Conjures up vivid experience, Arthur. For me
personalising the dog ('he' or 'she' and most probably
the former) would work better but I can see why you've
kept 'it' as an 'it'. I think in order to bond the two
halves of the peom together you need to be a little
tauter in the middle (not personal at all!) I've just
put some other thoughts in the text. cheers and
thanks, cara
--- Arthur <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >
> The Gargoyle,or
>
> Reflections on the Cruelty of Destructive Criticism.
>
>
>
> He took us for English Lang. and Lit.,
>
> Old Prut.
>
> Richard the Second, Silas Marner,
>
> The Elegy, Michael and Shanter
>
> and the rest, he taught to us.
> (Perhaps you do not need 'he taught to us')
>
>
> Billowing down corridors,
>
> volumes folded under arm,
> (I think the volumes would be too weighty to 'fold'
like this)
> swish of black gown,
> (maybe the next line is enough to signify the gown)
> bat-winged demi-god,
>
> he terrified us with Tam,
>
> echoes of his eldritch Wow!, (no comma)
>
> froze bumptious boys classrooms away.
> (Perhaps 'in class-rooms far away')
>
>
> Through him Old Gaunt lived
>
> and died again. (No 'again')
>
> I wept for the toils of Michael
>
> building beside a tumultuous brook.
> ('as he built'?)
>
>
> I loved the man.
>
> He gave me poetry
>
> and quiet joy for all my days.
>
>
>
> It was his dog I hated.
> (How about 'Hated his scabby cur')
>
>
> A scabby cur, (miss out if above)
>
> Part Pug, part Airedale, part Satan,
>
> it lurked
>
> under the red tasselled velvet cloth
>
> that covered the table in his room.
>
> The floor would rumble
>
> with imprecations (not sure this is the approp.
wprd)
>
> as you slippered over the carpet
>
> with your offering.
>
>
>
> One day, called away,
>
> he left me with the gargoyle.
>
> A mere child
>
> alone on the threshold of hell.
>
> My stomach swirled
>
> and whimpered in dismay.
>
>
>
> Shedding stony flakes of mange,
>
> snorting for breath,
>
> through flattened nose, grumbling
>
> through slobber- swung jowls,
>
> it slouched from its lair,
>
> glued me to the floor
>
> with a snarled rictus
>
> of white fangs that averred (not sure 'averred is
the most appropriate word here)
>
> disembowelment if I blinked;
>
> passed so close to me
>
> I smelt the sulphur of its breath,
>
> saw damned souls
>
> writhing in the fires of its eyes.
>
> It took my book,
>
> and all the beauty I had gathered there,
>
> and chewed it to a slimy plug.
>
>
>
> Prut apologised.
>
> The dog did not.
>
>
>
> So I love poetry
>
> but hate the gargoyle
>
> muttering distant thundery curses
>
> from beneath a tasselled cloth.
>
>
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