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Thank you Frederick & Doug. Refreshing not to be lectured on the futility of resurrecting dead styles. Can you recommend any narratives that escape being "mired in the telling'? Can a narrative be entirely based in imagery? Does an abstract idea have any place in a lyrical poem, or is "no ideas except in things" still the inviolate principle? ----- Original Message ----- "The Mariner" struck me as too much mired in "telling" - the speaker *commenting on his fate. But this one is powerful. You're looking *way back, stylistically - at Hopkins, the Symbolists, Trumbull Stickney. Well, why not, if it's done well and can integrate new realities and new emotions? ----- Original Message ----- > companion piece to 'The Mariner" > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > > The Mermaid > > Was it ever enough that she would appear > from the foam of a rounded swell to sigh > with the whole dark soul of the sea in his ear, > urging him darkly to take her, to die? > > The cold salt silk of her skin against his, > the swell of her own small breast like the swell > of the sea itself ~ the salt of her kiss, > the pulse of her sunken heart like a knell. > > And all of her thus in his arms until > the breaker recedes and beckons her back, > drawing her down and away and beneath, > forsaking him there on his barnacled rock, > forsaking his desolate arms to trail > where the sinuous seaweeds writhe and wreathe. > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bradley Omanson" <[log in to unmask]> > To: <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 3:39 PM > Subject: "The Mariner" > > > The Mariner > > The vibration singing through all my veins > is the beating of endless tropical rains, > a pulsation of far-off breakers breaking, > with every tendril of hair on my head > the cry of a gull. > > I am eighty years dead, > having perished at sea in a howling squall > off the African cape when a monstrous swell > overtowered the deck and crushed me choking > into the brine. > > Now I drift without end > through a strange latitude, a slackened soul > drawn by a distant memory of wind, > past feeling but hardly at peace, possessed > of a thirst that will admit no slaking, > of a restlessness that will not rest. > >