this starts out brilliantly -- literally & figuratively. I can envision
Orion bright against utter blackness. the linking of the constellation to
earthly items makes it legendary, humanised (hunter, thigh, lion's skin,
spear: and especially the adjective string "brilliant lilac and ashy", it's
a wonderfully visual, but also almost olfactory image).
the invented background, dog/woman/treasure, is just brief enough to serve
as a wondering myth-explanation, more a whimsical idea than any sort of
belief. repetition of the sword burning (this time against no thigh, but
shining on its own) and the same adjective string is just effective enough.
so far this really reminds me more of Caleb's image-ful poems, differing in
a sort of sweepingness here & in length.
putting those two phrases in the first stanza in quotations gives this an
added ambiguity myth-wise; are you commenting on existing conceptions,
reverting them, forgetting them, laughing at them? I like it.
repetition of 'standing' in st2 feels a bit faux-grand; also the
article-less "sky-blessed story" feels somehow weak. then again, maybe it's
allowed or supposed to, being the spoken words of a character outside/inside
the poem. repetition of poem/story also doesn't come across as effective;
they're rather flammable words, or raw words, especially ot use in a poem.
"the journey always the beginning" is a good way to describe the everlasting
rotation of the 'heavens'.
the dialogue sequence is nice, kept fresh with turns of phrase like the
second sentence (where journey/treasure is inverted), "Orion wanted what?",
the word "disremember"; the ellipsis also makes it feel like a real
conversation -- between who I wonder. "A good story" is separated
effectively, it ends the dialogue but continues the poem.
I'm not certain what 'this story' refers to. possibly to the conceptual or
underlying narrative shared by all great myths?
I dislike "peeled Ape". since we're on the verge of prehistory in this poem
as it is, the phrase conjures an actual monkey instead of the assumed human
figure. an ape in Russia is also a bit ludicrous, slightly too ludicrous for
the poem maybe? the dialogue already established an informal tone. evolution
is described drolely starting with "Four million years...", funny stuff. 'A'
Homer indeed.
"starlight from the thighs of the water" is interesting, along with the
inward contracted eye it seems a good metaphor for blindness. liquidation,
haa.
"killed and killing things", and the relationship between (causing) death &
immortality is quickly played on. "unhuman heaven".
cities as slave camps, coexistence as slavery? not seeing it. though "we"
probably doesn't refer to Us aka humankind.
"..so that something human will live forever in the clear dark". ahh.
ENSKYEMENT? play on camp, encampment... the irony is apparent, but still.
"Homer was the best of the liars / who made a compact with death".
good'un. but maybe pact instead of compact? or maybe there's a use for the
word compact I disremember.
"unhuman beauty of reality"; a definite dismantling of the Romantic. but we
sicken on what is not even half-real? you mean we sicken on emotions
conveyed through lies? I'm lost.
the torture-clip is brief enough to serve as a separator. good.
from "Look at the stars" to "...flipped a nickel", this is my favourite part
of the whole poem. just beautiful. mention of another greek character not
yet mentioned freshens, re-mention of the dog this time starry-eyed
continues that, the enjambement livens it all, the quotations make it
internal, the flipped nickel is hilarious. great.
from "only love" to "it loves you", this sounds a lot like Williams' later
poetry to me; same regularly skipping line, it's wonderfully, minimally
dramatic.
more kindness in a lion's claw than in a rose; quite an aphorism.
kind of a thrust into modern times next.. I still dislike having poets in a
poem, couldn't it be exchanged for some other representative of metaphysical
activism?
poets in goat pastures loking at the stars. a good contrast. I could be one
of those goats.
haha, "you will need this". ouch.
passeth understanding, groan. well, it works, but I always had a distaste
for Eliot's use of the Upanishads. feeling cropped up again here.
the drawing out of the sentence with "say, say say" is great. I think the
second 'this' could be a 'the', i.e. "the hungered emptiness".
bones of sleepy children? what?
winter under the Pleiades seems surreal. nice.
