Landscape with distant prospect

[bodkin]

This is another of those ones which has been around forever but not quite managed to arrive...

It's sort of finished. But it may not be complete. So I thought I would turn it out and see what commentary it gets.

Landscape with distant prospect

Do you want that girl, whose eyes
expand so wide? She drinks the world
through doors in her face, pours it into a covert place
of her own devising, and perilous
for those not-she -- but it could be if you spoke to her,
casual, in some corridor or halfway up a stair,
you might be acknowledged with a word,
a nod, the one raised eyebrow
of a demi-goddess, whose halo, cocked
at a jaunty angle, illuminates a shade too much.

Peek into her eyes now. Do you want to enter,
walk her world? New-cut staff in hand
and battered boots, trailing, very steady, from the hills,
cupping one hand in rills of freezing water
and coming to love the bleakness of a land
never shaped by human sensibility
and where the thorn trees
get twisted all on their own.
Yet there is a track, faint, but with occasional cairns
of fist-sized stones. You can drop into the forest,

build a small fire, eat fresh-killed rabbits
that you roast on spits, expectorate
gristly bits back into the flame. At night
you might dream that the girl herself came
and stood, wordless, in the shadow of some tree
and in the morning there would be nothing
but the early rook poking warm ashes for a beakful
of burnt meat. As so you go day-by-mile, by foot to the sea

where, against probability, a ship rides at anchor
in a sheltered bay. He is here, the captain will say,
to discover if the ocean has another side,
and you will sign-up for this crew, to chance all rigours
and violence of storm, becalming, starvation,
the vigours of pirates, and sea monsters
that rise, silent, from the depths to stare
placid and Delphic, and for no reason you could know.

But you will go for half a chance
of footprints on the farthest shore.

[Magpie Jane]

Ian, this poem is a thing of great wondrousness.

What appeals to me most of all, is the fairytale aspect of it. You keep a strong narrative storyline without toppling over into proseyness.
The imagery is readily accessible; but when I read it, I get the impression of something strange going on just beyond my field of vision, like a shadowy fragment of a memory, or a subterranean river.
I'm very much taken by poems that do just that. Such as this one.

It reminds me a bit of a story (forgot which one) by HP Lovecraft; there's a similar finely distilled atmosphere.

Sorry I don't have anything to offer by way of critique. I just want to say how much I like it.

Jane

[Antcliff]

I'm very much taken by poems that do just that. Such as this one.

Ditto.
Just sailing by Ian. But pulling in just to say that I enjoyed this. A fairy tale/enigmatic one but with perhaps a certain seriousness.

This is good..

a nod, the one raised eyebrow
of a demi-goddess, whose halo, cocked
at a jaunty angle, illuminates a shade too much.

Seth

[bodkin]

Thank you Jane; thank you Seth!

This is a better reception that I feared for this one.

Lovecraft, eh? I haven't read any for some years. Possibly At the Mountains of Madness? Anyway, it is good to get compared to him although I think my subject matter is very different here.

Ian

[Magpie Jane]

Right you are, Ian; the subject matter could hardly be more different. But I was thinking of the atmosphere in general, and in the last part of your poem in particular (from As so you go day-by-mile onwards); the theme of the quest for a dream, or "the farthest shore".

Jane

[bodkin]

Right you are, Ian; the subject matter could hardly be more different. But I was thinking of the atmosphere in general, and in the last part of your poem in particular (from As so you go day-by-mile onwards); the theme of the quest for a dream, or "the farthest shore".

Jane

Well "the farthest shore" comes, I think, from Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea novels, where at one point the lead character (if I recall correctly) is cursed to travel to "the farthest shore" to meet with his nemesis (which then turns out to be himself, which seemed a lot more mystical when I was younger).

The phrase just stuck with me, but there is a definite unreal atmosphere to his journey in the book, so possibly I subconsciously carried some of that over into the poem.

It's funny how things turn out, isn't it?

Ian

[Antcliff]

Hi
Yeh..reading again. I do really enjoy the fairy-tale or near/surreal quality of it.

