False(B)logic

Black cloak
and scythe are
gone and his
thin countenance
replaced

he lies there
bloated
greasy
mat of hair splayed
across his forehead
skin stretched
tight over rolls
of plenty

not the dry whisper
of rustled leaves
the gurgle of
cream and suger

a laugh crawls past
large lips to
tumble down his chins
death finds us now
not in our want
but in
the luxury of
our pleasures

Took my last final for the quarter today. I don’t think I did bad at all… Scratch that, enough of being negative. I know I did good on the final. If all goes well and I dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s my undergraduate career should be over. I have to wait until July to find out for sure, (waiting truly is the hardest part!) what to do to celebrate? I’m going to play a little on my new XBOX 360 (graduation gift to myself) and then it’s work on my resume, try to get an internship and start studying for the LSATs and prepping for law school application. The learning never ends around here! (my debt is really starting to scare me too! At least at this point it’s all what can be termed good debt) To everyone else out there working on their tests and what not, good luck, carpe diem and all that good stuff, see you at the bars!

Is basically how and what I’m feeling right now. It’s my last quarter at university (for my bachelors degree). I have three finals that I have to pass, two this Saturday and I’m not feeling the confidence. I can’t fuck this up…

I wanted to post some thoughts here on Frost’s most quoted poem ‘The Road not Taken’. I am sure you are already familiar with the poem, you probably heard it at your high school graduation or in some sort of inspirational talk/speech. It’s used as one of those ‘feel good’, ‘everyone’s special’ sort of things. Very saccharine. Here it is to refresh your memory:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

So yeah, a quick read of it and you do walk away thinking, It’s good to take the less beaten path and to be a individual, blah, blah, blah. Read it again. One more time, pay attention to the words used in each verse… Notice anything? Is the poem really what people seem to think it is? I’m beginning to think not.

There are a couple of points that make me think Frost is doing something more subtle here than making some bland statement on being unique. First, the last two lines of the second verse “Though as for that the passing there, Had worn them really about the same.” These lines directly contradict what he has said before about the paths. He states he went on the one ‘less traveled’ but here he states that the two of them are about as the same. The beginning of the next verse is the same. Both the trails are equal, Frost hints that it doesn’t matter which one is taken as the two paths are the same…

So what does that mean when you arrive at the last line, that choosing the one path ‘has made all the difference’? What difference? If the paths are the same, if they don’t have any substantial differences, at least as far as they both can be viewed from the crossing. The difference then only lies in the chooser’s view after the fact. Making the choice completely subjective. I don’t think the poem is about being individualistic or striking out alone off the beaten path at all. Rather it is about viewing the past with nostalgia and a little remorse…