spring madness

pale iris
in shooting you now
i make you immortal

Distances

Hero's Final Vigil

 

The distance between you-and-me is less
than the ens and ems between these letters,
yet in the minds’ eye, Planck’s scale grows too vast
a chasm; illusion clouds thought, thought clouds
heart and head alike. We part never to
touch again—Hero losing Leander,
whose delusion of drowning blinds him to
her lamp evermore. The drowned cannot swim
nor circumnavigate the Hellespont . . .

I am no Leander, she no Hero,
and yet we play the drama, live their myth
as though that were real to this world. Love dies
a million deaths in such tragedies—Oh!
But love births itself a billion times in Life! 

©David M Pitchford
10 April 2009

Rokeby Venus: Ekphrastic Sonnet

 

 

"Rokeby Venus" by Diego Velasquez c. 1650

What Within the Looking Glass?

Is it truth you see within your looking
glass? Or merely that shallow reflection,
that skin-deep self, flesh manifestation
engineered of cells divided, cooking
DNA’s unique recipe—working
toward our next, our better(?), evolution,
and victim to fortune’s machination
toward Nature’s mysterious re-making?
 

Venus, do you see your truth? Burning flame
lit by unseen sun, burning bright within
eyes shadowed by doubt, self-immolation
to protest yesterday’s beauty—that same
beauty as marks you today, looks akin
to Ideal, yet perceived sans admiration?

David M Pitchford
6 December 2008

Agony: sonnet on a Ligozzi painting

"Agony" by Jacopo Ligozzi

 

Gardens of Our Own Agony

“The Kingdom is within you.” And Satan
shakes his little fist within my bruised black
soul: sinner! sinner! His guilt an attack
only I inflict upon myself. Can
God hate himself for being All? Satan
sits back in his shadowed corner to crack
gallows grins of gleeful pride—yes, he’ll stack
the evidence neck-deep—cannot withstand

shadow, for he is Morning. What wise men
know, is that the shadow fears the light less
than light fears that which covers it. But, see,
we are offspring of the Divine; our sin
is separation—dwelling in darks’ garden
when we are made and dwell in ecstasy.

 

David M Pitchford
18 November 2008

Colorizing Durer

Anyone else a fan of Albrecht Durer? I saved some copies of his b/w sketches (woodcuts?) years ago from wga, and then later colored them in as an exercise in learning Photoshop. I especially like this one – the detail is unbelieveable! I’ll have to search my files and post my colorized “St. Michael” later.

Don’t you just love that little lizard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sacrifices

"Echo and Narcissus" by John William Waterhouse

Beyond the Age of Sacrifice

Just what God needs
One more victim . . .
—Tori Amos, “Crucify”

Narcissus sees only his own perfect reflection
everything that happens happens
            outside
                        himself

I am done with sacrifices

I am done with sacrifices

            Echo adores him from beside the brook
            Cyrix whispers tunes he hears with no appreciation

Done with sacrifice . . .
            with sacrifice . . .
                    sacrifices done . . .

Still the Cyrix plays to the fell wind
                       plays to a blue sky
                       plays to a still pool

                        deeply troubled
                        deeply troubled
                                    with sacrifices
                                                         done

His brother the moon looks down
from cloud-city heights, aloof
views truth from a different perspective
weeps raindrops to flood the plains, bloat the brook
and dilute the perfect illusion of its perfect lies
hoping, hoping, hoping
                                   to
                                    s
                                      w
                                         a
                                            y
                                                 Narcissus 

Darkness encroaches, inimical savior
                                   inimical judge 

Brother moon in his sapphire temple
chases his Pleiad wife and her two sons
to havens, a poor father need-crazed to save
            what can be saved
                        what can be saved?
                                    what can be saved?
                                                                 be saved?
                                                                               saved?

