The Poison that is Love, the Fever that is Youth

The Poison that is Love, the Fever that is Youth

"Ketika jiwamu, merasuk ke dalam, aliran darahku dan meracuniku"

That line is the mesmerising refrain from the hit song Mistikus Cinta (The Mystique of Love) by Dewa, arguably the most popular pop group in Indonesia. The song is also my personal favourite from their Cintailah Cinta album because it represents my idea of what a "romantic" song should be--if I am even capable of conjuring such emotions these days.

Why am I bringing it up? In yesterday's entry, I mentioned in passing that the Welshman Dylan Thomas was one of my favourite poets when I was in the university. I spent many cold lonely hours reading his works in the library.

But since I started working, I haven't had the opportunity to read that much poetry. All my precious time was spent reading technical manuals, white papers, proposals and request for proposals. I have very much forgotten about the poetry of Dylan Thomas for more than a decade. That was until I heard Mistikus Cinta by Dewa last year.

Immediately, the following lines by Dylan Thomas popped into my mind again:

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

I didn't even realise that these favourite lines of mine when I was a student were still embedded inside my mind, until it was triggered and unleased by the Dewa song. Now what is the connection between the two?

In both the song and the poem, I see the same primeval forces being expressed. Art always attempts to capture the same universal archetypes and primitives. Both the song and poem marvel at the power and destructiveness of forces inherent within us: with Dewa, it is Love and with Dylan Thomas, Youth.

The imagery used by Dewa is strong with words like rasuk (possess), aliran darah (bloodstream), racun (poison); listening to the song, I would imagine Love, like a sharp syringe, jabbing into my veins, releasing poison into my system--there's an onrush of euphoric pleasure mingled with pain, only to ultimately disintegrate under the destructive power of a "poisonous" love.

In the glorious stanza by Dylan Thomas (arguably his most famous too), he likens Youth to the same vitality that "drives the flower" and "blasts the roots of trees"; a vitality that can be both creative and destructive. At the end of the stanza, he laments how his "youth is bent by the same wintry fever". The beauty of Thomas' lines, with its alliteration of 'f's, can only be fully appreciated when read aloud. One could feel the surge of energy forward, and the desolation and bleakness at the end.

You see, both the song and the poem, traces an archetypal pattern in nature: an onrush of energy that is full of promise and vigour to be followed by an inevitable collapse and dissolution, like a Gaussian pulse of energy, like the exponential charging and decay of a capacitor or the rising and falling of ocean tides.

Birth, youth, love, old age and death--that is the rhythm of the Great Impulse called Life. Within it, there are sub-impulses all rising and falling with the same pattern. Dewa's line triggered a series of such impulses within me and reverberated in my mind, building resonances within which ultimately roused the memory of Dylan Thomas' powerful verses.

And yes even after all these years, I still have the poison in my system. The same wintry fever possesses me still.