Summer's Day

[Roy Hobbs]

If I talk to you of dark nights,
swollen clouds and frozen moons,
you would not believe the truth of pain
**
I'm trying, as I write, to move this into
the ordinary conditional column and out of
the logical conditional one. Context might
help, but in the mean, I'll go with first
impression.

The base is a logical conditional.

"If I talk; then, you won't believe."
or
"If Aristotle played the taws on the
bottom of a king; then, I live in Kansas."

The ordinary conditional as tautology, "If
you take the last piece of cake; then, none
will be left." Minus the tautology, "If you
take an Tums, your indigestion will ease."

Your poem sets the logical conditional in
motion. This motion carries through the poem.
***
is light and heat. An immortal summer's day
shines on every part of me, nourishing the bleakest tree,
**
we have 'shines' and 'nourishing.'
As a verb ending in 'ing'-- a verb-cluster-- the
reference must point back to 'me,' but it points
ahead to a tree. So, we need a compound predicate--
'shines on me and nourishes a tree.'

shines and nourishes
**
teasing new leaves from old wombs.
**
'nourishing and teasing'
**
Love cannot survive the sun,
but yearns for the quietus of a slim, contented soul.
**
another subsequent unprepared for by the antecedent
clause.

(I know this is poetry, and poetry has impunity
or it never would have survived the trip from
the Abbevillian(sp?) caves.
**
And when denied this simple want{{,}} its wayward
child{{,}} Hate exposes every wound, seeking faith
**
what is seeking faith? the wound? Idf it is Hate
doing the seeking, we need a preposition.. "Hate
exposes every would 'by' seeking faith.

I find a 'base' analysis, as if the poem were prose,
help clarify, so that more mystery may arise from the
poem. Mystery only comes if vision is clear.
**
in destruction.
This is the truth of my pain, at least.
**
I like the masked 'a fortiori' here.
**
A polite nastiness
**
Ha! a contradictio in adjecto."-- the unsaying
of a noun by a contradictory adjective(see
Romeo's lament).
**
not uncommon to the British
peppers the broth of my soul.
**
A polite nastiness peppers the broth ...
excellent!
**
I want to resurrect our wretched Empire,
sell slaves to America, tear husband from wife,
**
hardly polite nastiness-- you want something else.
**
gnarled hand from gnarled hand. Abolish the gestures of care.
If manhood is defined by hate and ignorance
I'll be John fucking Wayne, (no comma)
**
Logical or ordinary conditional?
**
pressing the dagger into Juliet's hand.
My immortal summer's day will know no frozen moons.
**
Apparently, the narrator is upset (litotes).

RH