Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NO ROSES, by ELLEN GLINES


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NO ROSES, by                    
First Line: Drop down no roses for me, saint dorothy
Last Line: The true-cut marble tetragon . , .
Subject(s): Mathematics


I
Drop down no roses for me, Saint Dorothy,
Samples of a flower-pranked paradise;
I'm tried of roses -- a perfumed courtesanry,
All things to all men . . . ointment, and a bed,
Love, joy, the last devotion to the dead . . .
Refusers of seed, self-robed luxuriously:
Only the wild little sister
Keeps her unsterile innocency.

Curled, crimpled, cockled, chamfered, point-devise,
Twisted, shame colored, fragile, futile things,
Sense-titillating, incapable of wings,
Can paradise be full of such as you?
My paradise is whole, white, true.

II
Space was, and Light, and Silence . . .
Creation took a hammer,
Smashed all to bits, made patterns . . .

Creation wearied; patterns halted . . .
Back into wholeness uncreated
The bits returned.

Creatures, caught into painful patterns,
Crave nothing now
But Space; Light; Silence.

III
I am tired of color and form; when the artist takes
Palette or chisel, shattered Beauty screams;
A sunset sprawling above ensanguined lakes
Tortures chaste Beauty
Like a madman in his dreams:
Torn scraps of her skin, a connoisseur will name
In gem and porcelain; these are Beauty's shame.

I saw a rainbow climb a palm tree's height
And seek a shining cloud; color in sheaves,
Penitent, beautiful, holy, returning to White . . .
So, broken forms --
In which the sight believes --
Cube, conoid, polygon, dislimn in the deep embrace
Of her from whom they came -- the Virgin, Space.

IV
Mathematics are a gate
Of the City of Refuge:
Beyond Algebra
They cannot be taken personally,

Music and color seduce,
Being partial and personal

V
For the sport of little
Creators of patterns,
God the Source
Gave Space; Light;
Silence.

Some day God will laugh, and say:
Put your toys away where they belong!

All shall return; return
Into Space; Light; Silence.

VI
Of love I am more weary than of any,
For not one love of her own shape is found,
Seeking no further, in herself complete,
But soft, unsure, taking the form of many . . .
Not one, not one into one shape is bound,
Not one is whole and sweet.

Love's broken to bits, to bits; who shall mend her?
Gather the shards with care or blood will flow!
Love Carnal -- who is brave? -- who will defend her?
Love Mental bears no fruit at all -- ah, woe,
Poor castrate! Here's a smug passion, claims completeness
In spirit and body, innocent laughable mild
Hermaphrodite, unconscient of effeteness!

Shrill-edged shard the love of mother for child;
Blunted chip, the love of child for mother,
Faute de mieux -- the son must find another . . .
Would you indeed he should burn as Aedipus burned?
Soul gives God adoration -- quid pro quo --
And God, seeing the greedy eyes upturned,
Feels his love sour to pity, grow heavy, run slow.

VII
Form, color, song, are only broken bits;
They must go back
To the Source whence they came:
Broken likewise is Love, until Death knits
All fires in his one flame!

Love's broken, Death whole --
Alleluia!
Sing glory, my soul,
Make holiday;
Who wills to come, may.

Groping through dust to death
Love creeps brokenly;
Absorbing wind of Death,
Take my broken breath.
Take me.

VIII
I'll not be buried with roses, with marching teary chants.

Let six deaf and dumb eunuchs carry me
To the peak of a mountain; let me lie
Under a blank and scentless and silent sky.
Set a womb of marble whitely on
A marble base, cut true to a tetragon,
With no more ardent flowers graced
Than indian-pipes, carved camelias where no scent is,
Sacred smaragdine orchises,
And candid plaques of moon-bloom, unutterably chaste.

IX
Here, none shall come to visit me ever . . .
Not you, too horribly faithful;
-- No, nor you,
Soft eyes kissing me to death,
Leaving cold lips with too much breath!
Nor you, hurrying to forget;
Nor you, who cannot -- yet . . .

Crawl up, would you, peer over the edge,
Flourishing some pied over-blown
Blossom, to violate my sky?

(Could the caryatid eunuchs talk, they should die!)

X
Globed in clear heaven, hard pure stone
Holds these orts of flesh and bone
In a clean smooth hollowed ovoid, resting whitely on
The true-cut marble tetragon . , .





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