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we believed you would all be gods
| Critical Analysis #1 |
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we believed you would all be gods |
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allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road 
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collected dust of decades warmly grey on every surface every surface blurred and smeared in soft greys and purples soft rainbows in the dark velvet is the perfect surface for us here we roll in it laughing there's not the pain down here close down to the friendly dirt we thought you'd be gods & we smiled rolling around on this grass or carpet - so many surfaces to collide with & places living just out of sight flowing along see the shadows approaching along the path it's raining it's blistering hot it's grey and sad i saw Jim's dad i saw Duke smiling down here on the window-sill the paint is peeling dark green curls over stripey wood swooshes and the shadows are flashing & we felt you would all be gods in the souls we kept hidden only on our surface on the pale cream of our skins you could tell and the female eyes sometimes and the long hair beneath the beast of beads and the history of dreams getting so high and laughing and all these people brought their dreams unknown they were gods dying to be free so many energetic universes burning bright every moment and movement reborn again and again and palely flowing out the door and bathed in stars the cool wind on us the trees ghostly giants above us we were drunk, high and angelic bumping against infinity skuffling in the dirt in our little blisses believing you would all be gods by now [This message has been edited by allan (edited 04-10-2000).] |
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| © Copyright 2000 Allan Tierney - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Ted Reynolds Member
since 1999-12-15
Posts 331 |
This is one of the finest poems I've seen for a long time . . . and that's BEFORE I've figured out what in the world it's about. I'll do a lot of thinking about this one tonight. |
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allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road |
Hello Ted! And, well thank you... |
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Diana B Member
since 2000-03-10
Posts 97 |
So glad you finally made it here allan. Was it my nagging that got your here? Persistant aren't i? Waiting for two more to come over. They are holding out. Got to get back and nag them some more Welcome and you're going to love it here. Read this work and commented on it at the other site so will spare you from more of my chatter. |
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Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
Hi Allan, Welcome to Passions and the CA. Can't say that I understand much of your poem at this time but will study and try to comment later. Just wanted to welcome you though. Pete What terms shall I find sufficiently simple in their sublimity -- sufficiently sublime in their simplicity -- for the mere enunciation of my theme? Edgar Allan Poe |
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allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road |
Thank you Pete & Diana for your warm welcome! [This message has been edited by allan (edited 04-10-2000).] |
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jbouder Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash |
Allan: Welcome to Passions and to CA. I can't say that I understand this but I am not one to shy away from a challenge easily. There were a few images that I was able to draw out of the poem that I think are central to the poem's theme: the passing of time (probably the most prominent), youthful love with several semi-sexual innuendos, and of death. I think the greater part of the meaning eludes me and I am going to have to think about this one a little more. There is an odd mixture of disappointment and nonchalance. What is odd is not that they are in the same poem but, rather, that they seem to be mixed as opposed to contrasted. You have no idea how much this tortures a left-brainer.  Overall I would say this is a strong first post. Thanks for sharing and I look forward on reading your explanation. Jim |
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bboog Member
since 2000-02-29
Posts 303Valencia, California |
Allan~ I admit I'm thick and since I only last night saw "The Sixth Sense" for the first time, this poem reminded me of some of the images from that film. (An excellent movie too, by the way.) Your poem does have a sort of melancholic feel to it that I liked. It also reminded me of geting buzzed on some weed back in college and rolling down a hill. I did notice that the phrase changed from "we believe you'd be gods" (in the title)to "we thought you'd be gods" and "we felt you'd be gods". I guess I got a feeling that others would look down on the couple in the dirt or pass judgment. But the couple was doing what they wanted, and not caring what others thought,so in a sense, they ended up more "godlike". Anyway, good job. I liked it. best regards, bboog |
