Ir's a strange thing about poetry. Sometimes the words just grab you, and this one did, but not as originally written. Because it prompted me, for some reason, to re-read it, sans title, and in the present tense (i.e., not referring to dead poets, but to anyone, here, now). Wow. You keep on carping, it suggests, to live in the here and now -- yet you're elsewhere. I love the way your poems sometimes say so much more, Vassilis. They make you return to re-read. Re-imagine. Thanks!
“No one, or almost no one, has yet noticed that the Prior of the Cordeliers (in The Abyss) is Zeno’s paradrome, and his equal; that the Christian and the would-be atheist ‘meet beyond all contradictions’; and that, when Zeno, near the end of his death agony, thinks he hears steps coming toward him (‘This person who was coming to him could be only a friend’), it is the prior, for whom Zeno had cared in his final days. The dying physician cannot tell whether it is he who has once again been called to aid the prior or the prior who has been summoned to aid him. They meet again in an eternity which may be no more than a supreme moment.”
--Margaret Yourcenar in With Open Eyes: Conversations with Matthieu Galey
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on this particular poem.
Vassilis,
ReplyDeletethe poem puts paid to the notion that the poet lives only after death...Hell, what was the point of living and writing in the first place!
Ir's a strange thing about poetry. Sometimes the words just grab you, and this one did, but not as originally written. Because it prompted me, for some reason, to re-read it, sans title, and in the present tense (i.e., not referring to dead poets, but to anyone, here, now). Wow. You keep on carping, it suggests, to live in the here and now -- yet you're elsewhere. I love the way your poems sometimes say so much more, Vassilis. They make you return to re-read. Re-imagine. Thanks!
ReplyDeletecontinuously also thinking about dieting here too,
ReplyDeletehowever
irregardless of what is thought:
between the two silences
everything is ?
even the
point
is
pointless ?
no one ever know
exactly
when the "here"
will be deleted
by some other "there" ?
no sense, then, neither wasting time
getting ready for , nor fearing death ?
just in writing name your Estate Executor
and your Power of Attorney and your
Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care
and besides your Will your Living Will
getting "things" in order
and reducing the clutter and the obscurations
are easier for a poet who is in that process :
to so do ?
hells-bells
ReplyDeleteyour program DID IT AGAIN
changed "die-ing" to "DIETING"
please get rid of this Robot Moron that thinks
that a machine/it is The One True God !
The moment -- that place where every living creature dwells... except the ones who are too busy thinking (and croaking) about it.
ReplyDelete("irregardless" -- ??)
Speaking of moments:
ReplyDelete“No one, or almost no one, has yet noticed that the Prior of the Cordeliers (in The Abyss) is Zeno’s paradrome, and his equal; that the Christian and the would-be atheist ‘meet beyond all contradictions’; and that, when Zeno, near the end of his death agony, thinks he hears steps coming toward him (‘This person who was coming to him could be only a friend’), it is the prior, for whom Zeno had cared in his final days. The dying physician cannot tell whether it is he who has once again been called to aid the prior or the prior who has been summoned to aid him. They meet again in an eternity which may be no more than a supreme moment.”
--Margaret Yourcenar in With Open Eyes: Conversations with Matthieu Galey
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on this particular poem.
Sorry--of course that should read "Marguerite".
ReplyDelete