Invisible Angels

[heslopian]

We have held Dante at night,
tended Cromwell's brow.
Fed and clothed a thousand bards,
told Napoleon kind lies.
Behind the scratching of the quills,
once the smoke has cleared,
we invisible angels pass the time
by picking up our generation's waste.
We don't have time to mourn, can't weep.
The bowers must be clean tonight
so we can usher in the next phallic gurdians.
War and creativity belong to those we serve,
wear these slender corests for, spread our legs
like grim machines. But we can wait milleniums
until our hearts are seen.

[billy]

We have held Dante at night,
tended Cromwell's brow.
Fed and clothed a thousand bards,
told Napoleon kind lies.
Behind the scratching of the quills,
once the smoke has cleared,
we invisible angels pass the time
by picking up our generation's waste.
We don't have time to mourn, can't weep.
The bowers must be clean tonight
so we can usher in the next phallic gurdians.
War and creativity belong to those we serve,
wear these slender corests for, spread our legs
like grim machines. But we can wait milleniums
until our hearts are seen.

ou-errrrrrrrr jack, guardians, corsets, millenniums.
apart from the spell mistakes, i love the idea of corseted angels.
just a small suggestion, would line L7 read better as;

we invisible, pass the time (not sure of the grammar for it)

seeing as angels is in the title.
the 1st line rocks. a good read, thanks.

[heslopian]

Thanks for the feedback Bilbo

[Wildcard]

Hi Jack,
   Maybe I'm seeing it all wrong, but it sounds like poets watching life go by and recording the images that are besically like histories of sight and sound, emotional data. Even if that's not what you mean, the images brought me there and for that I thank you.

[heslopian]

I wrote this about women, the invisible angels of the title, and how their contribution to history has been ignored for generations upon generations.
There's no wrong way to interpret a poem though. To paraphrase Harold Bloom, sometimes a reader's interpretation can be better than the author's.
Thanks for the feedback AA

[addy]

Great stuff Jack. At the beginning lines of the poem (which were wonderful) I thought you were simply referring to muses, but as it progressed "angel" seemed the most apt description for the role. I love every bit of it, tbh. In the penultimate line, even though "millenia" ought to be the grammatically correct term, "milleniums" feels right in the way bit conveys everlasting time.

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket."

[heslopian]

Thanks for the kind words and feedback Addy
I love that quote! Who made it?

[addy]

Thanks for the kind words and feedback Addy
I love that quote! Who made it?

It's dialogue from a play called "The History Boys", by Alan Bennett (I've not watched it though, just the film version)

[Leanne]

The same film that gave us "History: it's just one fucking thing after another"

Hi there Jack. At first I got the same interpretation out of this as AA, reading it as poets, especially with the final lines, but perhaps that's because poets are a little bit on the girly side... It was only on subsequent readings that the corsets (again, still could have been poets!) stood out, and the bit about bowers... do you know, it actually makes me incredibly happy to have a couple of interpretations that fit equally well into a poem, especially in this case as I can read further and remind myself that although it's generally the men who write the history, it's the women who make it possible.

It does remind me, not in words but in tone, of the folk song "Mothers, Daughters, Wives" by Judy Small (an Australian, but there have been plenty of cover versions).

It's a powerful piece of poetry, Jack.

[Ca ne fait rien]

We have held Dante at night,
tended Cromwell's brow.
Fed and clothed a thousand bards,
told Napoleon kind lies.
Behind the scratching of the quills,
once the smoke has cleared,
we invisible angels pass the time
by picking up our generation's waste.
We don't have time to mourn, can't weep.
The bowers must be clean tonight
so we can usher in the next phallic gurdians.
War and creativity belong to those we serve,
wear these slender corests for, spread our legs
like grim machines. But we can wait milleniums
until our hearts are seen.

Women always have picked up the shrapnel of history and fashioned it into something or other for it (history ) to limp its way along the road.
The poem made me think of the nurses, camp followers, the spinsters left after the lost generation was ..well lost and maimed in WW1. (I think the 'invisible angel' brought that image to mind).
If I were to make a suggestion , maybe 'millennia' might sound better than mille(n)niums, perhaps?

[heslopian]

Thanks for your feedback, Leanne and Ca