How many nights must Moon surrender?
What is the end of sacrifice?
          A time comes when a man
                                  when a man must
                                                   a man must
         must release yesterdays . . .
                               release yesterday’s sins
                                            yesterday’s black venom
                                            yesterdays’ brutal childhood
                                                                in that house of shame
                                                                in that house of violence
                                                                in that house of pain
                                                                                      and loathing
                                                                in that hell of voices raging
                                                                                   in that hell
                                                                                       that hell

Still the Cyrix plays to the fell wind
            plays to a blue sky
            plays to a still pool
                        deeply troubled
                        deeply troubled
                                    with sacrifices
                                                                  done

to trouble the moon
                      trouble the moon
                     trouble moon
                                 moon trouble
                     sin & sacrifice
                                             sacrifice

When comes the end of patience?
            Patience is the ocean, whispers Moon
                               the ocean . . .
                                    to wax
                                              to wane
             it is the nature and cycle
                                      of all things
                                                          of all things
                                                                    all things

 Still Cyrix plays to the fell wind
            plays to a blue sky
            plays to a still pool
            in a yellow minor key
                        golden minor
                        deeply troubled
                        deeply troubled
                                    with sacrifices
                                                done

 Tonight’s tide leaves dry all the world’s beaches
Moon withholds his golden brilliance
            Am I not beyond
                        the age of sacrifice?
                                    beyond the age
                                                            sacrifice . . .

In drunken chuckle is heard
final echo of the Bacchanal—
final verse in voice of Orpheus:
            Self-immolation ends, my friends
                         in ultimate catharsis
                               only in apotheosis

David M Pitchford
20 June 2008
Rev 8 December 2008

Merlin’s Defeat

Nyneve, What but My Soul Suffices?

You, whom they call the Lady of the Lake,

Nyneve, my love, what shall I offer you

to appease your anger? Can it be true

you knew the Incubus, my father? Take

from me all I have, as though life did not rake

me over hellish coals . . . take then these blue

eyes, take this red heart! Take from me what few

days I boast as mine! But for Pity’s sake—

 

my soul, oh my soul, my soul, take mercy

on me and leave my immortal self, leave

this soul to wander wide post mortum. See!

Even Dagda grants surcease! Would you grieve

my kin? I forfeit my life’s legacy,

make me servant, but my soul give reprieve!

David M Pitchford
9 June 2008

Image depicted: “The Beguiling of Merlin” by Edward Burne Jones, 1874

Lamia’s Tale

Courtesan’s Confession

You brought me here a slave, though I was

a noblewoman in my own land, a fairer land

crowned with mountains and without that stench,

constant reek of fish and brine. Whore for a king—

but far too wise, thus sold as courtesan, no common

whore, but whore nonetheless. And you wonder

at my audacity to despise both king and man? Fools

have no use for a woman of intelligence, a learnéd

whore who can carry conversation as well as water

and the faint heart of a political pedant.

Your physician with his golden needle

pierced the soft mechanism of my fertile

womb, and made me a eunuch whore . . . What then

did you think I would do? Robbed of my self,

robbed of immortality, I cried out

to my goddess, supplicating for life

and vengeance. She heard, oh yes, and cried loud

and long within me even as my own

tears stained the satin settee you thought might

please me. I was never pleased! Your wine-stench

and olive-slick skin repulsed me always!

I learned of your wife, mother of your child,

and listened at Symposium for fear

in your strange tales; naming myself Lamia,

I took the serpent’s way into your wife’s

rooms with poisons of my own. She suffered

little for your transgression—I took mercy

on other victims—but your infant son

shed his flesh for the dish I serve you this

night to celebrate your final birthday!

David M Pitchford
9 June 2008

Picture: “The Lamia” by Herbert James Draper, 1909

This is sort of a mishmash of Greek mythology. It is based on the tales of Lamia, and mixed with similar tales of vengeance and such. Apparently, there were multiple archetypes of prostitutes in ancient Greece—one for pleasure only (pornae) both freelance and pimped, and one for pleasure and companionship (hetaera) more comparable to courtesans and often educated. Hope you enjoy the poem.