>From: Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]>
> At 01:14 PM 4/25/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>>Trevor:
>>
>>Thank you.
>>
>>I can't say enough about how you have improved it. The poem has such an
>>emotional subject for me, I have been having a difficult time with fixing
>>the ending. I'm very pleased with your changes.
>>
>>Regards,
>>Sarah
>
> Remarkable how someone else can see things...usually cuts or slight
> rearrangements...there really is that certain ruthlessness that an
> UNemotional eye can bring to the subject. I liked The Cur as it was; but I
> like it better pared down to what now appear to be essentials. Animals
> especially bring things out of us, maybe the worst. I liked this poem even
> in its original, because it was spare and clear in its description. You've
> gotten me to reworking a poem about one of my cats--for a change I'm trying
> to be a proper self-editor and rip the thing down
>
> I find my entire critical faculty shuts down when I go near my own
> stuff. I remember Stephen Dunn saying he would not dream of sending out or
> considering finished a piece of writing until he'd run it past another
> poet, a close friend who would be merciless.
>
> Ken
>
> -----------------------------
> Kenneth Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
> Lord, steel us against the expectation of disappointment and our belief in
> the certainty of heartbreak....
Good! Thanks Sarah, and Ken, for the feedback on the feedback. I'm never
sure whether recasting something without being asked isn't really just
another egotrip. Glad it worked this time . . .
Being myself the owner of a cat with an attitude, I thought I might bring
together the recent list-topics of domestic beasts, angels and the
questionably esculent. This is about eight years old . . .
Best,
T
The Course of Nature
If heaven too had passions even heaven would grow old
Li Ho
Poor angels their high regard
fixed beyond the outer
horizon of stars
with tranquil fascination
watch the generation
and destruction of worlds
their urgent stride
shatters the capitals
of empires their serene
breath and thunderous wings
blast continents and seas
until sometimes randomly
distracted by the stray
falling of a small songbird
the delicate drift of white
ash inside a furnace
their eyes clouded
with unbearable pain and weariness
oblivious of their feet
bleeding from flints
vast wings moulting
and raw with neglect
newly they survey
all the tiny and discrete
effects of the world
and weeping to witness
such quick and irreversible decay
they stoop to gather them
into eternity and so
become the prey of immense
cats that sniff them
out to maul and play
fully dismember as they dine
on the rare giblets
of felled seraphs
and their squab
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