For the Being aware

For the Being aware,
Nightfall brings about a native truth.
Dawn shines a blinding light upon the mundane circus of normality,
The lives we lead, lead our lives.
Our unstoppable, all-important, figment-ed clocks rule from the tallest of towers.
For the Being aware,
Time is a reminder of a taste,
A constant reminder which haunts all corners of our realm.
The disposed ambitions and souls will be sought by the few,
For the Being aware will find himself within the catacombs.

Hello Kempton,

I like this. I liked the imagery. Interesting that you capitalize "Being" in the phrase "Being aware." It makes me think of Heidegger's phrase Da-sein, which translates roughly as "The Being," which refers to the experiencing subject or perceiver that is the self... except Dasein is kind of a collective term that abstracts from any particular self. This is a very Existential poem. Although I love the imagery, I find intention behind your words a bit hard to grasp at points.

I usually don't mind a bit of vagueness if I can re-construct a plausible interpretation myself, but in the case of this poem, I'm finding it difficult to re-interpret something tangible... So I guess what I'm saying is a bit more clarity in your words would help.
Lines like "Time is a reminder of a taste" and "The disposed ambitions and souls will be sought by the few," I can think of interpretations, but none that I can think of seem to make sense to me. I feel like you can be clearer, and yet preserve the abstractness of each line.

On the other hand, lines like "Dawn shines a blinding light upon the mundane circus of normality," are fantastic. I love the juxtaposition of 'mundane' and 'circus'. Mundane, by the way, is another term common to existential thinking, but perhaps you know that. Mundane circus. It's contradictory, ostensibly oxymoronic, and yet completely apt. "The mundane circus of normality." Fantastic phrase.

There are just a few phrases I found vague. And now that I'm interpreting the poem mainly in terms of existentialism and phenomenology, I'm finding plenty of the aforementioned aptness. 'Figment-ed clocks', for example could point to a distinction between mental time and objective time. A familiar distinction in Phenomenology.

Do you read anything by Heidegger, Sartre or other Existentialists? Most of your poem is actually quite "primordial" in the Existential sense, which means (in the roughest of interpretations) that it has a very broad, yet very fundamental truth to it. I studied Existentialism in University, but I didn't warm up to it much. I was stuck on its predecessor, phenomenology, a la Edmund Husserl, and that was just too messily laid-out for me to really grasp at the time, even though I liked the ideas in it.

Anyway, very neat poem. When you mentioned meditation and depression I was reminded immediately of the book "Rapt: Attention and the focussed life" by Winnifred Gallagher... so I thought your poem might be moving in the same territory as that. It's a book you might consider looking into. I found it very helpful.

Kind regards,
Pen

Hi-ya! Here's my comments!:

For the Being aware,
Nightfall brings about a native truth. Interesting to think about!
Dawn shines a blinding light upon the mundane circus of normality, Love this line!
The lives we lead, lead our lives.
Our unstoppable, all-important, figment-ed clocks rule from the tallest of towers. Haha
For the Being aware,
Time is a reminder of a taste,
A constant reminder which haunts all corners of our realm.
The disposed ambitions and souls will be sought by the few,
For the Being aware will find himself within the catacombs.

Eerie ending! Love it!

Hi-ya! Here's my comments!:

For the Being aware,
Nightfall brings about a native truth. Interesting to think about!
Dawn shines a blinding light upon the mundane circus of normality, Love this line!
The lives we lead, lead our lives.
Our unstoppable, all-important, figment-ed clocks rule from the tallest of towers. Haha
For the Being aware,
Time is a reminder of a taste,
A constant reminder which haunts all corners of our realm.
The disposed ambitions and souls will be sought by the few,
For the Being aware will find himself within the catacombs.

Eerie ending! Love it!

Thanks for the feedback guys. Pen, I've never really read any poetry other than band lyrics, but I will definitely check out those existentialist writers you suggested!

So I just have to say I really, reeallly liked this! It almost felt like jumbled, fragments but it was lovely and it makes sense if you stop and think about it. I also wanted to commend you on the imagery you used, awesome job!

I couldn't find anything that bothered me too much, I think I would have put 'constant' in italics or something, just to kind of accentuate the second use of reminder...

Time is a reminder of a taste,
A constant reminder which haunts all corners of our realm.

I'm not sure why, it just looks/sounds better that way...to me, that is .


Anyways, thanks for sharing, this was lovely!

It's a bit surprising that you haven't read any existentialism. Don't spend too much time on books like Being and Time or Being and Nothingness... unless you find they really resonate