What Rough Beast
Where is the next official moment?
Apprise me of it.
Can you see me when you look down?
Can you see my head?
Can you count the 100,000 plus hairs
that are said to grow there?
Here is a grey one. Here is another.
I’ve tried living in peace.
Making lists.
I’ve even loved the pictures.
Some of them are lovely; they are.
The surfaces of most things
are lovely.
But this sofa.
I mean this stage.
Bars of my cage.
I haven’t been able to pull them apart,
not for a long time.
I go clowning through my life.
What do you think of the sad lion
that you see before you?
Are you my keeper?
Are you my keeper?
Are you my keeper?
heh. such pointed questions.
to be honest, i think most of the time i’m not even sure, myself. is it live or is it memorex?
you know, is the poem really reflecting my state of mind/being, or did i just project myself into that state, temporarily, for the purpose of writing a poem?
or–a third possibility–is the poem a real reflection, but of a temporary state?
i think the last explanation makes the most sense for this piece.
i mean, bars, nyah. bars schmars. it’s not like there isn’t a hacksaw under the cushion.
it’s not like the lion couldn’t decide, like you suggest, to see him/itself in a new light,
but being a lion, of course, sometimes he don’t want to do that. he want to sit around and mope. sulk and complain. etc. you know, pretty much what he do in the wild.
lions, they are pretty silly.
The surfaces of most things ARE lovely. It’s what lies beneath that’s ugly. Ugly meaning real. Lovely meaning illusion. Elusive.
While running today, I thought about this poem. I thought, yes, most men DO lead lives of quiet, couched desperation.
And I thought of Rilke’s panther, how that desperate question that ends the poem, “are you my keeper?” is like the light that glints then dies in the caged cat’s eye.
And I thought of the tears of clown. I heard Smokey singing, then Placido (vesti la giubba–the aria from I Pagliacci).
Finally, upon rereading the poem just now, I am thinking of Prufrock groaning:
I grow old, I grow old.
Roll up your pants, and wade in.
Eat a peach, friend.
(Guess what I’m saying in a round about way is that I liked your poem quite alot and the journeys it sent me on.)
Laurel, thanks. I had those poems in mind too. Although the title is taken from Yeats, I am not really so much of a Yeats fan. But Rilke, Eliot. Oh yes.
In the room the women come and
Talking of Michelangelo….
it is understood, that if you’re a lion, you will be lonely.
still, i feel sorry and if you don’t mind me asking -
what is it…
is it the couch that’s not comfortable - its fabric dated, turn-of-century paradise? have you not been fed? or is it that the meal is never breathing?
what would you do if granted freedom?
would you find a jungle, somewhere in all this concrete?
will someone recognize you - out there?
is it the cage - or rather the fact that you ate the key?
next time i drop by to see you, i’ll bring you fresh-kill, so that we can reminisce about your days in the wild.