I like the first line very much, and then what follows. And then to
the end, the 'is he a ghost/caricature, no, he is real' idea. Because
your Elidus is very real in this, down to his wastes.
________________________Jill Jones www.jilljones.com.au
----- Original Message -----
From: "Poetryetc: poetry and poetics"
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Cc:
Sent:Wed, 1 Oct 2014 12:07:07 -0600
Subject:Re: Elidius
A kind of unwanted hagiography (or hagiographer), Lawrence?
A kind of last chapter to the legend, perhaps ?
I wonder if ' not safe’ ight work a little better as ' nor
safe’…?
I really liked the line break in 'oddly placed masses causing space
to be’: that pause.
Doug
On Oct 1, 2014, at 7:15 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
> I call it my cave, though it is not one;
>
> but piles of rock among intermixed boulders,
>
> oddly placed masses causing space to be
>
> held by mad windows big as doors; passages
>
> in which a man, even one of my height,
>
> must often bend It's never warm; not safe.
>
> And I live in this dismal capacity,
>
> each pulse failing, as aging animals
>
> withdraw themselves to release meagre spirits
>
> into selfless generalising voids;
>
> or I'm a creature which found itself
>
> its true domain, hidden much of the time
>
> to emerge at half-light for the urgent needs:
>
> feeding, and emptying its body of foul wastes.
>
> They think I'm dead; but all they'd see's a ghost;
>
> or something unembodied, apparently shaped
>
> as a caricature gesticulating
>
>
>
> [Elidius is one of the names of one who may have lived at some time
after
> the Roman period on Scilly, or, as it then seems to have been
called,
> Ennor. There is no evidence of him apart from the earlier name of
St
> Helen's island, where it is said he may have been buried, Insula
Sancti
> Elidii. His feast day is 8th August. Until now he has had no
hagiographer. ]
>
Douglas Barbour
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Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations &
Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
that we are only
as we find out we are
Charles Olson
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