April 5, 2011

Narcissus

Desperate Adolescent, or Narcissus

Narcissus vanished. All that remained
was the fragrance of his beauty—
constant and sweet, the scent of heliotrope.
His task was only to behold himself.

Whatever emanated from him he loved back into himself.
He no longer drifted in the open wind,
but enclosed himself in a narrowing circle
and there, in its grip, he extinguished himself.

Uncollected Poems

5 comments:

  1. Oh yes, I know what this is all about.

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  2. A feckless blooming, I'd say, inwardly to the point of disappearing. Interesting that the Rodin statue is so naked and revealing of this self-zippered soul ... the puer (or eternal youth) 'tis said to fly like Ganymede about the earth (so afraid is he of touching earth), loves his own stink,bleeds gorgeously and has an autistic inability to recognize the other. He's the one who is desperately in need of the influence of the senex, the other pole of the tandem, the wise old man who has entered history and paid those dues and grown a heart which loves the world. -Brendan

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  3. magnified eruption of self heat

    kabang

    one sure momentary incineration

    and then gone

    water has a habit of doing that to fire.

    (i had to separate rodin's adolescent from this in order to see Narcissus himself. considering the adolescent this becomes something entirely different for me. but that statue of the desperate adolescent, my god, i'd not go back to those particular incendiary times for anything!)

    xo
    erin

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"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Go ahead, bloom recklessly!