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ELEKTRA
dedicated to Kate Bush
‘Adam
is stasis, or conservatism; Eve is kinesis, or progress. Adam
societies are ones in which the man and the father, male gods, exact
strict obedience to established institutions and norms of behaviour,
as during a majority of the periods of history in our era. The
Victorian is a typical such period. Eve societies are those in which
woman and mother, female gods, encourage innovation and experiment,
and fresh definitions, modes of feeling. The Renaissance and our own
are typical such ages.’ John Fowles, The Aristos
(For full text see
the Kindle ebook The
Nature of Things (Collected Poems)
by Alan Marshfield)
1 HER AGONY
Time’s
Steady State
I’ve seen the leaf
constrained to come
in summer, its foot glued
to the bark,
hedged, sentenced to
anonymous work,
buzz in hundreds, other
times stay dumb.
...
Grand’mère
Usage is what she lives by,
not a cage.
Who wants to be a prisoner
all her life?
Who wants to live in a
psychotic calm
upon the arm of a correct,
stiff groom
...
The god of
the woods
His laugh no refuge, the
safe
doctor so many lies,
his bones squeaking, an
aged
resentment in his eyes,
...
Her fashion now
He is the victim, speaks
for a perished species:
it cannot be that he will
have long life.
She ties him down. The work
done in her field
is the difference between
their two potentials:
...
2 HER
NATURE
Elektra
Fey, unoriginal, refracting
quotations from belittled
canzoni,
she is drawn to those
unlike her.
Among the derivatives of fin-de-siècle
she chooses the stroller
with the black Malacca.
...
Who goes
Who goes in the electric
wind, vibrating,
who seeks a share in it,
lost dreams,
who has her elements on the
money,
who finds less limitation
in the cold,
...
She flies
The stars are as they are
by accident.
His time is little to their
outward speed.
A tree is nearer to him,
and it feels
less than he does, maybe,
but more than she.
...
3 HER LOVE
Isis
And now the rain is
beginning, and she is
all about us. She is in
love still.
Gutters run pure. Although
she can rip trees,
drown valleys, she is
gentle this evening.
...
The moonstone
I will have no more
fiction. She is
the moonstone on the bed of
the pool,
the transmuting eye in the
psyche,
the one drop of dew drowned
under air,
...
4 ENVOI
Where are the girls of
yesteryear
Where are
the girls of yesteryear
Who have
illuminated me?
Where Sue
Strap with the college eyes,
where
Madame Krabb, the doyenne of spies,
...
(For
full text see the Kindle ebook
The Nature of Things
(Collected Poems) by Alan Marshfield)
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