droid

Well-known member
81eiq9c4HSL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg


No single bone in my body is holy—
It is but an ash heap of stinking bones.
Dig a deep hole and there bury these remains
Thus, not a grain of dust will stain
The green mountains.
 

luka

Well-known member
Reanimate the Franchise: Your England. Vegetal serenity, soporific drone
of bees amid the dandelion & clover. Sun passes slantwise into the Pastoral
Imagination, shadow-dappled and trembling slightly. Eglantine. The hunting
enclosures where tame deer nuzzle the roots. We are the proud, subjected
page. We are the indolent, forging daisy chains. We are the sighing, O.
Languors of love, sweet pangs to the heart in Always Summer Afternoon.
Grass flatted and matted under thigh and rump and fattened calf. Meadowsweet
& primrose.

Willow by the water-feature, drapes her fingers into the green, ripple
and ruffle of resistance. And we would even permit the rain to fall, if only to
allow a rainbow to arch over us, and the perfume the earth exudes.
Explosions on impact, and the light shattered into it's constituent parts. Iris.
Water beaded on blackbird wing, magnifying the weave of feather.

We are heir to this, the pastoral imagination, are permitted here,
even tolerated, this indolence, lunch-break of forgetting,
this relief and this repose.

Who purchased Peace from Pandemonium and walled it round?
Who absolved it from the winds? Plashing fountain, complacent
songbirds, flowers simpering like children lined up to meet the
Queen. Does Guilt enter the sylvan scene? Our Rogues Gallery
of villains sneering and effeminate, or thick-fingered and thuggish,
wolves at liberty. We dream of a Reckoning, tauntingly
and indefinitely postponed.

In the proud compound we are pleased to comport ourselves.
Heraldic pigeon. I will allow myself this intoxication; this
sodden mulch, this enchantment of warm decay and life
making nostalgic replicas of itself. Will allow myself this
intoxication of word goaded to frenzy, soporific lullabye.
An English Country Garden, the pots in charming disarray.
Compost of wronged corpses. When this was still a site of
contention, before He staked his mulish claim. We won't
forsake these pleasures or refuse this state of grace,
bribe-sweets and condescending chuck beneath the chin.
This is the compass we must trust in, after all. Hellebore.
Agapanthus.
 

other_life

bioconfused
[in progress]

A brightness and breeze might
unwind the dark - you can
decide this morning will
be a walk in the park.
If you see black squirrel
on the path, or the branch
with white bird - a 'now' you
exchange for history's
'word', bruise you can cover
with history's cruise - come
discover: you lose which
mystery you don't choose.

If the trail in the province
saturates with your offence
and covers the corners, don't
covet the splotches - rewind
the offer that smoked out your
conscience. If hare, if pigeon
would quicken or bidden,
lick the wick that lettered
the ovens, and cobble
the datebooks that frightened
the shaman -
a gerund you summoned.

Mad, mad gulf of the potential
actual! Extinguished in God
the fictive - the actively factional!
Recreate production: the work
that tucks into play, an errand
to lay. Set the first rites of day.

All-song enphrase, endurer of wonders! -
Fearsome volts and flows
from crags that thunder
once had been depths in
the heart of the sea -
lightning vaults, and knows
it acts on wonder
better: strain to appraise,
arrive with thee.

The wheels from their sides,
as the valves tighten,
now coarse to the rider,
bedrocked and seized -
sword spotted seas! And bent on the finest
imaginal points, expressed as degrees -
reflexes stretched on the void. Unattached
and free: the sell-sane preceding agrees.

The front lines flanked freeze -
by handle and hatch
assembled - a white
bird undeterred, but
fowl fell at one time.
Boil - mantle dispatched,
a bald scandal hatched
and rights confered, such
that pinions bowed,
and took to their cues:
choosy with words -
a plucked, hot, bird pot stirred.

Entire torn atom - firm feather confused,
one love-won bantam with adam at scale.
A lovelorn hand pale -
the selfsame eschewed
spat out in detail:
and eve posits now
our unhappy vale.

The tenement carpets
deposit in conscience;
the stole-away motor
just croaked in the gulch;
the rollaway notions
are frozen - in solvence
toad eddies still float -
and ticker, a pulse:
the pages fly the knight
if kinlist loves requite;
a broom removed fault
would surely result.

The closed lid incites the eyes to recite -
a blackbox, and clay-roll receipts in array.
To air is to stray as wrong is for flight,
blight-lines and earth-steps
and paddies survey -
a light ring of smoke,
the grave hosts convoke,
roadbumps are rolling the rain on their way.

Dammed to requital,
entire non-resolved. Engrossed
with non-contact, splitting
the static. Half-supposed
and unclosed stove-end
black habit invoke.
The chokes cloak their pose,
the roe waisted throes
or stair-sides and chess
the heartvalves express:
guest. The pages consider
a love-shape transposed.

A frontlock occurs
to knights lately spurred -
a servitor, a trapdoor,
black lipsticks, and snuff -
the freights by the roadlamps
are gridlocked, enclosed.
A scent here to bottle
who's looking for clues:
a "hold tight", a rattle,
a red-coil sounds delight.
A watched flock will sound right,
its patterns twice effect.

Footstep verses, the tiger-
year curses late heard,
the motorcar chanson the jaguars rebuffed,
to crow - for those who know
from a dead dog's repose,
a bird-carried hand from
heart interred at land:
the ribcage advanced,
its time-kissed parlance
is for you, at dimestore to
thumb by page out of control.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 actually)
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 actually)

🤮
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Been reading Owen Barfield's Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning, can't recommend it enough, on my second read now

It's not really about poetic diction, and isn't just literary criticism, though it uses poetry as examples. It's more of a study of how the poetic mind creates meaning, and gives it precedence over logic/reason/philosophy as a way of increasing human knowledge, primarily through metaphor. It managed to completely flip over some assumptions I had about how language developed, really interesting on etymology, myth etc.

Anyone else here read it? I got tipped off cos Harold Bloom mentioned him quite a lot as an influence.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
"Oscar Wilde's mot - that men are made by books rather than books by men - was certainly not pure nonsense; there is a very real sense, humiliating as it may seem, in which what we generally venture to call our feelings are really Shakespeare's 'meaning'."
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
"Oscar Wilde's mot - that men are made by books rather than books by men - was certainly not pure nonsense; there is a very real sense, humiliating as it may seem, in which what we generally venture to call our feelings are really Shakespeare's 'meaning'."
Does this mean people from illiterate parts of the world are mere husks or automata compared to the Hamlet and Lear infused Englishmen.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
You'd have to read the book, it's quite an involved argument he's making, but you're way off. If anything, 'illiterate' language, is closer to nature than us post-shakespeareans. More modern poets have a lot of work to do in creating true metaphors to get back to that more 'primitive' expression.

Homer hadn't read shakespeare but he's still seen as the poetic gold standard.
 
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