A Higher Larry

[larryrap]

9th - Enkidu in Hell (with a Dog)

Small friend I call mine
for your tail-wagging love,
won’t you stay here with me
in this narrowing hole?

The King’s gone astray
and the Matron’s alone.
In this seven-year pall,
who’ll fend for our lives?

Little ally, don’t cry:
we were sent to retrieve
a football that fell
through a crack in the ground.

When we find it, we’ll play
in the spare yards of hell
till the streams of above
and below realign.

[Dunc]

Larry

Late Dante ─ Clever, dextrous. I recognize her at once, le brame, 'the passions' in Canto 1, where she doesn't lick anyone's hand. But of course yours denies N the consummation, because the aching is the whole point.

Beatrice to Dante ─ Ah, the poet and the shewolf repent, albeit just a little. And as with Dante,no one gets just what they want. (That's as sharp as usual, but perhaps for extrapoetic reasons I prefer the earlier.)

Self-Portrait, Unfinished ─ By golly, Nehemiah sounds exactly right for the elections we're having in May. When Macron called our Prime Minister a liar, he was more than courteous since he omitted 'fool' ─ but I digress.

Your opening sentence is fraught and sets a tone. The whole has the flavour of Holst's Neptune in The Planets, played behind the agitation of the foreground.

(Just for the record, I don't think of you like that.)

Rebuilding the Wall ─ the despair of the failed prophet, deprived of rationalisations. Hmm, I wonder what it could be a metaphor of ...

Napoleon Hill ─ No, not the man who wrote Think and Grow Rich. Are we looking across at Acre? The link doesn't suggest so. But here we have the poet, climbing the mound with a sort of sunset feel about him. As for the souls of the winebibbers, in this case I wouldn't rule it out.

Enkidu in Hell (with a Dog) ─ a dog is a lovely idea for this man from the animals; and I recall you need the living to keep pouring libations for you, Hell lacking just about all amenities. Ah, that would be where the streams come in. The song itself is warm, wistful, not without hope. Beautifully done.

Regards / Dunc

[Cameron Clark]

The cheerly loose anapests lend even more menace to this piece, Larry.

[larryrap]

Hi Dunc, thanks for returning.
Napoleon Hill is an amalgam, the story more from Acre, and the particulars from Ramat Gan - watch this cool video I found of it: Napoleon Hill

Cameron - lovely to have you back.

[larryrap]

10th - Why Wait

..........The construction was part of an overall effort to refortify Jerusalem’s walls.
..........Only a few years later, however, al-Mu‘azzam ‘Isa had the walls dismantled,
..........fearing that the city would fall into Crusader hands. Thus the rebuilder of Jerusalem’s walls
..........also tore them down, leaving the city unfortified for the next 320 years. – Israel Museum website

I’ve seen heroes crouch in terror,
world wonders gutted and burned.
It turned out not to matter:
when something’s lost, it’s revealed.
You can unravel a city,
put the knife to its children, boil its elders in tar.
The more flatten you it, the taller it rises.
Don’t expect libations when you pound at our gates.
Our hearts won’t play whore-house to your clap-ridden lie.
I’m the spark of another whom I’m barely fit to follow.
I’ve had my say –
it’s scorched earth from now on.

[larryrap]

11th - *

Look higher, Larry, rise
above this field of clay.
Cast off your dull disguise.

Release your hands, your eyes,
the yoke of yesterday.
Look higher, Larry, rise.

Disclaim, but don’t despise
the games you used to play.
Cast off your dull disguise.

The warnings of the wise
keep leading you astray.
Look higher, Larry, rise.

No time now to revise
the words you tried to say.
Cast off your dull disguise.

Heartache always lies
one careless step away.
Look higher, Larry, rise.
Cast off your dull disguise.

[Cameron Clark]

I like Why Not for its unfaltering vision, its confrontation of contraries.
* is skillfully made. I think it requies concrete specifics to lift it out of the personally hermetic, but its rhyme do buoy it high.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

A nicely done villanelle, with wise advice on revising. and words of caution. The rhyming and rhythm is smooth and the repetends unobtrusive.

BrianIs AtYou

[larryrap]

Thanks Cameron and Brian, for your stalwart support.

