Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NO ROSES by ELLEN GLINES

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
@3Space 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.@1

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
@3Mathematics are a gate
Of the City of Refuge:
Beyond Algebra
They cannot be taken personally,

Music and color seduce,
Being partial and personal@1

V
@3For 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.@1

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
@3Form, 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.@1

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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