PROUST FAILURE
PROUST FAILURE
Ben Nardolilli
I landed on the muzzle of a can,
My lips like wings in search of sugar water,
The bubbles burned and the juice
Was not as sweet I remembered,
And because the sweetness was missing,
All the memories of previous sugared times
I hoped to return to while drinking
Did not come and I was left
Aware of the present around me,
A new experience no can had given me before:
As dull as a flat and watered down drink.
©2012 This work is the property of the author.
Posted on August 16, 2012, in Ben Nardolilli, POETRY and tagged Poems, poetry, PROUST FAILURE. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
Misfits' Miscellany 
MM welcomes Ben with this, the first of three poems. I’m not sure of the Proust reference, but I do relate to the idea of the senses evoking memories, and how the sense of taste particularly changes as you age leaving you with a memory of something you cannot experience again.
A can of expected primal sweet satisfaction becomes inverted into a vain repetition of a Proustian recherche imbibing a taste of wasted punch- drunk putrefaction, falling for and feeling an object in a glass darkly a distaste for life itself in a object d’art of his existence.A poet relates
to his primal loss of self control, identity,anonymity,autonomy and becomes overwhelmed
with an existential threat to his own purpose driven desires and fears and that sad but human self pity which sanctions him in his happy hour satisfaction of a death wishing repetition-compulsion
of which Proust used for an explanation of his world and society.
Thumbs Up to this Ben.
Thanks!
I’m seeing a bee or perhaps, an ant, resigned to reality, though a bit disappointed. Just move onto another can.
Oh I can really relate to this
Me too. I thought you might also like today’s poem, being about TV.
Will do, still catching up on emails, still you do have the stuff better than milk :) which may of course be malted :)