'The Sight'

  
I could see souls,
you said, and I know
that scared you
half to death
for fear that I’d
see yours.

But you gave me cause to look
anyway,
didn’t you?
You wanted me to see through
your damage
and your lies –
you had something like
snake eyes, and they
looked daggers at me;
the doomed king (or queen)
to your Macbeth.

And you may call me damned
or blessed,
but I’d have hurled myself
from the tower for truth,
and it was clear how you knew that,
for there’d be no one there to catch me
when I fell.

I may as well have turned my soul
and all those seen,
over to the fires of Hell
and testified
to their lonely burning,
for only one thing is certain –
it wasn’t ‘the sight’ that left me yearning for
the rotten fruits of vile temptation,
for justice, love, and my own salvation –

No. You need not fear at all;
this queen never saw your soul –
just the choking blackness of
the hole
where once it should have been.

Been re-reading Macbeth this week, can you tell?! :-)

Medieval Architecture in my Glorious County - St. Hilda's Curves...

  
This is St. Hilda's, in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

First founded in 657AD, this glorious Benedictine abbey was the venue for King Oswiu of Northumbria's 7th century 'Synod of Whitby', wherein it was decided that the Northumbrian church would adopt the Roman Catholic calculation of Easter and monastic tonsure (the traditional monks' haircut!). It was also home to the Saxon poet, Caedmon.

The abbey was re-founded in 1078 on the orders of William de Percy, and re-dedicated to St. Peter and St. Hilda. It survived until 1540, when it was finally sacked during the Dissolution. 

The ruin has since been a landmark for many a sailor, and an inspiration to many a writer, including Bram Stoker in the process of writing, Dracula. I follow in their esteemed footsteps with a poem about my love of medieval architecture, and the compulsion to draw features and plans of St. Hilda's Abbey -

Drawing St. Hilda (Whitby, N.Yorks.)


I want to talk of curves and lines,
of willow trees, and creeping vines
and beautiful decay, I want to talk
of summer days spent
beneath your shade,
to vanquish all who seek to
take an ounce
of majesty from you.

O the things I want to do –

To touch you
And draw you
and coat you and call you
in dreams of sandstone and ice cream,
to hear you scream my name
back through time
in centuries infinitely more sublime than
this I dare call mine. I want to talk of
curves and lines –
Oh yes, and better still,
I want to caress them long and
Lithe,
Arched and true;
I want you – for as long as you’ll
have me, abbey, for as long
as you’ll let me
sit and copy
every swoosh and circle,
every rose and purple wildflower –

I want to taste you
for hours – to wrap my
fingers round pillars and butts
and cover you in the gelatinous
lustre of grace. I want to leave
it on your face, forever, – so you
stink of me, and I of you,
so we will be like the glued pigeon
feathers that cling to your hair and edges –
both of us soft and solid wretches,
unwillingly pledging
to be together until we are free.

'The Letters of Abelard and Heloise'...the poetic influence of an 11th-century narcissist?

I've threatened before to start adding other things that interest me to this blog, aside from my resultant poetry, as I think it might start to explain some of my influences and inspirations (to myself as well as anyone else who decides this is worth a read!). I'm aware that a lot of what I write stems from things I've seen, done, studied or read; that a lot of it relates to experience. However, having said that, much of what I've read, studied, and continue to read on a poetic level, is late medieval or early modern, with the occassional dip into the 19th-century. I love Mallory, Chaucer and Donne, Shakespeare, Marlow and Rossetti, so it seems strange even to me, that I should begin an insight into my poetic psyche with a post about Peter Abelard and Heloise!

For those as yet unfamiliar with Abelard (you have no idea what gems of hilarity you've been missing in his autobiography!), he was born in 1079, in the village of Pallet, in Brittany. His father being a manorial lord and minor noble, Abelard, as eldest son, was intended for a career in knighthood. However, as a boy, he found book learning favourable to the lure of violent conflict, just killing, honour, and chivalry:

'I prefered the weapons of dialectic to all the other teachings of philosphy, and armed with these I chose the conflicts on disputation instead of the trophies of war...' 

(Thought a translation might be appreciated rather than the original medieval Latin! - The letters of Abelard and Heloise,  Peter Abelard, Héloïse, Betty Radice, M. T. Clanchy, 2003.)

When a little older, Abelard became a wandering scholar, which during this period, also made you a monk of sorts, as all scholarly persuits and teaching were theological in nature and under church control. Abelard spent some time at Locmenach before heading to the Cathedral School of Notre Dame, Paris, where he promptly decided (on somewhat shaky grounds!) that his intellect and powers of theological interpretation were far superior to that of his peers and teachers. As a result, he resolved to set up his own school in Melun, around 1101, where he royally irritated his contemporaries with a condescending attitude and a fondness for being right!.

Abelard returned to Paris in 1113, becoming a teacher there. Yet he was clearly not cut out for a life of piety! He began a torrid and forbidden affair with the niece of Canon Fulbert; the apparently beautiful and alluring young abbess, Heloise. The pair fell madly in love, and exchanged various amorous, pained and guilt-ridden letters describing their passions, admirations, separations and inability to resist their basest temptations. Various trysts ensued in the abbeys and convents of Europe, eventually resulting in a son and a secret marriage...all prior to the complications of vengeful castration and accusations of heresy!

The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (as should by now be obvious to even the most previously ignorant reader!) are neither late medieval to early modern or, largely poetic. However, they do, in much the same manner as Shakespeare's sonnets and tragedies or Mallory's tales of knighthood in Morte d'Arthur, tell a vivid and engaging tale of gripping desire, an impassioned and destructive affair, and the conflict between duty and love, providing a peek at the results of unchecked human emotion and weakness that is as relevant today as ever. The letters are also soaked with that over-blown and fervent language of high medieval piety, devotion, love, sorrow and guilt that fires the artist in me!

'God knows I never sought anything in you except yourself. I wanted simply you, nothing of yours.'

'I desired to keep you whom I loved beyond measure for myself alone.'

So, after having more free time this week than usual to over-indulge in all things artistic, and finding myself once again retrieving The Letters of Abelard and Heloise from a dusty shelf in the spare bedroom to thumb its well-worn pages, I think I must face the truth. I frequently write in a style very similar to that of Abelard and Heloise, utilising themes of guilt, passion, love, pain, Heaven, Hell, damnation, and futility...and I'm fascinated by the ever-surprising strengths, weaknesses, and inexplicable, unavoidable agonies of people. Somewhere along the line, Abelard and Heloise have influenced my writing.

'How can it be called repentance for sins, however great the mortification of the flesh, if the mind still retains the will to sin and is on fire with its old desires?'

The man himself, I'm certain, would have rebuffed this 'mighty revealation' with a sniffy "but of course," ...and thus, I must also admit to myself, that my inspirer was a self-indulgent narcissist, who enjoyed pedalling his own intellect and creativity for gains of fame and admiration (who me?!). However, he, and his lover Heloise, were also passionate human beings, great forward thinkers not afraid to speak their minds, and above all else, engaging writers that keep me taking that book down from its dusty shelf over and over again...so in this context, Abelard (and Heloise), my self-appreciating friend(s), I'm more than grateful for your contribution to my muse!