Autumnal Spirit

Kennelly: "A Singing Wound"

WHAT?

'What is my body?' I asked the man made of rain.
'A temple,' he said, 'and the shadow thrown
by the temple, dreamfield, painbag, lovescene,
hatestage, miracle jungle under the skin.

Cut it open.  Pardon the apparition.'

'What is my blood?' I dared then.
'Her pain birthing you and me,
the slow transfiguration of pain
into knowing what it means to be

climbing the hill of blood, trawling the poisoned sea.'

'Where have I been when they say I have returned?'
'Where beginning and end
combine to make a picture, compose a sound
reminding you that love is a singing wound

and I could be your friend.'

--BRENDAN KENNELLY,

from "The Man Made of Rain"

Collected in
Familiar Strangers: New & Selected Poems, 1960 - 2004
Bloodaxe Books Ltd.

Once A Boy

Memory Alley . . . .

Dreams and Shadows -- Robert Graves' "Theseus and Ariadne"

Amazon: sculpture mix; cobalt carbonate oxide.

THESEUS AND ARIADNE

High on his figured couch beyond the waves

He dreams, in dream recalling her set walk

Down paths of oyster-shell bordered with flowers,

Across the shadowy turf below the vines.

He sighs: "Deep sunk in my erroneous past

She haunts the ruins and the ravaged lawns."

Yet still unharmed it stands, the regal house

Crooked with age and overtopped by pines

Where first he wearied of her constancy.

And with a surer foot she goes than when

Dread of his hate was thunder in the air,

When the pines agonised with flaws of wind

And flowers glared up at her with frantic eyes.

Of him, now all is done, she never dreams

But calls a living blessing down upon

What he supposes rubble and rank grass;

Playing queen to nobler company.

--ROBERT GRAVES

TGIF: Two Views

North Berkeley pit-stop.

A little albacore on the grill.

A Little Mermaid Sighting . . .

A different sort of water-fox . . . . 

Mergatroyd, Mermaid: 
sculpture mix; denim glazing, layered; copper wire.

Queequeg: "As Cool As An Icicle"

But as for Queequeg -- why, Queequeg sat there among them -- at the head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle.  To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding.  His greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him.  But that was certainly very coolly done by him, and every one knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly.

--Melville's Ishmael on his new friend

from "Chapter 5: Breakfast"
of Moby Dick