Abandoned

A poem is never finished,
only abandoned.
– W. H.Auden, “quoting” Valéry

Aux yeux de ces amateurs d’inquiétude et de perfection, un ouvrage n’est jamais achevé, – mot qui pour eu n’a aucun sens, – mais abandonné; et cet abandon, qui le livre aux flammes ou au public (et qu’il soit l’effet de la lassitude ou de l’obligation de livrer), leur est une sorte d’accident, comparable à la rupture d’une réflexion, que la fatigue, le fâcheux, ou quelque sensation viennent rendre nulle.
– Paul Valéry, au sujet du Cimetière marin.

After a break, I find the blog needs a bit of a wash and brush up. Sorry for any quirks. And thanks for the kind messages in my absence.

O Where Are You Going?

O do you imagine, said fearer to farer,

That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,

Your diligent looking discover the lacking,

Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?

– W.H. Auden

O Where Are You Going.

From the Depths

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,

Loitered about that vacancy; a bird

Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:

That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,

Were axioms to him, who’d never heard

Of any world where promises were kept,

Or one could weep because another wept.

˜

The thin-lipped armourer,

Hephaestos, hobbled away,

Thetis of the shining breasts

Cried out in dismay

At what the god had wrought

To please her son, the strong

Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles

Who would not live long.

– W.H. Auden

From The Shield of Achilles.

I’m on holiday, and away from the net. I’ve scheduled some posts, mostly poetry. I hope you recognise some old favourites, or discover new ones.