i'm very receptive to the sense of return this poem gives: that
we-do-not-know-what-we-should-want-for-as-we-ought... all
we know is that it is not this (the old crone and what she feeds us).
yet in not knowing that this reality must exist. i get that there's
therefore in us a certain learned ignorance (docta ignorantia),
so to speak. we don't know what we would really like; we do
not know a "true life"; and yet we know that there must be
something we do not know towards which we are driven.
Cheers,
Gerald of Rochester
Thanks for attacking it, Judy, with an interesting result. It certainly cuts
through the unclear verbiage, and might be a skeleton to build on. But I
will hold off doing anything until I see a range of responses.
I've had another response b/c which caused me to write out what it all was
trying to say. He said he understood my explanation more than the poem, so
there's another slant to look at.
The more the merrier, so please, if you have a moment, give me your
response.
Andrew
2009/3/31 Judy Prince <[log in to unmask]>
> Hi, 'Droo, lotsa nice images in this, so I dropped out the rest.
> Best,
>
> Judy
>
> 2009/3/31 andrew burke <[log in to unmask]>
>
> >
> >
> > *Blake’s Choir / draft four*
> >
> > *Without Contraries is no progression. *
> >
> > *(*from Blake’s* The Marriage of Heaven and Hell)*
> >
> >
> >
> > I warm my hands on it some nights.
> >
> > I take it off the shelf
> >
> > to remember her now,
>
>
>
> > the old crone in a Sydney mansion
>
>
>
> > who placed Blake’s choir in my hands, and said,
> >
> > ‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ patting
> >
> > his Poetical Works, its flimsy skin
> >
> > aged to a veinless patina.
> >
> > ‘You’ll enjoy this, my boy.’
> >
> >
>
> > I went down my own back roads
> >
> > and side streets,
> >
> > to forget more people than I ever met,
>
>
>
> > read a million poems which ran out of breath,
>
>
>
> > a pelican landing on this seat to remember her,
> >
> >
>
> > my bottle-scarred muse, alive
> >
> > with Blake’s pulse in the skein of days.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Andrew
> > http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> >
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
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