OTHER STUFF: Drowned Man -- by File

Tuesday 30 October 2007

Drowned Man -- by File

42 comments:

guitougoal said...: tha baywatch lifeguard unit is on the way for a dramatic rescue. Pamela's mouth to mouth has a way to give life a new sense of pleasure and to cure the drowned files of their soul's malaise.; 30 October 2007 at 18:55
Zephirine said...: continuing our watery theme...

I think this is a beautiful poem and a more formal use of words and sounds than your usual, File.; 30 October 2007 at 19:09
offsideintahiti said...: Poetry can be
a pain in the neck sometimes
Some pains are worth it; 30 October 2007 at 19:45
guitougoal said...: under water poetry,nice bubbles for the baby whales.; 30 October 2007 at 19:59
Anonymous said...: I'm still trying to reconcile the graphic with the words, but I like this a lot, File.

Also reminded me powerfully of this; 30 October 2007 at 20:07
henrymoon said...: juxtaposed in blue:
god diving down and drowned man
walking on water; 31 October 2007 at 07:12
Anonymous said...: munni: I went straight there too - before reading your comment.

Mind you, beautiful though the words are, and the form of the poem, drowning seems a harsh punishment for the white-out-of-blue walking man, whose sin is probably to be in a construction area without the requisite hard hart (typo, but I leave in as obviously meant hat, but could also be heart!).; 31 October 2007 at 20:09
Anonymous said...: Sorry anon is me. I am suffering the effects of paint fumes due to finally decorating bathroom!; 31 October 2007 at 20:10
offsideintahiti said...: Mimi, can I have some, please?; 1 November 2007 at 02:02
Anonymous said...: Offy: I would gladly send you Sandy Beach and Sea Blue, but I'm guessing you have those in reality and don't need the Dulux versions.; 1 November 2007 at 02:12
offsideintahiti said...: No, I meant the intoxicating fumes.; 1 November 2007 at 02:41
file said...: thanks guys, yes SSmith Munni but hopefully a different emphasis

re intoxicating fumes, did anyone read that part of London was cornered off under the Terrorist Act last month after some Thais were frying chili's?; 1 November 2007 at 13:25
martillo said...: I'm still trying to work out how to read it, file. Still, I like it enough to keep trying...; 1 November 2007 at 21:48
guitougoal said...: file,
I am not trying as hard as Martillo because I assume that it doesn't have to be clearly defined. It's you finding forms that reflect what's going on on your mind about pleasures and pains of life- correct me if I am wrong,but please don't embarass me in front of the class... once again.; 1 November 2007 at 22:10
martillo said...: guitou - go and stand in the corner boy!; 1 November 2007 at 22:25
guitougoal said...: again!; 2 November 2007 at 01:18
file said...: I guess cos I wrote it it's very easy to read and reconcile but I'm finding it hard to understand why folk are having problems with that, er just follow a spiral route from Only

does it change anything to see the text?

Only those drowning are dying, the drowned
Man in white is kissing the mirror, crowned
Land, whose porous shores greet soundless
Hands of liquid sisters boundless
Answers, gentle union, easy solutions found
Man in white drowned, still life, fluid ground

but to me this takes away the poignancy of reframing what we first thought was a man walking only to realize we were looking down on him, are we dead too? And what is kissing the mirror?; 2 November 2007 at 01:34
guitougoal said...: file,
"what is kissing the mirror": Narcissism.; 2 November 2007 at 04:28
file said...: the image in the mirror isn't alive, neither is it dead, it looks like me but it isn't

what is our relationship with death? Isn't it like the meeting of lips and glass? Isn't it like the relationship of an island to the water? Aren't we all just floating really?

all these questions and more may never be answered by the living; 2 November 2007 at 06:21
tony said...: Thanks file. That was one of the ways I read it but I kept doubting. Now I feel guilty for making you explain it. And a little thick...

Anyway, I like it even more now I can 'see' it and am going back to the original.; 2 November 2007 at 08:22
Zephirine said...: Thanks for giving the explanation Filo - this seems to me a poem that can be enjoyed just on a musical level for its form and the play of sounds, but then it's good to go back and look at the meaning and try to 'comprehend' it.

On a rational level I'm still a little confused by the first phrase (what about all the people dying from other causes then?) but I got most of the rest of the sense and I think it gives a rather beautiful feeling of death as 'the unknown shore'.; 2 November 2007 at 10:39
file said...: ...I just wanted to liken death to returning to water, as birth is coming out of the water like Venus (with the sun on your face), perhaps I should have written Only those dying are drowning...

if it's too hard to understand it might as well mean nothing and that's a problem with the pome, doesn't mean anyone is thick 'cept me!; 2 November 2007 at 12:39
guitougoal said...: file,
as long as you're happy we're happy-maria reiner rilke-; 2 November 2007 at 15:55
file said...: Guitou, you know the best poets! Rainer Maria Rilke

the first of book 2 of his Sonnets to Orpheus
oodles of his poems, check out Narcissus and Spanish Dancer; 2 November 2007 at 16:41
file said...: sod that,

here's a Sonnet to Orpheus (2:1)

Breathing: you invisible poem! Complete
interchange of our own
essence with world-space. You counterweight
in which I rythmically happen.

Single wave-motion whose
gradual sea I am:
you, most inclusive of all our possible seas-
space has grown warm.

How many regions in space have already been
inside me. There are winds that seem like
my wandering son.

