yay for long and useless titles!
Stephen Crane, The Black Riders Part IV
God fashioned the ship of the world carefully.
With the infinite skill of an All-Master
Made He the hull and the sails,
Held He the rudder
Ready for adjustment.
Erect stood He, scanning His work proudly.
Then-at fateful time-a wrong called,
And God turned, heeding.
Lo, the ship, at this opportunity,
slipped slyly,
Making cunning noiseless travel down the ways.
So that, forever rudderless, it went upon the seas
Going ridiculous voyages,
Making quaint progress,
Turning as with serious purpose
Before stupid winds.
And there were many in the sky
Who laughed at this thing.
Song of the Powers, David Mason
Mine, said the stone,
mine is the hour.
I crush the scissors,
such is my power.
Stronger than wishes,
my power, alone.
Mine, said the paper,
mine are the words
that smother the stone
with imagined birds,
reams of them, flown
from the mind of the shaper.
Mine, said the scissors,
mine all the knives
gashing through paper’s
ethereal lives;
nothing’s so proper
as tattering wishes.
As stone crushes scissors,
as paper snuffs stone
and scissors cut paper,
all end alone.
So heap up your paper
and scissor your wishes
and uproot the stone
from the top of the hill.
They all end alone
as you will, you will.
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2 comments:
Deep--Crane of course I know, and the image of God unintentionally setting loose a rudderless world seems typical of his particular brand of thoughtful pessimism. But where did you discover the poetry of David Mason? The only Dave Mason I know is a musician who was in the 1960s and 70s in a band called Traffic.
It's in a Penguin Academics poetry anthology by R.S. Gwynn. Dr. Allison gave both Alex and me a copy when we started Poetry Club two years ago.
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