Ins and Outs of Dead Men on the Rivers of Isis (milo, billy)

[Truerenigma]

With all of this in mind, I pictured Orpheus' head still singing from the grave (of course) enrapturing these poor men who were caught up by the song, long dead and wishing to make their journey to the underworld but forever trapped in a kind of misery/joy by the charms of the Orphic singing - hence their lament here.

I find that reading quite profound actually, as it supersedes my intent without bypassing it. In other words, the piece wasn't misunderstood, perhaps understood a bit differently, and you seemed to have gotten far more out of it than I could have expected.

In the interest of workshopping and reciprocation, I am going to take a moment to walk you through my intent.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm already viewing this as a sort of mentoring, as the crit has led to further reading, as well as a better understanding of my own poem and others.


In a second preface I will say that this is a much smaller poem, and in the interest of keeping it somewhat contained, I have focused my edits toward a personal, rather than literary or philosophical understanding, to give the illusion of reality and simplicity.

We wrap the bones in burlap - hide
our skeletons in sweat and blood
under the dust of our outsides.

This is quite simple really. Hiding secrets, the old cliche “skeletons in the closet” comes to mind. Burlap is often associated with preservation as well as horror. I wanted to invoke feelings of fear and intimacy, hence the idea of being under the skin, the intimacy of sweat and blood, etc.

Our heartbeat's thump is locked inside
a storage unit with the crud.
We wrap the bones in burlap hide

.

I was thinking about something rather specific here, objects in storage, curating our secrets separates us from that intimacy a bit. We want to hide them but we don’t want to destroy them.

We box old limbs in chests so wide
they never touch the rotting wood.
Under the dust of our outsides

Originally this stanza was more about keeping secrets, “lying eyes” etc. But I wanted to add to the poem rather than reiterate. I was thinking here in the edit about something one no longer keeps in the house, but is not yet ready to part with, so there is a sort of phantom-limb pain.

There is a larger idea here in the destructive connotations of innumerable limbs and the horror of keeping them. I changed L2 to “a book we never understood” for its existential connotations. I was also thinking about a post-post modern revolutionary verse that remembers both the old and the new while turning away from the new, it’s almost confessional in appearance, but it rejects the confessional, as well as postmodernism, while attempting to contain their ideas within itself. The poem is not concerned with any aesthetic or philosophical revolution or movement outside itself, but rather a new approach to experience within itself.

I also imagined a sort of existential undertaker here, packing up body parts in a war or plague, and the “misunderstood book” can be whatever book is appropriate to the age.

the rain exposes veins in slides
of rock, canyons, boneyards, mud.
We wrap the bones in burlap, hide

I’m sure you've heard the cliche “you've hit a vein” which in mining terms can be taken as either positive or negative, depending on whether you are the miner, or the earth. Rain contains more ambiguity, or ambivalence, in tone. It can be taken as a renewal, or its symbolic associations with tears and depression.

ourselves in weathered pelt applied
to vessels stoppered for the flood.
Under the dust of our outsides

I think this is rather obvious, as well as its allusions to flood mythos.

the dead man dies again inside -
his phallus is a lifeless stud.

So we've got some internal and external conflicts, some grand and some personal, eating away at us. I included the phallus as an allusion to Osiris/Iris. Osiris was cut up into many pieces by Set, and Iris found them and put him back together. She couldn't find his phallus though. In some versions of the mythos she crafted one for him out of gold. I also included it to give the feeling of something uncomfortable, intimate and personal, that most would refrain from talking about. In many ways the poem is concerned and obsessed with growing old and dying, and all the smaller “deaths” in between. Osiris is constantly dying and being resurrected, and his consciousness is considered a separate entity from himself, the phallus and other things in here represent a sort of materialistic approach.

Consequently only Plutarch tells the story with the phallus missing btw, which is not accurate to the original Egyptian mythos, so also hence a book we never understood. I double checked and one need only Google and Wikipedia #Isis to follow that story so I don't see it as a problem. It is a poem of preservation (one of the greatest responsibilities of a poet, IMO) and subversion.

We wrap his bones in burlap, hide
under the dust of our outsides.