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Poetry Revelation: Winter
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Poetry . . . Elegy and Discussion:
From the Ashes of Notre Dame
I crossed myself and stood at the altar,
eternity wound around my finger:
the crushed moment of my solemn singer
was the moment when the burned stone faltered.
I cannot ask for more from Gibraltar,
but for one of these little ones, ringer
of the bells that call them home, rise linger
on the sweetened isle, fading light loiters
as the peals repeat and resound, silence
breaking at the notion of sound's fury.
The burnished cathedral has fallen, died;
attic to cellar smoke with violence,
the steeple tied to the dead we bury
when the beating steel heart of Paris cried.
Notre Dame’s Last Singer
Our Lady, you are our noblest hero,
we swing our incense smoke for your reply
from the paradise in which you supply
our needs and our commands, how blithely so
do we insist on our own proven low
calculations, buying time on earth by
earning sterile bleak favours from God. My
home torn asunder with each gothic blow,
I was on my knees now to watch the fire
bludgeon the sky with inhuman cruelty.
We sang as city incarnadine burned,
with its altruistic Catholic spire;
we wept as Christ's face in ash was beauty,
as against us the broken stone face turned.
Requiem for a Royal Rose
Perhaps the speaker should be introduced:
departed from Greece, the far distant land,
where knighthood made him vow to win the hand
extended in favour, sea eyes, lucid—
of his lady. They would know him only
as her one handsome Duke of Edinburgh.
His calling might have been regal might, curbed,
to taste the flowers that emit honey,
to rest bouquet on whitened baby’s breath,
and to be father of both the lily
and the rose. For there are swords unwieldy,
and yet the love streams down, bright, bereft
of our days upon the earth, and how we
walked through desert sands and through snowy fields.
He chose to speak, and this is what he spoke:
chance forbade this favour to have his voice,
duty forbade the end to have a choice,
his children’s Bible names are what he wrote.
He was not scribe, nor poet, not a vice,
he was a consort, yet rule was quiet
leader, not daunting or pre-imminent,
but lilting his hoarse laugh rang more than twice
at the birth of a son, through these hallowed
now deserted halls. Each child would grow, leave,
for their own adult nefarious reels.
There was a book of Scripture, that mellowed
into dusty old regimented leaves,
turned grey doctrine into the grace that heals.
For a petal to fall from a rose bud
it must first blossom in royal red hue;
they crowned you first and always in the blue
garden, a valley—where the prophecy’s nudge
would enliven and wake us from death first;
recall the mountains—of sapphire martyred.
You were a Queen of domains uncharted,
and minions hid themselves beneath your skirts.
There was a ringing of the depth of rest—
in all your nation’s wisdom, and your smile
never betrayed your deepest warmest heart.
There was rose of cordiality’s crest
in every traversed field and forest mile,
you, in each hospitable gesture, art.
Her dark head bent over each sonorous
word, each syllable lent itself to sound,
the height of golden understanding crowned
beneath a tenet king incredulous—
His will to teach would be expedient:
just then, meek understanding of a verse
so solemn, vigorous, so full of mirth—
made his façade no longer lenient.
There was a poem, sacred, resting there,
beneath her ivory breast, a nation
signed their signature into her white throat,
the reputation of a crown, best here
where the brown falcons rise at her station,
and “All Hail!” becomes majority vote.
The rose grew up the Windsor Castle wall
breathing wine, it will stand at attention
in red salute, military mention
with glossy mahogany in the hall.
Her figure was reflected in the glass:
there were no entwined figures in a tree;
spirit of love hath at long last slain me—
I will not die—I hope but not to fast
beneath the ground, when all is lost about.
Shall I be departed, or shall veiled you?
Deep-dark rugs shall no more hear or pardon
resting footsteps, my voice shall not ring out.
English bluebells fashioned themselves in twos
for your tiara, and in your gardens.
She bowed her head and proclaimed eight days rest.
For all of England was the duty mourned:
she married every royal child in gown;
the call was that she nursed them at her breast.
He forbade that one stray drop fall from this
precious vial of a Queen in gossamer.
Ruby diadem and service silver
appeared at her edict, knighted thistles
in several orders bent frosted heads.
Lord and lady, sword and shield now immersed
in her regal kingdom, ornate and bold,
took from their packs needle and navy threads,
for the sea eyes would command their commerce,
while endorsing plum fairy tales untold.
In the dark wood where the blithe fairies hide
a noiseless purple feather fell to earth;
from under the ribcage of linear birth
that blessed diminutive blossomed bride.
The bird it came from no one knew of lived—
for it was not a bird of song, but one
of prey, and on the hunt led the way on
through the dank woodlands of trees in olive.
The horses thundered down, they braved the toil
of war and on from English soil they broached
enemies undeterred—to leave, reckoned,
blood red. Fleur-de-lis ampulla their oil—
they were a solemn front in royal coach,
silvered by death, opaque blossoms beckoned.
This collection uses the format of an Italian sonnet with modified rhyme scheme. Every poem, including the “Requiem for a Royal Rose” uses a similar rhyme scheme, with metered precision, for a fourteen line poem with ten syllables to each line. This format of a syllabic poem allows the writer to express with verbal accent as if music, the mourning and its profundity, within a structured framework. The necessity of a rhyming word prohibits just a wild run of the imagination, and gives a form of controlled exactness. Every stanza of the seven for “Requiem” is an alternate on:
ABBA
CDDC
EFG
EFG
For example:
HIIH
JKKJ
LMN
LMN
The two opening sonnets are this form exactly. For the first two poems, the experience of grief of the author in mourning the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral is beyond expression, so the controlled form gives only slightly way to feeling and emotion, producing an ethereal result. She observes a country (France) and its losses, as she does for England again in “Requiem”. Also, the use of words as a form of painting emotion, and the use of metaphor, imagery and word pictures also contribute to the creation of the poem as a whole elegy. For example, in grief, not just the author feels the emotion, but “the beating steel heart of Paris cried” (Poem 1, line 14) could also refer to the Eiffel Tower experiencing loss.
“I was on my knees now to watch the fire
bludgeon the sky with inhuman cruelty.” Poem 2, line 9,10
This phrase makes the whole poem look like a prayer by a devout person who watches not just as a bystander but as a Catholic. The religious rhyme and meter, syllables and diction make use of a repetitive religious expression and rigor to demonstrate spiritual and parental loss.
