abuse of real poetry

[whitereflection]

Trip to B&N to get Mom away from chemicals while the house was being cleaned, read through the book Poetry in Motion (also a volume of Dylan Thomas' and Wislawa Symborska's). Discovered the following which very much resonated, considering my feelings on the hours of 2-4am and my times of being awake then:

Four in the Morning

The hour from night to day.
The hour from side to side.
The hour for those past thirty.

The hour swept clean to the crowing of cocks.
The hour when earth betrays us.
The hour when wind blows from extinguished stars.
The hour of and-what-if-nothing-remains-after-us.

The hollow hour.
Blank, empty.
The very pit of all other hours.

No one feels good at four in the morning.
If ants feel good at four in the morning--
three cheers for the ants. And let five o'clock come
if we're to go on living.

--Wislawa Szymborska, translated from the Polish by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire


I should probably apologize to the late Mr. Thomas for seeing any sort of Show meanings in his literary works. But but...so Sam. : /

Twenty-Four Years

Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes.
(Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.)
In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor
Sewing a shroud for a journey
By the light of the meat-eating sun.
Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun,
With my red veins full of money,
In the final direction of the elementary town
I advance as long as forever is.

***

I Have Longed to Move Away

I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors' continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
For there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the thunder of calls and notes.

I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, yet unspent, might explode
Out of the old lie burning on the ground,
And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.
Neither by night's ancient fear,
The parting of hat from hair,
Pursed lips at the receiver,
Shall I fall to death's feather.
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention and half lie.

Comments

[emerald-embers.livejournal.com]

Now that is interesting :). Because 4am is a very uplifting time for me; it's a time where, if I reach it, I feel very peaceful, very at home in the world, and the quiet makes me feel as if I suddenly understand my place and position in life. In addition, 4/5am are the hours where I get my best ideas, if I can bear to stay up until that time.

But it's interesting it should be so dark for others, and another reminder of how we don't all work on the same frequency.

[whitereflection.livejournal.com]

I've got a major lovehate relationship with it. I've always loved middle of the night--when I was young and supposed to be in bed by like 9pm, I was besotted with the times between 10pm and 1am. Then when I could choose when I slept, I tended to like 1am-2am best. Now I do still like that time, and even 2a-4a, because there's just something so quiet and sort of otherworldly about it. And I still think I have the childhood reaction of it's a nifty forbidden time because I shouldn't be up then but still am.

But 4am, getting to 4am-5am actually also has negative connotations for me--usually means I'm hit with insomnia again, and thus dealing with anxiety, stress, bad mood swings/depression issues. That late, and means my sleep cycle's screwed up again, and it'll take many days if not a couple weeks of feeling horrid during the day trying to force myself to sleep by 1am and be able to get up at 8 or earlier. It's been especially a problem since becoming unemployed, where it's super easy to fall out of a 'normal' schedule and end up nocturnal. I think I actually would prefer to be nocturnal, but then I wouldn't sync up with the husband' or my friends'/family's schedules. : /

Intriguing that it's a time when you get your best ideas--usually even if I'm up past midnight-2am, my brain starts acting/processing like I'm drunk. It's definitely fascinating how differences our biochemistry/genetics show up like that :D