> Now, is that scowl directed at me?
>
> joanna
Heavens, no, Joanna. 's probably directed at the universe, not in a good
mood here today.
> "for a twelfth to come self-slaughtering bride" -- ??? I don't remember
> anything on those lines -- do please elucidate.
>
The poem is the title-piece of a sequence that is on my website. The
sequence is an anti-detective story: in it a supposed investigator called
Roger Bigead (as in Grosseteste, there is such a surname as Bigead btw) is
commisioned by a woman called Oratia to unravel the reasons for the suicide
of her sister. It transpires that her sister was part of a backstreet cult
led by a charismatic preacher which required that 12 women, who must all be
black, kill themselves in order to bring about the quickening, the fullness
of time. Now, without giving away the non-story, the numerology on which the
group's eschastology is based doesn't add up if examined, it doesn't make
sense even on an arithmetical basis:
SING, HEAV'NLY MUSE
Tell me a story without plot or purpose
of eleven dead girls from bedsits and hostels
off the line of a lane to a Saxon Yew.
Tell me a story without point or substance
of Alterine Williams, a knife in her hand,
going out on her knees, like Angel Browne;
or Mercy MacDonald, a hymn on her lips,
who jumped off a roof to the wheels of a bus.
Of Jasmine and Marlene, twin sisters in faith,
whose blood commingled with a Euston Express.
How Faith died like Charity, by little white pills,
and Hope never came, nor Ruth nor Elaine
to next Sunday God Willing. And of Carmel dead
who wakes each night in her sister's head.
thinking about the hyphens, the tense confusion though is deliberate.
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joanna Boulter" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 1:08 PM
Subject: Re: Poem and a Plea and a Scowl
> David, I think this does work as itself. I wouldn't like to comment on it
> from a doctrinal point of view, but it's certainly very powerful.
>
> A couple of practical queries: II line 4 -- a hyphen I assume between
> forward and led; but what about move and still? If this hyphen's a typo
for
> a dash, all well and good; if not, then those two linked words are saying
> something rather big very succinctly, perhaps too succinctly for ready
> comprehension? Also, the first 3 lines of this section are in the perfect
> tense, and the rest of the poem seems to be in the present. This could be
an
> error, but you don't usually make that sort of mistake, so I'm left to
think
> it's deliberate -- why?
>
> "for a twelfth to come self-slaughtering bride" -- ??? I don't remember
> anything on those lines -- do please elucidate.
>
> I get the impression that you're not talking so much the Last Battle as
the
> Last Endurance. Well, who knows what's to come?
>
> Now, is that scowl directed at me?
>
> joanna
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 12:03 PM
> Subject: Poem and a Plea and a Scowl
>
>
> > I'd really welcome constructive criticism and engagement on this.
> >
> >
> > PAROUSIA
> > I
> >
> > Imagine this: a room within, the bounds of voice; a crow
> > cries beyond; a clock counts; a hall empty, a hall full.
> > A voice
> >
> > comparing: the sons of Belial like unto the word of denial;
> >
> > preparing: the children of darkness for the prince of light;
> >
> > declaring: the advent of Israel from the body of the Nile;
> >
> > a voice aboom abounds above
> > bowed heads of the belov'd.
> >
> >
> > II
> >
> >
> > It dropped from the sky like a stone burning down
> > with the Will of Heaven. It consumed the dark lives
> >
> > tangled around roots of pride. It humbled the high
> > and low. On our bent knees we move-still forward-led
> >
> > towards the Last Day of Days, the First of Ever.
> >
> >
> > III
> >
> >
> > On bended knees towards a You-tree,
> > of You twisted
> > on the pole of the calendar,
> > through a snake-lane we turn,
> > bloodied, tilting
> > like shadows
> > repeating the angles
> > of flesh.
> >
> >
> > IV
> >
> >
> > Tell me a history of that saviour who bides
> > till the calendar ends in a dancing of flame,
> > for a twelfth to come self-slaughtering bride.
> >
> > Make me accounts of all redemptions denied
> > to justice's pawns in the backstreets of time,
> > in slave-ships or coal-mines, on all the wrong sides;
> > of yesterdays bartered that something might come;
> > and faith sold like charity; and like hope decried,
> > till the day of atonement by a redeemer who hides.
> >
> >
> > V
> >
> >
> > Twelve is the count of the tribes and signs
> > that order the years till the ending of times;
> > divided then divided, by the two that parted,
> > it numbers in three the brand of the beast
> > to the faithful awaiting the bridebed's feast,
> > abandoned in Egypt, their rescue unstarted.
> >
> >
> > VI
> >
> > By Your Whither-tree of winter
> > supplicant we count out
> > days of a world of waste
> > days to a mewling
> > new-born calendar, days
> > to another
> >
> > zodiac and zenith
> > culminating by degrees
> > its constellated eyes.
> >
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