Descent: The End of Power (Mindelay, part 3)

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Brad
Member Ascendant

since 1999-08-20

Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea

0 posted 2006-12-08 06:01 PM

I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal.
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission.
I mean...I...can fly
like a bird in the sky...
--from "Ego-tripping," Nikki Giovani

"Gather the wind,
Though the wind won't help you fly at all.
Your back's to the wall."
--from "Die Young," Black Sabbath.

Ozymandias.
Why would they build a subway on an island?
To travel under the water, a science fiction landscape?
It had already been done across two oceans
On another island. Shamefaced attempt at mimicry,
A farce, a failed attempt at immortality:

Ozymandias?

The king or the superhero?
The echoes returned once again though no longer in the open
And therefore no long impossible.
We walked as if through water,
Immersed in our own thoughts, driven
By a current no longer beneath us, we pushed
Like a scuba diver off the coast of Pukhet
When a fin strap broke.
And I descended for
To look down is to look up.
To avoid stepping on stone fish
While pursuing a spineless anemone.

Escalators were no longer working
If they ever had and we descended
Down the stairways, slowly and deliberately,
Careful not to trip on crumbling cement,
Scrape a knee on a protruding wire,
Or bruise a forehead on hanging ads.
But all of this happened anyway.
Intermittently, we paused,
A break from the declension, a bulwark against the angle
And saw restrooms turned in reverse:

"Fountain"
--Marcel Duchamp

With only urinals available,
My daughter muttered,
"Da-shiang bao-tza shr duh lah doo-tze"
And my wife said, "Huh,"
Grasping for a firefly named Serenity.

Ozymandias.
I heard the echoes once again,
The king or the superhero?
But I was wrong like Holden's catcher:
Two men sitting on a stairway,
Three o'clock in the morning,
Outside a nondescript clothing store,
"Lovecraft and Ozzy's Sabbath
And perhaps Dio's, they touch something primal,
The fear, of course, but also
And always, always the seduction
Of our eternal, inevitable insignificance."
"Yes, yes, but if the rosebud has fallen
Or been lost between one fire and another,
What is there to replace it?"
But the sands waste it away, the sands waste it away,
The scream of a thousand million souls
Trapped in the mouth of my son.

Longer and longer, we followed the arrows
Wondering why they built so deeply
Underground. It was like the DC system
Below a swamp. For who was proud
That it was not a mass nuclear
Safety shelter like Moscow's?
"All slaughter each other
Wasting with great wrath each other
. . . with yet no bloodshed."
A greeting, a smile, a thin, unshaven man
Followed by his entourage. They wore
Few clothes and all needed food
And above their mouths, a blue-gray dye
with the vague outline of a spider web
Or the wings of a pterosaur or a bat.
"All slaughter each other
Wasting with great wrath each other
. . . with yet no bloodshed."
He repeated and at the end of the line
Handed me a dandelion.

emy
Junior Member

since 2006-11-04

Posts 32

1 posted 2006-12-10 12:28 PM

Hi Brad,

I read this two days ago, mulled over it and here I am again.

I went back to understand what mindelay was, came across mindulle, the korean word for hurricane/typhoon and dandelion which is apparently a type of typhoon.

Power of Voice:

with the excerpts from other poems, and the narrator philosophising, I get a general impression that this is someone who had experienced a typhoon sometime ago, and is reminiscing.
=======
Ozymandias.
Why would they build a subway on an island?
To travel under the water, a science fiction landscape?
It had already been done across two oceans
On another island. Shamefaced attempt at mimicry,
A farce, a failed attempt at immortality:

first stanza: its far too telling, in fact, I believe if it were left out the poem wouldnt suffer at all.
==============

Ozymandias?

The king or the superhero?
The echoes returned once again though no longer in the open
And therefore no long impossible.
We walked as if through water,
Immersed in our own thoughts, driven
By a current no longer beneath us, we pushed
Like a scuba diver off the coast of Pukhet
When a fin strap broke.
And I descended for
To look down is to look up.
To avoid stepping on stone fish
While pursuing a spineless anemone.

stanza 2:

I dont understand the questionmark or the significance of ozymandias, why would the Narrator wonder if he were a superhero? Sorry, first line just left me blank.

L2 is where I think the poem really kicks off.

The ending of L2 is weak, was there a special reason to end it on a no?

L3 is too telling.