"It is only a trick of deep gravity / that makes the hunter fall westward
and graveward into Asia"
wonderful. another favourite line. and from the falling star-hunter we get
to the radio. such shift. Orion, Nothing; that'd be imagination versus
sense-able reality? the ending is terrible, just "Fire". very Poetic, very
annoying. Yvonne Vera does that kind of thing in 'Butterfly Burning',
horrid. but the cleansing/fire duality is good, all I'm saying is it should
be played out with a little more flesh, or at least some commas.
great work joe
KS
On 06/10/2007, joe green <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Point Lobos: 1944
>
>
> In the "heavens" a sword of galaxies burns
> Against the hunter's thigh: Orion, that "most tall and
> beautiful of men," strides out, a lion's skin on
> His shoulders, the star that tips his spear
> brilliant lilac and ashy.
> His dog is at his heel. He has left a woman.
> He is going to find a treasure and
> Steps off into space -- and falls forever --
> Westward across the Pacific; the sword burning,
> The speartip brilliant lilac and
> ashy.
>
> Standing at the edge of
the sea,
> standing here you would look up and say "Oh, what poetry this
> is! What sky-blessed
> story:"
> For this is the poem, the story; the hunter -- never mind his
> name -- Orion, Ulysses, Hercules, his eye on the treasure,
> the journey always beginning.
> "A journey to find treasure?"
> "Oh, the treasure is the journey."
> "Orion wanted what?"
> "I disremember. But…"
> "What?"
> "Ulysses only wanted to get home."
>
> "A good story."
>
> I think this story the best our civilization has.
> Think of the 600 million dead required to create it.
>
> Let's say Homer started it, though
> surely it was another peeled Ape of infinite faculties, clubbed
> to death somewhere in the steppes of Russia. Let's begin
> with Homer. Four million years to make large animals, perhaps
> one million years of various modulations of torment to make
a Homer.
>
>
After the war
> They say, his inward eye contracted, he made a poem to draw
> The starlight from the thighs of the water. A poem about a rest-
> less man. A poem about a liquidation.
>
>
Is this a story to
> Tell a woman;
> A story of killed and killing things, of the gods who
> kill yet live forever? Is this even like nobility?
> And… this is the best we have.
>
> I mean this: we will not look at the unhuman heaven.
> We live in slave camps and therefore must have our Homer
> to sing that the restless man will live forever
> As a god.
>
> Perhaps only Jenghiz could tell the truth.
> But even he would have his Homer to draw
> The starlight from the water
> so that
> Something human will live forever in the clear dark.
>
> O vile enskyement!
> And Homer
was the best of the liars
> Who made a compact with Death.
>
> What if we saw the
actual stars? What
> if, for one instant, we could leave behind the vulgarity of our
> consciousness and see the unhuman beauty of reality?
> But we sicken on what is not even half-real.
>
> Greek civilization goes
under.
> Another death in the family.
> Rome degrades itself. A tortured lip twitches. "Give
> me the hammer." Fire dives from the high
> air.
> A tortured god is not the prettiest of stories. Leave it to the
> poets.
> "Look at the stars. Orion wants it,
> Perseus wants it, even the star-eyed
> dog wants it.
> But they can't have it --
> having been born before Christ
flipped a nickel."
>
> Only love can open the sky. There
is a
> flower in the heart
> of the star.
> The treasure is the
> flower.
>
We have seen it.
> It loves you."
>
> Dante's rose.
> What extravagant kindness!
>
> I think that you will find more kindness
> in the claws of a lion.
>
> Another thousand years
of self-
> Importance. The crystal in the granite is a fire wheel.
> The Calla Lily is a fire wheel.
>
Another war and,
> in complete candor and acutely aware of the writer's freedom
> the public poets thrust Goebbels and Roosevelt
> into the
sky.
>
Other poets
> (Secure in the goat pasture and looking at the stars)
> Speak of art, of religion, of the never-ending story
> Of the pure world. Where?
> Above
> the torture camp?
> "You need this," they say. "After the bombings,
after
> the battle squalor you will need this also." They say, "This is
> beauty.
> This is love."
>
It passeth understanding.
>
> They say -- the best of them say --
> Homer, Dante, Shakespeare say, men at the
> extremest limit say,
> That this, this hungered emptiness, is beauty.
>
Therefore:
> Civilizations are built on the bones of sleepy children
> and this winter, under the Pleiades, there die large
numbers.
>
> It is only a trick of deep gravity
> that makes the hunter fall westward and graveward to Asia.
> All day I listen to the radio.
> At night I turn to the nameless stars.
> Orion is falling into
Asia.
> Nothing is falling into Asia.
> When will we ever be
clean?
> Fire.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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