I recently saw this poem on Twitter:
I’d seen this line before — “Don’t hope for things elsewhere: there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.” — but I’d never actually read the poem it came from. So of course, I immediately went to Amazon and bought the collected works. The book came yesterday and I’ve been flipping through it since, reading this poem, in particular, a half-dozen times.
I love this poem for many reasons. To start: There’s no warm-up or idling. You jump straight into the scene, which is both a snippet of a conversation as well as the summary of a life, its delusions and hopes.
But who is this “You”? It could be the reader, but then again, you (the reader) never said all this (or have you, only in so many other words?). It’s probably a friend of the speaker’s, and even then, there’s this subtle uncertainty — the poem is addressed to “you,” yet the speaker doesn’t dare say his actual thoughts him out-loud. He’s hiding his appraisal at the same time he shares it. An appraisal full of both earnest advice (stop thinking the grass is greener) as well as swift damnation (too late, you’re already such a whiner, life will always be hopeless and stale, etc.).
As a reader, the poem may not be directed at you or “about” you in any literal way — yet doesn’t it just hit you square in the face? Doesn’t it force you to confront your own homespun illusions about all the things you’ve been putting off until tomorrow, when life will suddenly (and finally) match the dream you’ve always had?
So many of Cavafy’s poems are like this. Little scenes and snippets (often pulled from Ancient Greek myths), given a modern once-over that makes them feel oddly immediate and eternal, both extremely conversational and yet serious and high-minded.
The books I love best always make me want to write. I believe bad imitation is one of the most tried-and-true ways of finding your own voice. So after a night of reading Cavafy, I got up and wrote this this morning. It’s a bit of a bummer, inspired by a terrible headline I saw recently, but I hope you enjoy.
The news
You can imagine the look on his face,
More confused than afraid, the terror yet to set in
As the man puts the gun to his temple and shoots.
No one thinks it will happen to them.
And even those who do — they expect the thought
To ward it away. A warning is expected. Some chance
To prepare. In this case, a parakeet
Warbling in the trees. An empty intersection, a glance
At the map. The clatter of stolen boots through the mud.
And then the clock-like knocking of a gun against the glass.
He was pulled to the ground by his hair.
They tell him they’re taking his car in a language
He half-understands. The keys are in someone else’s hands.
Maybe it’s the movies he’s watched. It could
Have been his belief that most people are good.
His unspoken assumption no one wants him to die.
He’s a golden-skinned boy who just turned thirty-five.
Someone immune to poetry, to remorse, to extra planning
And complaints. Does he think it’s just a prop? Or that
It’s somehow his choice?
This line in the report will haunt his mother forever:
“He was killed in a struggle for his car.”
Would they have just let him go? Did they need
To saw his head off and leave his body in a well?
He’s smiling in every photo framed on every shelf.
It makes it hard to imagine the look on his face
In that meteor instant when he realized
Life was done and he’d made a mistake.
But he needs you to imagine the look on his face
For otherwise he will never be seen again.
That’s it for now. Thank you for reading, as always.