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warmhrt Senior Member
since 1999-12-18
Posts 1563 |
Alan, Welcome to CA... This poem intrigues me. It is beautifully written, though I can't figure it out. The only thing that hits me is perhaps it's about a "trip"? Anyway, I can't wait for your explanation. Nice work, Kris the poet's pen...gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name ~ Shakespeare |
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Ted Reynolds Member
since 1999-12-15
Posts 331 |
Well, I did contemplate this a lot last night. I can't say I've "got it" yet, but a few things that swam into my brain seem to have something to do with my very positive reaction to this poem. First, I don't remember ever before having come across a picture of human life taken from the viewpoint of dust, of peeling paint on a window-sill. It's even stranger than an insect's view would be. Second, if our "souls" resurrect or transmigrate or become "gods," are we sure they're going to become more complex, higher? The Roman lares and penates, the "gods" that watched over the household, don't seem to have had much more characterization than your dusty protagonists. Anyway, even if, as is likely, my interpretations are way off what you intended, your poem has already given me two deliciously new "thinks" to work on . . . and I feel there are more hidden here. I may be back. |
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patchoulipumpkin Member
since 2000-01-01
Posts 196Bermuda |
hello allan. I thought your poem was great, because it just made me feel a lot of different things. Melancholic, a bit pensive, but very in the moment. I don't know its hard to describe why i like it except that there is a great dreaminess to the poem that makes it surreal, but somehow understandable at the same time. I'm sorry i can't be more critical about it for you, but it was just a nice meditation, that made sense without explaining why. Thanks for the read. |
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allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road |
I want to thank you all here for your excellent posts. (Please write as free and as much as you care to - I love this.) You have all made me very welcome and I feel right at home already! It is fascinating to read what you think of the poem and the reactions you have had to it. I wrote it for myself so inevitably it is impossible for anyone else to pick up all the references - some of which are utterly obscure! Nevertheless, I am very happy to find a lot of resonance in what you have taken from the poem. I'd be happy to give some explanations. But writing cold analytical words about this poem I wrote while avoiding analytical thought feels a bit odd. Do you know what I mean?  [This message has been edited by allan (edited 04-11-2000).] |
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allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road |
Here are some explanations from elsewhere for interested parties: First from my web site: "This poem is set in the place where I and my friends used to hang out from around 1960 to 1970 - a house called "Morroch". It is a loose rendering of images & imaginations from various viewpoints - letting the creative muse just wander & be silly or sentimental as it chooses. It also expresses the loss I felt when my dreams of a future filled with noble beings consumed with curiosity & compassion for life, faded, dissolved and were blown to bits by a world getting back to business as usual..." 2. From another site: i) It's not so much about a person as the group of us - friends and our naive hopes for Everyman at a time when everything was changing and we felt very very free and in touch with our lives... ii) I wrote this poem in a kind of semi-trance where I consciously suspended my analytical functions to let the free flow of impression and subconscious whole-sense impressions permeate me and then tried again to suspend the analytic as I wrote the words. Not always easy as you'll know. Thats why I try not to alter too much because the texture, the feel, sometimes disappears - it's like trying to hold mist,like trying to recall a fast-fading dream. This poem of course holds much more for me than for anyone else - I'm afraid I do insert references very often that could ONLY be understood by me! I can only hope that some underlying "sense" permeates from my subconscious to the reader's... This poem means a great deal to me. I was 17 in 1967 and we had already been experimenting with ESP, telepathy, seances and reading about Astral Travelling, Tibet, Taoism, etc, etc for about 4 years previously. We were just kids and we had a wonderful room in a huge old house all to ourselves. It had huge red velvet curtains on the windows, portraits of the ancestors on the walls, cabinets full of interesting trinkets, shelves filled with unusual books - a real Victorian room. The house was run in an easy way - unlocked door, no stress, chickens in the yard,dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters - a dream time... We continued to experiment with various substances including lsd through to the early '70's. One of the favourite pastimes was the late