Sunday, January 29, 2012

Paradise Lost . . .

Defiance (Black Idol), 1900-1903 
František Kupka
  

Where do we go from here?
We have landed in an unkempt paradise . . .
perhaps it's karma that keeps us so lost . . .
remember when we daydreamed on the hammock
under the canopy of trees . . .
and yet they gracefully moved their branches,
leafs fluttered away
like migrant birds . . .
so we could see the stars at night
and we . . . so naively . .
making wishes on the lights that flew
across the ebony flanks of the sky god?
Remember the idols we made of mud . .
that dripped from our hands as we plastered
our gods with the soil of our desires . . .
they are buried like our dreams
in the caverns of our souls. .
left to melt beneath an incessant dripping
of hollow water . . . mingling with the blood
that runs through our hearts .. . .
and we
we are lost in our wilderness . . . wandering
wandering . ..  wanting to hold
once more . . . what we have loved . . .
I see so many of the children of my time
drifting, with glazed eyes . ..  their claws reaching
for each glossy fruit dangling from the vines . . .
they are mesmerized by their reflections
in the shine, believing that these are signs
of value and worthiness . . .  perhaps eternal grace . . .
I see these children raveled and twined in thorny green . . .
biting into rotten cores of shallow fruits,
their lips trembling with
a desire never satiated . .
I am now, merely a faded fossil . . .
slowly sinking into a passionless embrace . . .
where flesh meets earth . .  becoming one . ..
a lonely nothing . .. who screams with a voice
so silenced . . . a warning never heard . . .
behold the poison of our time . . .
beware the will of self-destruction .  ..

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Sun rising behind fog, trees and wires - Portland May 2011

3 comments:

Stefan said...

An apocaliptic point of view emerged from this poem, unfortunatly too near to the every- day reality. First, reading the title I suddently thought about the epic poem "Paradise Lost", on of my favourite, because made me thought that "Good" and "Evil" aren't an absolute concept.
The last generation lost the old values (cannot look to shooting stars and express a wish, there isn't imagination any more, there isn't hope). There is nostalgia in your poem, a nostalgia of old values and an old happiness, nowdays there is only illusion. Why did you feel like "a faded fossil": you have to teach people that there is hope, and paradise is around the corner, so near...

Stefan said...

An apocaliptic point of view emerged from this poem, unfortunatly too near to the every- day reality. First, reading the title I suddently thought about the epic poem "Paradise Lost", on of my favourite, because made me thought that "Good" and "Evil" aren't an absolute concept.
The last generation lost the old values (cannot look to shooting stars and express a wish, there isn't imagination any more, there isn't hope). There is nostalgia in your poem, a nostalgia of old values and an old happiness, nowdays there is only illusion. Why did you feel like "a faded fossil": you have to teach people that there is hope, and paradise is around the corner, so near...

Wolfsong said...

Thank you, Stefan, for your comment. This IS a moody poem, indeed, yet I leave the interpretation up to the reader . . . as I have my own thoughts regarding its meaning to me . .. yet
I have my moments of glossy hope . . visions of paradise. . . rainbow's end . . and at other moments I see the dark apocalypse . . and feel that I'm watching humanity's determined march to the end . . .
Hence my happy poems framing my dark . . .