Thursday, December 03, 2009

My Destroyer



"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer."

Dylan Thomas

15 comments:

Andy D. said...

Excellent photo. Love this.

Technoprairie said...

What do those lyrics actually mean?

This literal engineer who once made fun of "La Strada" does not get it.

Andy D. said...

Literal engineering translation: "It's not so much the birds and the bees, as the plants. And the photosynthetic process is trying to kill us humans."

My writer's embellishment: "Especially people who photograph our private moments up really really close, and tell the world about our plans through their blogs."

See, we've already discussed that the zombies are gonna wreak havoc. Turns out it's the plants.

Hypothesis: The zombie is just a literary, macabre metaphor, for the plant and it's evil plans.

Think about it. Slow moving... Meat eating... Here longer than we humans have been.... Silently plotting... Rotting yet still alive...

It's the plants, people.

Mike Bailey said...

Honestly, I don't know. I still love it and always have from the first time I read this poem in early college. If I had to guess what it means, however, I'd say this: sex brings both life and death.

Thus the photo.

Susan Hasbrouck said...

Pretty much. It's a gorgeous poem that takes you dizzy through the waxing and waning of life. Man and all things nature, both born and propelled forward to death by the same "force." The narrator refers to himself as dumb, as though incapable of truly comprehending this reality, perhaps.

It's as raw in its natural cloak as Delmore Schwartz's "Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day" is in its more personal and urban setting. From this one I get a similar feel from the great lines, "Time is the school in which we learn. Time is the fire in which we burn."

Mike Bailey said...

justcurious: thank you, genius.

andy d: thank you, honky

Andy D. said...

A haiku:

sex
don't bring
def,
Jack*ss.

Susan Hasbrouck said...

Edit: But not dumb, as in dim; dumb as in not capable of expressing. See, it's catching.

P.S. If you don't mind me encouraging Andy, I think D. Thomas should have gone with Haiku!

Mike Bailey said...

Andy D: Based on this show of talent, please know you are always welcome to post haikus on this blog. Well done. And as you can see, Justcurious agrees.

Because you're funny. You amuse me. Like a clown.

Unknown said...

Georgia O'Keeffe claimed that her large flowers were never intended to be vaginal. Good for you...stand proud and say this is a phallus!

Sex = Death
this is the title of the talk I will give to my little guys when they hit puberty.

Mike Bailey said...

Julie: I feel like the boy with a half-eaten cookie in his hand and his mouth full, and his parents ask him, "did you just take a cookie?!"

And with cookie spraying out of his mouth, he says, "No. Why do you ask?"

Because I want to say, well, the plant isn't just phallic, it's just that it COULD be. That certainly wouldn't be my intent. But that kind of statement would sort of run counter to every other bit of evidence that I, myself, have put up here. So I think would I should really say is: What cookie?

Is the whole cookie in the hand and mouth thing just making this oh so much worse?

And as for you and your boys and your future talk about sex, here's what I say: That comment made me laugh out loud. Not the "lol" that doesn't really mean that. I mean literally. Very funny. And it's just the talk you should deliver, I think. It's certainly the talk I'll be giving to the boys who date my daughters.

Unknown said...

Deny it all you want. Both Chuck and Georgia are turned on by this picture.


(Chuck wrote the above comment when I shared this picture with him. Sorry...)

timekeeper said...

It certainly makes me rethink your title "My Destroyer". Is that what you are calling it now?

Squash said...

Is this turning into one of *those* blogs?

Mike Bailey said...

Timekeeper: !!!!!!!

Oh, and !!!!!!!

Plus, ?!?!?!?

Guh!

Squash: I didn't think so, but maybe Timekeeper thinks it is.