Drowning the Soul - Comments please

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Robin
Junior Member

since 1999-08-07

Posts 48
Cardiff, Wales, UK

0 posted 1999-08-28 06:45 AM

Drowning the Soul

Don’t trust words,
They have no freedom.

Words twist and change
In the dot of an ‘I’
Spinning with wind
And reshaping the truth
Damning the fine
With incomplete phrase
Misquoting the colour to redraw the hue.

Words enliven the past
And tie futures in place
Seizing the whole
To fill it with hope.
Baring the blood-stained soul
To be flayed by the cold reader’s eyes

Failing to rest in deaf-turned ear
Never to enter the twice-closed mind
To be battered and blasted
Devoid of all meaning
As a pawn in a contest
With no prize to win.

Words draw forth the phantasms of life
Colour and sound
Bent to render the scene
Filling the reader
with purpose and promise
Drowning the soul in longing and rue.

Seaangel
Member

since 1999-07-27

Posts 167
Auckland, New Zealand

1 posted 1999-08-28 05:48 PM

How depressing, robin. I hope thats not your final opinion on the use of words? I heard something interesting in a lecture the other week; the lecturer said its a human need to imagine and to socialise, therefore to speak. We figure out who we are through our imagination, as much as experience.

Its true words are not concrete and never-changing, but they are meant to fit not-concrete and ever-changing people; so its a compromise I guess. A lot of people search for ultimate truth, some sort of bedrock to the world, well they won't find it in words. It lies elsewhere.

Sorry I'm babbling on, I just find this so fascinating. You wanted comments on the poem itself?

*$##@# fantastic! It all fit so well together and the words 'rhymed' somehow -is that internal rhyming?- and it all came together at the end. The last stanza, though, I'm not sure if it's meant to praise or condemn words, with the 'purpose and promise' bit. Were you being cynical about that? The whole tone of the poem is unrelentingly bleak. I've had this kind of feeling before, of course, I think anyone who struggles to express themselves through poetry has had it, that in the end it's not worth it. OF COURSE IT IS!!!! Your poem was the contradiction to it's own idea in that it was such a skillful piece.

Robin
Junior Member

since 1999-08-07

Posts 48
Cardiff, Wales, UK

2 posted 1999-08-29 06:46 AM

Thanks for your comments Seaangel (Nice Handle!).
No, I am not that against words. If I was I wouldn't be trying to use them, would I? The point I was trying to make was that words themselves are useless. It is only when they are constructed into something meaningful that they conveymeaning. I'm trying to say that deconstructing poetry, prose, speech is pointless.
The bleakness you found in the poem is as much to do with the rhythm of the poem as the words themselves. Having said that, I do tend to write in a bleak style. Though I've never used that word to describe it before.

And of course you are right, words are meant to fit the people who use them.
I suppose overall, it's a warning against taking words at face value. You can misunderstand that way, and also miss out on so much more.

Thanks again,

Robin

Brad
Member Ascendant

since 1999-08-20

Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea

3 posted 1999-08-29 10:10 AM

Robin, I almost passed on this poem just because of the title -- I have this idiosyncratic thing against the word 'soul' in poems.

But I loved this poem. I also completely disagree that words are depressing because they have no meaning -- their flexibility is their greatest strength. It's their ability to adjust and change with ever changing situations that allows poets to do such wonderful things with them.

Well, not exactly. Words are just sounds or marks; it is only are freedom (within any social context) that allows us to be able to understand and put meaning into the words themselves. Deconstruction, as I understand it, is just trying to point that out.

Still, I enjoyed this poem very much (except for the soul thing).
Brad

Robin
Junior Member

since 1999-08-07

Posts 48
Cardiff, Wales, UK

4 posted 1999-08-29 03:02 PM

Thanks Brad,
Sorry about the Soul. I just liked the line and wanted to use it in the title.
Also, I think that looking too closely at the words, there's a risk you'll miss the point of the whole.
If I ever post anything with soul in the title again, I'll put in a sub title, just for you.

Cheers,
Robin

TheCandyMan_1
Junior Member

since 1999-08-28

Posts 38
NY

5 posted 1999-09-02 06:50 AM

Robin-
Your writing seems to draw me in and make me think of my life. I liked this one..for some reason it made me think of something my Grandfather used to tell me. "Only believe half of what you see...and nothing of what you hear. And always go with your gut 'feelings'!"
It wasn't till I was an adult that I figured out that meant that words could be twisted and take on several meanings and to only trust the feelings you got from them. Blah, Blah, Blah

I liked the poem

------------------
JA.Malone
-x--------->o<---------x-
"Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite - "Fool!" said my Muse to me "look in thy heart, and write!" - Sir Philip Sidney

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