Long-term dividends
I cannot speak for all poets, but I find most of my inspiration for writing comes from other artists’ work. Some poets, some filmmakers, some musicians, some painters, some novelists. I do not pretend to understand the complicated web of inspiration, of ideas ingested and altered. I do know that this process seems more like the creation of gems, or the germination of a seed: something hidden, invisible, requiring raw materials and various forces. Poems come unbidden like shoots when the ground thaws, like diamonds deposited in a riverbed.
I first read Michael Moorcock’s The Black Corridor about five or six years ago. I enjoyed the story then and still do. It, however, is a story that I just don’t get. I feel, when I read it, that there is some element to it, some crucial part, that escapes my attention. At the very least, it will keep me going back to that book and has resulted in this poem. Enjoy, and as always, feel free to comment as you wish.
The Black Corridor
based on the Michael Moorcock book of same name
Standing at the window
the only familiar image
I see
is my reflection.
The crowd below
ripples like rocks
have been thrown into it.
The creatures scurry like ants
and I do not know
that they are not
ants, but people.
As the buildings burn,
as modern life
burns,
as life
burns,
the sunset is died the red
of a martyr’s blood,
but at this late juncture
we cannot expect any sort of
resurrection
for humanity.
Some precious few of us
may
pierce the side of the sky
like the tip of a spear
and leave our choked corpses
below another rock.
I pilot a ship of steel
with sails of copper
and no course
can keep me near the shore.
Sirens and Furies call,
not to me,
but to compass and sextet,
twist astrolabe so magnetic north
is fixed to the river Styx.
Though we left a burning plain
we have only paid Charon
for a fancier barge
as our conveyance
across the river of stars.