George Bernard Shaw is most famous for his work Pygmalion (which I am yet to read, unfortunately, but I shall!) but today I am going to open your eyes to his poetic side. Most of the poems I have read are easy enough to read but cover very broad aspects of life. This one immediately caught my attention because I have always had a thrill from the feeling of being lost. Even when I was younger, I would purposely try to run from my parents when on walks in the woods, or hide behind racks in shops, always wanting to hear my name on the tannoy to prove I had won. It never happened though; I wasn't very good at hiding, evidently, or maybe my parents were just amazing seekers. Yes I'm sure it's the latter...
Completely Lost
Have you ever had that feeling?
That you are completely lost.
Your mind and senses reeling,
As in a dark foreboding frost.
Nothing but nothing is as it seems,
Words like phantoms come and go.
It is as if all the bizarre dreams,
Have turned your brain to snow.
The ticking of the mantelpiece clock,
Cuts the silence like a knife.
Your mind is in a mysterious block,
You ask yourself is this my life.
Perhaps I am just getting old,
Brain and body gone to pot,
Where are the times that I was bold,
And my brain could solve every plot.
This poem takes me all the way back to my younger years in the woods, at least at the start. And Shaw wants the reader to love that feeling (he addresses the reader in the first sentence), but also to come to fear it as well. It is a positive '[dream]' that, when young, one can be 'bold' in a 'solve' any problem. But as you age that thrill lessens, demonstrated by the cold lexis in 'frost' and 'snow'. And in reality to the older generations, this climate is in fact deadly, leading to hypothermia. So a very real sense of danger is brought through this poem.
He has also kept the sense of the literary; he focuses on 'words' passing through his mind, he wants to solve the 'plot' of his life, he has even got writer's 'block', and perhaps the ticking of the clock is a deadline he feels he must reach with his work, although it also gives the sense of foreboding, with the end of life nigh. 'Knife' augments this fear, with further danger in isolation.
It is important that he mentions 'brain' before 'body', as if the former instrument is most significant and important to him, which is likely as he was an intellectual. It is also interesting to see that the final sentence, which is in the interrogative mood, does not end in a question mark. Perhaps this is to signify the exhaustion of the writer - he can no longer 'solve' anything so why bother? A full stop makes the poem and the narrator's voice seem more final, as if accepting that the end is coming, and he is no longer looking for a way out. The 'plot' of everyone's life must end in death and so there is no solving this one. I guess it's therefore a very honest piece of writing.
I still like getting lost, though.
Completely Lost
Have you ever had that feeling?
That you are completely lost.
Your mind and senses reeling,
As in a dark foreboding frost.
Nothing but nothing is as it seems,
Words like phantoms come and go.
It is as if all the bizarre dreams,
Have turned your brain to snow.
The ticking of the mantelpiece clock,
Cuts the silence like a knife.
Your mind is in a mysterious block,
You ask yourself is this my life.
Perhaps I am just getting old,
Brain and body gone to pot,
Where are the times that I was bold,
And my brain could solve every plot.
This poem takes me all the way back to my younger years in the woods, at least at the start. And Shaw wants the reader to love that feeling (he addresses the reader in the first sentence), but also to come to fear it as well. It is a positive '[dream]' that, when young, one can be 'bold' in a 'solve' any problem. But as you age that thrill lessens, demonstrated by the cold lexis in 'frost' and 'snow'. And in reality to the older generations, this climate is in fact deadly, leading to hypothermia. So a very real sense of danger is brought through this poem.
He has also kept the sense of the literary; he focuses on 'words' passing through his mind, he wants to solve the 'plot' of his life, he has even got writer's 'block', and perhaps the ticking of the clock is a deadline he feels he must reach with his work, although it also gives the sense of foreboding, with the end of life nigh. 'Knife' augments this fear, with further danger in isolation.
It is important that he mentions 'brain' before 'body', as if the former instrument is most significant and important to him, which is likely as he was an intellectual. It is also interesting to see that the final sentence, which is in the interrogative mood, does not end in a question mark. Perhaps this is to signify the exhaustion of the writer - he can no longer 'solve' anything so why bother? A full stop makes the poem and the narrator's voice seem more final, as if accepting that the end is coming, and he is no longer looking for a way out. The 'plot' of everyone's life must end in death and so there is no solving this one. I guess it's therefore a very honest piece of writing.
I still like getting lost, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment