09-10-2015, 09:58 AM
Massive thanks to you, Mark! Your show of your process will really help me see if what I want to say is being heard (though, me being me, I don't really have that much to say).
Scientifically, a comet is the stuff of life, what with all the water and organic compounds in it, but most superstitions that I know of regard it as a terrible element, and when a comet hits one's face, naturally it hurts, so it's really meant to be more than just that.
The Prologue, as you have noted, is stolen from the Bible; the second part is stolen from an older poem, titled "Night Terrors", that I finished here a few months ago. All of the parts are actually so stolen, though the fourth and all the bits from the Bible, I've not posted here independently; thus the somewhat independent sets of symbols.
I thought of the first part as simply a different way of looking at innocence, as a sort of forbidding, imprisoning darkness instead of light, but your giving more importance to it makes sense -- I suppose when I add the nadir (and your process has convinced me so), I'll elaborate.
Bed-wetter? Lol, no. But I won't change that. That's more the metaphor of the lake (and, expanding the scope to the entire poem, the waters of death) being merged with the idea of the bed; regardless of your rather humorous point, I'll keep it.
That's exactly where the poem is heading. At this point, actually, I've been somewhat following Shakespeare's seven acts of man, but I merged the Lover and the Warrior into the Passionate Youth because they are essentially both passionate businesses, but the nadir will split that.
The story of the three women is based (well, stolen) off of Neil Gaiman's Sandman (and his story, he himself stole from Jewish Tradition and a bunch of Ancient Greek woman cults), though I removed the bit about Adam being a hermaphrodite (that's a bit in the Lilith story), and I removed a lot of the detail on the Eve story. I suppose the feel of the dream sequence, though not intended, works: I had three intentions for this part, one of which ties to such a feel. The first is to mirror the stories of the first three parts (Virgin from the light, Mother of the demons of the night, and the Destruction of Innocence); the second, a level that I don't think showed so well, is to show the speaker's journey through the world of women (he learned about love, but only as a fantasy; he found himself rejecting his mother, for the sake of a lover; and he found his lover, but was forced out of the garden by his father); and the third, obviously to prefigure the next parts.
The Passionate Youth does turn into the Justice, as per the seven acts. I was considering using "The Judge" instead, but it sounded rather odd; however, once I add the nadir, I'll retitle it.
The poem originally is a bit of a lamentation for the loss of a friend's father, but I decided to rework it for this because it works so. It's inspired by the story of Finn the human (I love Adventure Time; it's not really just a kid's show anymore), and how he found his father, and lost his arm in the process, then how his father attained a higher form of existence, as he saved the world. The symbol of the arm would be better clarified in the nadir (the added fourth part), I think, but for now, it's really just a symbol of the sudden feeling of helplessness that comes with adulthood; losing an arm usually means that way, in the media where I've seen it.
Yes! It's absolutely meant to echo that, as well as (more obviously) the story of Adam and Eve. The Tree of Life, well, if you know your Bible (or at least your Bereishit) well, that's why Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden; the pomegranate tree, well, besides being the traditional fruit of the underworld, I remember reading that the fruit of the tree of knowledge and good and evil was once accepted to be the pomegranate.
You might be thinking of a bunch of Jesus stories, but that interpretation I think is slightly irrelevant: though I wrote those three new parts as a reflection of Jewish history (well, Christian: the first is the fall of man and the establishment of the kingdom, the second is the diaspora and the return, the third is essentially the arrival of Christ; though the story is more Gnostic, because here the Word of God is considered to be already with man), and that reflection is meant to expand the story a good deal in scope, it's not that needed. The "trinity" reference could work, and I guess it would be the most obvious bit, but I had no intention of putting that in when I conjured this up (then again, the first refers to a king, God the Father, the second to a love (a husband), the Messiah, and the third to someone saving the multitude, the Holy Spirit, so...)
That's novel! My intention was the comet, not the Virgin, but that could work. (why is the comet female? because the comet was essentially equated with the world in the very first part, and the world, or at least the earth here, is female. I wrote "the comet comes" at an earlier draft, but I decided that felt too redundant)
The speaker has grown into a "Prophet", yes. I would have gone with "The Pantaloon", but that would mean the same thing (some old wise guy), only in a more archaic fashion; the other, "The Poet", but lately I've been conflating the two, and doesn't "the Prophet" simply sound better? The story, at this point, is a prophecy, since this does talk about the coming of death, and who can speak so when dying?
The original draft of this poem is about a fart, but it was too cosmic to keep existing so (especially as complained by a bunch of peeps here).
And here we are, right at the round of the ring. A play at the multiple meanings of "the comet": then, it was the time to be born, now, it's the time to die. Or, at least, in the now being envisioned by the Prophet.
It's both back to the beginning, and a whole 'nother beginning, too: with the comet (made up of ice, hehehe) having returned the speaker is now dead, and his whole world is being reborn, either for the sake of his reincarnation, or for the sake of his children (the multitude). The second poem clarifies that I'm no heretic, but because it has a slightly different set of symbols, and it doesn't really fit the narrative, I consider it separate. So you got this poem nigh perfectly -- but for the parts that you didn't get, especially the oddities of the third and fourth parts, I'll make the proper accommodations with the nadir, The Warrior. (or The Father; I'm not really sure, I've not the time to write it yet). Again, massive thanks, and this has really, really been helpful!
