Orbler
Byron Twain
Brenton
Dexter
Jeanne Dininni
Shilpa KarhikTher Art of Drowning by Billy Collins
February 1st 2008 23:44
The Art Of Drowning
by Billy Collins
I wonder how it all got started, this business
about seeing your life flash before your eyes
while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,
could startle time into such compression, crushing
decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds.
After falling off a steamship or being swept away
in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope
for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand
turning the pages of an album of photographs-
you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat.
How about a short animated film, a slide presentation?
Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph?
Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash?
Your whole existence going off in your face
in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography-
nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned.
Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance
here, some bolt of truth forking across the water,
an ultimate Light before all the lights go out,
dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage.
But if something does flash before your eyes
as you go under, it will probably be a fish,
a quick blur of curved silver darting away,
having nothing to do with your life or your death.
The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all
as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom,
leaving behind what you have already forgotten,
the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds
Review in Poem by Dexter
Subliminal death signals, a mystery of afterlife,
The riddled conclusion, a crushed biography.
Bumblebee experience, lightning flashback,
Memories jab in combination, target minds eye.
Liquid assault, lungs collapse, craving one gasp,
A jip, a cunning ironic ruse, the dismantled reality.
A crushing countdown, should be a achievements reflected,
Savoured, a delicate obituary to last eternity.
Yearnings for familiar creative mediums, easily digestiable,
Instead voided purposes surface, floating milliseconds.
Despite all the rumour, questioning the gossip,
Cynical absolutes are always a possibility.
Magic or reality, dead is death,
The fictional soul compensated with practical torsos.
Heaven is man made, natures blissful ignorance,
A balance that sees finite existence and challenged by spiritual hopes.
by Billy Collins
Billy Collins (1941-Present)
I wonder how it all got started, this business
about seeing your life flash before your eyes
while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,
could startle time into such compression, crushing
decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds.
After falling off a steamship or being swept away
in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope
for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand
turning the pages of an album of photographs-
you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat.
How about a short animated film, a slide presentation?
Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph?
Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash?
Your whole existence going off in your face
in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography-
nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned.
Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance
here, some bolt of truth forking across the water,
an ultimate Light before all the lights go out,
dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage.
But if something does flash before your eyes
as you go under, it will probably be a fish,
a quick blur of curved silver darting away,
having nothing to do with your life or your death.
The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all
as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom,
leaving behind what you have already forgotten,
the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds
Review in Poem by Dexter
Subliminal death signals, a mystery of afterlife,
The riddled conclusion, a crushed biography.
Bumblebee experience, lightning flashback,
Memories jab in combination, target minds eye.
Liquid assault, lungs collapse, craving one gasp,
A jip, a cunning ironic ruse, the dismantled reality.
A crushing countdown, should be a achievements reflected,
Savoured, a delicate obituary to last eternity.
Yearnings for familiar creative mediums, easily digestiable,
Instead voided purposes surface, floating milliseconds.
Despite all the rumour, questioning the gossip,
Cynical absolutes are always a possibility.
Magic or reality, dead is death,
The fictional soul compensated with practical torsos.
Heaven is man made, natures blissful ignorance,
A balance that sees finite existence and challenged by spiritual hopes.
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Comment by Garrett451
I wonder if they got their inspiration from this poem.
Comment by Dexter
May well be?
I haven't heard the album to try and see if their is any link but I will try and give it a listen sometime.
Couldn't find anything after a quick search on the net.
Thanks for visiting.