Wish

[Sitaram]

I wish,
As a fish,
That I could drift
Through colored planes
Of sun-soaked seas,
And sift their names
Warm yellow, red,
Cool blue, calm violet stains,
Between my fins and, lifting, know
That only touching me would be
Soft flowing currents,
Flourishes of green all feathery,
Drinking in with tinkling breaths,
Strains of simplest death,
Their clear veins sinking down
To clean, brown sand
And, muffled, sound,
Brown and brown and brown,
The colorless dead with only the chiming
Tendrils, red and yellow climbing,
Upwards, up through planes of color,
Cool blue, calm violet refrains.
And touching me would only be
These things, to drift,
Drift as a fish,
I wish.


- Sitaram

(written Saturday 11:00pm, May 28, 1966)

 

[Gem]

short and sweet, but how you still manage to convey so much description and feeling into it is beyond me. Yet again your work has managed to make me shake my head ruefully whilst I ask myself 'how does he do it?'

 

[Sitaram]

Thanks for your kind words.

How curious that you respond to this particular poem. Just this morning I was looking at a thread here which inquires about "nature novels". I immediately thought of Rachael Carson's The Sea Around Us which I was required to read in 7th grade. Carson's book is not fiction, but rather an oceanographer's documentary for the lay reader. I was carried away by her book, into a twilight world. I am sure her book influence this poem which I wrote in 11th grade.

I had a tropical fish tank, and I watched every episode of Seahunt with Loydd Bridges, and ever documentary by Jaques Cousteau.

 

[nighthawk]

What beautiful imagry Sitaram so easy to imagine drifting
in deep, cool tropical waters amidst rainbows. Thank you for
sharing, lovely poem.

 

[Sitaram]

"Nighthawks" - a painting by Edward Hopper

Your screen name reminded me just now of this wonderful painting by Edward Hopper

http://www.masterpiece-paintings-gallery.com/about-nighthawks.htm

and the play, by Evan J. Blake, based on Hopper's painting:

http://www.heniford.net/1234/3m1f_n.htm

And that play reminds me of "The Iceman Cometh" by Eugene O'Neil

 

[nighthawk]

It was Edwrd Hopper's painting of the man sitting alone at the
all-night bar that inspired the name, Sitaram. I am the late night prowler, I am the Nighthawk! - albeit, female
Yes it is a great painting. I particularly like the way he stands outside in the night, another loner looking in through the window; a story within a story. There is so much to see in that painting. I have a print of it on my wall.
Erm sorry,went on a bit

Now the play and the book intrigue me , thank you!

 

[Sitaram]

This is precisely the place to go on and on. No need for apologies. I would certainly be a kettle to call the pot black, since I am always going on.

As a child, in Connecticut, I would watch the relatively new and experimental Channel 13 PBS. One week, they played Eugene O'Neils "The Iceman Cometh" each night, in its entirety. I watched the performance every night. I was perhaps 13 or 14. I felt certain that this was truly art and literature at its finast, and if only I could imbibe enough of it, and immerse myself in it, why then, one day too would surely write something great and lasting.

Loneliness is such an issue in life. As a sophomore in high school, I was required to read, "The Lonely Crowd". I still remember inner-directed, outer-directed, other-directed. I felt so fortunate to be given such wisdom. Surely this was the epitome of what everything was all about.

Hopper's painting seem to capture such lonliness, such isolation. Each summer, through highschool, I would take a bus into New Haven, and spend hour after hour in the Yale Art Gallery, where they had some of Hopper's paintings, as well as the famous "Scream", by Edvard Munch, , which is an unbelievable small painting, perhaps the size of a paperback, as I remember.

 

[nighthawk]

I wasn't familiar with 'The Lonely Crowd'
so, as a bookaholic, did a quick search and found
the poetry of Fernando Pessoa. His 'Yes, I Know It's
All Quite Natural" gave me a smile. For a lonely isolated
man he seemed to have quite a sense of humour. I only
found a few snippets but I must read more of his work.
- Another book added to my mountain, but that
is why I came to the Forum. Although I don't have any
particluar favourtive poet I do love poetry so Pessoa is a
bonus.

Seems a little off subject as this was regarding your poem
but as you mentioned Scream", by Edvard Munch, not a great
fan of that one, although he does capture the horror in her eyes)
my favourite is 'Ashes'.
Btw are you going to submit more of your poems?

 

[Sitaram]

The Lonely Crowd which I read in 1963 was by David Riesman only.

The latest edition which I find in the search engines is showing 3 authors:

The Lonely Crowd, Revised edition: A Study of the Changing American Character (Paperback)
by David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, Reuel Denney


And, that page also mentions these as book as being similar:

The Organization Man by Joseph Nocera

Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations by Christopher Lasch

The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills

The Theory of the Leisure Class (Dover Thrift Editions) by Thorstein Veblen

Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson

The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith


A recent issue of The New Yorker this past year had a wonderful review of "Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" which an illustration of a man in a suit, with a martini glass in hand, stepping over the dead in a WWII scene.

Here is a legal link from the author's site:

http://www.gladwell.com/pdf/trauma.pdf


The review observed how much alcohol is consumed in the novel. I guess the protagonist was a veteran from World War II.

My stepson attended a school where there was a plaque on the wall commemoration "The Great War", which is what World War I was called prior to World War II.

Einstein, or supposedly said, "I do not know what the weapons of World War III will be, but the weapons of World War IV will be sticks and stones."

Now there is a different notion of "rock-ette launcher" for you. Marving shale!