Music
The poetry of breaking up
Break ups are bad. Ask anyone who’s been through one. It does not have to be true only for those in love. Sometimes, the worst ones are those in which the friends you thought would always be by your side suddenly decide that its not worth it. All of a sudden, the calls stop. The constant meetings are a distant memory. Ultimately, the face that you knew by heart, every line and wrinkle,dissolves in a blur and you are left clutching at straws.
Recently, while going through a friend’s blog, i found this. All of it true, and thankfully, there is a happy ending. But my reasons for writing this piece are different. As much as you dislike the all too human tragedies inherent in breakups, you cannot deny that it makes for some fine art. Many of my favorite songs, poems, even books revolve around it. I am sure all of you can think of a nice breakup song off the top of your head.
I am a big fan of Bob Dylan. Apart from writing some great tunes (Knockin’ On Heavens Door, Blowin In The Wind, Like A Rolling Stone etc etc), he is also a damn fine poet. Many critics consider him to be one of the best poets, all included, of the latter 20th century. I do not consider myself well versed enough in poetry to comment on that opinion. When it comes to poetry, i am just a plebian. Not for me, the wizardry of an Elliot or Keats(though there are exceptions.) The beautiful simplicity of a Blake, Frost or Wordsworth will do for me, thank you. Dylan’s work falls right into the latter class.
Dylan burst into the limelight in the mid 60’s during a time of great upheaval in the US, civil and political. Vietnam, Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement, a lot was happening in those years. Dylan sang songs of rebellion and protest. He sang against racism, for equal rights, against the war and everything else in between. He was anointed as a prophet by his fans, a tag he didnt take to at all. Hence, you ll find little or no love/breaking up songs in his early repertoire.
Inevitably, things settled down. Dylan aged, his fiery youth a thing of the past. He mellowed, replacing some of the anger with a melancholy perspective of life itself. The subjects of his songs became personal. He was no longer at odds with the world. He started looking more and more inwards, at the frailities of himself and others.
Dylan’s later work contains some searing pieces of breakup poetry (is that a new term??.) I ll save those for another day. When I read that piece i referred to earlier, and thought about breakups in general, one lyric came into focus. This is Shooting Star, taken off his Oh Mercy album.
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you.
You were trying to break into another world
A world I never knew.
I always kind of wondered
If you ever made it through.
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you.
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of me.
If I was still the same
If I ever became what you wanted me to be
Did I miss the mark or
Over-step the line
That only you could see?
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of me.
Seen a shooting star tonight
Slip Away.
Tomorrow will be another day.
Guess it’s too late to say the things to you
That you needed to hear me say.
Seen a shooting star tonight
Slip away.
This is a simple poem, so simple that you’d think that you could write it. But like Frost and Blake, its charm lies in the idea behind the lines, not the words themselves. I love the way he has used the shooting star, something so fleeting, so quick, burning out in a daze of light and fire, as a metaphor. Not just to illustrate one idea, but three (the different stanzas.)
You might not need to read any further. Just let the words float in your head. But i am proceeding to write down what i understood and took from those words. You might differ. You are free to.
Obviously, the first stanza refers to the other person. I believe the person who initiated the break up. In every break up, one person believes he/she is doing the right thing, for the common good. There are better things to aspire to, for which the relationship is a hindrance. Like a shooting star zipping across the sky, that person is going to ‘another world’. Did he/she make it?….you ll never know.
One person is left broken. Everything he/she did was relative to the Other. The Other was the inspiration , the reference, the benchmark, everything that he/she looked up to. Now, the Other no longer exists. Time is now a flux. You wonder if you have changed since then, if you have changed in ways she/he would have liked you to. Or did you lose your orbit and ‘miss the mark, overstepped the line’, the line only the Other could see….you ll never know.
Ultimately, the blame doesnt rest on one individual. Both parties are culpable in differing ways. In the end, you have to take your share. You waited for too long to say and do the things which mattered…It is too late now. The time has passed, the moment has lapsed…a moment you could see clearly, bright as the burning embers of that shooting star…now faded and out of sight. It has ’slipped away’ and you wake up to tomorrow, so different from today, another day’. Would things have been different if you hadnt looked the other way?…you ll never know.
Is there someone in your life you need to talk to? Give a ring? Maybe just a smile perhaps….Do it. Dont wait…for him/her to do it first. Dont let your ego come in the way. Grasp this moment, before it too slips away.
Have a nice, safe weekend.
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“Tomorrow will be another day.
Guess it’s too late to say the things to you
That you needed to hear me say.”
I don’t completely agree with this. When it comes to true friends it is never late. Sometimes external or internal factors cause some confusion but next day cloud on uncertainty clears up and everything is back to normal. And the key to the friendship lies in selflessness.
