Only the other day the vividity was insane
The world my eyes see was smelting/melting
& the world my I's see was smelting/melting
But just then, as I found my centre
The Fantasia of old would hardly enter
It was enough of the stuff & much more than most men
Yet a part of me wants back to that fantastical Zen
In regards to the poem's inception:
It was a day & I went on a walk.
Upon the latter part of my walk, my psyche shifted & there was a stark drop in the vividity of my imagination.
This poem was a reflection upon that moment.
At the time this decrease was unprecedented.
Typically my imagination is a kind of tripple vision.
There is my regular optical vision.
There is the vision of the mind's eye which is usually wrapped in a rainbow colour like theme.
There is the vision of the mind's eye overlaid upon the regular optical vision.
Whilst I have been thinking about triple vision as a concept for some time; predating the poem count by some margin--I later found a kind of parallel with William Blake's notion of Fourfold Vision.
In regards to the poem title:
The word Fantasia is a homophone for Phantasia; where Phantasia, among other things, is the root word for fantasy as well as the ability to visualise in the mind. The name Fantasia was chosen in part over Phantasia given its musical-like connotations.
In regard to the poem's attributes:
This poem is one of the first poems to concentrate on a homophone (eyes & I's).
Within my canon so to speak I play with homophones quite a bit.
This poem is also one of the first poems to have a kind of multipath-like structure (smelting/melting)...
(WARNING: DEEP DIVE AHEAD)
It may be worthwhile to touch upon the conceptual maps of the homophonic pathways.
For instance within eyes & I's & smelting/melting there are 4 core paths so to speak. If one wanted to map out these in a kind of symbolic chain, maybe it would look something like this:
…eyes…melting -> …eyes…process of heating to convert to liquid -> …eyes…liquid -> …visibility…liquid -> …visibility…(indistinct / impressionistic / dreamlike / fluid) ->
…eyes…smelting -> …vision..process of heating to convert into purest form -> vision…pure -> pure vision ->
…I’s…smelting -> …self concept…smelting -> …self concept…process of heating to convert into purest form -> …I’s…pure -> pure I’s ->
…I’s…melting -> …self concept…melting -> …self concept…process of heating to convert to liquid -> …self concept…liquid -> dissolution of self concept ->
