Poetry Without Tears : Boy meets Rilke
Jun. 15th, 2004 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalon"Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying."
-The First Elegy
Rainer Maria Rilke
I ran across this hunting down poems on my break. I remember reading it before I went to bootcamp for my lil' stint in the NAV. I was just a teenager then, and I was over at my buddy Skinhead Dave's house. He had a bunch of the German romantics, but flipping through his occult and philosophy books it was the Rilke I dug especially out of the whole bunch.
He lent me a book of his poems and I really dug the images of angels whose love would burst us into flames if ever realized, the simoultaneous horror and wonder of the sky at night, the blending of verse with philosophy, and most of all the rhythm and harmony, which I would later try and emulate in cdjing as well as in my own writings. I usually prefered the terse and tangible American Poets, Carl Sandberg's Chicago or Ginsbergs Howl come to mind, but this had a sweetness that didn't break into sentimentality, I felt a sense of loss but not defeat from these words. I liked that. I like anything that doesn't give up, be it poetry or fighting, Endurance is one of the more appealing aspects of man. I spent most of what little free time I had in Basic writing bad poetry before taps (think a poor mans Douglas P w/hints of E E Cummings). I wince thinking of those verses now, but back then it kept my head in check, kept me from taking the "Yes sirs/NO sirs" personally.
Well that's enough for now, my lunch break is up and Mgt. doesn't quite have the same taste for Rilke that I do.
Ciao.
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying."
-The First Elegy
Rainer Maria Rilke
I ran across this hunting down poems on my break. I remember reading it before I went to bootcamp for my lil' stint in the NAV. I was just a teenager then, and I was over at my buddy Skinhead Dave's house. He had a bunch of the German romantics, but flipping through his occult and philosophy books it was the Rilke I dug especially out of the whole bunch.
He lent me a book of his poems and I really dug the images of angels whose love would burst us into flames if ever realized, the simoultaneous horror and wonder of the sky at night, the blending of verse with philosophy, and most of all the rhythm and harmony, which I would later try and emulate in cdjing as well as in my own writings. I usually prefered the terse and tangible American Poets, Carl Sandberg's Chicago or Ginsbergs Howl come to mind, but this had a sweetness that didn't break into sentimentality, I felt a sense of loss but not defeat from these words. I liked that. I like anything that doesn't give up, be it poetry or fighting, Endurance is one of the more appealing aspects of man. I spent most of what little free time I had in Basic writing bad poetry before taps (think a poor mans Douglas P w/hints of E E Cummings). I wince thinking of those verses now, but back then it kept my head in check, kept me from taking the "Yes sirs/NO sirs" personally.
Well that's enough for now, my lunch break is up and Mgt. doesn't quite have the same taste for Rilke that I do.
Ciao.
