To Wilde

[Leanne]

To Wilde


They piss on your grave,
these anti-aesthetes, for whom beauty is found
in glorifying the harsh and jar jangling angled
wastelands, small i overdone,
like dodo eggs in Alighierian imaginings.

You would pat their heads,
poor pretentious fools, and send them back to school
to learn that a nymph is not simply a stroke of a pen,
but a well – she will tell a thousand dreams
to Scheherezade, whom they would suffocate.

In Pere Lachaise, you are languid,
as Morrison gathers frogs to his bosom, lizards
having long since shed their skin, singing scales
against Chopin’s Polonaise or Amazing Grace
with equal facility, in disregard for the breathless.

You keep fine company,
but your bones are not your own, they have long gone –
rejecting the prosaic earth, they calcified the air, where
sunlight hid in waterfalls of thought and Thalia
sought to flambé sombre soldiers in their own affected arts.

In the corner of a promise
you stow your reflection; shadows spring fully suckled
to virgin pages. Shattered tablets lie forbidding in closed chambers,
beneath the sleeping Endymion; bring us Arcady, where beauty
is untrodden. Bring us clowns, whose hearts may not be broken.

[billy]

the only thing missing from this gem was the words 'de profundis'.
though no bother as this is profound enough without them.

nice homage with enough of his aspect to glean who he was.
even his resting place feels oscaresque.

loved the reading.

[Leanne]

I put the clowns in at least De Profundis is one of the only essays that moves me to tears.

[billy]

the 1st verse sets up the man. with the gripe against the antis and the small i.
something i use all the time. i can remember someone saying no one of worth came out of Ireland,
wilde along with a lot of others proves them wrong.

[Leanne]

the 1st verse sets up the man. with the gripe against the antis and the small i.
something i use all the time. i can remember someone saying no one of worth came out of Ireland,
wilde along with a lot of others proves them wrong.

Maybe they just meant that no one of worth ever went back

[Leanne]

Some pompous arse once informed me that Wilde's attention to aestheticism made his poetry too stilted and cold -- in particular in this poem:

Pan (1913)

I

O goat-foot God of Arcady!
This modern world is grey and old,
And what remains to us of thee?

No more the shepherd lads in glee
Throw apples at thy wattled fold,
O goat-foot God of Arcady!

Nor through the laurels can one see
Thy soft brown limbs, thy beard of gold,
And what remains to us of thee?

And dull and dead our Thames would be,
For here the winds are chill and cold,
O goat-foot God of Arcady!

Then keep the tomb of Helice,
Thine olive-woods, thy vine-clad wold,
And what remains to us of thee?

Though many an unsung elegy
Sleeps in the reeds our rivers hold,
O goat-foot Glod of Arcady!
Ah, what remains to us of thee?


II

Ah, leave the hills of Arcady,
Thy satyrs and their wanton play,
This modern world hath need of thee.

No nymph or Faun indeed have we,
For Faun and nymph are old and grey,
Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!

This is the land where liberty
Lit grave-browed Milton on his way,
This modern world hath need of thee!

A land of ancient chivalry
Where gentle Sidney saw the day,
Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!

This fierce sea-lion of the sea,
This England lacks some stronger lay,
This modern world hath need of thee!

Then blow some trumpet loud and free,
And give thine oaten pipe away,
Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!
This modern world hath need of thee!



I abandoned aestheticism for the Saxon vernacular when framing my reply

[billy]

a double vill of good quality is hard at the best of times.
i only just noticed he like using caps hehe.
if we as poets had a small amount of his talent, (me in particular)
i'd probably be a known poet meself
it's all to easy to jump on decent poets but not so easy to
justify such action. and it usually doesn't hold much weight.

[Vika]

Beautiful reading. You have a great voice for it

[Leanne]

Thank you Vika

[heslopian]

A marvellous reading. People's voices always surprise me when I hear them for the first time after corresponding for a while. You have lovely diction and a calm unpretentious tone. Like Sylvia Plath without the hysteria

[Leanne]

I'm also better at baking

[heslopian]

Well you are a woman. Just kidding. Don't maul me

[Leanne]

Ahem... so, I believe, was Sylvia... otherwise Ted wasn't quite the man he professed to be

[billy]

sylvia was all man

[heslopian]

Sylvia was more woman than you could have handled Mr. Marsland

[rowens]

this is the best one i read of yours. i was searching for the meaning of what i read about you liking your poetry bloody, when everything was so well done: and that's a genuine compliment. i was an aesthete myself, until everyone thought i was queer. then i became a feminist, because i reckoned the world couldn't go on with nothing but men. but none of that comes through any more for me. And Oscar Wilde said that thing about genius and nature, and I suppose if there is a genius in this world, it's an alien thing that can do without nature. Nature is the cruellest thing in the world, and spirit, poetry, and beauty give us hope, inspiration and comfort. Comfort, because it gives even pain and loss a chance to heal. Plus it all gives us something to do. But I'm never comfortable, so I have nothing to lose by being like those curtains or wallpaper or whatever it was he didn't like, but I like the suits he wore.

[abu nuwas]

This is so beautiful, and well-read - giving just that extra bit of mood or understanding. I wonder about "with equal facility" though, as it smacks of an office memo.

[billy]

hi abu

jack; she was more women than i would want to handle, and leanne's right anyone who mistakenly cooks their head instead of a roast, can't cook for shit.

[Leanne]

rowen: "bloody poetry" means it should draw blood, not look like it's been mauled or run through a mincer. It was wallpaper

Ed, nobody in any office I've worked in has had facility like Oscar :p

[just mercedes]

A pleasure to hear you read! Great poem - I love the entry into it, reminds me of Philip Larkin's This be the Verse. Your usual unique imagery (hehehe)
lets me see Pere Lachaise and the tombs of some of my idols - I love the angel that flies over Oscar, now want to write about it.