Do you recognize me, air, full of places I once absorbed?
You who were the smooth bark,
roundness, and leaf of my words.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell; 2 November 2007 at 16:47
henrymoon said...: Since it's Day of the Dead, here's one inspired by...

*halloween on your fridge*

the hallowe'en harvest of pumpkin and fear
is ensconsed within, lower down, with the beer
i felt myself drawn here, no doubt it's the thrill
of dissimulation so close to the chill.

why scare the poor beggars? i'd sooner observe
their overconsumption from my vast reserve.
i'm one of a dozen, a skeleton mouse
brought back as a gift from the adobe house.

el día de los muertos! a load of symbolics
beloved of priests and reformed alcoholics.
nobody remarks me, but the the frigid air
breathes hope that saint walpurgis soon will be there.

was this lot my family? will these kids be mine?
i feel no attachment - i'd rather align
with fellow fridge magnets, all failed poultergeists
demoted to witnessing midnight snack heists

by lardy teenagers denied a square meal
- since old-fashioned proteins have lost their appeal -
by e-numbers, polyunsaturated
mobilised to keep the masses sedated.

the orange and black cavity formation
sponsored by the national association
of dentists and sweet shops, purveyors of tat
lurking in the shadow of their witch's hat.

i'll lurk too, but openly, guarding the door
from sugar-starved kids who just have to have more.
more eyes are watching on all hallow's eve
than even the ad-men would like to believe!; 2 November 2007 at 16:54
guitougoal said...: file,
btw, reference to rainer maria rilke was pefectly on topic on your thread because he was the poet of this philosophy of transforming the everyday into the sacred, the visible into the invisible....(may be one of your obsession:)
also there is an interesting question from Leonardo, not the football player, the other guy who wrote the code..."why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?".; 2 November 2007 at 16:55
Anonymous said...: File, I was just going to mention Orpheus, and specifically the scenes in Cocteau's film Orphee which have been stuck in my head since I read this, where the mirror turns into a watery surface and the dying pass through it to reach the other world. (Sorry, I can't remember well enough to give a better description, and once again youtube is no help); 2 November 2007 at 18:03
guitougoal said...: munni, file ,
Sonnets to Orpheus, Rilke refers plainly to Narcissus,
"though the reflection in the pool
often swims before our eyes:
know the image"
there is mildness in the waters of self-discovery- hence my prior comments about Narcissism in "what is kissing the mirror"-
There is no doubt that File's poem with all its complexity has a strange connotation with Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus.It's a wonderful pieceof poetry of philosophy.
back to my corner.; 2 November 2007 at 18:43
tony said...: Well, I do feel a bit think, file, in the sense of knowing so little about poetry. Think I'll give myself a crash course, starting with this: http://www.learnoutloud.com/Results/Author/Rainer-Maria-Rilke/1466#play2044; 2 November 2007 at 19:17
tony said...: I meant thickof course, not think; 2 November 2007 at 19:41
Anonymous said...: Guitou, I love the Rilke. I came on here to post about that film scene, and thought it was interesting that Orpheus had just been mentioned two posts up, the various tangled webs that are forming on this thread.; 2 November 2007 at 20:12
guitougoal said...: munni,
I know, eternal theme of life and death the legend of Orpheus inspired poets and writers since Virgile , Ovide- Cocteau's movie was inspired by the play he wrote in 1925, few years after Rilke's sonnets-
Rilke loved the play and Virginia Woolf claimed that it was the"greatest play of all times"
In 1958 Marcel Camus Orfeu Negro,(black orpheus) filmed in Rio during the carnaval won an Oscar- beautifulmusic - interesting if you ever can find an english version-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0jZRkFtksI; 2 November 2007 at 20:43
henrymoon said...: "Nobody can believe in a famous poet whose name has been invented by a writer. I had to find a mythical bard, the bard of bards, the Bard of Thrace. And his story is so enchanting that it would be crazy to look for another. It provides the background on which I embroider. I do nothing more than to follow the cadence of all fables which are modified in the long run according to who tells the story. Racine and Moliére did better. They copied antiquity. I always advise people to copy a model. It is by the impossibility of doing the same thing twice and by the new blood that is infused into the old frame that the poet is judged." -- Jean Cocteau; 2 November 2007 at 21:29
Zephirine said...: What a cool thread, from Baywatch to Cocteau via Rilke!

My favourite thing in 'Orphee' is the weird radio messages, they make no sense but have tremendous meaning.

Like the fridge poem, Henry, I notice you returned to GU heavily disguised :); 2 November 2007 at 21:40
Zephirine said...: Here's a still from Orphee with the 'mirror'.

and here'sanother one which would make a nice illustration for File's poem.; 2 November 2007 at 22:08
guitougoal said...: zeph,
"the other one" , Jean Marais who was also Cocteau's lover- it's a great picture.; 2 November 2007 at 23:25
Zephirine said...: Yes, and he had such extraordinary looks - though I think I prefer him all got up in the Beast outfit:); 2 November 2007 at 23:46
Anonymous said...: If Henry lurks
We can only carryanchor
It's a Scots thing, yes; 2 November 2007 at 23:59
Anonymous said...: Can't work any of it out. But I have a story of sadness with fireworks.

Cruising the main drag - yes well, we only have a small street here, but don't like the fireworks.; 3 November 2007 at 02:20
file said...: beautiful stills, thanks Zeph; 3 November 2007 at 12:23
Anonymous said...: tony: did you say "thick"?

How about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIzx_Z-TGe4; 4 November 2007 at 23:45