Friday 18 February 2011

18/02/11

Simultaneous - Unfinished

This me and that me
Are one and the same
An easy, serene contradiction
This scheming and dreaming
Is not just a game
And fact isn't stranger than fiction

The bright little screen
Brings a world of deceit
All huddled in feathers and flowers
A chance never wasted
The world at my feet
At least for a couple of hours

The callously casual
The lovingly cruel
Alarmingly woven in one
Successful diversion
But who is the fool?
And at what expense is the fun?

I can't trace it back
To a single route cause
Leading that me and this me to merge
Abandoning values
Creating new laws
Letting reason be governed by urge

4 comments:

FreeFox said...

Have to mull it over for a while.

Ben said...

Probably not worth spending too much time on - I'm quite well aware that I'm not much of a poet.

FreeFox said...

Scheming, dreaming, fact & fiction, deceit... okay, it's in some way about lies. I should be able to say something about that, then. ^_^

Bright little screen - TV or computer? Internet?

This me and that me - Identity? Making up identities on the web? The monitor opens the gate on a "world of deceit"? Virtuality?

Feathers & flowers - no idea

Callously casual and lovingly cruel woven in one - hmm, I like that.

Who is the fool? - Normally, you'd say, he who has been fooled, decieved, who has swallowed a lie. But in my experience fooling people, lying and scheming and decieving and thus hiding your own true nature diminishes yourself. The best part about interacting with others is them acknowledging and reacting to your true self. Hide that, and it all becomes hollow and meaningless. That would make the deciever the real fool, for he deprives himself of that which is most valuable.

Values, laws, governed by urge - Sounds again like on-line dating, or something similar.

Can't trace it back to a single root of both mes - Aren't you that the root? Even a virtual you springs from your self. That is what the spies discovered in WWII, that even propaganda and deception cannot help but reveal real information. Every lie is a signpost pointing at the very truth it is trying to hide.

It sounds like the poem is about the doubts one has when fooling around (on the web) pretending to be someone one is not. (Though I want to point out here, that peeps have lied and pretended at all times. There is a scientific experiment that shows that even relaxed most peeps lie on average every 10 minutes, twice to tripple that when stressed, and most of all to their mums and gfs.)

I'm not certain about the meaning of the title (btw is "Unfinished" part of the title, or an addendum alerting us to the as yet unfinished status of the poem?)

But I'm all in favour of letting reason be governed by urge! ^_^

Ben said...

Wow - I'm flattered that you gave this so much thought. Thanks. Such considered criticism deserves some proper responses.

You're barking up some adjacent trees, if not quite the right one. The 'unfinished' bit was originally added because I hadn't finished, but given that I rarely feel poetic, I doubt I'll ever go back to it now.

It's not so much about alternative identities as it is about doing stuff which goes against your own values. Like two versions of the same person, pulling against one another, but eventually and inevitably colliding, or, in my experience, slowly morphing into one another.

On the 'who is the fool' point, we can go even further, in that he who aims to deceive others is often only fooling himself.

You may (or may not) be interested to know that the more detached the person I'm communicating with, the more open I feel I can be. As I've said to you before, any agenda I might have is outside of this place. In some ways I'm more myself here than anywhere else.