Monday, December 02, 2019

Perduto

“You’ll never be great,” he said.
“And I am fine with that,
“But you are not.”

I sleep
But wake up like I haven’t
The skyline looks at me
Grey and cold
The same green windows
That soon won’t be there

I sit
I stare
I breathe deep
And suffocate
A beam, check where it is
Erase
Damn, it’s gone
Irretrievable

Songs rush through my head
In tiny white tubes
I am numb
Numb is good

I revolt
Against good
Against beautiful
Against my own ill-defined self
But I don’t have the energy
So I let it be

Perduto…”
She sings in my head
Like memories of our life there
Like the train tracks we waited in front of
And the night wrapped us with a dream
Flavored of hazelnut gelato

On it goes
We laugh together again
It is snowing
I can’t wait to be home
With you

(Originally posted on January 20, 2005)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your first triplet is pretty nice because I picture the scene with ease, it seems like cut/paste of your reality.

I laughed at the first two lines in the second paragraph because this is so GD. It is funny how poetic reality can be. The idea of the skyline looking at you holds water, and funnily one instantly reads "green" along with "grey and cold", which really is a good colour combination and which at the same time is the colour combination of your website. That is not the issue. The issue is that I did not quite get the green windows that will not be there, and that is okay because I can fancy its realistic source, but it is not poetically potent.

In the paragraph that follows, it is ingenious your placement of "And suffocate", making its belonging intentionally ambiguous between the two lines surrounding it. Lovely. I disliked "Damn" because of who I am on one hand, and on the other because it is almost onomatopoeic and adds sound, speed, and informality, all incohesive with your basic mood.

Your transformation of the real things to express them poetically in the idea of songs rushing through your head through white tubes is also ingenious and very clever. "Numb is good," meaning shunned, taken strictly audially, is childish and cartoonish, and you do not need this effect.

On the other hand, your juxtaposing of "good" two lines later is successful. This, however, is the only part of the paragraph mentioned that adds something to my faculties. The rest holds water but for some reason or another is not powerful.

The paragraph following is the best in your poem. The italisation of "Perduto" and the three dots, whose use I usually do not like, are good in that they contribute to the feeling you want to portray of something that is no more there. The following flashback is very relevant, completes the idea, and is good-looking and sincere.

The last paragraph is not especially powerful though it is sincere. However, the description of the setting on your part by saying "It is snowing," along with the slowness and dreaminess of motion that came instantly to my mind, relate nicely to the mood of the preceeding paragraph.

Ton frère Ahmad