L6 our and own not necessary.

consider combining " And I descended
To avoid stepping on stone fish"

=======================

S3

Escalators were no longer working
If they ever had and we descended
Down the stairways, slowly and deliberately,
Careful not to trip on crumbling cement,
Scrape a knee on a protruding wire,
Or bruise a forehead on hanging ads.
But all of this happened anyway.

Rather a long winded sentence this Brad.  I don't know, it reads more like prose.Would you consider condensing?

Intermittently, we paused,
A break from the declension, a bulwark against the angle
And saw restrooms turned in reverse:

don't need the first comma between intermittently and we paused. Don't need a break. I don't understand what angle?

========================
"Fountain"
--Marcel Duchamp

With only urinals available,
My daughter muttered,
"Da-shiang bao-tza shr duh lah doo-tze"
And my wife said, "Huh,"
Grasping for a firefly named Serenity.

this is by far my favourite part, cool.

================================================
Ozymandias.
I heard the echoes once again,
The king or the superhero?
But I was wrong like Holden's catcher:
Two men sitting on a stairway,
Three o'clock in the morning,
Outside a nondescript clothing store,
"Lovecraft and Ozzy's Sabbath
And perhaps Dio's, they touch something primal,

this is pretty good, no criticism for this.

The fear, of course, but also
And always, always the seduction
Of our eternal, inevitable insignificance."

this is just telling.
"Yes, yes, but if the rosebud has fallen
Or been lost between one fire and another,
What is there to replace it?"
But the sands waste it away, the sands waste it away,
The scream of a thousand million souls
Trapped in the mouth of my son.

this is pretty good, in fact really good, just why repeat the words "the sands waste it away," it stops the tension that building up.

===========================

Longer and longer, we followed the arrows
Wondering why they built so deeply
Underground. It was like the DC system
Below a swamp. For who was proud
That it was not a mass nuclear
Safety shelter like Moscow's?
"All slaughter each other
Wasting with great wrath each other
. . . with yet no bloodshed."
A greeting, a smile, a thin, unshaven man
Followed by his entourage. They wore
Few clothes and all needed food
And above their mouths, a blue-gray dye
with the vague outline of a spider web
Or the wings of a pterosaur or a bat.
"All slaughter each other
Wasting with great wrath each other
. . . with yet no bloodshed."
He repeated and at the end of the line
Handed me a dandelion.

great finale.

All in all, it was worth the read, you mix some excellent pieces of poetry with prose, and I don't understand why. I had to find the word mindulle to get the meaning of the poem, and the significance of the dandelion at the end.

Hope this helps!

Not A Poet
Member Elite

since 1999-11-03

Posts 3885
Oklahoma, USA

2 posted 2006-12-10 02:24 PM

Emy, thanks for an honest critique but please do not copy the entire poem into your response. It wastes resources and makes the reader scroll through it again or, even worse, read through to find out what you have changed.

emy
Junior Member

since 2006-11-04

Posts 32

3 posted 2006-12-10 05:03 PM

righto! poem deleted.

Brad
Member Ascendant

since 1999-08-20

Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea

4 posted 2006-12-15 10:42 PM

Ozymandias is an obvious reference to this:

quote:
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

It should be old enough that I don't have to worry about copyright issues.

At the same time, Ozymandias is also a character in "Watchmen" by Alan Moore. Some have called that the best comic ever written.

Like ever.

You have problems with the first part. The trick I have to do then is not get rid of it so much as figure out a way that it seems as central to what I'm trying to do as I think it actually is.

But like I said before. Ultimately, this is a work in progress.

Thanks again.

emy
Junior Member

since 2006-11-04

Posts 32

5 posted 2006-12-16 03:13 PM

I'm a great shelley fan. Just didnt know where ozymandias tied in with the rest of the poem.

Every time I read ozymandias I remember the moral that great things emerge from competitions have you ever read Horace Smith's version?

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows: –
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand." – The City's gone, –
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder, – and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

kind regards,

hush
Senior Member

since 2001-05-27

Posts 1653
Ohio, USA

6 posted 2006-12-28 02:28 PM

'But the sands waste it away, the sands waste it away,
The scream of a thousand million souls
Trapped in the mouth of my son.'

I like the repetition here.

Still digesting this Brad, I didn't realize there was a part 3 until I saw part 4. Moving along now...

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