of sunsets and of sighs, of narrow coast
and a sun that's soon to clamor and rise
on five thousand miles of salt and unlit
American coast that is no longer
Portugal.
Is that why you search the West
sky for signs that time is running backwards?
Do you still await an ocean to drown
the mountains of Spain and bring you rosy
dawns from some fresh sea and with it your lost
King Sebastian?
I think I met him once,
your ageless King: he ferried me across
a tide of legs engaged in marathon
to safety safely lost in thought on streets.
"I'm going that way" before he leaves me
the mountains of Spain and bring you rosy
dawns from some fresh sea and with it your lost
King Sebastian?
I think I met him once,
your ageless King: he ferried me across
a tide of legs engaged in marathon
to safety safely lost in thought on streets.
"I'm going that way" before he leaves me
to retrace the alleys tiled in silence -
a Sunday parade of two for two.
Wails
from an Evangel interrupt and King
is lost to preacher in a whitesoaked room
of grey dusk
a Sunday parade of two for two.
Wails
from an Evangel interrupt and King
is lost to preacher in a whitesoaked room
of grey dusk
where, the lone parishioner,
his backrow love dressed all in white, listens
for the hollow echo of a sermon lost
to darkness on the last dull tube of light.
his backrow love dressed all in white, listens
for the hollow echo of a sermon lost
to darkness on the last dull tube of light.
that last whitesoaked image is really striking
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy the transitions between what seems to me memory of the old world, then the present tense recognition of the old world in the new world, and then the note of a religion that becomes more artifact than mover. i'm not sure i completely get what these shifts mean, or if i've labeled them right, but it seems to be an account of an evolving consciousness of a contemporary place still inseparable from its traditions and pasts.
ReplyDeletei'd love to hear your thoughts on your poem.
i'm a lusophile and i have been reading lots of Yeats so i wanted to blend blank verse and religiousishness. i was interested in appropriating portuguese history/myths/etc... because i've been reading about them for a few years now and they're wonderfully strange:
ReplyDeleteking sebastian disappeared shortly after portugal's iberian pillaging in the new world started to turn sour. his disappearance created this messianic myth where his return heralds an epic "Fifth Empire" and the world bows in deference to Portguese rule. it's a nationalistic/religious vision of Portugal's future that completely clashes with its shrinking population of cosmopolitinized or formerly-colonial-evangelical citizens.
i also love the idea of related countries facing each other (Portugal/Brazil) where only one is only capable of seeing sunsets (west coast only) and the other sunrises (east coast only).
in writing all this i feel like there needs to be a companion piece written from the other coast.
it was really helpful hearing your thoughts. i suspected that something deeper was driving the poem, but had no idea what.
ReplyDeletei think it is important to note that if you are responding to a myth - especially if the myth isn't oedipus or icarus - your reader very well may not be in on the myth. it's fine to have your secrets, but that means the secret probably shouldn't Drive the poem.
another take would be to give a partial explanation of the myth within the poem, to inform the reader of the allusions you need to work in.
these are just my thoughts though. i think your idea for a companion piece sounds great.