|
Then he would bring her books, and read to her
The poems of Dr. Donne, and the blue river
Would murmur through the reading, and a stir
Of birds and bees make the white petals shiver,
And one or two would flutter prone and lie
Spotting the smooth-clipped grass. The days went by
Threaded with talk and verses. Green leaves
pushed
Through blossoms stubbornly.
Gervase, unconscious of dishonesty,
Fell into strong and watchful loving, free
He thought, since always would his lips be
hushed.
|
A hundred forty syllables it has,
This proverb that abuses, disregards
Unspoken vows. (She slowly shuffled, as
Her giggles ended, broken into shards.)
O do not ever, under Eden hid,
Go up to chew the cud of Hades' cow,
But rather hum a song. Amen! Forbid
Ideas dull, thus shun the evil now.
Repel her temper; O go duly nigh
To such an overt, sad eternal end;
O, help me now! Renew it, men! Set high!
Bad skin cast forth, this ritual amend.
So bugger it! Throw in the towel. Stop!
And stubbornly the final vowel drop.
|
|
Richard Grantham [after Shakespeare] -
|
Shall I contrast her to a summer spell?
She doth surpass it - vivid, gentle, kind:
Hard gusts do blow the bud of April dell;
Abruptly Eden has left us behind:
How often rugged glows the feted sun -
How common is diluted energy;
Defiant splendor be akin to dun,
Target of natural hiatus he:
But her undying Eden cannot ebb,
No eon can her halo overthrow,
Evadeth she the Devil's evil web
As she in pithy poetry doth grow;
So long as summers bask, or he defer,
A word persists; such words hung worth on her.
|
|
Richard Grantham [after Brooke] -
|
When I am perish'd, think but this of me:
The distant paddock is a rugged plot
That is for ever England. So shall be
Below dug turf a purer dust, begot
By England old: created, temper'd, sown,
Or given path, or buttercup to hold,
A lad refresh'd by ether England's own,
Wash'd in the river, or to sun of old.
He, now the hero, evil vista shed,
Unto a hum of the eternal mind
Endow us with such English musing shy;
Her choruses, or sunset O so red,
Anew to revelry of pals to bind,
A blessèd hush, below an English sky.
|
|
Richard Grantham [after Shelley] -
|
We met a wand'rer of an agèd land:
He told us of two stony legs robust
But trunkless now, upon dry desert sand;
His rugged, epic brow nigh on the dust,
Enroll a livery of reprimand
The artisan did truly comprehend;
He, cruel ego, hewn on idle things,
An ever-helpless shudder to the end:
Upon the slab a legend thus did sit:
"Oh, I be Ramses, highest king of kings;
Behold my hand, O powerful: Submit!"
- However harsh, a shadow of the past:
But for colossal rubble, not a whit
Surviveth on the desert echo vast.
|
(Ozymandias was the praenomen of Ramses II)
|
|
|
Richard Grantham [after Rimbaud] -
|
A black, E snow, I red, U plum, O gold --
O vowels, I shall tell thy origin:
A -- hubbub of odd bugs that ever spin
On velvet vestments dark, a hundredfold,
The shaded gulf; E -- Eden's ether hot,
Snow lances, ashen king, or she unwed;
I -- crimson that engorges, lips that bled
With fury hid or wantonness forgot;
U -- purple flower on Uranus' bed,
The shadow-gutted meteor he led
By synesthetic asp or hidden dhow;
O -- highest trumpet, brassy avatar,
O gilded hush in Seraphim or Star,
O sun, the End -- Her inflorescent Brow!
|
