Phyllis is my only joy,
Faithless as the winds or seas;
Sometimes coming, sometimes coy,
Yet she never fails to please;
If with a frown
I am cast down,
Phyllis smiling,
And beguiling,
Makes me happier than before.
Though, alas! too late I find
Nothing can her fancy fix,
Yet the moment she is kind
I forgive her all her tricks;
Which, though I see,
I can't get free;
She deceiving,
I believing;
What need lovers wish for more?
Sir Charles Sedley
*****************************************************************************
I am yet to see a poem about love with a happy ending. Indeed, even when i attempt to write a poem, it always turns out to be sadly ended. Yet, why we all crave for it is something i can only explain in biological and evolutionary terms. And sometimes that whole rationalization makes me feel better about my own vulnerability. We're all bad dancers looking to blame the floor. I blame evolution. Evolution that doesn't really care, evolution that, at the moment, is making me bend to its every whim and fancy - a whim and fancy that it is unaware of.
Who do i pity more ? Phyllis or sir charles sedley? I think i'd have to pity phyllis. For sir charles sedley knows that phyllis will come and then she will go, and he will be left waiting again. He has long since accepted that it will not take much for him to forgive her her errors. The moment she is kind, the moment she smiles, the moment, i suppose, she flirts, he's lost his will to take the high road, and he succumbs. But he's done this about a million times, i am guessing. Its become a pattern and he's found ways to deal with her absence, while waiting for her fleeting presence. Its phyllis i pity, who's taken sir charles for granted. Its phyllis i pity, who's going to be left high and dry if sir charles for once decides that he's had enough. While phyllis is sir charles's wind, sir charles is phyllis's rock. And while all of us are never astonished when the wind moves as though it never existed, we'll have a pretty hard time dealing with a rock disappearing.
But its the perfect arrangement isn't it ?
She deceiving,
I believing.
What need lovers wish for more ?
:)
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Funeral Blues
Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W. H. Auden
****************************************************************************
Years and years of mandatory reading of poetry in school didn't cut it.
Years and years of trying to be erudite and trying to get a poem at first glance didn't cut it.
But then watching the movie "four weddings and a funeral" and the above poem being rendered, finally cut it. Funeral blues has simply got to be my favourite poem.
Funeral blues has a spontaineity and an urgency to it. I love the way the words used are commonplace, everyday and yet even the introduction of "telephones" and "aeroplanes" and other such arguably non romantic implements does not in the least bit suppress its beauty. Its harsh, its instant, there's a roughness to it, a determination to say the first thing that comes to one's mind, immediatly. I love the way the poet seems to have given up on everything. Pack up the moon he says, dismantle the sun he says. Just leave me "bloody" alone, he seems to be yelling.
The reason i love this poem is not because i have gone through anything similar, but because it tells me that i needn't be a great poet, or know loads of words, or anything at all about what is and what is not accepted in poetry. All i need is a deep rooted love and an urge to moan, and words will flow automatically. After all, the magnitude of my emotion is not in any way related to my vocabulary, and perhaps my ability to express a feeling is just dependant on the feeling alone and not how many words i know or my knowledge of poetic meter.
What i love about funeral blues is how commonplace it feels. How every word fits just so. A mourner is not looking to decorate his words. Its almost as if he still believe that his loved one is around, and will hear him, if only he speaks fast and quick and there's no time to think - only time to feel, and perhaps not even time to heal.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W. H. Auden
****************************************************************************
Years and years of mandatory reading of poetry in school didn't cut it.
Years and years of trying to be erudite and trying to get a poem at first glance didn't cut it.
But then watching the movie "four weddings and a funeral" and the above poem being rendered, finally cut it. Funeral blues has simply got to be my favourite poem.
Funeral blues has a spontaineity and an urgency to it. I love the way the words used are commonplace, everyday and yet even the introduction of "telephones" and "aeroplanes" and other such arguably non romantic implements does not in the least bit suppress its beauty. Its harsh, its instant, there's a roughness to it, a determination to say the first thing that comes to one's mind, immediatly. I love the way the poet seems to have given up on everything. Pack up the moon he says, dismantle the sun he says. Just leave me "bloody" alone, he seems to be yelling.
The reason i love this poem is not because i have gone through anything similar, but because it tells me that i needn't be a great poet, or know loads of words, or anything at all about what is and what is not accepted in poetry. All i need is a deep rooted love and an urge to moan, and words will flow automatically. After all, the magnitude of my emotion is not in any way related to my vocabulary, and perhaps my ability to express a feeling is just dependant on the feeling alone and not how many words i know or my knowledge of poetic meter.
What i love about funeral blues is how commonplace it feels. How every word fits just so. A mourner is not looking to decorate his words. Its almost as if he still believe that his loved one is around, and will hear him, if only he speaks fast and quick and there's no time to think - only time to feel, and perhaps not even time to heal.
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