Monday, April 14, 2008

Helplessly Charmed

I was once impressionistic…and I guess I still am, even with love. But lessons are learned and lessons come like soft knocks of opportunities. You may not fathom what I ought to say, but here is what I felt one drizzly evening…and my felt tip started to doodle…

O tempt me not to drink from your spring of false immortality;

Enchant me not with your lulling voice

and show yourself not in full splendor,

so I may better

taste,

hear, and

see

Reality beyond the fantasies that blind me.

4 comments:

H said...

"Helplessly Charmed" is quite a paradox: it's so compact, yet it gives itself away.

Line one gives me the impression that the speaker is addressing a god or demi-god. "Tempt me not to drink from your spring of false immortality..." Why false immortality? "And show yourself not in full splendor" reminds me of Roman gods, esp Jupiter, who couldn't reveal himself "in full splendor," lest his mortal lover would be consumed by fire... OR this poem could simply be a song of a lovestruck person who "silently" begs her/his secret love to show his/her real self so that s/he may love him/her the way s/he is. -Miss H.

kastanyas santissima said...

this is actually one of my struggles-- to write poetry as short as this, yet say so much and still cling to the reader even beyond the period.

H said...

From robert:

yes, this can be about a lover, but i guess the first line is so influential that in my view, this can only refer to someone divine.

Unknown said...

I guess the writer of this poem is telling the readers what she/he prefers when it comes to love. For me, the words says that she/he does not want to promise a love that sounds forever because she/he knows that love could fade. She/ he doesn't want to be fooled by the characteristics showed because it may be just for show.
The "...Reality beyond the fantasies that blind me" is a striking ending.