Time is one No One’s Side

What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation.

~ T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

In an essay from 1919 Eliot said some shit about the personality being something that personality-strong persons should want (occasionally) to escape from … Load of shit (as far as I am concerned). He said:

“… of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”

If I could escape, even through art, from my personality (hupostasis) I would cease to be Edward. Fuck that! I’d rather be the drunken, rambling pseudo-poet that I am, rather than some plastic “artist” living as an artifact of his “tradition.”

So much for Eliot.

But what about REAL poetic theory? Is there such a thing?

My answer is yes. And I shall use my beloved as an example:

Sylvia Plath strangled her own life for the sake of her art … She watched her children crawl about like slugs as she wrote the masterpiece known today as Ariel. She died for her art, and I am prepared to do the same. Here’s what SHE had to say:

“… everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

Eloquence (and proper grammar) might be absent from her statement, but the sentiment (all-embracing) is there!

Sylvia is telling us that the highest to the greatest is cause for poetry. A quick blowjob in a subway station, or a major fuck in a five-star hotel (you see where my mind is at!) … All are worthy of poetry.

She herself was worthy of poetry, and I’d like to write about her … I just don’t feel worthy. So here I am going to perform a shameless imitation of my beloved. Harold Bloom would likely approve (and for those who understand this reference, you get my silent applause). So here I

go: Listening to Van Morrison While Guzzling Vodka

A drink of water laced with vodka slows my soul But sets it moving Why does Born to Run suddenly seem like great poetry? Because I am drunk. Why do I think back to those golden days when I fed ducks in the parks and spoke cryptic words with my grandpop? Because I recall what it felt like to be HUMAN. Days take their toll, and love dies … What is a man to do? We … I … must remember that my soul resides only in this world: In the air, in the trees, the geese, the grass that tickles my feet … I must remember … I cannot. A veil has fallen. Something called …. Who fucking cares?!! A veil has fallen. My eyes are dim … not like Milton’s, but like a drunk who stares too long at Botticelli. So what, then? The world recedes and I call out to it with the only faculty I have left: my voice. No one answers. So I spit at the world and await a fight that I know will never come ….

And so my Sylvia awaits an academic reply. Sorry Sweetie, not yet … too much vodka in my system. Someday, my glorious angel, I shall do you justice in “academia” (whatever the fuck that means).

In the meantime, I shall lend you this:

“Curiosity killed the cat … Kerouac’s Dharma Bums and On the Road …”

OR BETTER YET: Sylvia’s Colossus and Ariel!

You surpassed all of them, my love … all of them.

I’ll see you when my love grows, Sylvia … It won’t be too long. We’ll soon embrace.

In the meantime, take my tribute as a poetic memorial (if such a thing exists – we’ll have to ask Shakespeare!) and remember:

A world of experience does not create a person. For no creator exists. Not even the world.

Let us love from beyond the grave, ghoulishly, if it must be …