Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.
Vér hǫfum vaðnar leirur vikur fimm megingrimmar;
saurs vara vant, er várum, viðr, í Grímsbœ miðjum.
Nú'r þat's más of mýrar meginkátliga látum
branda elg á bylgjur Bjǫrgynjar til dynja.
I
There’s always speak of roots, divisible
to an infinite power, and snoring
in sessility on the traipsing hull
of our goodly burdened sloop, wondering
when the keen curdle of a Swiss army
with arbitrary nous of Nereus
will divorce them from mother’s mammary
and render them wholly incongruous
to blushes in May, or to Acheron,
though all have dismal branches in the end.
The salt lungs gurgle, rigging ridden on,
the brokers, the needlework that they vend,
and memorials to which they belong,
stand plumb at dock, and lose the time they spend.
II
The time they spend could easily be wrapped
around the perimeter of a coin
divorced from mother’s hands to give the rapt
pupils of a schoolchild hell, and join
his vacillating knuckles to the flank
of a periscope whirring for the gulls,
to scrutinise the ostentatious shanks
of mastheads from Novia Scotia to Hull,
and though these blushes may be spared, in lieu
of branching out for dismal ends to meet,
they also prickle at the pas de deux
between dominion and degrees of heat,
interrogating suds and breaks he views,
tasting the tumult underneath their feet.
III
The tumult underneath the feat of few
reveals itself as something not unlike
discriminately digging on la Rue
de Moulins, to use these decadent dykes,
in the sunken rank and file of Syrtes,
to better espy gale-clouted crows nests
from depraved trenches, wisdom’s little ease,
and laugh to think that tempests are a test,
preferring to repose on dwindling beds
as choruses of pedantic coral,
or shingle scraping like a dog unfed
at master’s kitchen door, appears moral
in understanding, but it must be said,
is animal, and knows only gambol.
IV
To know only gamble is animal
to dilettantes, how Grigoriev
captured the dark, imploring wherewithal
of man and crab, the same look of Macbeth
upon those marrowless bones, that is, joy
at horrors the dramatic twist will birth.
This is the privilege and the employ,
if only they would launch their fleet from earth,
of unfed masters, scraping kitchen doors
to trade places with dogs, as well they know
what is mistaken for gambol, divorced
from schoolchild hell of wasting time, and so,
standing to lose at dock the plumb resource
of knowledge unfound on sea floors shallow.
V
The shallow see flaws in Canute’s dispatch,
as unfounded knowledge and lassitude.
Acheron may blush at a good day’s catch
of experience dragged from latitudes
That are discriminately dug from nets
and snares dangling from its mothering hands,
better to avenge dear ones, don’t forget,
than scupper dear ones’ own avenging plans.
Plumbing resources from the root of speech
and address as the aforementioned king
is to endeavour wholly out of reach
of the pedantic choral band that sing
as would sirens on the serrated beach
at the masthead to which the aesthete clings.
VI
The massed headland to which the aesthete brings
romances for entrepreneurs to sell
finds vendors broke, his need’ll work to ring
with discernment the crisp unending bell
of each island of man, and mankind’s debt
to each knell past that recognises kin,
fleeting on earth, launched from wombs with regret,
derided, mostly, know the lot they’re in.
The sunken files of rancour Syrtes glugs,
tossed there by those holding all of the quays,
jettisoned thusly, lost in nonplussed shrugs,
hold falsely to account the shallow seas.
A wise old salt, amongst these crooks and thugs,
invisible, hears speak of roots, agrees.
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.
Vér hǫfum vaðnar leirur vikur fimm megingrimmar;
saurs vara vant, er várum, viðr, í Grímsbœ miðjum.
Nú'r þat's más of mýrar meginkátliga látum
branda elg á bylgjur Bjǫrgynjar til dynja.
I
There’s always speak of roots, divisible
to an infinite power, and snoring
in sessility on the traipsing hull
of our goodly burdened sloop, wondering
when the keen curdle of a Swiss army
with arbitrary nous of Nereus
will divorce them from mother’s mammary
and render them wholly incongruous
to blushes in May, or to Acheron,
though all have dismal branches in the end.
The salt lungs gurgle, rigging ridden on,
the brokers, the needlework that they vend,
and memorials to which they belong,
stand plumb at dock, and lose the time they spend.
II
The time they spend could easily be wrapped
around the perimeter of a coin
divorced from mother’s hands to give the rapt
pupils of a schoolchild hell, and join
his vacillating knuckles to the flank
of a periscope whirring for the gulls,
to scrutinise the ostentatious shanks
of mastheads from Novia Scotia to Hull,
and though these blushes may be spared, in lieu
of branching out for dismal ends to meet,
they also prickle at the pas de deux
between dominion and degrees of heat,
interrogating suds and breaks he views,
tasting the tumult underneath their feet.
III
The tumult underneath the feat of few
reveals itself as something not unlike
discriminately digging on la Rue
de Moulins, to use these decadent dykes,
in the sunken rank and file of Syrtes,
to better espy gale-clouted crows nests
from depraved trenches, wisdom’s little ease,
and laugh to think that tempests are a test,
preferring to repose on dwindling beds
as choruses of pedantic coral,
or shingle scraping like a dog unfed
at master’s kitchen door, appears moral
in understanding, but it must be said,
is animal, and knows only gambol.
IV
To know only gamble is animal
to dilettantes, how Grigoriev
captured the dark, imploring wherewithal
of man and crab, the same look of Macbeth
upon those marrowless bones, that is, joy
at horrors the dramatic twist will birth.
This is the privilege and the employ,
if only they would launch their fleet from earth,
of unfed masters, scraping kitchen doors
to trade places with dogs, as well they know
what is mistaken for gambol, divorced
from schoolchild hell of wasting time, and so,
standing to lose at dock the plumb resource
of knowledge unfound on sea floors shallow.
V
The shallow see flaws in Canute’s dispatch,
as unfounded knowledge and lassitude.
Acheron may blush at a good day’s catch
of experience dragged from latitudes
That are discriminately dug from nets
and snares dangling from its mothering hands,
better to avenge dear ones, don’t forget,
than scupper dear ones’ own avenging plans.
Plumbing resources from the root of speech
and address as the aforementioned king
is to endeavour wholly out of reach
of the pedantic choral band that sing
as would sirens on the serrated beach
at the masthead to which the aesthete clings.
VI
The massed headland to which the aesthete brings
romances for entrepreneurs to sell
finds vendors broke, his need’ll work to ring
with discernment the crisp unending bell
of each island of man, and mankind’s debt
to each knell past that recognises kin,
fleeting on earth, launched from wombs with regret,
derided, mostly, know the lot they’re in.
The sunken files of rancour Syrtes glugs,
tossed there by those holding all of the quays,
jettisoned thusly, lost in nonplussed shrugs,
hold falsely to account the shallow seas.
A wise old salt, amongst these crooks and thugs,
invisible, hears speak of roots, agrees.