me a little that you would think this. But I must ask, because I don't know, what does the wall represent? What's keeping these two worlds separate? Your experiences?. Coming back, you realize that one world needs you more than the other and that's the world you choose to live in, you make a sacrifice, but who is this sacrifice for? Maybe your parents? Maybe you?. But the idea of the wall is very well constructed. I could add something else here - These two worlds would overlap if the river were to be so full of water that it reaches over the wall and flows into the barren land, but where would this extra water come from?, The rain? Or someone's tears?, both? Did you anticipate this when you wrote the poem?
I'm sorry for being so direct, I also apologize if what I said was damaging. But what can I say? Your poems require strong emotion. This one was very well written, I enjoyed it in a perverse way. Keep writing.
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