The Rise and Fall of Icarus

Daniel O'Dempsey 1994 (Birmingham)

Free verse

I know what this is.

This is just me talking to myself about myself.

See,
I want more for less.
Time and money and effort than I put in.
You expect grand things to happen when your energy runs thin?
You create aspirations so high,
You join the ranks of Icarus,
Before you plummet from the heavens,
The glue you used to fasten those wings,
Well,
It just wasn't the stickiest.

So now you find you've landed back down in a time,
Cold,
Before Prometheus,
Gifted us with warm and light,
To give us life,
But all you face is the bitter taste,
That comes with a lack of conviction.

An absent,
Abyss,
Of momentum less,
Silence.

It's a bit like the moment before the big bang,
I ask,
"Where is my catalyst?"
It's a naive question,
We are our own catalysts,
Well I am.

But I've been locked inside a feud,
Just like the Capulets and Montagues for,
Well,
What feels like a lifetime now.

Consumed,
By the everyday luxuries and amenities,
Of the first world population,
Screens like shrine,
Light up gloriously each night for downtime.

Well,
That's what they used to be,
Hell,
At least for me,
Now those fibre optics whisper in my ear, At breakfast and afternoons,
You see,
Don't get me started about evenings.
There's no more board games,
Just bored brains,
Eyes lost within the mixing pot,
Dissolving into pixelated screens each day.

But they'll keep you happy though,
And they'll keep you safe because,
You can't rise to disappointment when you're lost within my new,
72 inch,
4K,
Landscape.

Don't resign yourself to try and be great,
Just wash yourself,
In my blue tinge,
Electric light,
That makes you feel great.
You see,
Things aren't gonna change overnight,
But we can start to build foundations that we can walk upon,
We'll turn them into steps,
And focus,
And in the long run,
As we see Icarus fall past our sides,
We'll say, They should have built steps, Before they tried to fly.

About this poem

The premise for the poem is one of biographical experiences based on my life and my opinions on my surrounding climate in the form of a social commentary. This narrative through the lense of a neurodiverse person. The struggles society has and the perpetual cycle that we struggle with concerning the ability to commit to a decision or pursuit only to see our efforts come crashing down, falling from the sky leaving us ragged and ruined and reflective that, in hindsight, we would have taken smaller steps to reach our milestones. more »

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Submitted by oddanw on November 06, 2022

Modified on March 05, 2023

: 2:10 min read
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Quick analysis:

Scheme	a b cdeefgxhIj kxalxxm xxdx xxjmxx xxIx xxmxk IcicxChxxxn xxxxnx obxloClxxgmxf
Closest metre	Iambic trimeter
Characters	1,948
Words	417
Stanzas	11
Stanza Lengths	1, 1, 10, 7, 4, 6, 4, 5, 11, 6, 13

Full analysis for The Rise and Fall of Icarus »

Daniel O'Dempsey

My practice is centred around the notion of storytelling, social inclusion, mindfulness and myth making. I work with a range of materials and found objects sourced from streets, skips and my surrounding landscape. I also work with more conventional materials. I have adapted areas of my practice so that it is concurrent with my pursuit towards sustainability. My work encompasses painting, performance, poetry, photography, sculpture, collage, installation, music and film. I am curious about how we inhabit space and what this means and investigate this by creating multi sensory installations that encourage people to converse, interact and engage with one another. My installations are usually temporary, where I curate and occupy public spaces for short periods of time. The documentation of my installations are therefore fundamental to the process and often instils the final body of my work in the form of digital material. Ephemerality and the idea of mortality are continuous themes in my practice tracing back to my teenage years and my battle with non-hodgkin's lymphoma. The physical nature of my work reflects passages of these experiences reinforcing my curiosity and appreciation for what we consider insignificant and ordinary, themes that have been heightened due to my awareness of the fragility and lack of control we have over our own existence. Existentialism is a discussion that is evident throughout my practice. As a neurodiverse person with ADHD and Tourettes I inadvertently discuss this in my work, through passing words and illustrated prompts in paintings. I am intrigued by our link to technology in the present day and how it is so embedded in our culture. I investigate concepts of modern day spirituality and religion and often reference pop culture and social commentaries that depict and discuss other aspects of our modern day society. more…

All Daniel O'Dempsey poems | Daniel O'Dempsey Books

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