Here's something that I won't do again very often, if at all, but I've shared it elsewhere so thought I might put it here too.
When I was at school doing A level English I wrote a poem in which all the words began with a W (for obvious reasons plus I was born on a Wednesday). That was lost years ago but I've tried to reconstruct it from memory so some of this is old and some new and some a mixture of the two. Lowercase omega is like a w and is the last letter of the Greek alphabet so the poem was about the end of things.
Nowadays I might call that the Kali Yuga and that is the subject of this poem. The last phase of a world cycle when the environment, both physical and psychological, degrades and not just the spiritual but the natural too is overturned with understanding of the true good lost, to be replaced by a pseudo-good based on the primacy of humanity in and for itself. But, because this is a lie, the world deteriorates and many people who notice this now happening completely fail to see that it is they who are responsible. There is a grim humour in the current lamentations of leftists about how bad things are getting (Trump, Brexit etc) for they don't realise that it is they who have caused this reaction by their anti-God and anti-Nature behaviour of the last 50 years. When your thoughts and actions are out of harmony with reality then chaos and disruption are the inevitable consequence. Monsters breed monsters.
When I was at school doing A level English I wrote a poem in which all the words began with a W (for obvious reasons plus I was born on a Wednesday). That was lost years ago but I've tried to reconstruct it from memory so some of this is old and some new and some a mixture of the two. Lowercase omega is like a w and is the last letter of the Greek alphabet so the poem was about the end of things.
Nowadays I might call that the Kali Yuga and that is the subject of this poem. The last phase of a world cycle when the environment, both physical and psychological, degrades and not just the spiritual but the natural too is overturned with understanding of the true good lost, to be replaced by a pseudo-good based on the primacy of humanity in and for itself. But, because this is a lie, the world deteriorates and many people who notice this now happening completely fail to see that it is they who are responsible. There is a grim humour in the current lamentations of leftists about how bad things are getting (Trump, Brexit etc) for they don't realise that it is they who have caused this reaction by their anti-God and anti-Nature behaviour of the last 50 years. When your thoughts and actions are out of harmony with reality then chaos and disruption are the inevitable consequence. Monsters breed monsters.
World's Woe
Will we walk with
wizards while whispering women wait without?
What will we wear when
water weeps?
Why waste words with
wicked wastrels?
Wild winds worsen wintry weather
Worthless worship
weakens warriors
Winners welcome wagers
with winks
Wisdom will warm when wedlock
wanes
Weaklings, wet with
wine, whimper while wolves watch
Weeping willows waver,
wormy, weedy, wasted
Wounded wombs wither,
wealth wilts
Wives, widows,
witches, woeful world
Whitewashed wills
weave worn words
War waxes while whips
whirl
Whether warnings work
when we wake weary
Wonders witnessed
within will.
A friendly critic told me that the poem as a poem would be improved if I allowed myself to break the w rule occasionally. He's quite right. For instance, the last two lines could be made clearer. They mean that outer warnings won't stir us when our minds have been dulled and desensitised by the distortions of modernity so inner spiritual awakening is required. However, I was hoping to create an incantationary quality too and that would be diminished. I like the idea of a poem as a magical spell and with the sense somewhat hidden.
A friendly critic told me that the poem as a poem would be improved if I allowed myself to break the w rule occasionally. He's quite right. For instance, the last two lines could be made clearer. They mean that outer warnings won't stir us when our minds have been dulled and desensitised by the distortions of modernity so inner spiritual awakening is required. However, I was hoping to create an incantationary quality too and that would be diminished. I like the idea of a poem as a magical spell and with the sense somewhat hidden.
5 comments:
I enjoyed it even more the second time I read it! That water weeps line still gets me.
Thanks Francis.
Well worded, William.
Thanks Desert Rat. I think W is probably one of the easiest letters to do this with. I pity Zechariah Zimmerman trying the same thing.
High Hopes Have Heart.
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