Saturday, July 6, 2024

A glimmer of hope? January 7, 2014

  

She posted another poem last night, breaking silence since her stripping content from her Facebook page.

The combination of her recent poems, her Facebook stripping and her posting of food reviews gives hints of a not-so-quiet desperation taking place behind the scenes.

She is looking for redemption, perhaps putting her hope on the shoulders of some new lover, someone in this poem she claims picked her up from the floor and has not walked over her as typical of other people in her life.

Just prior to her removing content from her Facebook, she had posted something about visiting someone’s restaurant in Lyndhurst (I think), and then, she apparently did a review of the place on her food blog, after which Facebook content vanished.

Her most recent poem seems to fill in the missing pieces and may explain her thought process since her prior poem talked about needing time and needing to believe that redemption was still possible.

It is difficult to tell if this is a poem aimed at the same man over which she has been pining for most of the year or someone new. But the situation clings to this glimmer of hope, and that she this person (new or old) as a possible avenue for salvation.

This may explain why she gutted her Facebook page, severing some of the ties with her old life. She may or may not have intended to do away with her creative Facebook page, but lost it perhaps unintentionally when she got rid of the main page. Since Facebook allowed her to keep in touch with some of her closest friends and family (who may still have access to the interior stuff other have no access to), the loss of the page puzzles me – since she seems to use Facebook at a recruiting tool as well, and this may be the point, shedding those contacts in an act as symbolic as her dumping wine down the kitchen sink drain last summer.

While she still has her poetry blog, I have not checked to see if she removed any poems – which would be relevant in its own rite.

The reinvented person she became last June appears to have been jettisoned, and her effort to reinvent herself again is coming with much less fanfare.  It is difficult to say just who benefits from all this, since the previous effort appears to have been more of a public relations stuff, while this time, she appears to be reaching out in an effort to grab another brass ring, and may well be suggesting she has started a whole new career that has not be tainted by her past.

The new poem’s title plays on an old cliché about being walked on or stepped over.

But she says that even within the “depths of sadness” that comes to both the deepest souls as well as the most shallow, there is a glimmer of hope, perhaps not intended, hiding withing “the din of dismay,” and the daunting drudgery of everyday life,

And there is again the allusion to Shakespeare’s night, “to be or not to be” concept whether is best simply to go to sleep (permanently), her soul remains awake, and aware. This despite her having slept through things in the past, and the “millions of thousands of eons of time” she’s tried and left things behind her, and here she finds peace “resting restlessly” on this glimmer of hope, a dream that persists and exists because someone saw her on the floor and chose to pick her up, rather than walk over her.

At the pit of near despair, even when she does not intend it, this hope exists, despite the disarray of her everyday life, something that defies her wish to give up and go to sleep, this part of her remains away and aware, even during the dull routine of life, and even though she previously stumbled though in a daze for what seems like forever, despite all that she has left behind, hope pursues her in her own quite pace, all because someone stopped to help her rather than exploit her.

Who this is, and what she hopes will come of it, remains a mystery. It may be the love she won then lost, and continued to pursue, or someone new. But the poem along with other poems she posted at the end of the year still talks about her struggle to survive, as she clings to a glimmer of hope that may or may not be real, yet it attributed to someone kind in a world full of otherwise ruthless people

As in many of her other poems, this poem is essentially an internal monologue as she tells herself there is still hope. But it is clear that she is down and out, and her world is in the midst of chaos, as she struggles through the day to day chores. She is trying to reassue herself and points out that someone has made a difference in her life that keeps her from seeking the big sleep.

She makes note that even in the depths of despair there still is some hope, even if it unintended, perhaps hiding or disguised in the “din of dismay” and the daunting daily routine, this hope in her soul defies the urge to end it all.

She contrast images of asleep and awake,” and how a part of her is always awake. “Even when you’ve slept through it,” meaning her soul remains vigilant even as she drags herself through life, partially unconscious at times and at times when she’s tried (possibly meaning to succeed or get somewhere) only to get left behind, and now, whatever peace she expects in the future hinges on this thread of hope – the dream still exists because someone saw her on the floor and stopped to help her.

This poem does not give a lot of specifics, no name to this someone, only that he or she exists.

How all this fits into her severing ties with Facebook, I can’t say. But somehow, it does.

And it suggests impending change that goes beyond her latest effort

Just how she plans to rebuild her life, is also a mystery, perhaps even to her.

I’m not sure if her return to writing about food has put her back onto that track or not.

This poem raises more questions than it answers.


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