sphered skies are riven!a decade of days
in the salted wash
a littoral drifting
nooned of sun
watered of horizon
his
undrinkable tongue
bloated
beyond
speech
within double-breasted tweed
the heart of Adonais
pages blur
letters awash
the detritus of parchment
of broken sentences
of lonely ink
faded
of epics
and sonnets
and unspoken
odes
living, alive
beyond the tempest
sea
for what remains
beyond the Viareggio pyre
beyond the Spanish Steps
and whispering fountains
beyond Rome and Hampstead
and Leghorn
but words
these immortal words
a thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness;
__________
words come
as
rock
hellions
tumbling
without grace
by ones
and twos
hellbent
terminus bound
Newtonian
Newtoned
clouds of dust
plumes of hush
__________
to break what is broken
to walk to that cliff
and leap without flight
with pen not quite right
borne darkly,
fearfully,
afar
11 comments:
No need to comment. Just random scribbles.
which I'm molding around Shelley and Keats. (When Shelley died at sea and washed upon the shore, found within his coat pocket, were the poems of Keats.
Okay then. No Comment.
FWIW, the quoted bits in italics are from Shelley's Adonais, written of Keats as a monumental epitaph, but seen my Mary Shelley, at least in these lines, to foretell of his own demise.
The actual lines read:
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the adode where the Eternal are.
Here is the very first version, since altered and still in revision:
pages blur
letters awash
the detritus
of parchment
of sentences no more
of lonely ink
eye silent
I drift in noon sun
horizons watered
unable to drink
my tongue
bloated
beyond
speech
words come
as
rock
tumbling
without grace
by one
and two
hellbent on destruction
terminus by law
gravity
high to low
a cloud of dust
a plume of hush
to break what is broken
to walk to that cliff
to leap without sight
of what lies below
Is it wrong of me? Yes, it is. But I am so relieved you explained. I read it last night and worried of you. Now I am ok.
It's funny how there are these tiny cyclones in our lives that bring relevance drawn spiralling tight. What I read here, what I speak of with special someones elsewhere, what I write, think, experience. Are we all reflecting off one another? Some more reflective than others?
I see myself in this,
"words come
as
rock
hellions
tumbling
without grace
by ones
and twos
hellbent".
It is with struggle though, when I try. And when I don't, I am simply as an ocean. Or rather, more as a swamp. (Hey, not all swamps are bad places. Some cool creatures like to hang about in swamps.)
For full transparency, which seems to be the word of the year, this poem started as random scribbles concerning my own level of stress, which had moved beyond alcohol or sleep-aid, to a place where I could not read, thus the opening line, pages blur and so forth. But I dislike cryptic confessional poetry which is publicly posted, and I knew that what I had written could easily be molded to fit the death of Shelley, who after ten days at sea (dead), his body washed up on shore and within his jacket was the last published works of Keats. Shelley and Keats were not the best of freinds and Shelley did Keats no great service in Adonais.
If we think of Keats, at this time buried in Rome, as broken, Shelley breaks him again with his poetry, walks to that dangerous libel cliff, and with pen, with that leap of opinion, perpetuates a most vile falsehood (my language is a bit strong and hyperbolic here) but suffice it to say, Keat's "friends" did him no service in his death. Shelley among them.
Ironic might be the wrong word, but I find it interesting, that in death, in Shelley's death, next to his heart, was the work of Keats. I'm not sure a fiction writer could get away with that plot twist.
Erin, thanks for the concern. At the moment, I live in a world of hurt as I've never lived before and as I sink deeper, like the captain of a submarine, I wonder, how much further to the bottom; and, will the vessel hold.
I will give you no poetry or metaphor, in this, my response. I read, and I just want to hold you.
as I, likewise, want for nothing but a hug, to be held into the warmth of night
Upon further revision, the quoted part in the middle is from the beginning of Keats' Endymion, the work upon which criticism was leveled and upon which others speculated led to his illness and death at 25.
btw, if you watch the trailer for Bright Star, you will see Fanny Brawne give these words back to Keats, and in the giving of celluloid, of poetry voiced, breaths life into the quill beyond the page, the mind, a flowering of the heart not of one, but two. This is poetry. This was Keats. This is what, some two hundred years later, survives, lives.
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