Jeffrey Jullich wrote:
>
> THE ABRIDGED PARADISO (ALIGHIERI NOTES)
>
> ". . . there man's intellect delves so deeply that
> memory cannot altogether follow the experience."
>
> --- Gelernt, Jules, "Dante's Divine Comedy" (1964: Monarch Press,
> NYC), p. 107
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> CANTO I
>
> To be an exemplary Christian, then say a prayer to a pagan sun god
> (APOLLO), and revere earth, landscape: nature worship. A mountain
> (approx. 2,458m./ 8,060ft., north of the Gulf of Corinth) with two
> peaks, one named CYRRHA---
>
> and implore sun god to emulate a flute-player skinned alive, because
> you're a loser at a music entertainment contest (MARSYAS).
>
> (PENEIAN BOUGH) To crown oneself with a branch's leaves, --- not a hat
> made of leaves, but like a plastic headband used to keep a woman's
> hair out of her eyes, only from temples to the back of the head---
>
> The mountain peak (CYRRHA) might emit sounds like human voices
> (like stray cats in alleys, which can sound like babies crying)
>
> Three things, four things: circles, crosses, respectively (celestial
> equator, zodiac, colure) (sun's path?) (horizon?) {left one out!
> Lowers grade! Test anxiety}
>
> They all intersect one day, late March. In principio Creation
> reenacted annually, a fine time to see
>
> A girl spirit.
>
> She's transfixed watching wheels go round and round. Speechless to
> convey what it feels like to outdistance all humans, to surpass the
> two-legged,--- a little fable:
>
> (GLAUCUS) Fisherman observes his catch come back to life, restored by
> an herb. So eats herb, its taste, like cilantrol, jumps overboard ---
> a sea god!
>
> The girl: "You're dulled of your own doing. Blurry vision from an
> untruthful imagination.
>
> "At the speed of light, welcome home near the universe's epicenter."
> The man, surprised to be rising toe to head (not only penis) in a
> straight bee-line ascent upward above cloud cover, birds like ants---
>
> His astonishment ("Wha'?!"). Woman pities man. She begins lecturing
> on thermodynamics (pull of gravity, a rubber band snap-back effect?).
> She sighs (long deep intake of air; exhales audibly; expressive of
> weariness), her facial expression, a mother's, at her child's
> incoherent (febrile?) speech:
>
> "Flames are vertical. Only briefly angled at seasick diagonals,
> wind-ruffled. Here's why. Flames originate in outer space. They're
> lunar. --- Look at a flame's spectrum closely, concentrating, studying
> fire empirically: blue, green, --- moon-white! Don't act like a heavy
> lightning bolt and strike the ground. A whitened ribbon, often seen
> in postcards, from mountain top to stream below: a waterfall. No
> surprise there for you."
>
> Her face, the sky: two layers.
This is engaging and promising. Some passages are fussy, unnecessary,
self-conscious and/or coy. "{left one out! Lowers grade! Test
anxiety}," "(like stray cats in alleys, which can sound like babies
crying)," and "(long deep intake of air; exhales audibly; expressive of
weariness)" are examples. Dropping the last of these, you could
condense the line thus: "She sighs, her facial expression a mother's at
a child's" etc. In the same stanza, "(Wha'?!")" falls flat. Earlier,,
how about: "a fine time to see // a girl spirit // transfixed, watching
wheels" etc. - thereby eliminating the retardative duplicated subject
and adding a pleasant ambiguity. "Heavy lightning" is good, and the
overall idea is good.
I like your idea of adding the phrase "(feedback requested)" to the
subject line. Had I done so I might have received more responses to
"The Earthly Paradise," "The Patriot," and other poems I've sent.
|