6 | "Two oblivions" [vers libre]

I used the phrase "really oblivious"
in the second of these poems
and now I'm thinking oblivion
merits further consideration
one may associate it with the
movement of Romanticism

a vogue almost a fetish a
trendish popularization of
a toned-down version (maybe
think now Maxfield Parrish)
of ecstasy -- the urge to get
out of the rut of the familiar

in the 4th poem there's a line
"but the poem doesn't remember"

this too points to a certain
idea about what oblivion means
the first thought is that I might
become oblivious of practical life
if I seek out the life of the poem
the second thought is about how

the poem exhibits selective memory
regarding the mundane world
that befilled my human past --
so these are two oblivions and
they face in differing directions
don't they? are they moral failings?

there's an oblivion the poem seems
to offer generously to those disposed
to quaff of its fictive cup but the
poem's other oblivion its selective
memory its idealizing the scenes
of vanished life -- interests me