Rilke on Canvas

Ran across this canvas representation of the well known German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke ... nicely done! Check out this poem:

Moving Forward

The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out.
It seems that things are more like me now,
That I can see farther into paintings.
I feel closer to what language can't reach.
With my senses, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
in the ponds broken off from the sky
my falling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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I love that imagery … as if Rilke were watching a little bird flying out of an oak tree into the windy sky, but watching this happen through the medium of a pond of water (then imagining that the bird’s flight was descent into the deep). Very cool … read it again:

With my senses, as with birds, I climb

into the windy heaven, out of the oak,

in the ponds broken off from the sky

my falling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

In-fricking-credible!

I swear, as much as Pound and Eliot annoy me, the best thing that came out of the Imagist movement was without qualification Hilda Doolittle- one of thē most incredible poets to put ink to page. Happy birthday, lady …

Serious, experience how she employs poetic imagery so magically … in-fricking-credible!

Orchard

I saw the first pear

as it fell--

the honey-seeking, golden-banded,

the yellow swarm

was not more fleet than I,

(spare us from loveliness)

and I fell prostrate

crying:

you have flayed us

with your blossoms,

spare us the beauty

of fruit-trees.

The honey-seeking

paused not,

the air thundered their song,

and I alone was prostrate.

O rough hewn

god of the orchard,

I bring you an offering--

do you, alone unbeautiful,

son of the god,

spare us from loveliness:

these fallen hazel-nuts,

stripped late of their green sheaths,

grapes, red-purple,

their berries

dripping with wine,

pomegranates already broken,

and shrunken figs

and quinces untouched,

I bring you as offering.

Yep ... awesome ...

Imagery from the Iliad

One of the things I like about poetry is its ability to use imagery from the natural world to convey a thought, an emotion, a situation, etc. There’s a passage in the Iliad where a truce between the two armies dissolves, and war breaks out. The author uses meteorological imagery to describe the clash between the two. Lines 517 through 523 (the first eight lines here) tell the 'literal' account of the conflict, while the following lines employ beautiful imagery.

It's pretty neat.

At last the armies clashed at one strategic point,
they slammed their shields together, pike scraped pike,
with the grappling strength of fighters armed in bronze
and their round shields pounded, boss on welded boss,
and the sound of struggle roared and rocked the earth.
Screams of men and cries of triumph breaking in one breath,
fighters killing, fighters killed, and the ground streamed blood.
Wildly as two winter torrents raging down from the mountains,
swirling into a valley, hurl their great waters together,
flash floods from the wellsprings plunging down in a gorge
and miles away in the hills a shepherd hears the thunder—
so from the grinding armies broke the cries and clash of war.

Iliad Book IV, Lines 517 – 527*