Hi Janet
well I used the juniper because of the play on Dutch courage but I can
assure you it's not +about+ drinking gin (I can't abide the stuff!).
I just liked the idea of spiritus meaning breath and played about it
with it. I think it has a certain airy quality, I like the poem's
lightness, but perhaps its too feathery to go anywhere much else (it
just gets snapped up by a sarcophagus in the end after all)
Best
Dave
2008/5/14 Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>:
> part of me thinks this is about drinking gin but that can't be right... can
> it?
>
> my favourite phrases: "the stop of the throat" "hissed tut" "Ardour of
> juniper / pneuma-familiar"
>
> sorry I can't find anything more sensible or analytical to say. it seems one
> of those poems that has to be grasped as a whole, by the right brain so to
> speak, rather than analysed and reduced. Sounds good, but <g>
>
> J
>
> 2008/5/13 David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>
>
> > (one of a number of older poems of mine I'm currently playing around
> > with. Comments welcome)
> >
> > Spiritus
> >
> > meaning breath-tickle
> > on the stop of the throat.
> > Gusting, almost
> > weightless, on the tongue
> >
> > feathery, barbed
> > by the sibilant push
> > to plosive expulsion
> > and hissed tut.
> >
> > Arrow aimed high,
> > vapour-twine, spur
> > of steam that sets
> > the heart's valve
> >
> > pumping, the blood's
> > hydraulics lifting,
> > as a cloud's substance
> > rising, coughed
> >
> > in the primitive bellows
> > of the ancient lung.
> > Ardour of juniper,
> > pneuma-familiar.
> >
> > Word-soul housed
> > as body-guest,
> > as in sarkos,
> > where Greek economy eats
> >
> > the final place of flesh.
> >
> >
> > --
> > David Bircumshaw
> > Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> > Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
> www.proximity.webhop.net (Poetry)
> www.myspace.com/poetjj (Includes occasional arts & culture blog)
>
> The Line Mine, bulletin board for Perth poetry & spoken word:
> [log in to unmask]
> groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinemine
>
> Breastfeeding info & help: www.breastfeeding.asn.au
>
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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