Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 17:28:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: was2-AT-po.cwru.edu (Walter A. Strauss)
Subject: Re: MB: villanelle


Reply to message from 347hqx7-AT-cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu of Fri, 02 May
>
>Would someone care to critique/respond to this poem?  Has the writer
>stolen too much from MB?  Has she left out anything crucial to MB's
>superior insight?  What might be added/subtracted?
>
>The Eyes of Orpheus
>
>His eyes must remain music for her to follow
>the careless, innocent dance that brought him to her
>trusting songs of absent desire to invite her shadow.
>
>Because of all she is, she must not be sought as known.
>For the night to open as if every other were blurred,
>his eyes must remain music for her to follow
>
>drawn by a careless absence recognized as her own
>in his attempts to seek without capturing her features;
>trusting that songs of absent desire invite her shadow.
>
>If he's beautiful enough not to know what's been undone,
>while refusing both panic and doubt in complete surrender,
>his eyes remaining music for her to follow,
>
>she'll feel in him all he'd ever want in turning to know:
>his dumb luck in leading her from these embers,
>trusting songs of absent desire to invite her shadow.
>
>Planning their future by losing their past below,
>forgetting his need to remember anything forgotten there,
>his eyes must remain music for her to follow,
>trusting songs of absent desire to invite her shadow.
>
>	Any more appropriate spaces this might be submitted?  Any questions? 
>Comments?
>
>_________________________________________________________________________
>Exploring the subject's situation in the world as it relates to the
>Other, entre le loup Lacan et le chien modernism,
>_________________________________________________________________________
>Don Socha
>
Some of this poem is very ingenious in reversing Rilke's "Archaic
Torso of Apollo", whose central metaphor is seeing (and secondarily "hearing")
into hearing/seeing (hence the weel-chosen title).  I don't quite
know what "embers" are doing in this poem...maybe Beckett trying to
sneak in.
                  Worth printing, but I don't know where.
                   Best luck, 
                                Walter A. Strauss>