Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Drizzle" by William Matthews draws upon a line by Charles Baudelaire-"The dead, the poor dead, have their bad hours"-to explore the notion of time and its various manifestations in life, death, and even therapy. Matthews' poem is an eclectic mix of epigrammatic statements, interwoven languages, and allusions that generate a multifaceted tapestry of existential concerns.

The poem opens by challenging Baudelaire's line, suggesting that the dead have "no watches, no grief and no hours." Immediately, Matthews highlights the disconnection between the living and the dead, positing that our conception of time is a construct that loses relevance once life ends. This sets the stage for the exploration of how time affects the living in various circumstances.

The narrator begins by discussing how quitting smoking consumed all his "time." There's a sense of irony here. Time, often considered precious, is taken up by the absence of an activity. The absence becomes an event, suggesting that emptiness or negation can be just as influential as action, affecting how we perceive and spend time.

The poem's middle stanzas shift to language and class issues, intertwining phrases in Latin and English. The Latin phrases-Per diem, Pro bono, Cui bono, Pro rata-suggest formal, even legalistic, delineations of time and benefit. However, Matthews notes that "the poor use English," indicating that the complexities and inequalities of life boil down to simpler, more direct experiences for those not privy to the advantages of education or affluence.

The mention of the "psychoanalytic hour," limited to fifty minutes, throws another curveball into our understanding of time. In this setting, time is a controlled environment, both a sanctuary and a restriction. It can hold immense power to heal or unsettle, yet it adheres to its own arbitrary limits.

The lines about "vengeance" unfold as a musing on possession, shifting through various pronouns: mine, yours, his or hers, ours, and theirs. It's as if Matthews tries to contain the elusive concept of retribution within slices of time, spread across different subjects. Yet, the tone suggests futility, mirrored by the interjection "yikes!" It's as if to say, "How complicated this all gets!"

The poem concludes with a depiction of a cat, who after "twenty minutes fleeing phantoms," coils and sleeps "for hours." This final scene juxtaposes natural, instinctual behavior with the human-made complexities of the preceding stanzas. Animals do not suffer the psychological, social, or ethical quandaries that humans do; they exist in a purer, more straightforward relation to time.

"Drizzle" operates in the liminal space between philosophical speculation and everyday experience. It's a meditation on how time, so often quantified and categorized, resists easy definition or limitation. Whether concerning life changes, socioeconomic conditions, therapeutic encounters, or moral complexities, time remains a mutable entity, colored by human perception and need.

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...