Poems by Mark Price home | art gallery | essays on art | biography & exhibitions | talk to me
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Poems 1 Aphrodite 2 Crumpled Wisdom Other: Secret Name & Gentle Urgings of a Vaporous Dream & Transformations |
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Aphrodite
In
Arcadia of ancient golden days
on men
who loved them, in candor they told
their
heart’s content and lived by
nature’s ways
their
pleasing forms; beauty that can’t grow old
but
will dream away as dreaming will flow
into a
vast ocean called long ago.
On its
shore dreaming man plans and plots
numbered days swiftly pass untying knots
that he
will tie up again as he grumbles
“too
soon I die, for what?” until he spots
naked
Aphrodite, who turning circles
through
the wood, is sweetly scented, a misty rain
that
falls she claims to cleanse him of all stain.
but he
is swollen at the sodden root
and
destined from his naked hip to shoot.
Aphrodite will turn herself away,
though
he howls in pain his ardor is moot.
Its
Adonis she would have cradle her sway
but his
virtuous lips did not long for hers
dying
he left her where a sullen heart stirs
Adonis’ silent body, hard and
gray,
no
shadow of beauty left as it lay
on
ground wet from Aphrodite’s tears
shed.
The
lovely goddess weeping brought dismay
to
Olympian gods unused to dread
Zeus
was glum to see a goddess cry
but had
only advice to tend, “mortals die,
loss,
hard grief to bear but tears in torrents
from
your pretty laughing eyes, is nonsense
you
weep to stop time passing, you shudder
no fear
of death but dread to be past tense,”
with
raised hand so spoke the lord of thunder.
She
wanted what she feared most, to be alone,
so
said, “let me be,” in a commanding tone.
Arising
from her love, laid out by chance,
the
goddess was poised in the classic stance
on one
leg solid the other knee bent
toes to
head a perfect sway but eyes askance
the
gods looking on did fear her intent.
“My
every pore open tastes my love,
I see
him around, below and above.”
the
goddess with open arms did tremble
all her
being began to dissemble
soon
her perfect form was light rain falling
and
Olympus where the gods assemble
was
lost in clouds to memory calling
to a
dreaming man on a watchful shore
under
heavens peopled by gods no more. end back to top Crumpled Wisdom Commanded sentences, structured and many words
sovereign
over lords and ladies who slip away into the fresh dug earth, dank and dark, only shades now in death’s
underhouse.
once so proud they now align the endless corridors,
swaying to and fro in darkness and in awful silence. And crumpled Wisdom crouches in mind forged chains,
begging alms or a candle from the passing shades. Wisdom has no pull in Reason’s court, the venerable
judge has gone mad,
he spews verdicts unintelligible pronouncing
sound arguments untenable. Can Wisdom, after all, be only a lodged complaint,
ignored, as darkest, dark night
compresses close all around but punctured by pinpricks of light. Intelligence bright, she answers,
“oh friend, your mind’s a candle
are not the pinpricks of light the many stars above, have you grown so large
to be closed in by the stars? You’ve only forgotten how to breathe. Remember
Our Lord, who spent three nights here.” Wisdom looked into his cupped hands and saw
in the faintest of light but growing steady and strong,
a cross, a cross of light. In the east a fire blazed, dissolving night.
“Arise, arise renewed, see the night it’s only foggy dew
see our Mother’s fields encircled by the sea
and the tree that stands at the worlds center,
streaming golden in the sun.” end back to top
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