Scientifically, a comet is the stuff of life, what with all the water and organic compounds in it, but most superstitions that I know of regard it as a terrible element, and when a comet hits one's face, naturally it hurts, so it's really meant to be more than just that.
The Prologue, as you have noted, is stolen from the Bible; the second part is stolen from an older poem, titled "Night Terrors", that I finished here a few months ago. All of the parts are actually so stolen, though the fourth and all the bits from the Bible, I've not posted here independently; thus the somewhat independent sets of symbols.
I thought of the first part as simply a different way of looking at innocence, as a sort of forbidding, imprisoning darkness instead of light, but your giving more importance to it makes sense -- I suppose when I add the nadir (and your process has convinced me so), I'll elaborate.
Bed-wetter? Lol, no. But I won't change that. That's more the metaphor of the lake (and, expanding the scope to the entire poem, the waters of death) being merged with the idea of the bed; regardless of your rather humorous point, I'll keep it.
That's exactly where the poem is heading. At this point, actually, I've been somewhat following Shakespeare's seven acts of man, but I merged the Lover and the Warrior into the Passionate Youth because they are essentially both passionate businesses, but the nadir will split that.
The story of the three women is based (well, stolen) off of Neil Gaiman's Sandman (and his story, he himself stole from Jewish Tradition and a bunch of Ancient Greek woman cults), though I removed the bit about Adam being a hermaphrodite (that's a bit in the Lilith story), and I removed a lot of the detail on the Eve story. I suppose the feel of the dream sequence, though not intended, works: I had three intentions for this part, one of which ties to such a feel. The first is to mirror the stories of the first three parts (Virgin from the light, Mother of the demons of the night, and the Destruction of Innocence); the second, a level that I don't think showed so well, is to show the speaker's journey through the world of women (he learned about love, but only as a fantasy; he found himself rejecting his mother, for the sake of a lover; and he found his lover, but was forced out of the garden by his father); and the third, obviously to prefigure the next parts.
The Passionate Youth does turn into the Justice, as per the seven acts. I was considering using "The Judge" instead, but it sounded rather odd; however, once I add the nadir, I'll retitle it.
The poem originally is a bit of a lamentation for the loss of a friend's father, but I decided to rework it for this because it works so. It's inspired by the story of Finn the human (I love Adventure Time; it's not really just a kid's show anymore), and how he found his father, and lost his arm in the process, then how his father attained a higher form of existence, as he saved the world. The symbol of the arm would be better clarified in the nadir (the added fourth part), I think, but for now, it's really just a symbol of the sudden feeling of helplessness that comes with adulthood; losing an arm usually means that way, in the media where I've seen it.
Yes! It's absolutely meant to echo that, as well as (more obviously) the story of Adam and Eve. The Tree of Life, well, if you know your Bible (or at least your Bereishit) well, that's why Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden; the pomegranate tree, well, besides being the traditional fruit of the underworld, I remember reading that the fruit of the tree of knowledge and good and evil was once accepted to be the pomegranate.
You might be thinking of a bunch of Jesus stories, but that interpretation I think is slightly irrelevant: though I wrote those three new parts as a reflection of Jewish history (well, Christian: the first is the fall of man and the establishment of the kingdom, the second is the diaspora and the return, the third is essentially the arrival of Christ; though the story is more Gnostic, because here the Word of God is considered to be already with man), and that reflection is meant to expand the story a good deal in scope, it's not that needed. The "trinity" reference could work, and I guess it would be the most obvious bit, but I had no intention of putting that in when I conjured this up (then again, the first refers to a king, God the Father, the second to a love (a husband), the Messiah, and the third to someone saving the multitude, the Holy Spirit, so...)
That's novel! My intention was the comet, not the Virgin, but that could work. (why is the comet female? because the comet was essentially equated with the world in the very first part, and the world, or at least the earth here, is female. I wrote "the comet comes" at an earlier draft, but I decided that felt too redundant)
The speaker has grown into a "Prophet", yes. I would have gone with "The Pantaloon", but that would mean the same thing (some old wise guy), only in a more archaic fashion; the other, "The Poet", but lately I've been conflating the two, and doesn't "the Prophet" simply sound better? The story, at this point, is a prophecy, since this does talk about the coming of death, and who can speak so when dying?
The original draft of this poem is about a fart, but it was too cosmic to keep existing so (especially as complained by a bunch of peeps here).
And here we are, right at the round of the ring. A play at the multiple meanings of "the comet": then, it was the time to be born, now, it's the time to die. Or, at least, in the now being envisioned by the Prophet.
It's both back to the beginning, and a whole 'nother beginning, too: with the comet (made up of ice, hehehe) having returned the speaker is now dead, and his whole world is being reborn, either for the sake of his reincarnation, or for the sake of his children (the multitude). The second poem clarifies that I'm no heretic, but because it has a slightly different set of symbols, and it doesn't really fit the narrative, I consider it separate. So you got this poem nigh perfectly -- but for the parts that you didn't get, especially the oddities of the third and fourth parts, I'll make the proper accommodations with the nadir, The Warrior. (or The Father; I'm not really sure, I've not the time to write it yet). Again, massive thanks, and this has really, really been helpful!