As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking,—John, I
The opening lines of the poem give the reader a clear sense of who the speaker is. He defines himself as a person who is "always talking" and, fittingly, starts off by saying "As I sd to my / friend." He situates the poem in the middle of a conversation. The abbreviation of the word "said" into "sd" also appropriately gives this section an increased urgency. It is an opening that gives an immediate feeling for the voice of the rest of the text. The speaker characterizes his speech as ongoing, as if the comments that follow will be habitual and offhand, part of a conversation that he has likely had before and will have again.
the darkness sur-
rounds us, whatcan we do against
it,
This excerpt articulates the speaker's central concern in the poem. He is worried about the "darkness" he perceives surrounding all of them. He seeks to find some action to carry out "against it" but seems unsure. The word darkness is a general one. It shows that the speaker primarily has a feeling about things that he cannot fully specify or narrow down. He is too overwhelmed to find an appropriate way to react against this despair, because he does not completely understand what it is.
drive, he sd, for
christ’s sake, look
out where yr going.
These closing lines of the poem finally root it in a specific setting: the car. The speaker's friend is telling him to be more careful on the road, suggesting that all of this philosophical conversation has distracted him from driving. This is doubly humorous in that the speaker has just asked if he should buy a large car, to put off his worrying, only to be critiqued for his driving. These lines are an appropriate end to a poem that begins with a discussion of abstract concepts only to crash land back into the real world.
