An Interpretation In The form Of Footnotes

7. Like Orpheus Lost In The Underworld? (17)

In the vast cavernous systems of the metro
this train flew through those tunnels
that honeycomb the ground under Paris.
Soon a series of well known landmarks
announced themselves on the placards
that signalled each new station.
Such recognition climaxed in a feeling
that I had `arrived,' but alas, only
the rumbling hum of activity greeted me
in this dim world of souls in transit.

Moving forwards, forever moving forwards,
all gaze averted, who is there to see me,
like Orpheus lost in the underworld..?

Am I really here, have I really arrived?
Stepping out I tested my luck in returning
to the world above, a simple task I thought
but undertaken with some slight difficulty.
Twice I have travelled through the wrong exit
trapped in the perplexity of this recycled circuit.
Then behind me a female voice addressed myself
in a well cultivated English, "if you are going
to the Louvre today you needn't bother,
they are still on strike and queues 
of tourist are merely waiting on the off chance
that they might be let in if this tedious
force of wills should ever break."

Before walking on, returning to where
I came from, I thanked this disembodied voice,
like Orpheus I had turned to look behind...

A succession of famous churches then followed,
or rather, more by proxy for my proximity
to their foundations was now merely accidental,
my inner ear rehearing the wonderful voices 
of their organs, the thought of merely standing 
before them, even in silence, leaving me enthralled.
The earth offered no resistance to our passage,
from one side to the other of this invisible city
in the space of half an hour I went from one
free concert to another, a succession of buskers
entertaining me along the way, some good and
some dreadful, with a smattering of poets
reciting a verse or two too well remembered
to deserve an up front fee, people preferring
to tap their feet to the simple swing of a dance
with a glance at their neighbour from time to time.

The past continually re-presents itself,
the future unwraps each moment
like a gift standing out of time enraptured...

The poster reproductions from the museum above
seemed like old friends from the past,
animated by the shadows of the less hurried.
In the nooks and crannies lingered the living dead,
or dying, folk who, alas, must call this place 
their home; in the streams of people barely noticed, 
but, in passing, noted all the same.

What is not given cannot be taken,
yet never forsaken, always forgiven, 
never leaving the stranger someone completely 
								 unknown...

Fleeing the dimming recesses of my mind,
on automatic, taking the right re-connections,
I now long for the restfulness of my hotel bed.
Echoing in my footsteps follows the sounds
of someone else, dare I look behind, alas,
in anguished philosophical trepidation realize
I can never ever look behind, look back!
Are we not forever cursed to never see directly
what might truly stand and move behind us? 
Would our eyes be thought blessed if they 
could see just themselves, is it not our fate 
that only through those magic eyes of others 
can we then start to see ourselves, find 
ourselves already in the embrace of the `other?'

I thought the shadow of my shadow was my only friend, 
always to be re-discovered the scented promise
of the present that can never be returned only 
							 `taken (a)back...'

A smile, some other simple signs of recognition
encounter another guest from the same hotel,
finding safety in the company of each other. 
The warmth of our conversation speeding both of us
on our way through the bright grey, night-time streets 
of Paris, the sweet smells of fresh oven baked bread 
eliciting the promise of breakfast together 
and the prospect of some mutual sightseeing 
renewing the infinite ways we see each other 
seeing each other seeing ourselves...

All mankind, however, forever unlike Orpheus,
have yet to see behind themselves, 
for all time, in repetition, still left merely 
	finding themselves 
		finding themselves 
			finding themselves...
				"like shadows fleeing 
					the dissolving darkness..." 

Some Concluding Hermeneutic Comments

	The significance of a poem, or of any text for that matter (whether with respect to aspects of its sense, types of reference invoked, the nature of its provocative mechanisms, etc.) is generated between its textual elements and between its levels of textuality. A text stranded from its meta-textual roots is also a text displaced from its non-textual location in the non-textual world of its application, the realm of the reader, that sphere of resistance met when a text is not found to be in conformity with that which it might parallel be it a canon of recognized texts, our general textual re-presentation of the total universe of possible discourse, the overall realm of direct perceptual experience (had through the sense of the ongoing present), etc. 
	Perhaps it may seem obvious to point out the experiential fact that when a text ceases to release additional hermeneutic value we naturally disengage ourselves from its embrace. Mere conformity, mere repetition, is one way a text de-presents itself to us. Before long we loose our interest and with it that particular series of re-presentations. Equally, in the other extreme, the sheer repetition of that which differs too greatly from the re-presentation of that identity under examination will also create the effective de-presentation of that textual presentation.
	To conclude let me note that usually a text is meta-textually presented and therefore cannot be absolutely displaced from this mode of presentation regardless of whether it is introduced by virtue of a title, a preface, its containment in a certain type of book, etc., although such an introduction also does not allow us to absolutely appropriate that text. When a text reaches an adequate degree of appreciation in its field of imputed application it has effectively re-located itself, re-populated itself and re-transformed itself in apparent concordance with its exhibited and closely examined provocative structural-functions. Such a text subjected to such careful treatment is effectively both well-constructed and well-read. A mutual dialectic re-establishing both the re-construction and re-reading of that text!