Old and Bitter (A Winter-time Poem)
A bloated sun
hangs above
like a dying giant
with a crown of raging red.
Down below they die,
his children, his flowers,
the creatures of his garden,
he is killing them all
In his old age
he grew tired
why should he
sustain them all?
They laughed and danced with
him, with it, the stars, his children,
but while he warmed them they
did not play with him, they
played with each other.
Only staying near him because of the heat,
but he grew old, and the winter
never left his bones now.
And if the winter did not leave the sun
then why should other cold - hearted stars
have summer? why should
They?
The giant was falling
and with it it took
all its children, flowers and stars
into the Abyss
-- The always cold Abyss.
I usually don't explain references in poetry I write, but since I know Americans for instance are much less familiar with this story, this poem is making references to The Selfish Giant / The Giant's Garden, by Oscar Wilde.
Image taken from WikiMedia.
I love the dark and brooding indifference of this. Nicely done :)
I'm glad you liked it!
Now, I can definitely see "dark and brooding," but "indifference" is a very interesting word to use here, care to share more about what elicits this feel?
Is the sun not indifferent? It burns the just and unjust alike. He's a giant, a god, he offers no specific love or attention to anyone, they all are trod beneath his feet, and when he falls, he crushes everyone.
That's very interesting.
I thought of the children as the indifferent ones. Maybe they hadn't been, but the sun saw them as such.
And then it very purposefully decided to take its toys and go home, so to speak. Did it actively decide to kill them when he went away? Interesting question. I could see a read either way, and he's certainly indifferent in one of those reads.
And I agree, indifference as a concept also appears here, because at the end of the day, all the decision-making power lies in the hands of the sun.
What I pulled from this piece is a feeling of unfulfilled hopefulness. I liked the way the metaphors used mythology to magnify this feeling . As a reader, I can almost understand why he would want to simply take it all with him, in the end, even though I would never condone such an idea at the human level. The result is an uneasy recognition of a strange beauty. Nice write.
Thank you for the kind words :)
But, since this is an interesting topic, even if you don't condone it when people actually do something, isn't that part of why we have fiction for? To explore ideas that we can't, or wouldn't accept in the real world? To see, say, an example case of where someone "revenge killing" or what have you could be almost acceptable?
And yes, I digress, but conversations are fun :)
Yes. Absolutely. I mention my disapproval just to set a reference point to illustrate the effect that the poem had on me. It's really a validation of exactly what you just said. I'm a bit uneasy in the beauty I see in it because in the real world, I would see none.
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This is a depressing poem.
It sort of is. Fits the time of year with all the mythologies with their myths on the death of the sun during winter-time.
Oh my, I am glad I followed the bread crumbs to your blog as this is my favorite flavor.
Thank you!
By your "Favourite flavour," do you mean poetry, or poetry such as this, and if the latter, how would you describe said "flavour"?
I mostly won't be using this blog for fiction, poetry, and prose, but for editorials of various sorts. this is the other piece of poetry I currently uploaded on the blog. It was the last I've written to date, about 4 years ago.
I have often used the cosmos to dig into darker tones in my life, the macro & micro, this flavor is what comes from the ponder, I find -- a rather dark, melancholia and, perhaps icy under-taste.
On my way to see the other piece you linked.
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