Seth

[ljordan]

I, too, think the sounds here provoke a mythical sense. The conclusion is dreamy. I think it could use some trimming of modifiers, there's a rambling to my ear that seems contrary to most of the pacing, but that may be taste.

larry

[k-j]

It's growing on me. Good poem. Original.

It's not really like any other poem I've read, to be honest. It seems to be truly dreamlike - not in the usual sense of things just being a bit weird, but it's a coherent narrative which, on analysis, shouldn't cohere! This is why it's such fun to read. I'm still reading it in between writing this comment.

I had a go at Kris tonight for his internal rhymes, but I think here is a positive example. Hills/rills is simple but effective. "Cairns" rings superbly with its constituent "stones".

Lovecraft was mentioned and I goggled at that a bit, but I think I see it now. Sometimes while reading HPL I have pervesely been put in mind of fairy tales, and this is very like a fairy tale. It's that horrid feeling of any minute someone will turn into a stone or a frog or die, but there's no suspense - as in a dream, things are previsioned, and meanwhile we carry on wih the voyage.

The rabbits are a nice touch. Day-by-mile, rather intoxicating the way you drop that in. "Rook / poking / beakful" - great sonics!

I love the wry "against probability".

And the ending (I mean from "He is here" to "you could know") is just a wonderful halleluijah. I don't think I've read such a dreamlike poem before.

I really can't improve on this. I think it's a brilliant, brilliant poem, quite thrilling.

[David]

I couldn't get past the first stanza for ages, but having done so I like what follows a lot. I would lose S1 completely, and start at S2. Very enjoyable traveller's tale, that seems to draw a lot from Cavafy's Ithaka in the last full-sized stanza. That's probably complete coincidence. But good stuff.

Cheers

David

[bodkin]

Thank you Larry,

I did a bit of a scan for unnecessary adjectives/adverbs. Most of them are necessary to the various meanings, but there may be some I can do away with. I will have a good look at it. Possibly S3 is more trimable than the others?

Thank you k-j -- your appreciation means a lot to me. It's more than I hoped for for this, although I am quite keen on it myself, one's own opinions do not normally carry over into other readers.

Thanks David. I see what you mean, S2 could act as the start of the whole thing. I quite like S1 myself, however... I think I will leave it unless I hear several people grumbling about it

[Elphin]

Hello Ian

I have been reading this off and on since posted and glad it has risen to the top as I meant to comment.

I really enjoyed the descriptive language and for me the mark of the strength of the poem is that it took me on both a physical and metaphorical journey with ease from beginning to end.

So my crit points are fine tuning ones. I kind of get where larry is coming from but like you I struggled to select modifiers to delete. For me it's not so much the modifiers as a few unnecessary phrases. For example

She drinks the world
through doors in her face, pours it into a covert place

Would not be diminished by just being She drinks the world/into a covert place

There are a few places where such contractions would sharpen the piece. I think doors in her face is a horrible image anyway!!

Similar observation on the cocked halo, cocked doesn't seem an appropriate word and the phrase would lose little if It was just a halo at jaunty angle.

But as I said I much enjoyed.

elph

[k-j]

It's just occurred to me that "benthic" might be more monsterly than "Delphic". I realise they mean different things but just an idea. Good word, "benthic".

[David]

It's just occurred to me that "benthic" might be more monsterly than "Delphic". I realise they mean different things but just an idea. Good word, "benthic".

It is indeed. It's a new one on me.

[bodkin]

It's just occurred to me that "benthic" might be more monsterly than "Delphic". I realise they mean different things but just an idea. Good word, "benthic".

It is indeed. It's a new one on me.

It is one of my favourite words, benthic, photic, pelagic, crepuscular -- they are all excellent.

But in this case, if I used that, I would only be saying something about where it came from, rather than what it was doing. So I think I would have lost the meaning a little...

...it would be nice to squeeze benthic in, but I think it is one of the cases where one has to resist the urge.

Ian