Tuesday, May 21, 2013

These Poems, She Said, by Robert Bringhurst


Maurice Ravel - Bolero 

These poems, these poems,
these poems, she said, are poems
with no love in them. These are the poems of a man
who would leave his wife and child because
they made noise in his study. These are the poems
of a man who would murder his mother to claim
the inheritance. These are the poems of a man
like Plato, she said, meaning something I did not
comprehend but which nevertheless
offended me. These are the poems of a man
who would rather sleep with himself than with women,
she said. These are the poems of a man
with eyes like a drawknife, with hands like a pickpocket’s
hands, woven of water and logic
and hunger, with no strand of love in them. These
poems are as heartless as birdsong, as unmeant
as elm leaves, which if they love love only
the wide blue sky and the air and the idea
of elm leaves. Self-love is an ending, she said,
and not a beginning. Love means love
of the thing sung, not of the song or the singing.
These poems, she said....
                                               You are, he said,
beautiful.
                    That is not love, she said rightly.


poem from The Beauty of the Weapons: Selected Poems 1972-1982 (Copper Canyon Press, 1982)
as posted at poetryfoundation.org

post inspired by this blog 

3 comments:

Prospero said...

Manuela!

Roxana mentioned Rilke the other day and I thought of you, and now the gestic aura of bolero, dancing like the curl and creep of a puff of smoke.

manuela said...

Prospero! How are you? Just the other day I visited your new blog and was mesmerized by a yellow-red flower photo. I wanted to dive right into it.

I seem to have lost the knack of staying connected. It is good to hear from you.

manuela said...

also, Roxana mentioned Rilke and you thought of me, how great is that!!! :)