night walks through the woods under the moon talking of anything and everything - our imaginations running wild... We thought that the wonderful evolution we were experiencing would naturally apply to everyone and move always further on, hence "we thought you would all be gods by now"... Sadly, we didn't realise that the world in general hadn't changed as fundamentally as our worlds had... Sadly everything after this time has inevitably been something of an anti-climax and disappointment. It's not a new story. I think we all miss the freedom of our teenage years but being a teenager in the late Sixties made both the experience and subsequent loss even MORE powerful... iii) I see that the poem is not too accessible but then I only wrote it for myself and the reference points are inevitably obscure. I wont repeat previous posts but should add a couple of points: At 13 I met someone who was perhaps a year or so older, he was called Okain McLellan, nickname: "Spook". After a night at "Morroch" we would wander home through the fresh Scottish night and he would talk to me about things I'd never considered such as civilisations rising and falling all in the lighting and dousing of a match - of universes being born and dying in those few seconds. He talked about a book called "Stranger in a Strange Land" and of an author called T. Lobsang Rampa. Shotly thereafter we started getting into ESP & seances. It was around 1963. as the years went by "Morroch" became the place where people would just drop in (quite often after the pubs closed - which was at 10 pm in those innocent days) and we would all experience "growing up". I'm failing totally to explain the magic of the place - I don't think I can - that's why I wrote the poem and what I was trying to do in it. "Jim" has been my best friend since I was 7 -it was his parent's house - in Milngavie, Scotland. "Duke" was the most wonderful dog I have ever known - golden, fluffy-haired and always smiling and ready for fun. We all hoped for far too much, our hearts were bursting with hope and youth - we hadn't learned any limitations and we were teenagers in a time that seemed endlessly without limitations. We dreamed wild dreams, colourful dreams - and we watched through the Seventies as everything turned grey and squalid. As a group we were about the loosest grouping you could imagine and although the core was always constant (Me & Jim) the characters changed endlessly. The world was ours and we felt like gods. As I came home tonight in the tram I suddenly started thinking about the poem and had the thought(no doubt blasphemous and arrogant) that we became gods in that time and we (arrogantly or hopefully?) thought that the same magic would happen to everyone... What follows is another poem describing a mythical night at "Morroch" - it is sort of composite dream night - "Morroch" seen through my heart alone my mind kept well at bay... It's called: us here in velvet swirl of orange mist walls: pale cream & green rise and fade dark brown petals of night crawl in cooling windows i look at the faces soft, peaceful & stoned we drift together in this velvet moment as night falls and no one calls for light outside the rhodedendrons drip with rain upstairs the tv rattles but we are outside its hypnosis dreaming silent we savour the deep contentment of being eyes at peace just touching the moment feeling the mist holding the house, swirling and protecting we lift through and touch the spirit of this cocooning place the course of our many lives led us here tonight & the night is long... so many textures & creations still to touch and feel & many friends still to come to rest hearts here in dreams P.S. I'll be away in Switzerland (Brissago, Lago Maggiore, Ticino) for ten days - so I leave this lot with you! [This message has been edited by allan (edited 04-13-2000).] |
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Wordshaman Member
since 2000-01-17
Posts 110Illinois, USA |
Expletive. Amazing. |
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Malcolm Coleman Junior Member
since 2000-04-02
Posts 24United Kingdom |
Having read the poem and all the responses, and the explanation, I have to say the number one feeling for me is surprisingly envy. I envy you those days in Morroch. Your poem describes such bliss that I feel like it is heaven. Beautiful descriptiveness...VERY well done. Keep up the good work Malcolm ** It seems I've waited years for this day to end. - Ronan Harris Thanks for reading, hope you're still awake. |
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allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road |
Thank you all for your kind comments. Of course it wasn't ALL sweetness & light in that era. There was one casualty of drug abuse, Bill Fisher (God rest (& give a good deal) to his soul). I also ended the era taking an accidental overdose of amphetamine and wound up first in a general and then a mental hospital (one week only thank goodness!) But the EARLY innocent, experimental years WERE magic and if I'm honest I STILL long for the wondrous texture of those days... [This message has been edited by allan (edited 04-28-2000).] |
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