nah not really, you try to extract any type of meaning out of something T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath or even Poe wrote, and you'll drive yourself crazy...
usually its basically whats imbedded within the poem that theirs meaning, only accessible to primal emotions.
Which for everyone is different...
Poetry that's easy to understand, is never good in my opinion, never was a fan of Dr. Seuss lol
The poetry and painting analogy is great.
In my opinion it's the art that is obscure thats the best, i'm a big fan of impressionism, i love monet, Van Gogh, Da Vinci during his blue period...
for a person to try to extract meaning out of those paintings is like squeezing juice out of a rock. Meaningless.
You'll never be able to tap into that intellectual wave length that gave the artist the impulse to create it. You can possibly feel what they're feeling...
If it makes you feel sad, than perhaps they were sad if you're confused by it, maybe they were confused etc...
Each interpretation will be different.
Poetry is like that (except for story-telling poetry, thats when the meaning is key of the story)
One of my favorite poems is called El Viaje Definitivo (The Definitive Journey) by Juan Ramon Jimenez
It goes like this (First in spanish , than i'll give you an english translation)

El Viaje Definitivo

... Y yo me iré. Y se quedarán los pájaros cantando;
y se quedará mi huerto, con su verde árbol,
y con su pozo blanco.
Todas las tardes, el cielo será azul y plácido;
y tocarán, como esta tarde están tocando,
las campanas del campanario.
Se morirán aquellos que me amaron;
y el pueblo se hará nuevo cada año.
Y yo me iré; y estaré solo, sin hogar, sin árbol
Verde, sin pozo blanco,
Sin cielo azul y plácido...

"The Definitive Journey"

..and I will leave. But the birds will stay, singing:
and my garden will stay, with it's green tree, with its water well.

Many afternoons the sky will be calm and blue,
and the bells in the belfry will chime, as they are chiming this very afternoon.

The people who have loved me will pass away,
and the town will burst anew every year,
and in the secret corners of my flowery garden
my spirit will wander,
nostalgic.

I've taken alot of english/poetry classes that have tried to dissect and examine that short simple poem..., and their conclusions don't even scratch the surface of the true meaning, which is something indescribable...
I've felt it, but i can't find the proper words other than the poem itself to explain it...
An attempt to describe it and analyze is futile...
either you feel it or you don't.
In fact actually trying to explain it goes against the nature of the poem itself
It wasn't written to be decoded,
It was written to express something that isn't easily expressable

I think the Jesus-Mary story was done.

The other, though interesting, has a flaw.
If he's a sacrificial lamb and he came knowing that...and was then sacrificed, doesn't that mean he succeeded. Wouldn't failing be him backing out? Especially since, he easily could have.

All I know is that our poetries are complete opposite styles...
we're most definitely in parallel universes.... lol
But that's what makes the world go round...

yah i'm trying to make sense of it...
Because depending on which version of the story you hear you get a different outcome, i'm thinking about taking out the whole sacrifical lamb thing out,
because that notion was added to hide the fact that he failed...
so he was brought back so he could finish the job... or whatever...
that might work better...

Thats like saying my Tao is different than your tao?
Poetry is poetry
Their are no styles...
If you try to explain poetry, you're wrong...
You criticize it you're wrong,
poetry is eternal meaningful and meaningless words...
Its to be felt , not to be understood

I disagree with that..there are definitely styles, just like
there are styles of painting.....the impressionists and the realists,
for example.

My poetry is fairly simple, to the point...yours is more complex....but
in the end, it is the feeling that counts. I never said anything
about it being understood.

But its like i said, your poetry is my poetry, as is tony's, grids, crazy sexys
we're all one of nothing,a beautiful nothing,
riding foggy words and taking them into journeys of wonderful agony
Actionless action

Wonderful agony....I like that.

A l'impression mille ans que je suis noyé dans vos yeux. Vous-j'adore ma belle femme. Venez me sauvent avant que les étoiles vont bleues. Je serai une touche de pierres de la tour d'âmes, vous attendant.
G, night

Awww. Cela est beau, si mon interprétation est correcte... lol
Très romantique...

A nice addition to the thread....thank you, Tony.

you're welcome..
I've been into water themes lately.

Believe me, I've noticed that! lol

Water here
water there
water, water everywhere



But that's cool....

Imagine your dreams are the tide...