05-18-2023, 02:52 PM
Charlottesville Nocturne
The late September night is a train of thought, a wound
That doesn’t bleed, dead grass that’s still green,
No off-shoots, no elegance,
the late September night,
Deprived of adjectives, abstraction’s utmost and gleam.
It has been said there is an end to the giving out of names.
It has been said that everything that’s written has grown hollow.
It has been said that scorpions dance where language falters and
gives way.
It has been said that something shines out from every darkness,
that something shines out.
Leaning against the invisible, we bend and nod.
Evening arranges itself around the fallen leaves
Alphabetized across the back yard,
desolate syllables
That braille us and sign us, leaning against the invisible.
Our dreams are luminous, a cast fire upon the world.
Morning arrives and that’s it.
Sunlight darkens the earth.
I don't love this poem.
It actually added to my unhappiness.
But then I wrote that For Daphne poem, which is how people deal.
I think I had already written that poem but I don't know.
I read, out loud, my poem, Summer in Autumn, that night.
There was a tv newscrew there interviewing people for some reason.
There was a lot of reasons I acted the fool that night.
I fabricated a hate crime so I could go to jail because it was raining.
I just pretended to hate someone who didn't exist. That was all it took.
Geoffrey Hill
Holy Thursday
Naked, he climbed to the wolf's lair;
He beheld Eden without fear,
Finding no ambush offered there
But sleep under the harbouring fur.
He said: 'They are decoyed by love
Who, tarrying through the hollow grove,
Neglect the seasons' sad remove.
Child and nurse walk hand in glove
As unaware of Time's betrayal,
Weaving their innocence with guile.
But they must cleave the fire's peril
And suffer innocence to fall.
I have been touched with that fire,
And have fronted the she-wolf's lair.
Lo, she lies gentle and innocent of desire
Who was my constant myth and terror.'
The late September night is a train of thought, a wound
That doesn’t bleed, dead grass that’s still green,
No off-shoots, no elegance,
the late September night,
Deprived of adjectives, abstraction’s utmost and gleam.
It has been said there is an end to the giving out of names.
It has been said that everything that’s written has grown hollow.
It has been said that scorpions dance where language falters and
gives way.
It has been said that something shines out from every darkness,
that something shines out.
Leaning against the invisible, we bend and nod.
Evening arranges itself around the fallen leaves
Alphabetized across the back yard,
desolate syllables
That braille us and sign us, leaning against the invisible.
Our dreams are luminous, a cast fire upon the world.
Morning arrives and that’s it.
Sunlight darkens the earth.
I don't love this poem.
It actually added to my unhappiness.
But then I wrote that For Daphne poem, which is how people deal.
I think I had already written that poem but I don't know.
I read, out loud, my poem, Summer in Autumn, that night.
There was a tv newscrew there interviewing people for some reason.
There was a lot of reasons I acted the fool that night.
I fabricated a hate crime so I could go to jail because it was raining.
I just pretended to hate someone who didn't exist. That was all it took.
Geoffrey Hill
Holy Thursday
Naked, he climbed to the wolf's lair;
He beheld Eden without fear,
Finding no ambush offered there
But sleep under the harbouring fur.
He said: 'They are decoyed by love
Who, tarrying through the hollow grove,
Neglect the seasons' sad remove.
Child and nurse walk hand in glove
As unaware of Time's betrayal,
Weaving their innocence with guile.
But they must cleave the fire's peril
And suffer innocence to fall.
I have been touched with that fire,
And have fronted the she-wolf's lair.
Lo, she lies gentle and innocent of desire
Who was my constant myth and terror.'