Verses Versus

Welcome to another edition of Annotated Poetry Corner. You may remember previous editions from your English lessons, or from inside my head (if you've ever been there).

This week, one of my favourites:

The Second Coming by WB Yeats
[my notes in blue]


Turning and turning in the widening gyre
[Unnecessary repetition of the word 'turning'. We get it, Bill. Sheesh.]
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
[Of course: birds don't have ears]
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
[Shopping centre? Health centre? Why can't they hold? Shoddy masonry?]
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
[Phew. I was worried for a moment.]
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
[Menstruation allegory?] The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
[I had a ceremony of innocence once. Well, I say innocence. It was more a ceremony of casting innocence into sharp relief. ... I went to a strip club.]
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
[eg. Wayne Rooney]
Surely some revelation is at hand;
[Oooh! A twist! He's a clone's ghost!]
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
[Derivative...]
The Second Coming! [Yeah, yeah...] Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
[YOU'RE a waste of desert sand, you nonce!]
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
[Lion-O from off of Thundercats! Wait, that was the other way round...]
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
[Or olives]
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
[Probably because they can't hear. The desert falconer, or... y'know. Whatever.]
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty[-one] centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
[If this cradle's a rockin', don't... hang on]
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
[Some kind of sandpaper ox? I don't know. I'm thirsty.]

***

I don't know about you, but I've never been more annoyed with myself than I am after reading that. What an idiot. Not funny, just obnoxious.

I'm sorry.

Oh well, even the best of us have days where we make people want to punch us. If you see me, feel free to punch me in the face. I won't complain. I'll thank you.