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(the tide is coming in. that abandoned
shopping cart is dry, but soon
it will be just another crab cage
rusted. Your muscles are warm –
so move.
wearing a wheeled crab cage,
be careful while you climb:
if you tumble back, your fingers
will snap in the hatches where
they're entwined.
a flock is coming toward you.
Your cart takes up the road.
So they scatter around – but
one comes down, alights
upon your load.)
She's burgundy. “i'm covered in
sweat.”
She spreads her wings anyway.
no time to pause when the tide
comes in. “so I'll see you in
two days?”
(you roll on a ways, sweating bagman;
find a bed for your grocery cart;
and then, like a fool, feel the ghost
of her hand on your arm as you
drifted apart.)
my cousin posted this term on FB “ l'esprit de l'escalier (French) / That feeling you get when you leave a conversation and think of all the things you should have said. / / There is no word in the English language for this.”
ReplyDeleteLiterally, says Wikipedia, it means “the spirit of the stairway,” or idiomatically, “staircase wit,” the situation of having come to the bottom of the stairs – i.e., having definitively left the group – and only then, with some distance from the emotion of the intercourse above, thinking of a fitting, clear-headed response (Denis Diderot, Paradoxe sur le comedien, 1773).
Yeah, been getting a lot of that feeling lately.
For a girl, whom I ran into on my run yesterday as I carried a Costco grocery cart up the beach access stairs in IV, to save it from the tide – 8 May 2013
I’m glad I found this poem. One would think that after reading the title, recognizing that it was French, and lamenting over the fact that I don’t understand a word of the beautiful language, I would move on, but something compelled me to read this poem. I love it, partially because I now have a phase to describe the feeling, which I experience quite often, of finding the right words just after the moment has past, but mostly because after reading “Framed” I can’t help but view this poem as one of the moments you talk about taking pictures of. This moment seems to me to be a lyrical snapshot of a moment in your day, however insignificant it may be, that captured you, how you felt, how you reacted in a situation, and the slight feeling of regret that came to you as the moment itself past. You first describe what you were doing leading up the moment, I think it is interesting that you portray yourself as a vagrant, later you say “bagman.” This is presumably what you believe to be the girl on the beach’s first impression of you, a sweaty bagman. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think this description of yourself stems only from your belief that your said
ReplyDeleteall the wrong things to the girl and thus she sees you in the state you described. That is why I enjoy this poem so much, you describe something from your own point of view that is naturally relative. You don’t know this girl so you can merely speculate about what she thinks of you, and this speculation is a reflection of how you truly view yourself. You portray yourself in a seemingly negative light because you felt that you could of been more charming or made better conversation. Just like taking a picture of yourself, these words represent how you really view yourself, but unlike the photograph, these words are not given from a neutral point of view, and I’m sure you would be surprised to learn what the girl actually thinks of you. I think this is an excellent poem and I think, even if merely as an exercise in opening up to new perspectives, writing a follow up poem in which you describe the same situation from the girl’s perspective,portraying yourself in a new light, would being interesting.
Glad you like it enough to call for a sequel -- but I don't think it needs one: I've already given that hint as to what's in her head & heart ("... and then, / like a fool, feel the ghost / of her hand on your arm as you / drifted apart.)").
DeleteDreaming out the rest of it is your work ;)
The tide represents the moment where decisions need to be made. With the shopping cart, there was an element of search but the essence is transformed to a captive one in which there is an illusion of being contained. But with muscles still warm, there is the ability to move and rise from the cage. The cage becomes a harmful security blanket that creates unnecessary difficulty and precarious restraint. An opportunity comes with a flock of birds free from any restraints. With better sights and possibilities, they do not stop for the jailed except one. She descends elegantly from the skies of freedom giving the caged a chance to move and make use of the warm muscles. Possibilities exist, but she does not waste time as the tide has come in and the moment has happened. The self-imposed captive then remains heavily on the ground with the ball and chain cart in tow but there is a nurturing for the destructive habit as a bed is found for the cart. No progress is made forward as the captive dwells on the past moment missed too bogged down now to seize a new moment. The structure of starting to the right moving to the left and returning to the initial right mimics the hopeless cycle with a chance of rising up on the right but falling to the sinful left never to break free.
ReplyDeleteBut perhaps that is a harshly cynical interpretation of a passing moment that could have a glimmer of hope through the presence of the alighting bird who took the time to check in, even if the forsaken "drifting apart" does not give to a new meeting. It all depends if the you will take advantage of the warm muscles of activity and possibility and realize that the barriers are self-created. Hopefully they will realize.