martes, 24 de mayo de 2011

Fulfillment of a promise to the Cap'n

A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
Wallace Stevens

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.

3 comentarios:

  1. Thank you, my capt'n...

    I just imagine how everybody reacted to this poem... and also how JC. Vargas explained it...

    Another "masters program story" I remember is "Beelzebub's Story." Your brother told my class that story like 3 years ago. It made me laugh A LOT. Do you know what I'm talking about?

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  2. Este comentario ha sido eliminado por el autor.

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  3. Bee- ul-zuh --bub!
    Of course I remember the summoning of Hell's Second-Commander-in-Chief!

    That happened in the undergrad's, though.

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