She bore the days
trailing from her waist
like a child's paper chain
the way the moon
indentures the waves:
night after night
dragged by the hair across
a sea that rocks
Its dead like a mother.
She lit a candle,slipped
into the tub and closed
her eyes for the last
time against the same
wild grief they say
made God drown the world.
Lullaby
Re: Lullaby
K---
She bore the days
trailing from her waist
like a child's paper chain
i think it is the ...from her waist...that signals alarm, makes me withdraw.
prefer, a simpler sentence,
days trailed like a child's paper chain.
the way the moon
indentures the waves:
night after night
the moon indentures a wave.
dragged by the hair across
a sea that rocks
Its dead like a mother.
a sea rocks like a mother...
(my objection, do mom's rock any dead people?)
She lit a candle,slipped
into the tub and closed
her eyes for the last
time against the same
wild grief they say
made God drown the world.
a very emotional passage, highlighted by them candles---
and then, wild grief...made God drown the world.
strong dose of what....might be purple prose in a romance novel.
is she a suicide?
closed
her eyes for the last
think of Marilyn with 40 barbiturates in her stomach, Virginia Woolf putting stones in her pockets to walk into the sea, Sylvia Plath, her head in a gas oven...no candles, i think.
anne sexton. pausing once to help me with a poem...winning a pulitzer and then asphyxiating herself with automobile exhaust.
ghastly. so terribly sad, these lost souls. poetic suicide vs. the morticians view.
did God drown the world?
Durrell says---These "dark blue tides of Eros"
do you know the Alexandria Quartet?
Guardian:
the Quartet itself is not without pretension, in concept as in performance. As has generally been admitted, it is often ornate and over-written, sometimes to an almost comical degree. The high ambition of its schema can make its narratives and characters inexplicably confusing, and its virtuoso use of vocabulary can be trying ("pudicity"? "noetic"? "fatidic"? "scry"?). But if there are parts of the work that few readers, I suspect, will navigate without skipping, there are many passages of such grand inspiration that reaching them feels like emerging from choppy seas into marvellously clear blue Mediterranean waters.
i invite you, emerge where I too struggle to reach the clear blue Mediterraean waters.
It was Cavafy who wrote of Alexandria, Egypt:
"There's no new land, my friend, no /
New sea; for the city will follow you, /
In the same streets you'll wander endlessly …"
bernie
The God Abandons Antony
Constantine Cavafy
At midnight, when suddenly you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don't mourn your luck that's failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive - don't mourn them uselessly:
as one long prepared, and full of courage,
say goodbye to her, to Alexandria who is leaving.
Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and full of courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion,
but not with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen - your final pleasure - to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.
She bore the days
trailing from her waist
like a child's paper chain
i think it is the ...from her waist...that signals alarm, makes me withdraw.
prefer, a simpler sentence,
days trailed like a child's paper chain.
the way the moon
indentures the waves:
night after night
the moon indentures a wave.
dragged by the hair across
a sea that rocks
Its dead like a mother.
a sea rocks like a mother...
(my objection, do mom's rock any dead people?)
She lit a candle,slipped
into the tub and closed
her eyes for the last
time against the same
wild grief they say
made God drown the world.
a very emotional passage, highlighted by them candles---
and then, wild grief...made God drown the world.
strong dose of what....might be purple prose in a romance novel.
is she a suicide?
closed
her eyes for the last
think of Marilyn with 40 barbiturates in her stomach, Virginia Woolf putting stones in her pockets to walk into the sea, Sylvia Plath, her head in a gas oven...no candles, i think.
anne sexton. pausing once to help me with a poem...winning a pulitzer and then asphyxiating herself with automobile exhaust.
ghastly. so terribly sad, these lost souls. poetic suicide vs. the morticians view.
did God drown the world?
Durrell says---These "dark blue tides of Eros"
do you know the Alexandria Quartet?
Guardian:
the Quartet itself is not without pretension, in concept as in performance. As has generally been admitted, it is often ornate and over-written, sometimes to an almost comical degree. The high ambition of its schema can make its narratives and characters inexplicably confusing, and its virtuoso use of vocabulary can be trying ("pudicity"? "noetic"? "fatidic"? "scry"?). But if there are parts of the work that few readers, I suspect, will navigate without skipping, there are many passages of such grand inspiration that reaching them feels like emerging from choppy seas into marvellously clear blue Mediterranean waters.
i invite you, emerge where I too struggle to reach the clear blue Mediterraean waters.
It was Cavafy who wrote of Alexandria, Egypt:
"There's no new land, my friend, no /
New sea; for the city will follow you, /
In the same streets you'll wander endlessly …"
bernie
The God Abandons Antony
Constantine Cavafy
At midnight, when suddenly you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don't mourn your luck that's failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive - don't mourn them uselessly:
as one long prepared, and full of courage,
say goodbye to her, to Alexandria who is leaving.
Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and full of courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion,
but not with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen - your final pleasure - to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.
-
Kenneth2816
- Posts: 1619
- Joined: 01 Jun 2008, 09:17
Re: Lullaby
Bernie, I owe you for this one.
Thanks for your commemts.
I'm sticking with every word though.It's what happened. She was indeed a suicide, but not anyone famous.
As I often do, this was cannibaozed from a recent poem . Your crit of that one made this one possible.
.
Thanks for your commemts.
I'm sticking with every word though.It's what happened. She was indeed a suicide, but not anyone famous.
As I often do, this was cannibaozed from a recent poem . Your crit of that one made this one possible.
.
-
BobBradshaw
- Posts: 2688
- Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03
Re: Lullaby
I like the closing 2 lines...very nice
-
LindaLinda
- Posts: 68
- Joined: 08 Oct 2017, 05:13
Re: Lullaby
Really very nice K, after Bernie I have nothing to add except that each stanza is a poem itself.
Linda
Linda
-
Kenneth2816
- Posts: 1619
- Joined: 01 Jun 2008, 09:17
Re: Lullaby
Thank you Linda. I'm glad to see you !
Re: Lullaby
A sad poem, Kenneth, but also beautiful. The beginning drew me in with its wonderful imagery.
Eira
Eira
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Kenneth2816
- Posts: 1619
- Joined: 01 Jun 2008, 09:17
Re: Lullaby
Eira. Thank you. This took four years to write.
Re: Lullaby
It's heartfelt then Kenneth. I'm glad I'm not the only one that sometimes takes years to complete a poem.Kenneth2816 wrote:Eira. Thank you. This took four years to write.
Eira
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Kenneth2816
- Posts: 1619
- Joined: 01 Jun 2008, 09:17
Re: Lullaby
Thank you. You're a kind and gentle person