Tribute to John Clare.

I love the poem "I Am..." by John Clare, also the fact he spent the last years of his life in my home town. I think his work (especially the piece mentioned above) is so moving.

I am; yet what I am no one cares or knows...

My friends forsake me like a memory lost;

I am the self-consumer of my woes.

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Likes shades in love and death’s oblivion lost;

And yet I am! And live with shadows tost.

 

He wrote, while sitting on the portico of our All Saints Church; one of our great churches.

And seemingly somewhere to find inspiration.

We are alike, me and John; not just writers or poets.

We are more than that, much more.

 

Did it help the pain, to write all those lines?

Did it ease the voices of self doubt as the words flowed?

They called him insane and locked him away.

Today he would be called a genius...

But some of us already new that.

 

I often sit and think of him.

As I write my pain away, as I try to silence the voices.

I wonder what he thought of Northampton life.

If he liked it here, and wished to stay; or did he wish ~ like many ~ to be gone as soon as he could?

 

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;

And even the dearest �" that I love the best �"

Are strange �" nay, rather stranger than the rest.

 

I often wonder just what gets me though.

Why have I not been committed too?

Is it luck that keeps me free, or am I actually imprisoned while free?

 

I long for scenes where man has never trod;

A place where woman never smiled or wept;

There to abide with my creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;

The grass below �" above the vaulted sky.

 

I long to rest easy, to feel the freedom others around me have.

I know he felt this too. His words will tell you as much ~ if you chose to see them!

I hope he has found his freedom, peace and place.

I only hope that I can find mine.

 

(I Am by John Clare © 1793 �" 1864) © Nicky D Sarti August 2012.

Author's Note

Just to make it clear the parts in red are from John Clare's poem "I Am..."
The parts in blue are my own work.

Reviews

[John Phoenix Hutchinson..]

They called him insane and locked him away.
Today he would be called a genius...

I like this concept of the red and blue and writing a commentary poem in between another work might have a go at that myself

[Nicky Sarti]

Thanks kindly for your comments.
Glad they have inspired you to try.
Let me know when you do, would like to see it.