POETRY, PART 3 – “LOVE-SONG OF THE CONDEMNED”
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Just be careful you are not accused of being derivative or plagiarizing.
When I started writing poetry some 40 years ago, it was largely iambic pentameter, A-B-A-B rhyme schemes, simplistic doggerel. When you encounter Shakespeare, you want to write sonnets. Then, just for a change, maybe you try a different sonnet form.
High school and college gave me an appreciation of literature beyond that which was almost cliché. I do find that if you read T.S. Eliot in your 20’s (perhaps even your early 30’s, you are reading him academically. “The Waste Land” is often most people’s first encounter. It is filled with classical allusions requiring an advanced degree or, more simply, a set of notes.
For me, as I got older, I latched on to “The Four Quartets” and their introspective look at time and its passing. I’ve gone back to those pieces on many occasions, perhaps more so in the last twenty years. They resonate more as I get older.
However, the singular piece that fascinated me and inspired me was “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” While it takes several readings to gather the notion and theme (as does all of Eliot’s work), I was touched my its sentimentality as it explores alienation in a Modernist style, a way that I don’t feel the Victorians ever truly touched.
It was with this, slightly more accessible piece that I constructed my homage: “Love-Song of the Condemned.” In its own way, it describes a lost love, perilously suggesting the two are now condemned by the end of the relationship. Or is it merely the speaker who is condemned? How much of it is autobiographical, and how much is merely a uniquely crafted character?
As the piece is thirty years old, I will never be able to recollect its origins to any detailed extent. Nevertheless, I am still taken by it, happy with its form and structure, and feel it has maintained its emotional impact.
LOVE-SONG OF THE CONDEMNED
Let us try once, you and I,
To pretend that we are not going to die
While we watch the sunset on the Key West sky
And believe in the Eternal.
And maybe, just once,
Something that occurs to us will make sense
And we won’t feel foolish or lachrymal,
Welling up with tears,
Swelling up all our fears of mortality.
We have much better sensibilities:
We know what is right and what is wrong.
So you Adults and you People-In-Charge
Don’t just barge into our lives, singing
Your “Holier-Than-Thou” song.
Because we’re not buying it
Or any of the other shit
You’re selling today on prime time.
I know what’s mine, what could be mine,
And what’s never going to be mine.
On the afternoon blah-blah show
They pretend to discuss Michaelangelo.
I’ve never been truly wrong or totally right
And I’ve been more afraid of day than
I’ve ever been of night.
And still there is always something creeping
Just outside my lone front door.
Perhaps it is the yearning of Something More
That perpetually reminds me
Of all the Passion I can’t find
In blank stares and empty places
Where the glass-entombed towers stand tall
[Where Gucci-ed execs place that cellular call
trying to bring about their competitors’ fall.]
On the afternoon blah-blah show
They pretend to discuss Michaelangelo.
And where are Keats and Shelley today?
Or how about a rousing Shakespearean play?
But what’s the sense of it, they say,
When that kind of stuff doesn’t break even anyway?
And the Bottom Line and In-The-Black
And Profits will prevent a stress attack.
[So long as your partner doesn’t stab you in the back];
Just as long as there’s an audience that will pay
And pay through the nose.
What then of you and I under
The orangish-reddish sunset sky?
But then I turn and you’ve run away
And I go on looking each passing day
For the reason, the answer for your leaving.
Could it be I was not enough
Or that my ways were far too rough?
Was it a mistake to call your bluff?
No matter. I’m left here, alone and grieving.
Now I’m left here all alone.
Lord, I know it’s foolish to wait by the phone
For a mystical magical cellular call
Because, after all,
There are no phones out here under
The orangish-reddish sunset sky.
I’m growing old, so very old,
That I’m watching all I am unfold
Before my very eyes
Under these orangish-reddish sunset skies.
And, at this very moment, I wonder if where you are
You can see the same bright twinkling sky—
And with those wanting, needing eyes
You can see the same orangish-reddish sunset skies.
I’m glad they are not blue
Like mine, that always see you.
