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Saturday, October 15, 2005

Notes on “Red Roses for Bronze” (HD CP: 209 – 305)

On the function of the poet / of poetry / rejection / isolation / in unrequited love / and need for spirituality / HD sculpts her love in bronze / shaping the contours and wandering curves / belittled, mocked by cynic curls worn / by a light and free intellect / imprisioned by her gaze /

“With stroke, / stroke, / stroke, / stroke, / stroke at–something” (211) melts with welcome / HD’s careworn emotions sliding layers over one another, sediment falling to the sea-bed as her wishes, her images spin lazy down the page / how easily am I caught by red roses caught in bronze / when exasperated, a little breath is lost / “that I would prove too strange, too proud, / for just the ordinary sort of come and go, / the little half-said thing, / the half-caught smile,” (211-2) / the incredulity of “forgot? impossible,” (212) / quiet, contemplative, plaintive – a woman, fiercly independent / but desire has pulled despair out of the ravine / that separates by a marble stair / of love denied / of gaze fallen upon the muscle concealed beneath fine weave / her desire surges forth “I feel that I must turn and tear and rip” (213) / in her frustration – she longs to flail forth – to make him aware of her singularity among women / treat my exception with honour /

A scenario is built in IV / would you meet me “to-day – / tomorrow will not do at all;” (213) / HD’s discomfort makes my fingers ache as they dance over the keys / why the aching pain inside me / nags me, pushes fears forward / my faith in writing ever nearer the marble stair / of alienation and misunderstanding / without the complete picture / how can I proceed? /

Afro–futurist sound–check for Harry Allen / Ray Keith live in Mannheim, Germany: 000602 / http://www.breakbeat.co.uk/archive/dnbevents/liveevent3_raykeith.asx / now droppin Krust’s ‘Cloakin Device’ / http://www.krust.co.uk/media/real/new_releases/cloakin_device.ram /

Encircled by light caught in a tangle of serpents, HD slips into a rapture / bewitched by his hair / his eyes, flecked with pounamu glint / and we are swept by her adoring gaze / grasping the ineffable essence which words attempt to imprision / her love, who is as distant as the stars, as Mars, or Actaeon / as avatar of Artemis, the Huntress / buried beneath the hounds of desire, despair and desolation / Artemis’s own, not his own / did HD wish she would be stumbled on – in a cavern – to find Actaeon caught in surprise at Artemis’s sudden beauty / as she bathed / only to have her call his own hounds upon his transcendence from hunter into hunted / that sudden betrayal of purpose / of desire revealed all too late / when wounds bleed for too long / in mis-deed, retribution is swift / even the crime of inattention /

And did Artemis deliberately lose her race / did she cast her face / so that the dappled light beneath oak trees / flickered with irony over the freed mystery / of allure, so deep and still that all men are ensnared by her visage / in all her honesty – all her forthright pride – her solid sense of worth / so that she seethes in jealousity, in hate, and in love spited / spiritedly sings “I would clear so fiery a space / that no mere woman’s love could long endure; / and I would set your bronze head in its place, / about the base, / my roses would endure,” (215) / as she knows that her own is eternity / her red rose in brazen words sprint ever forth / outwards and upwards through time / the flame always one step ahead of ashes and dust / all that is left of these of lesser spirit / where is the earthy ideal / deal la ma!

Esprint activated / 21 electrodes tingling in the sudden vacuum / auditory relief / back into the formless / bone conducting vibrations from each bone – a nerve relay / no perceptible delay in response between nature and machine / sound meshes with vibro-sense / I listen to HD – she continues, a poem may also be a microcosm for a book / and “Red Roses for Bronze” circles and penetrates these themes / HD, a dancing matador goading her malcontence / HD finds a certain liberation in the expression of sensuous image and ritual / in a love which is transcendent / “ is a trap, / a snare ) /a bird lifed a passionless wing; / nothing, nothing was ever so fair / as the wonder that clutched at me there, / unaware; under the rain; my brain sang” (217) / in this refrain, too easy to grasp at this / and say ‘HD knows the pain of indifferent beauty; of the besotted vision which finds sumptuous wonder in the most starved of gesture’ / while this is not quite simplex, does it go deep enough into complexity to be called multiplex? /

One often finds darkness in the depths / and “Red Roses for Bronze” ends with ‘The Mysteries’ / a poem which begins its six sections in dark days / gloomy spirits, turbulent earth / then breaks the permafrost with the first flower of the season / at the cusp of her love lost / comes love renewed / with spring in step, it’s hard not to lift your head / and smell your bouquet / a sceptre / a flower / enchanter / magician / arch–mage / escalating magics running across the moor to greet the stripped, fevered warrior / its purpose? “Not to destroy, / nay, but to sanctify” (303&304).

My feeling is that this dimension of HD’s work reflects but one facet of her nature / and nature is the key / nature transcends human failings / while the pangs echo endlessly down corridors / “the air / will be full of multiple wings;” (218) / again, and again, HD turns away from the frailities of other humans to these long gone myths the Greeks stole from Kemet – but whose essence lives on, in the history of the tale / HD’s voice runs now quick, “Who is there, / who is there in the road?” (223), now lifted by endorphins “again shall my pulses beat / like the deer / escaped from the net,” (226), now melancholy “Hard, / hard it is to wake the gods, / but once awake, / hard, / hard, / hard is the lot / of the ignorant man,” (227) / Our own ignorance struggles with HD / in a world where words have become kaleidoscopic / where grammar has lost its importance / overwhelmed by the sound–bite / where classical no longer means white european achievement / but tradition in all its multitude / where the Greeks sample Africa / the persistent, constant use of Greek mythology to accentuate / imposes http://longman.awl.com/mythology/glossaries/default.asp upon the reader / even as “Orion bent / to shelter Artemis;” (261) and is slain for his pains and thereafter his dance across the sky is chased by the scorpion /

Peter Fogarty A4 14 000806