Elixir ill-advised
Elixir ill-advised
.original sonnet
.
by @d-pend
Elixir ill-advised
If rapture rising saves, so falling slays
with bent and draggèd hands of bony hours
to reap the residue of blissful days
‘fore irredeem’bly ripe, the soul-brew sours.
So gluttonous an aerie-ghoul to swill
bright sanguinary vine to fill its veins.
All human thirst could scarce but pale until
transfigured-deathly, nips dominioned skeins.
Then dam effulgent stream or flood the skies?
When but a drop of rapture fast addicts
who noble, seek to pleasuresome supplies—
though with bodied urge satiety conflicts.
Had renegading bliss withheld from me
so, too, would cruelly parching agony.
written
by @d-pend
.
images
are free domain
and altered by @d-pend
.
1/26/19
A very thirsty sonnet this is and the picture goes to show the unsatisfied human soul. It reminds me a lot of your poem "deflated." Different style but same point.
"Will you give me a drink?"
Words to cut through 10,000 barriers.
Prophecy to the wind!
Get up dry bones!!
Interesting you should mention that poem. I think about that one sometimes (which rarely happens that I think of any old poem.)
Aye aye, cap'n!
You are coming out of your shell. Take your time. It is bright outside.
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What you don't have or have lost is what you most want, this is very human. We appreciate goods of any kind when they are at risk or no longer with us.
However, the poem goes further, literally stating that it is not advisable to drink aged elixirs because they can cause addiction and it is that there are as many sources of addiction for the human as there are sources of pain. We will never be satisfied, there will always be something that takes away our sleep or consumes us.
Once we get a taste of bliss (in whatever form) and it is then withheld (by the Cosmos? The higher Self? by Necessity?) we sometimes wish that we had never experienced such ecstasy, in comparison to which, the lack of such a feeling is pure torment.
That's right. Drinking from a fountain of happiness and then closing it, generates a stormy sense of emptiness, a thirst that does not end, and even in a way, abstinence.
@d-pend,
Dan ... MASTERFULLY written. Although, I thought we'd agreed that you were going to refrain from writing Verse. You wait 'til I'm dead and in the grave before taking over, you bastard. :-)
I read and re-read the poem a half-dozen times. It's impeccably crafted. It is in the vein of a "Shakespearean Sonnet." Traditional Italian (and French) sonnets typically 'make argument' but Shakespeare departed from such usage and expanded the use of the form for other purposes.
You can poo poo 'natal days' all you like but clearly the stars align on New Year's Eve (self-serving, but I don't care).
Potent graphics to boot ... although, I hope they weren't taken on your iphone. :-)
BTW ... GO READ your damn DM's (or at least the ones from me)!!! If you don't, I'll DM your Mom and have her kick your ass.
Dan, really good job.
Quill
The pickled pirate king approves. Lol. 😎
Thanks bud. Good to connect with you on YouTube, however corporate 8-)
"Al cuerpo hay que darle lo que el cuerpo pida", goes a venezuelan saying.
Of course, we always face the question of the origin of our urges. Are they natural or learned?
Whatever they are it is obviously torturing to withhold our body urges (the catholic church somehow can't get it, or so they pretend).
Besides the perfect craft that Quill has already pointed out, I likeyour usual word-play and the ambiguity and paradox contained in your work.
A poem about saving for later, about drinking and aging, which puts side by side the elixir ill-advised and the body urged to have it, is a poem about a fundamental human paradox, which is usually compared with wine aging, but which in practice does not match reality.
Unlike wine or whiskey, we do not age that gratiously, with more flavor, or full-bodied. On the contrary, even if we age more wisely, our physical body decays and if the mental capacities are intact by then, I can only imagine the level of frustration for times past and negated "pleasuresome supplies".
The poem accurately describe what witholding pleasure must feel like: "cruelly parching agony", just like the thirsty surrounded by forbiden water.
I think we all have something we long for, or feel thirsty of; and the idea of not quenching this thirst and the arrival of death unannounced must haunt each of us.