Tuesday 18 September 2012

Day 88: Disillusionment of Ten O' Clock


Oh, I am still suffering from the seasonal changeover. The liveliness and colours of summer now fading into a quiet gathering of darkness. Especially the evenings, where life seems to still prematurely. 

But I've found the perfect poem for it.  Disillusionment of Ten O' Clock - what a great title - from modernist maestro Wallace Stevens, a comment on life without imagination.


Disillusionment of Ten O' Clock - Wallace Stevens

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches Tigers
In red weather. 

1 comment:

  1. When I started reading "Disillusionment of Ten'OClock," by Wallace Stevens, I immediately thought of the Klan as the description of white sheets haunting a house is what my mind went to automatically. It's this time we are in that has me thinking in this way. This is a free verse that I had a lot of time trying to figure out but I love a challenge in researching poets and their meanings. When I think of Ten'OClock, I think of night time already tucked in my bed. I may drift off in imagining things that are not there or reciting my entire surroundings to myself. I feel that this poem is a prime example of conscious thinking when not really thinking of anything at all. The imaginations of the surroundings depict vivid imagery as to what is being seen at the moment.

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