Thursday, January 23, 2014

Week 2-Poems Galore

I am amazed at the complexity of poems. The power and pleasant meanings of poems alone. Going through homework I came across "Fire and Ice" and "Running on Empty". Simple poems with relatable and mind opening meanings.
Fire and Ice
Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
 
Within these lines Frost compares hate to destructive ice. Hate and bitterness can take over a person. Dictate their lives to an emotionally unhealthy unstableness. Hate has caused several conflicts and life loss within history. A person's heart fueled with rage, hate, and bitterness, is a heart fueled with coldness. Hate is "Destruction Ice".
 
RUNNING ON EMPTY
Poem by Robert Phillips
As a teenager I would drive Father’s
Chevrolet cross-county given me

Reluctantly: “Always keep the tank
Half full, boy, half full, ya hear?”

The fuel gauge dipping, dipping
Toward Empty, hitting Empty, then

–thrilling—way below Empty,
myself driving cross-county

mile after mile, faster and faster,
all night long, this crazy kid driving

the earth’s rolling surface,
against all laws, defying chemistry,

rules, and time, riding on nothing
but fumes, pushing luck harder

than anyone pushed before, the wind
screaming past like the Furies…

I stranded myself only once, a white
Night with no gas stations open, ninety miles

From nowhere. Panicked for a while,
At a standstill, myself stalled.

At dawn the car and I both refilled. But,
Father, I am running on empty still.

The teen feels stuck, feeling stranded. He might have refilled but he still runs on empty, lives life going through the motions and not living life fulfilled. The teen seems to be searching for fulfillment traveling in his Cheverolet, searching for an answer that even when refilled he feels empty but still running on empty. The teen wants to be fulfilled without an empty feeling.

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