O Century

[SoundlessFall]

O Century
Where were you when our love blistered, cracked,
And fell into the soundless sleep
That makes a bitter resonance of days?

O Century
Where were you, when the clock struck dumb
The voices raised in anguish and despair
And crushed the sweet rebellion of hope?

Time heals nothing,
But sucks our bones and grinds its carbon teeth.
Drools the slick black spittle,
And builds Empires from the ash.
And blameless we shall walk before you.
Proud in our reckless wisdom,
But doomed.

[robby]

This is a good read, the last lines really stick with you,

Proud in our wreckless wisdom
But doomed

wreckless wisdom is very interesteing, i suppose its an oxymoron. But it is our so called wisdom that has led to the development of bombs and weapons, our wisdom also to start endless wars, and history seems to repeat itself.
This is what your poem makes me think...........

[SoundlessFall]

It's an interesting thought, I never saw 'reckless wisdom' as an oxymoron when I wrote it but I can see what you mean.

I meant for 'reckless' to inform the reader that wisdom is not always what it appears to be. What to one may seem wise to another may seem reckless. Having said that it does work as kind of oxymoron as well.

SF

[cameron]

Hi SF and welcome to the forum.

I'm afraid I found this rather melodramatic and abstract. Had overtones of Dylan Thomas - who's not my favourite poet.

Got anything more modern/specific?

Look forward to more.

Cam

[SoundlessFall]

Hi Cam,

Good spot, I am a great admirer of Dylan Thomas and also of Gerald Manley Hopkins. It would seem I like melodrama and baroque.

I am not really sure what you mean by abstract. The poem is about time and that is (I hope) fairly clear throughout the poem. I have used clasical imagry as meaphore but I have not abstracted anything. Perhaps you could give me some examples of what you feel is abstract as opposed to metaphore, that would be helpful.

I do turn my hand to more modern (-ish) themes and styles on occasion, Patten, Mitchel and Atilla the stockbroker are also favourites of mine. I shall dig through my volumes and see what I can find.

SF

[cameron]

Over the years I've noticed that if a poem contains the word 'dumb' then there's a 97.3% probabilty that the poet is a fan of Mr Thomas.

To me this poem is full of abstract concepts eg love, anguish, hope and despair.

I'm a big fan of Adrian Mitchell, in fact For Beauty Douglas should be provided on the National Health Service.

Cam
ps the use of 'O' is archaic to my way of thinking.

[SoundlessFall]

I read that 62.4% of all statistics are made up.

But seriously, O is very archaic, no arguement there. The idea to use it came from a more contemporary artist, Laurie Anderson. Her works have had a major impact on me ovr the years and I think it was a kind of personal homage to Anderson's 'O Superman' to use it in this work and it seemed appropriate in a work which is about time.

I see what you mean about abstract concepts and I agree. The theme of the poem is really to do with how we measure time and by that I am not refering to minutes, hours, years etc. but by moments that have great impact on us and bring about the abstract notions of love, anguish etc.

The combination of time and these abstract feelings makes a concrete experience out of both of them. Something which we ultimately measure our lives by. That is really the central theme of the poem.

SF

PS Totaly agree with you about 'For Beauty Douglas'