This is the kind of poem I long to understand but after twenty readings, I do not. Is it the words winding in such a way to indicate the "feeling" of anesthesia?
I agree. There is a message here the author is trying to convey, but now I feel like he is almost withholding too much. I keep trying to tie the possible meaning of the poem with the title--which, by the way, I find intriguing.
At first, I read this looking for deeper meaning. After that I read it again, taking the poem for just what it says, and found it to be a series of comments regarding being a tourist in Europe and more specifically a tourist in Antwerp. I think these comments are merely metaphorical for being a tourist in life. Several lines refer to impossibilities--line such as, "we can't know anyone." Indeed, we can't even know ourselves. Of course it is physically impossible to bring a souvenir of a future war, or of a life not completely lived or understood.
I'd guess that is a comment on the human condition, but as a poet myself, I rather think it is smaller than that. It may well be all the thoughts which went through his head between finding out the museum is closed and seeing it acknowledged by a small gold sign on the door. And the museum itself may be another metaphor for the futility of trying to plan anything in this life.
I'll now join the ranks of those who admitted they didn't get it, but I had the most fun of all of them or, at least, I shared my feeble attempts to decipher.
This is the kind of poem I long to understand but after twenty readings, I do not. Is it the words winding in such a way to indicate the "feeling" of anesthesia?
I don't get it either. But the language is beautiful.
I agree. There is a message here the author is trying to convey, but now I feel like he is almost withholding too much. I keep trying to tie the possible meaning of the poem with the title--which, by the way, I find intriguing.
At first, I read this looking for deeper meaning. After that I read it again, taking the poem for just what it says, and found it to be a series of comments regarding being a tourist in Europe and more specifically a tourist in Antwerp. I think these comments are merely metaphorical for being a tourist in life. Several lines refer to impossibilities--line such as, "we can't know anyone." Indeed, we can't even know ourselves. Of course it is physically impossible to bring a souvenir of a future war, or of a life not completely lived or understood.
I'd guess that is a comment on the human condition, but as a poet myself, I rather think it is smaller than that. It may well be all the thoughts which went through his head between finding out the museum is closed and seeing it acknowledged by a small gold sign on the door. And the museum itself may be another metaphor for the futility of trying to plan anything in this life.
I'll now join the ranks of those who admitted they didn't get it, but I had the most fun of all of them or, at least, I shared my feeble attempts to decipher.