There is this poem
There is a poem
this wind is blowing
a bright and fluttering sheet.
Now asking; if they are shall it be?
And further then, now lowing
bolts of brazening beat
unmasking and unclothing we,
watching at our sewing
the cloth finely; to see
with corners that roam
with shells for making
purple and pearls and prosody.
-- Sebastian
http://www.unixchix.org/rubies/intrepiddreamer/index.html
I love the beginning : there is a poem....I would have begun it this way :there is this poem... .Well ,that is how he looks at it .He prefers it that way .Perhaps the poem is just a poem for him which the wind is blowing /A bright and fluttering sheet . Further down ,there is this interesting line:"to see/With corners that roam /with shells for making purple and pearls and prosody" . Exquisite lines these. Corners that roam with shells for making purple and pearls and prosody. These last lines are the corners and purple and pearls and prosody are made here.
My hands uncover the bodies of your body
"Touch " by Octavio Paz
My hands
open the curtains of your being
clothe you in a further nudity
uncover the bodies of your body
My hands
invent another body for your body
Translation by Eliot Weinberger
http://judithpordon.tripod.com/poetry/octavio_paz_touch.html
The magic of his touch is such that it transforms her being ,uncovering the bodies of her body. Her body is not a single entity but a multiple-layered existence containing several unexplored bodies within.Her physical being comes to light as his exploring hands remove the curtains thereby flooding her inner being with exquisite light. A new body is invented ,a new life comes into being
They trample the edges of the street
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.
(Morning at the window by T.S.Eliot)
“They are rattling breakfast plates” reminds you Eliot’s rattling bones references in The Waste Land .Eliot’s walkers have a unique way .They trample the edges of the street. And housemaids with “damp” souls suddenly sprout at the area gates .Their souls are damp and they sprout probably like lilacs April is breeding out of the dead land .And what does the brown fog ,again as in The Waste Land ,toss up to the poet looking through the window ? Only twisted faces from the bottom of the street and an aimless smile which hovers in the air and stops along the level of roofs.
The typical Eliot despondency comes through and the imagery remains much the same as in the Waste Land where the theme is dealt with in much more detail.
Her eyes are bullet holes filled with the hills and the sky
Arun Kolhatkar's poem "the Old Woman" is a pen sketch of an old woman who makes her living as a self-appointed tourist guide .The poet feels bothered by her when she pesters him for a fifty paise coin in return for showing him the horseshoe shrine.
You look right at the sky.
Clear through the bullet holes
she has for her eyes.
And as you look on,
the cracks that begin around her eyes
spread beyond her skin.
And the hills crack.
And the temples crack.
And the sky falls
With a plate-glass clatter
Around the shatterproof crone
who stands alone
And you are reduced
to so much small change
in her hand
http://www.geocities.com/kavitayan/arun_kolatkar.html
You look right at the sky
Clear through the bullet-holes
She has for eyes.
The old woman’s eyes are just two gaping holes filled with empty air,with the hills and the sky.Then the cracks begin around her eyes ,spreading beyond her skin and then the hills crack, the temples crack and the sky cracks and the the sky finally shatters and falls like plate-glass. The old woman herself is shatter-proof and nothing happens to her .Only you get instantly reduced to small change in her hand .It is you who shatter because her eyes are already bullet-holes which are formed with the cracks around the holes.
The beautiful moment that stays for ever
Rilke's You and you only exist is another breezy poem with absolutely no sombre tones.Like John Donne he talks about the impact of Time on human life,the transience of our existence and the beauty of a single moment .A sort of metaphysical poem of the modern times. The use of irony is devoid of bitterness but is marked by a quiet acceptance of the impermanence of the human existence.
“You only exist/We pass away,till at last/Our passing is so immense/that you arise :beautiful moment”- the contrast here is between our transient existence and the permanence of the beautiful moment. The paradox is amusing: while we pass away , the moment exists and our passing is so immense that a beautiful moment arises. Our semi-permanent(slightly longer) existence contrasts with the brevity of the beautiful moment ,which by its definition is only a moment but exists for all time to come.
