Slight Detour: Yes, I not only got to President Obama's Second Inauguration (no fluke, you doubters!) but I ALSO got to the OFFICIAL Inaugural Ball! Details to Come.
Check out my Open Letter to President Obama and An Inaugural Poem I wrote for President Obama. Background Notes to the poem I wrote in Honor of President Obama's Inauguration are available in Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.
If you're like me, you always get mixed up between Narcissus, the gorgeous but oh, so vain dude who expired because he couldn't stop gazing at his mesmerizing expression in the water and Icarus, who flew with wax wings so high the sun melted his prideful attempt to soar to heaven while attempting to escape the island of Crete. Even their names sound the same. (Both have an "a", an "r", a "c", an "s", an "i", and a "u".
Okay, so Narcissus didn't quite drown and Icarus wasn't an Adonis but all the pictures of Icarus make him look like a Calvin Klein centerfold (oh, la la).
Here's the Masterpiece. You gotta' look at it while you read my little lyrical poem. I can scarcely remember gazing at this painting at the Tate Moderne. (Yes, I added an "e" on "Moderne." The architectural style of the museum is so chi-chi, but I like it anyway.) All I remember was saying, "Wow, this painting is small" because in the books it's so larger than life, and "Wow, this painting is larger than life."
 |
| Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvador Dali at the Tate Modern |
Metamorphosis of Narcissus
by Ssal Nogard
I live. In a state
of rare existence
of luxurious
existentialism
in which I can tolerate, gorge.
And thrive.
I do nothing of service, produce nothing
Creation no… and much consume.
I am one of
those idlers of the world.
Who of necessity do nothing, necessity being
nothing to
me.
For me there is only idolitrazation
and
adoration, of myself.
In the mirror.
My mirror tells of a place
where colors do not
blend between objects but only
within
an
entity, so smoothly, even
in their
contrast.
A clarity of pure air, gases so invisible the objects
behind,
in front, between
them almost had a
visible outline
where tranquility muffles a rarefied tension.
Where
souls enjoy their existence
and moan. their
delight.
It is a place of great beauty
and distinction
of light and colors. glowing
blended with
darkness and cream.
Everything is beautiful in this place--
including I:
Narcissus.
I can hear them,
my brothers and
sisters to the back of me, posing
wailing,
and wondering
where I have
gone.
But they would not come with me
to the water
where they could be happy
gazing at
themselves in
their
happiness.
For you see, I
was the happiest of them all
so beautiful was I--am I!
beautiful and
free
and with no longing to lift myself
from
the edge of these
waters, pristine
and still
no ripple to mar
none of my
beauty out
My reflection unfiltered and purely--Me.
I came to
lounge one day.
It was hot, and
I. thirsty, and
these waters were so beautiful
we had to
be together.
I lay down, by the still, still banks
and
cupped--a hand of waters
to drink. And drink
I did. Oh, coolness
quenched! Wetness.
. . ..like silk,
calmed
my throat and I sunk
to sleep.
But it was a strange water.
For when I
woke, I was thirstier than
before and lifted a handful
to drink. And grew thirstier--and I
tasted the
saline, a kind of
aphrodisiac for man
a kind of
immortalized liquid
watered down
for
man.
And it was me,
(when it was
not me
who wanted
anything
but the
idle of life).
who became
idol to
myself.
I needed more, more
than my single
hand could cup,
and so lifted
myself on my elbows
and cupped both my hands to--
see.
I saw, the most beautiful
sublime
of the divine
Creatures
looking me
full in the face
from my two
cupped hands.
Staring and I
thought with terror
that
I might
drop him. that
I should never gaze at him again, exactly as
do I, now,
then
For even
so, he was falling
from my hands, though
I cupped him
tighter
still. To see him,
gaze at him
idolize him
forever.
He was strangely
so imbued with
a current, snaking
its way underneath
his skin, sending
it into tiny
a-quivery convulsions
The saline!
The cursed
aphrodisiac of the gods!
And still he was slipping
becoming
narrower, skewed
distorted
Beauty beyond means,
and my power to
save him…
And so I drank
him.
So that he could be
with we--eternally.
Beautiful forever.
Yes, I had to
taste him--yet
another gulp.
To quaff my
newfound
need to
gaze at him.
I had to raise
another hands-full of
poison to my adoring worship-, wistfullest eyes and
drink him. Before he
fell from me,
my hands were incessantly cupping
and lifting
and drinking
my lips made love
with each gulp of
desire.
I drank and drank
and bowed down
on the bank.
on
which, I was kneeling.
I can no longer see
myself anymore
There is nothing
to see,
no face to
gaze puppishly
at the face beauty in the water.
There is a lump where my
love used to
be--one that
I cannot see,
but feel--
sitting heavily in
the water.
I grow stiff
into substance
growing from within
my bones overtake
my
flesh. Hardness. Like
muscle broiled in the sun.
I can hear (with what?) the clouds
melting into
themselves,
but not into
the sky;
afraid to step past
the demarcation.
I groove the road
I will now never
take
and let
it, wind and go--
where I will
never.
And my hungry dog,
eats red flesh,
to add on
to his.
I hear my brothers burst into a deeper shade
of
pale
while they
frolic by their own pool undaring to wander
and claim a
pool of
the gods as I have.
“Look!” they
cry “Narcissus
the handless
would
drink!”
I howled in
bleached amaranthine
grief as a
cripple
does
when he cannot do
what others
do, the
simple,
the moronic tasks.
Yet can do I a
thousandfold in
the fiendish mind.
and my dear love,
bent in
strategy,
on a box of red
and black
contemplating me as
I contemplate
myself,
Considered
myself to
the utmost,
being fascinated
with
none other.
I feel the
mountains evaporating in a crunching
break,
releasing the
lighter parts of themselves
to the heavens and
sinking
lower, dripping
in love
and somewhere a
hand lifted
me from
position.
its last two
fingers
lifted my knee
and its
forefingers
lifted my
shoulders
And feel my
shadow
extending twice
as the gods
lifted
their one concerted
hand to
lift me
from my
idolization
Its thumb lifted
my chin and my brain cracked
in curves
My hair, once
flowed like veins, even more so
and my face of
beauty was
supported
thusly
by the
cracked
finger of the
gods.
From my mind, (as it ever was so)
grew the
consummation of
my desideratum
white, dazzling-white,
and pointing in
every direction.
It
is so beautiful that I
lift to pluck it but,
to take myself rips
me in two
before
offering myself to myself
So I kneel here and
gaze and see my
beloved gently
(loving me)
swaying in the wind
and know my love
can
survive if I
abstain from my
desideratum of myself.
oh, to idolize
without
touching. It is beyond me and that is how
it survives.
*~~*~~**~~*~*~~**~~~*~~*~
Other Paintings by Monsieur Salvador Dali that are cool:
 |
| The Persistence of Memory (La persistence de la mémoire) by Monsieur Salvador Dali |
The Persistence of Memory - La Persistance de la Memoire Interpretation
Wow, I had no idea there was a Salvador Dali Museum in Florida. Talk about missing something when I was down there.
 |
| Salvador Dali Unknown (I call it "Tower Man") |
The painting above reminds me of a story I once wrote called: "Tower Man." Gotta' rustle that up somewhere....
Metamorphosis of Narcissus
No comments:
Post a Comment
I would LOVE to hear what you think...