I love the end part and completely agree to it - “Do it. Dont wait…for him/her to do it first. Dont let your ego come in the way.”
Love is mutual and so are break-ups…mutually agreed-on or otherwise. Most often, the latter.
Love is relative and so is the joy it brings. A break-up is absolute…and so is the pain it ensures.
Love can be one-sided and a break-up cant. It can never be.
“Is there someone in your life you need to talk to?”
Yes and I want to. But does he?
“Give a ring?”
Yes I do.It rings endlessly. Nobody respondes.
“Maybe just a smile perhaps”
If a smile is far-fetched, even a glance should do.But does he care to?
“Grasp this moment, before it too slips away.”
Yes, it did slip off. The harder I tried to grasp, the easier it was for him to find his way out. Like the fine grains of sand, held tight within the fist. Open it and nothing is seen. Nothing but an empty palm and the lines of destiny running on it, blurred by the sand that had once rested on them.
Nothing remains but some moaning voices from within, mummed by the void beyond.
A deafening silence.
Break-ups are bad. I agree Geo. I agree Dylan.
i absalutley loved that poem and fully thought it was so true if any body disagrees with that poem then they can get f***ed
hey i think this is the best place to fit in my poem as well……………………………………
Forgiven:-
I still remember the day you left me behind
leaving behind an innocent face standing beside me
always wanting to be aside you.
Your footprints still there ,undusted.
I cannot think why,
because when I ponder over our life that was fragile,
I become imbecile.
Love was all I could shower upon you,
ignoring my inborn weaknesses.
I accept them all………………
I was not beautiful,rich,fruitful and sumptuous in words.
When your eyes used to meet mine with boiling rage,
yellowed by greed of money,
I knew there was a battle to be won.
You may not know how it targeted on me.
There were nights when I never knew sleep,
there were nights when I used to mistaken stars for ghosts.
There were nights,whose creepiness presented me
not the dreams of an azure valley!
And what more,
I burst into tears when our daughter used to
look at me with flooded eyes asking frequently
“Why does’nt daddy love me?”
Many a days i have seen you ignoring me,
young lasses in your arms ,
where I still wish to be.
But there was one thing that hurt me even deeper,
never did the father in you show grace to your daughter.
Even at the moments of her dying pain
she wished to just have a glimpse of you.
But unfortunately she left me sobbing,
and I could feel her clutching my arms for the last time.
How can God ever spare you!
A man of injustice and gluttony.
So brutal and inimical.
Still I wish just to glide your hands over my face.
Why do I still love you?I hate myself.
But now I understand ,
God spared me for this moment.My wish has come true.
You have come back and now
I am at your hands ,
dying,
and I can hear you weeping.
With my last breath ,I am chanting heart fully
“My love,you are forgiven”
submitted by
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.Christina Daisy Philips
hey there is one correction in this poem ,find it out achacha
Forgiven:-
I still remember the day you left me behind
leaving behind an innocent face standing beside me
always wanting to be aside you.
Your footprints still there ,undusted.
I cannot think why,
because when I ponder over our life that was fragile,
I become imbecile.
Love was all I could shower upon you,
ignoring my inborn weaknesses.
I accept them all………………
I was not beautiful,rich,fruitful and sumptuous in words.
When your eyes used to meet mine with boiling rage,
yellowed by greed for money,
I knew there was a battle to be won.
You may not know how it targeted on me.
There were nights when I never knew sleep,
there were nights when I used to mistaken stars for ghosts.
There were nights,whose creepiness presented me
not the dreams of an azure valley!
And what more,
I burst into tears when our daughter used to
look at me with flooded eyes asking frequently
“Why does’nt daddy love me?”
Many a days i have seen you ignoring me,
young lasses in your arms ,
where I still wish to be.
But there was one thing that hurt me even deeper,
never did the father in you show grace to your daughter.
Even at the moments of her dying pain
she wished to just have a glimpse of you.
But unfortunately she left me sobbing,
and I could feel her clutching my arms for the last time.
How can God ever spare you!
A man of injustice and gluttony.
So brutal and inimical.
Still I wish just to glide your hands over my face.
Why do I still love you?I hate myself.
But now I understand ,
God spared me for this moment.My wish has come true.
You have come back and now
I am at your hands ,
dying,
and I can hear you weeping.
With my last breath ,I am chanting heart fully
“My love,you are forgiven”
submitted by
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.Christina Daisy Philips
Hello there,
I have written an article on breaks up on my site. It’s here: http://www.lovenemotions.com/relationships/coping-with-breakups.php
If you like the article, please do link to it from your blog. I mean .. PLEASE. And I will link back to you from that same page. This is a sincere request.
You may remove this comment. I contacted you through this as I did not have any other means of reaching you.
Regards,
Tom