it's always been one of my favourite poems, mainly because i have often had serious identification with it, Stevie Smtih knew what she was talking about here, the whole world thinks you are going fantastic, but you feel overwhelmed and out of your depth. it must be a natural condition, all great literature reflects the true nature of life as a mixture of elation and suffering and still i know so many people who simply can never admit to fraility, to failure, to the possibility that they may be wrong.
Maybe self delusion and deluding everyone else is the way to go, maybe it's always fantastic, maybe every bridge is spannable.... or maybe that type of thinking is what produces wankers like glen hoddle (who famously said that disabled people must have brought it upon themselves in a past life)
I met a woman today who said she was not sending her child on a school bus again, because one crashed yesterday and a child was killed.
perhaps she should never drive again - cos someone died in car crash yesterday too, or never eat meat again, or never go to a festival again, or never wander out the feckin door..... people seem to think they can somehow eliminate risk or luck or chance or fate from thier lives... they seem to think they can control these things.
those people are mad i tell you... mad...mad mad.. these are the people who never fall in love because they may get hurt, who never play the game because they may lose, who never take a chance because they may fail, who never connect with anyone in case they get dissapointed.
thye world needs more chancers, more devils, more people who are willing to explore beyond thier narrow field of experience, because life is about getting too far out, it's about occassionally feeling afraid, it's about trusting madly, it's to do with having a go, taking a chance, giving it a lash, anything else is just death before life... and those gobshites who are always on about a life after death, there the very ones who don't know how to live the one they already have........ looking for some sort of religious insurance policy....anyway... that;s my longest rant for a while... i'll leave you with the text of stevies poem.
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
