Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
                            Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

 

Yeats: and how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?Does the verse match the original painting by Michelangelo?  Who knows, there are only copies left.  Before finding the picture above, I thought the picture a better record of the encounter, but that old style modelling, and then the writing, more immediate, more sudden than expected: it's a match. Enough for Leda's hatched girls to reflect on.

Noses

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The poem that was here send out for prizes, in its place, WCW:

Smell

Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?
What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose,
always indiscriminate, always unashamed,
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedraggled
poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth
beneath them. With what deep thirst
we quicken our desires
to that rank odor of a passing springtime!
Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardors
for something less unlovely? What girl will care
for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways?
Must you taste everything? Must you know everything?
Must you have a part in everything?
 

Degas & Thomas

DEGAS  
The Dancing Class
by R.S.Thomas


Pretending he keeps
an aviary; looking no higher
than their feet; listening
for their precise fluttering.

And they surround him, flightless
birds in taffeta
plumage, picking up words
gratefully, as though they were crumbs.







Third time round, the immediate impact of the poem lessens, I find I don't adore the conclusion.  But I am glad to have got hold of a copy of Between Here and Now even with B&W prints of the paintings described, the exercises are sometimes brilliantly illuminating.  Also, compare William Carlos Williams and WH Auden on Brueghel's Icarus.

Online

Three poems taken up in the last six weeks or so,The Nones made a sensational appearance in Leaves of Ink 14 September, and two poems to be posted in the Spring edition of Message in a bottle (Guildford Line, Dawn's Eastern Fabric, the usual current and ancient, distorted learning, and the tone here and there off the cuff). I like having poems accepted, but can't determine which is the best medium to promote them/me - I suppose it depends entirely on the quality of the wine.

Dead Ink

Deserter has been posted on Dead Ink Books with an illustration that is entirely apt (unlike this one). I am very happy to see it online, laid out: and the poetry editor "loving it". Me too.  The source of this poem was a dream, and I couldn't say how wide or specific the references are. The divisions are many but the nature of it is sympathetic. Any comments, twittering or thunderings, entirely welcome.  A good month for my poetic CV. 

Judge James

The judge’s report for the SLQ May Quarterly competition is posted.  Now my part is done, any competitor who finds this blog and feels aggrieved, wants to tell me to stuff it: post a comment by all means.  Though not much chance of an appeal.

By the way, to any poets starting out alone, I would recommend signing up to http://www.writeoutloud.net Post poems, get feedback, share comment, and there is a good listings page for anyone who wants to read out, or recite their work - and we all should.

Lastly, on two poems, the writer of Ms Jelani might want to bid for a bardic chair in Glos. calls for a poem on flood, link, and on the Ghost of a Flea, a coincidence, I know that pointy head! He's by my desk, questioning his empty chalice.

will can be understood

The sonnet notebook might be lightly done
when there’s no recipe too wrong for thought:
a  first appraisal rather jumped the gun.
But fairly put. If order may be taught

Active minds require examination,
honesty must be measured out and; will.
Will takes a shot, written-up creation
rings, echoes what’s been thought while still

between the tenor and the vehicle,
the general and the one, human impact
stays the course in spark and particle
of minds uncaught save they are held  intact.

So this chase goes on, more calm, more careful
and not rhyme alone, no, rhyme’s a trifle.

This season i will mainly be writing sonnets,  for the exercise in form.  With a dozen or so pomes a month I thought pictures would give the notebook an agreeable, renaissance air: appropriate then to start with a drawing or two from Michelangelo's frescoes: here's my copy of an Adam and, probably, an Eve. For other guidance, MB's own sonnets might have lost some quality in translation, Shakespeare was brilliant though his light is cold and now Ba Browning looks warmer, at first glance warmer, so I'm curling up with her Sonnets from the Portuguese. EBB is very good.