Monday, April 04, 2005

Stroke after stroke on the keyboard

Stroke after stroke on the keyboard
I decipher the words as they roar:
Truth shall not be told –
The veil is the skin you wear!

The words of the prophets,
And the advice of the wise,
Shall die with a dying fall; 1
Once and for all.

Roam I shall through muttering retreats, 2
And my blood will never be fired. 3
Live I shall,
And happiness will never perspire.

No more I’ll see the wolf in the mirror, 4
only, the wolf will see me and fear.




NOTES:
1. dying fall: love-sick Duke Orsino's opening line in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

2. T.S Eliot's "Let us go through those half deserted streets the muttering retreats .." in J.Alfred Prufrock's Love song.

3. "my blood will never be fired! " Marquis tells the King in Don Carlos by Schiller.

4. Steppenwolf by Hesse - The protagonist sees a wolf baring teeth at him in the magic mirror.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

honestly, this time, u got me cuz i dont get it.
You know, I am not big on encrypted poetry. Had a friend who always had poems i couldn't understand. I am not gonna pretend to say i understand it when i think it is really confusing.
also, don't you think there is a kind of arrogance in using language to render a concept more obscure than it actually is? After all, someone who is confident in his capacity to communicate will produce an oral or written text taht is logical, concise and clear. Not to offend you dear friend, but I find your "poem" obscure. And i suspect taht its obscurity is used to hide the true content: nothing.
How about you reply to this comment by explaining the conceptual contenet of each line? Then, when i understand it, i can better make a critique as you asked me :)
hope i didn't offend. u said you liked honesty: here it is, brutal and nude.