Monday, September 3, 2012

Metamorphosis of a Blythe Spirit


No skylark, summer found him one morning 
In an olive grove, waiting for the cicadas 
To begin their song from limb to limb; 

One evening at the end of autumn, 
Nailed to a twisted trunk, 
They found the shell of him. 

4 comments:

  1. Was that Shelley or just the "shell of him" they found? It matters a great deal to contemporary poetry...

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  2. Conrad,

    Another intriguing question. Let me hazard a tongue-in-cheek guess: As the "poetry wars" need every able-bodied man and women ready to sacrifice themselves and their art to whatever noble ideals are currently “in the air” so to speak, I would say the answer depends on just how shell(ey)-shocked “they” were. Watch out for the flak, my friend!

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  3. There's a curious reverse-Orphic double-take twist in "limb to limb", indeed a bit ominous... "in context" like they say.

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  4. Your pithy remark nailed this one head-on, o distant son of Pythia.

    ReplyDelete

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