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Death

 
Into that strange sky where
the past cries eternally, what drop
of tear would stay here on the earth?
They say the hummingbird dies
each night, dressed in alabaster
and the woman too cupping him
in her hands, soft woes for centuries
after – the muse’s muse who folds
her robes into a poem like a flower
losing itself to winter and  the
pain of all colours that chap the palms
of bone white hands. What drop
of honest blood would claim hereafter
the rivers of veins that give the earth
nails to claw, animals to dig, trees
to fight and open their areoles to
that strange sky where a mist gathers
in the shallows that cry from the unborn?
On the back of an open moth’s wing
the world is drawn - when she closes,
it closes, when she opens, it opens –
each day and night, like dust,
just dust.

 

◄ Raven

Burns ►

Comments

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Harry O'Neill

Sat 14th Jun 2014 00:47

I would be upset if my attempt to `suss out` for myself what it was about Marianne`s poem that affected me should be read as an approval of `difficult` poetry.

Unlike those poets who live in their own private unintelligible metaphysical world her figures have a hard to get at- but ultimately intelligible - allusion to what she is `saying` in this poem.

However, in my opinion, she does herself a
disservice by the way she puts together those
figures...Readers will take a little trouble to understand, but the poet should come some way to meet them.




fitzroy herbert

Fri 13th Jun 2014 08:25

Marianne, very happy to be left hard work to do as a reader. Never let that challenge prevent you from saying what you want to say how you want to say it - there are lots of difficult poets around, especially modern ones. Don't compromise your self-expression. We will all get from your work our own stuff...everything is only a reflection of self.

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Cynthia Buell Thomas

Thu 12th Jun 2014 22:29

Harry's 'analysis' is impressive. And your subsequent approval of it speaks volumes. I must miss so much.

But I do find Beauty - a cognizance of life, shared with great insight and sympathetic interweaving of time, space, matter and myth. I admire your scope of connectedness to all forms of human wisdom.

Kenneth Eaton-Dykes

Mon 9th Jun 2014 13:51

Sorry Marianne

This one to me is like the times crossword, it leaves the reader too much to do. Well written but
to my failing faculties, nigh incomprehensible. xx

Harry's shot at analysis left me equally puzzled.

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Marianne Louise Daniels

Mon 9th Jun 2014 12:20

Thank you for your time.

I think you have understood my poem very well Harry, thank you for the considered time reading.

I am sorry and not sorry for leaving the reader with so much hard work to understand me, its a daily struggle I have with myself!

am working on a collection now based on the love affair between Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen which is proving quite interesting because I am writing about figures that are probably a bit too personal to the people involved! nevertheless it is an inspirational little venture.

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Harry O'Neill

Mon 9th Jun 2014 00:18


Marianne,
I`m `going into` this a bit because, like others on here I am attracted and affected by some of your poems but sometimes have difficulty in `understanding` them. This is an attempt.



The poem is `about` death.

The unusual syntax of the beginning three
line question suggests that the rest of the
poem will consider `earth` `eternally`.

The nightly `dying` hummingbird and the
(Egyptian viscera -containing?) alabaster
both suggest–in differing ways- the theme
of death (and also eternity?) both followed
by the `soft woes` of the woman turned -
(hyphenated) into a `muse`s muse` ( is this
the poet herself?) who folds (composes?)
the woes into a `poem` like a flower losing
itself to winter and pain of all it`s colours
`chap the palms` of bone white hands`
(unresponsiveness?)

The following `what drop of honest blood`
harks back to the `what drop of tear` at the
start, as the the vague idea of perhaps trying
to restore circulation is strengthened by the
following metaphor of `veins` and `rivers` in
a rather bleak figure of a nail-clawing, animal-digging, tree-fighting, misty (nature?) which in `areoles` and `unborn` links budding plants and female teats into the metaphor.

The last five lines sum it all up dismissively
as `just dust` with (perhaps) the word`drawn`
being ambiguous. All is `just dust`.

The general drift is the inability of eternal poetry to soften the hard bleakness of the cold earth.

The poet has used enough reasonably valid
figures to explain why the poem is affective.
But I feel that those figures are too personal
to herself and that she would not leave the reader with so much hard work to understand her.


But she is (with difficulty) understandable and
miles superior to those incomprehensible navel-gazing `mystics` around.

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Dominic James

Wed 4th Jun 2014 12:09

With absorbing images and flashes of great authority as ever, oddly I didn't take in the title on the first reading: titles can be separated from the body of a poem, Death here seems too much, or too little. Always worth reading your stuff, when/where you send out work that's in your view complete: let me know!

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