Hello Grasshopper,
                   Thanks for your comments and suggestions. It´s interesting that some of the aspects that didn´t seem to work for you were quite close to what I think I was trying to do. I was aiming at a marked contrast between the two `themes´ and a certain distance. I take your point though about the reporterage element, although of course the reporting of the first theme is part of the point. The difficulty, I feel, with your suggestion for making it more immediate by using `A statue of the V.M. wept blood´ is precisely that I do not believe that staues do weep blood. For that reason I wished to maintain a distance in the poem from any such suggestion. Regarding your queries, I am not very well up on what the Pope likes to get into these days, but I am quite certain that many Presidents are exceedingly keen to associate themselves with religious miracles.
But whether any of this actually works is perhaps a rather doubtful point. Perhaps sarcasm does not come off in poetry very well. Thanks for your comments. Of course they were helpful.



Best wishes,   Mike


--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Dear Mike,
 My main problems with this poem are the lack of integration of the two
parts, and the distancing of both parts from me as a reader.
Both parts begain 'They say', which is the same as saying 'It is said'. It
is information at one remove--the narrator is speaking of events with no
personal experience of them, so the most we are going to have is a
generalised musing.
Why not take the risk and bring the events closer. How would the poem change
if you had:
A statue of the Virgin Mary wept blood -and instead of the vague 'other
day', particularise the time-last week, say.
and
There is a room in Vienna, or to make it more immediate and active-
In Vienna, Mozart worked
in a room, untouched..
I don'tunderstand the point you are making at the end of the poem--is the
President keen to be associated with the Pope in the matter of religious
miracles? Seems to me that today even the Pope would rather keep out of such
things.I would consider snipping the end of the poem from before the point
the papers are introduced.It is that issue of reporting again.
Apologies if my comments are no help.My general feeling is that you need to
bring the subject into close-up, rather than let it fade into the
background.
Kind regards,
   grasshopper

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 8:42 AM
Subject: [THE-WORKS] New sub: Counterpoint


Counterpoint

They say a statue of the Virgin Mary
wept blood the other day.
This event has unleashed
an unusual degree of unrest.

They say there is a room in Vienna
where Mozart worked,
untouched by daily concerns,
surrounded by domestic muddle;
his chair, a table, a candlestick
that had belonged to his mother
in which a candle flickers,
and his wife, as enigmatic as
himself, while he arranges
piano fugues by Bach
for a string quartet,
his mind absorbed by the task
of making himself the perfect vessel
to echo through the ages.

The clamour over the Virgin´s image
clatters through the day
amid speculation of jiggery-pokery.
But the papers carry a full account
a point that inspires no wonder, no hope, no comment.
Please make way for the Pope,
accompanied by the President.



Mike