A Man in a Room, and other poems - 22. fane

Beauty is hell.

A lover whom I cannot stand

yet need more than air.

After a trip to the Disney store, and then a preparation from Beauty's sown seeds, I get hit with this fantastic poem. And so you prompted me to meditate on beauty, to look again at it, as you do in the Prelude to No. 61 - I am isolated by what I see, my eyes limit myself to me.  Again, your readers are left to ponder the nature of beauty, and its often untouchable riches. 

Life’s temples , painted in word pictures . Like visiting Cathedrals in a foreign city , we admire and despair  the history , envy the opulence and covet the beauty . Then leave both richer and poorer from the experience. 

Lyssa provided some comments on these poems as well. 

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So, finally there is a quiet moment, and I am able to comment properly your poems.

No. 59
Every time I read this poem, the painting "Jungbrunnen" from Lucas Cranach d.Ä. comes in my mind. :-)
Maybe the Disney store is a modern version of it. Since I have never been to one, I can not know, but maybe I should try once. The poem makes it tempting.

No 60

It is a short poem, but in this four lines is said a lot and very clearly, which is a difficult thing to do.

No 61
The prelude is heartbreaking to me. I can feel the isolation reaching through the words to me. There are two levels starting in the prelude and going on in the main poem, as I see it. One is the general searching for beauty, an artist who has ambitions and has to live up to it, to achieve his aim. So I understand the her as referring to beauty as concept. The other seems to be more personal, the own longing for beauty. And therefore I had to read the poem a few times and for me as German the term lover with its male ending of "er" was kind of hook, that made me think about, what this longing means on a personal level and it made the conflict / pain, which is shown in the poem, visible through the language.
I don't know if this is the same for an English native speaker.
(I just have the problem to see the word lover as gender neutral version, because of my native language.)

Nevertheless, I can find in every line references, who reach out two both levels and that is masterful work.

"how happy I would be if I never heard of her,
to live with the masses in ignorance fit."

This line made me think, oh yes, how much I know this feeling. But a long time ago I came to the conclusion, that it is far better to go my own way, cherish my own emotions and just be who I am, even I don't seem to fit anywhere 100%, then to try to fit an image someone else creates for me.

So your poem speaks to me, as if you were on the way to this point at the moment you wrote it.

On 2/6/2018 at 2:25 PM, Parker Owens said:

Beauty is hell.

A lover whom I cannot stand

yet need more than air.

 

After a trip to the Disney store, and then a preparation from Beauty's sown seeds, I get hit with this fantastic poem. And so you prompted me to meditate on beauty, to look again at it, as you do in the Prelude to No. 61 - I am isolated by what I see, my eyes limit myself to me.  Again, your readers are left to ponder the nature of beauty, and its often untouchable riches. 

Oh, boy, Parker - duck! I didn't mean to hit anyone with these old poems of mine  Thank you for your great, well-thought-out comments. I feel that as the poet I was at that age, I kept circling around a couple of themes, and hopefully expanding that loop each time around. 

Thank you again for reading and sharing your thoughts.  

On 2/6/2018 at 9:01 PM, deville said:

Life’s temples , painted in word pictures . Like visiting Cathedrals in a foreign city , we admire and despair  the history , envy the opulence and covet the beauty . Then leave both richer and poorer from the experience. 

Thank you, @deville! Your comments are beautiful, and the humble the shy and isolated poet who wrote these long ago would find your words touching. I know they move me  

Thanks again, I appreciate you reading my work. 

On 2/10/2018 at 11:50 AM, AC Benus said:

 

So, finally there is a quiet moment, and I am able to comment properly your poems.

 

No. 59
Every time I read this poem, the painting "Jungbrunnen" from Lucas Cranach d.Ä. comes in my mind. :-)
Maybe the Disney store is a modern version of it. Since I have never been to one, I can not know, but maybe I should try once. The poem makes it tempting.

No 60

It is a short poem, but in this four lines is said a lot and very clearly, which is a difficult thing to do.

No 61
The prelude is heartbreaking to me. I can feel the isolation reaching through the words to me. There are two levels starting in the prelude and going on in the main poem, as I see it. One is the general searching for beauty, an artist who has ambitions and has to live up to it, to achieve his aim. So I understand the her as referring to beauty as concept. The other seems to be more personal, the own longing for beauty. And therefore I had to read the poem a few times and for me as German the term lover with its male ending of "er" was kind of hook, that made me think about, what this longing means on a personal level and it made the conflict / pain, which is shown in the poem, visible through the language.
I don't know if this is the same for an English native speaker.
(I just have the problem to see the word lover as gender neutral version, because of my native language.)

Nevertheless, I can find in every line references, who reach out two both levels and that is masterful work.

"how happy I would be if I never heard of her,
to live with the masses in ignorance fit."

This line made me think, oh yes, how much I know this feeling. But a long time ago I came to the conclusion, that it is far better to go my own way, cherish my own emotions and just be who I am, even I don't seem to fit anywhere 100%, then to try to fit an image someone else creates for me.

So your poem speaks to me, as if you were on the way to this point at the moment you wrote it.

 

Thank you for your wonderful comments, Lyssa. I suppose the Disney Store is a sort of fountain of youth. When I wrote that poem, they were new on the scene. Your complex thoughts concerning No. 61 are interesting for me to see. The themes of this poem were much on my troubled mind during this period. 

I too have come to the conclusion that it's best to go my own way, the way of a poet. I have not looked back since  

Thanks again.