[larryrap]

12th - The Steel Test

..........But God said to Abraham: …Whatever Sarah says to you,
..........do as she tells you...........- Genesis 21:12

Sarah, interceding mother, queen without a crown,
In this Flatland where I live there are no words for up and down,
so speak for me.

Though I’m lacking in devotion and defer to neither camp
like an indecisive soul who won’t commit, so hasn’t sinned,
heed my whisper in the wind.

In the Bureau of Precision, declarations have no hold.
As the pendulum swings forwards and I brace against the clamp,
stand beside me when I fold.

If the iron arm retreats, if you take pity on my fall,
I’ll glorify those images of you I hold apart
as the purest and the prettiest of all.

[Jee Leong]

Hi, Larry. "Enikidu" makes myth feel extraordinarily ordinary. "Why Wait" is movingly defiant. These lines stand out for me: "Our hearts won’t play whore-house to your clap-ridden lie./ I’m the spark of another whom I’m barely fit to follow." The villanelle has a chiming pair of repetends to drive its development forward, or, should I say, upwards. At the end of each stanza "The Steel Test" withdraws into modest petition in the short lines. Always inspiring to watch you play with forms.

[larryrap]

Thanks Jee, so cool to get your angle on this stuff.

[larryrap]

13th - Maat, a Pre-Ruling

Each night a judge appears to weigh my sins –
a flyer on the windshield of my heart.
It quivers, flaps and screams against the wind,
refuses to pass sentence and depart:

“Wake up and get your final act together,
redeem your noise-to-signal ratio!”
And yet, were I to pluck it like a feather,
I’d miss its nag, haranguing me to grow.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Hi Larry,

Good to catch up with your thread.

Global World Vault reminds me of the Tower of Babel, and also of the inevitable coming apocalypse: "a day of utter noise". Love that phrase, and also "its carcass worried by slobbering gods", and the gentleness of the close.

Late Dante I'll 'fess up to not knowing much Dante, but a quick google tells me this is Beatrice. I think she comes to him at his death, "I've come to free you". I really like the idea of "Your gift was not to cherish but to wait", it seems appropriately medieval and tragic. Of the two, I prefer the longer version. I think the slower, more detailed unfolding works better with the subject-matter. Plus, I guess, in my ignorance, I benefit from the greater detail!

Self-portrait I find myself identifying with the first stanza, "An hour arrives when it becomes apparent / the day won’t last / Panic follows", though I think there's more to this than procrastination. I get a sense of the N being unfinished, the act of painting/shaping himself, meanwhile he's getting old(er), time is running out, tomorrow no longer has the same meaning. Love the close, "an old pair of scissors / trying to cut itself out", which suggests to me that perhaps this endeavour is impossible one anyway. Perhaps we are never finished.

Enkidu in Hell (with a dog) is really rather lovely, and alongside that I enjoy it's oddities, especially the appearance of the football in a Mesopotamian mythic setting. Possibly my favourite of your so far.

* is a well-wrought villanelle which is harder to do in trimeter. I see somewhat of a similar theme to Self-portrait "no time now to revise" but this poem seems a little more upbeat, suggesting there is time still to do something, to cast of the disguise and let go of the past. Nicely done.

I really liked The Steel Test with its prayer-like petitioning of Sarah, but also the "Bureau of Precision" and pendulum seeming to divine something, standing in judgement perhaps over the N.

Maat you definitely have a theme going on this year, which maybe "Wake up and get your final act together" could be the strapline fore. Love the judge as "a flyer on the windshield of my heart" quivering and flapping in the wind, also the line "redeem your noise-to-signal ratio!". More signal, less noise please.

A great thread as always.

Matt

[Donner]

Hi, Larry,

"11th - *" - You make the villanelle (which I call villanevils) look easy. This one is seamlessly smooth, which isn't always easy to do when you're dealing with the requirements of the form. Plus, it has something to say.

"The Steel Test" - More proof that God is, indeed, wise, and the "stand by your man" request Abraham makes of Sarah shows he recognizes the wisdom and her strength.

"Maat, a Pre-Ruling" - Maat or Maʽat refers to the ancient Egyptian concepts of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. Maat was also the goddess who personified these concepts, and regulated the stars, seasons, and the actions of mortals and the deities who had brought order from chaos at the moment of creation. Who better to pay attention to than a relentless judge, annoying as it may be? A universal need well expressed.

Your thread never disappoints.

Donna