“To the beautiful moment” the poet belongs ,however much time wears him away.He moves between one beautiful moment and another. Then come the most beautiful lines of Rilke one has ever come across :
“…In between
The garland is hanging in chance: but if you
take it up and up:look:
all becomes festival!”
In between the beautiful moments,the garland is hanging in chance and it is up to you to take it up and up so that it becomes a festival. It is a matter of chance that you pick some precious moments filled with happiness and if you can do it , happiness is all yours. One of the most optimistic poems of Rilke .
.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/you-you-only-exist
Faust's famous clock quote
"Ah, Faustus, now hast thou but one bare hour to live
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!
Stand still, you ever moving spheres of heaven.
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair nature's eye, rise, rise again and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
'O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!'
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come and Faustus must be damn'd'"
"Dr.Faust"--Play by Christopher Marlowe ,Shakespeare's contemporary playwright
Faustus who has entered into an irrevocable pact with the devil for exchange of his soul for all the black magic powers of the devil suddenly realizes he has just an hour to live, after which he will burn in hell for eternity."The clock quote" here is a favorite quote of University Professors. The lines do not boast of rich imagery such as you will find in Shakespeare's plays. But the lines are a powerful piece of dramatic speech such as one would expect in the Elizabethan drama and when spoken on the stage they truly touch your heart and strike a chord of sympathy for the chief protagonist who has by his vaulting ambition brought upon himself all this suffering .The doctor is asking that time be frozen and the sun not rise and give him time to repent and save his soul. If a tragedy is expected to bring about catharsis in the viewer, Faust's tragedy eminently qualifies to do this.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
Cloths of heaven
By W.B.Yeats
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Pretty sentimental and syrupy and full of hyperbole,isn't it ? But I love the last line :
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
The line is worth its weight in gold.
Those are pearls that were his eyes
I love these lines from Shakespeare's The Tempest ,airy and spirit-like .Of course it is the spirit Ariel who speaks them :
Of his bones are coral made
those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth change
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
The lines are airy because the situation they depict does not exist .Ariel is merely fooling his audience. He is not dead but is very much alive in another part of the island. But assuming that the person supposed to have been drowned is actually dead ,then he becomes a spirit just like Ariel and speaks the same airy lines . But a transformation from the real to the unreal will precede his attaining such a state of being. That is the transformation of nature into art-the sea-change he is talking about. Here of course we are not talking about art in the sense of an artifact,a man-made thing of beauty.His bones do not disintegrate into dust but become coral ,his eyes become pearls and everything of him becomes something rich and strange.
That is the way a "good" spirit speaks !
Palms are spiders hung in a web of light
Adil Jussawala's images are a treat to your visual imagination.
"Spiders infest the sky
They are palms,you say
Hung in a web of light"
(Nine Poems on arrival-Adil Jussawala)
This is almost painterly imagination. The poet has returned from a long exile abroad to Mumbai and the first thing he sees as soon as he comes out of the airport is the clusters of palm trees ,their fronds against the setting sun looking like spiders hung in a web of light. The spiders "infest" the sky -there are so many of the palm fronds in the western sky.
Another equally beautiful image is this:
"the garlands beheading the body
and everybody dressed in white
who are we ghosts of ?"
"Garlands beheading the body" probably mean that the heavy garlands have almost covered the head of the diseased .”Everybody dressed in white:who are we ghosts of ?” referring to the custom of the near and dear ones wearing white clothes in the funeral.
http://india.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/ndex.php?obj_id=2773
Taking arms against a sea of troubles
"To be or not to be- that is the question
Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them "
Shakespeare's Hamlet
The Hamletian dilemma stated here is not a profound philosophical statement but it appeals to you more in terms of the poetic beauty of the lines.In our younger days we were confused by the apparent inconsistency of "taking arms against a sea of troubles" The inconsistency is in using the "image within image" of "taking arms against a sea of troubles" but actually there are three images, each of them interacting with the other.-"Taking arms", "against a sea of troubles","a sea of troubles".
By way of elaboration we may state it this way :the individual takes arms against troubles and by opposing them ends them. Troubles are the soldiers of the opposing army .The soldiers gathered in the battlefield look like a sea. The three images are ;1)the individual takes arms like a warrior 2) he takes arms against troubles and 3)the troubles look like a sea.
