Re: for the week that's in it... in honour of John Montague (pt 1 of 4)

On 2/24/2009 7:59 PM, sidheseeker wrote:

K E Dennis wrote:
I came upon the notice in the IT that this week the great I-Am* poet John Montague turns
80 [& many happy returns of the day, so say we all]-
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/0223/1224241645877.html

[snipppppps]


80 eh..? might be hope for me yet.. :-)


O, indeed, there's hope for all of us, the wicked & the innocent alike.

But on the subject of age & youth & the like, I think I'll leave it to himself to express
how little we may change merely because we grow older;-)


~~~
Crossing

Your lithe and golden body
haunts me, as I haunt you:
corsairs with different freights
who may only cross by chance
on lucky nights.

So our moorings differ.
But scents of your pleasure
still linger disturbingly
around me: fair winds or
squalls of danger?

There is a way of forgetting you,
but I have forgotten it:
prepared wildly to cut free,
to lurch, like a young man,
towards ecstasy!

Nightly your golden body turns
and turns in my shuddering dream.
Why is the heart never still,
yielding again to the cardinal
lure of the beautiful?

Age should bring its wisdom
but in your fragrant presence
my truths are one, swirling
to a litany – sweet privateer –
of grateful adulation.

~~~
Crossing
John Montague
Collected Poems
1995, Wake Forest University Press
~~~

respectfully submitted,

| K. E. Dennis <dennisk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
|
| Maireann lorg an phinn, ach nímhaireann an béal a chan
| The trace of the pen lives on, but not the mouth that sang
|
| A little bit of Culture...
| http://frontpage.montclair.edu/dennisk/poetry/home/index.html


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