Here is one of the first– if not the first–”real” poems that became mine. One of the first that sang to me and probed into a space I only vaguely knew existed, the place where my head and heart come together. I’ve never forgotten it:
“maggie and milly and molly and may”
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
–E. E. Cummings
This is no childrens’ poem–though it’s often presented that way–but a piece that presages and invokes (too) many emotions and obsessions and themes that are a fundamental part of my existence: memory, loneliness, terrifying submerged things, the proverbial world in a grain of sand, inescapable solipsism.
It may simply be me hearing my own musical concoction, the way I alone think that ELO’s Time predicts and recapitulates with forward momentum about a dozen different musical trends (seriously, listen to the three song opening sequence, post-prologue: Twilight – Yours Truly, 2095 – Ticket to the Moon), but but it’s no less real for that. Or maybe that’s as real as it gets.
The antithesis of this example might be “The Walrus in the Carpenter” by Lewis Carroll, aka Charles Dodgson. The poem is squarely aimed at children, and despite it’s insistent silliness carries suspense from line to line and ends with nothing short of a minor catastrophe. The irony of the closing stanza is to me as disturbing as it is entertaining:
“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none–
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.
This might simply be humorous stupidity on the part of the Carpenter; however, combined with the interpersonal indifference that two companions share this comment reveals to me the stark and existential loneliness that both Walrus and Carpenter, though glutted, must walk home with.
P.S. This is not my move.
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