(from an alternative journal)
Her most recent poem posted yesterday appears not to be sending any particular message to anyone but herself, less revealing about past or future hopes than poems she’s posted over the last few months, and more about her state of mind.
This poem’s tone like its content is quieter than some of the previous poems. She is making an observation about her life at that moment, finding irony in her own thought process, and how she is somewhat out of step with the rest of the world.
She is awake even before those who get up early at a time when the world is quiet even cold. It is a moment when time either stretches or rushes by in a blink, when she is on the verge of making some discovery which only reveals itself at that time of day.
The speaker is very reflective. She doesn’t reveal what conclusion she comes to, only observation of the process and the time.
Unlike some of her other poems which talk directly to another part of herself or even at times to me, in this poem she seems to be talking to a wider, unspecific audience. If she intended it as a message to me, it is very impersonal.
It is unclear what prompted this poem, except maybe that it continues from her last poem in that she is searching for some revelation that has yet to come to her, a search for affection, or if in the poem prior to that, her considering the implications of living alone without love.
It is early in the morning – 3 or 4 a.m. She is most likely still in bed, listening to the silence, struggling to keep warm against the chill of the night. She is trying to make sense of that moment, how “time does funny things,” twisting into longer and shorter durations.
Time is an entity of its own, some spiritual being that brings with it hints of answers she is struggling to find, but as with time that she once said was crazy, elusive and clever, time here does not seem to be me.
The poem as two verses, the first setting the scene – what time of day, her place in that world. The second verse characterizes time and its oddity, like some slithering illusive being that changes shape and duration so that it can’t be counted on, full of revelations she can get at no other time or place.
The use of pouring bath or coffee defines the ordinary world and how other people get ready to face the reality of the day. She is also awake when others are sleeping.
She says time twists, stretches and shrinks. And at these times her mind is on the verge of revelations only found at such a “bleak and abundant” time.
This implies that the mind doesn’t quite get the revelation, and seems to be wrestling with time, knowing that this is the moment she will get it, if she can get it at all.
“Bleak and Abundant” stands out as one description of time.
This is not a panic poem, but not one of joy. She seems isolated and alone, looking for something she can’t find, but doesn’t incorporate others into this. She is alone, in the remote morning, struggling to get answers from a recalcitrant time, knowing that she can only find it here if at all.
Cold, quiet, bleak are words that set a lonesome tone to the poem, isolating her from the world and from others. While everyone else gets on with their daily lives or is sleeping, she is awake, thoughtful, wrestling to get the secret time keeps from her.
As with most of her poems, this poem is suggestive rather than making any definitive statement about the condition of her life. But in this, there are implications that she is not satisfied with where she is, what she is doing, or whom she is with, and that there is a distance between her and other people – even those who think they are very close to her.
There is also the sense that despite her numerous friends, men and women, she is still alone with herself in that early morning hour, struggling with her own thoughts.
This like other poems suggests a disconnect from the persona she gives out to others and from what is really going on inside of her, and that she is hardly as naïve as her demeanor would suggest – perhaps all that being an act from the start.
This assumes, too, that her poems are a more accurate portrayal of what she thinks or feels.
This poem like her other writing tends to lack emotion, a cool intellect, that seems to analyze the world.
If this poem is meant to convey anything to me – as other poems have – it is saying that she really feels isolated, leading to the next question (again assuming that she is speaking to me) why she needs for me to know this.
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