Copyright © 2009 Ernest Bloom.
of all the lamentable and wondrous people who
have ever walked in the dusty streets and narrow,
possessed ravines of this world, there are
surprisingly few i'd really and honestly care to
talk to or meet, whether they be famous
musicians or painters, or pivotal politicians,
or mercurial metaphysicians. one of the few, the
very few, in fact, is peerless you. . . .but
of all the burned down mortals stalking this
hard and lonesome world, it turns out you're the
only one i'm prevented from talking to or seeing ‑‑
maybe by the time i'm on death's doorstep
this bitter irony will finally make even the
slightest bit of sense to me, just as it
seems to make right now to you:
but i seriously doubt it.
"One of the few, in fact, is peerless you." Aww, I feel so loved. I like how the speaker seems to be talking directly to the reader. :)
ReplyDeleteYes, the apostrophe is grand and it really took me off guard. It really helps to immerse the reader. You are made special, you are made significant somehow and it makes the reader wonder- why is he or she so special? Is he or she special? The speaker laments the scarcity of individuals he considers worthy talking to for the first part of the poem but then, suddenly, his stigmatizing the reader turns the whole attention to the fictional addressee, the implied reader which can be interpreted as the actual reader. The rest of the poem sort of makes you wonder not about the speaker but about you and why you don't or aren't allowed to speak with the narrator and if, in fact, you have anything special to share. In a subtle way, this could be interpreted as a satire or a critique. I want to speak with you!- the speaker says, but I can't because you won't open to me, you won't crawl out of that ignorant hole, that reclusion and regression and alcohol poisoning prison. I want to speak to you- but YOU with your follies make our communication all to impossible.
ReplyDelete*too impossible of course :)
ReplyDeletewell, you both see it the same, so it must be True. these words have turned over in various forms in my mind for a while, but i only wrote them down this morning. i guess you could say this makes reference to an ill-made engine driving an out-dated chassis through a landscape stuffed with bones and fossils, and as for folly, there's plenty of that to go around.
ReplyDelete