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Happy New / Old Year
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
T.S. Eliot
With a bang,
a-bash-ed, the new year beats
a hasty retreat.
The old comes
forward - so it has been since
time past.
The new follows,
the old leads - from the front.
The present,
behind the past,
present behind the past - stretched
in columns.
There on the last
row - is our future, standing alone,
the fossil,
engraved in stone.
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Dec/28/2012, 4:06 am
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Re: Happy New / Old Year
This poem is that "something" that people think about in those moments when we wonder how it all works. Or when we know neither what the future holds or what the past was like, because our mind is rendered blank in the agony or ecstasy of the present moment. Or when we look in a mirror that reflects another mirror into infinity, and we think, "Are those people me in alternate futures or alternate pasts?" Well, at least I think stuff like that.
It's in the last two three line strophes and the final stand alone line that the poem holds my interest. Especially this part:quote: There on the last
row - is our future, standing alone,
the fossil,
engraved in stone.
The future being somehow lived, existing behind or beyond us, fossilized already, and yet... we move forward, away from that image, and the question is left... can we change the granite-carved future which is the past?
Thanks for a little mind-!@#$ on a Saturday morning. Better than coffee!
vkp
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Dec/29/2012, 9:26 am
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Re: Happy New / Old Year
what a beautiful granite image
time columns forever holding our destinies
as we become ever more that synthesis
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Dec/29/2012, 3:42 pm
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Re: Happy New / Old Year
Hi Queenfisher,
You start this with one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite poems, so right away I'm hooked. I like the exuberant language play in S1, which I feel reflects the high spirits of a New Year's celebration. S2 to me is like New Year's Day when the mood shifts and we realize, "Well, here it is, the New Year" and it's not that different from what went before in the old year. S3-6 turn the idea of "new" being nearest, "new" being progress and a fresh start on its head. The old year isnt Father Time and the new year isn't an infant, and as for the future, its a "fossil,/engraved in stone." Because of the repetitions you've employed, the poem itself has a circular feel and reminds me that the lunar calendar is circular, not linear as we so often imagine the passage of time to be.
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Dec/31/2012, 5:07 pm
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Re: Happy New / Old Year
dear vkp
best wishes for the new year / & now old already!
i'm glad you think that way - your interpretation has expanded the poem
beyond the limited boundaries!
time past & future - all point to time present!
yes it is the agony & ecstasy of time present that keeps us occupied most times & at other times we mull over the past & wonder about the future.
Or when we look in a mirror that reflects another mirror into infinity, and we think, "Are those people me in alternate futures or alternate pasts?" Well, at least I think stuff like that.
thanks for your very interesting take on the poem.
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Jan/3/2013, 2:57 am
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Re: Happy New / Old Year
Dear Libra
a very happy new year!
time columns forever holding our destinies - that's a wonderful concept!
thanks for looking in & the appreciation!
Dear Katlin
I was hoping not to sound pessimistic about the happy new year! hope you have a great year & many more!
glad i could hook you with that quote - one of my fav. as well! glad you did not find it entirely pessimistic!
yes once the hoop-la is over you realize it's not so different after all! altho i plan to write more this year!
thanks for the wonderful concept of time being circular - like all planets - space / time is a sphere.
we're all running around in circles!!
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Jan/3/2013, 3:11 am
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Re: Happy New / Old Year
Queenfisher---
i too love that quote that serves as a preface to your poem.
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
T.S. Eliot
the image of time morphed into columns---terrific; just never would have pictured that on my own.
behind the past,
present behind the past - stretched
in columns.
and then this very sobering observation closing out the poem:
There on the last
row - is our future, standing alone,
the fossil,
engraved in stone.
strong stuff, wonderful poetry.
bernie
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Jan/3/2013, 11:14 am
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Re: Happy New / Old Year
Not much taken to poetry that works wholly in the range of the conceptual. I am a thingy poet. And a place poet. Maybe the lizard portion of my brain, set down near the base of my skull, has too much say. Maybe I'm too reptilean and my heat sensors too occupied with what is here and now, just across from me. Ransom said poetry can never concern itself with other-worldly visions, being of the here and now. He had in mind religions having traffic with the after-life and such. So far as I'm concerned visions of the future are at the root of that other-worldly stuff.
Trying to say I'm not exactly equipped to comment on a poem such as this.
I can however respond to the rhetorical devices employed here. They make your case sexy. That works for me.
Tere
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Jan/15/2013, 7:23 pm
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Re: Happy New / Old Year
thanks a lot bernie!
hi tere
sexy works fine for me too!
not the L reptilean word - i have a phobia of those creatures - my flesh crawls even as i write even as i read that word!
anyways..i think i know what you're trying to say - originally the last line was: 'all point to time present'
thanks for reading.
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Jan/16/2013, 2:06 am
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