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June 1999

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Sinister: an ink polaroid for "3, 6, 9 Seconds of Light"
by Youn Jong Noh 01 Jun '99

01 Jun '99

I would like to offer a poem for poetry Mondays, if this tradition still exists. The sleeve notes to "3, 6, 9 Seconds of Light" reads like a mandate to make your own poster. I made mine at the local copy shop where the copiers are not so fancy, but anyone who works at a big company should have been able to make a really great one. I will include the entire poem, but only I is the ink polaroid. It is by Hart Crane. (I have the feeling that I am doing something slightly naughty, but the poem is so remarkable I could not resist.) Voyages I Above the fresh ruffles of surf Bright striped urchins flay each other with sand. They have contrived a conquest for shell shucks, And their fingers crumble fragments of baked weed Gaily digging and scattering. And in answer to their treble interjections The sun beats lightning on the waves, The waves fold thunder on the sand; And could they hear me I would tell them: O brilliant kids, frisk with your dog, Fondle your shells and sticks, bleached By time and the elements; but there is a line You must not cross nor ever trust beyond it Spry cordage of your bodies to caresses Too lichen-faithful from too wide a breast. The bottom of the sea is cruel. II -- And yet this great wink of eternity, Of rimless floods, unfettered leewardings, Samite sheeted and processioned where Her undinal vast belly moonward bends, Laughing the wrapt inflections of our love; Take this Sea, whose diapason knells On scrolls of silver snowy sentences, The sceptred terror of whose sessions rends As her demeanors motion well or ill, All but the pieties of lovers' hands. And onward, as bells off San Salvador Salute the crocus lustres of the stars, In these poinsettia meadows of her tides, -- Adagios of islands, O my Prodigal, Complete the dark confessions her veins spell. Mark how her turning shoulders wind the hours, And hasten while her penniless rich palms Pass superscription of bent foam and wave, -- Hasten, while they are true, -- sleep, death, desire, Close round one instant in one floating flower. Bind us in time, O Seasons clear, and awe. O minstrel galleons of Carib fire, Bequeath us to no earthly shore until Is answered in the vortex of our grave The seal's wide spindrift gaze toward paradise. III Infinite consanguinity it bears -- This tendered theme of you that light Retrieves from sea plains where the sky Resigns a breast that every wave enthrones; While ribboned water lanes I wind Are laved and scattered with no stroke Wide from your side, whereto this hour The sea lifts, also reliquary hands. And so, admitted through black swollen gates That must arrest all distance otherwise, -- Past whirling pillars and lithe pediments, Light wrestling there incessantly with light, Star kissing star through wave on wave unto Your body rocking! and where death, if shed, Presumes no carnage, but this single change, -- Upon the steep floor flung from dawn to dawn The silken skilled transmemberment of song; Permit me voyage, love, into your hands . . . I will stop now because I have the feeling that this might not go over too well with everyone. But I wanted to include enough of the rest of the poem to show what a small part the first section actually is. I hope that Belle & Sebastian overcome what I think is the band's implicit criticism of Nick Drake's music - that it's unidimensional, lacks irony, is self-obsessed in a way that is natural for adolescents but not so natural later on. They might have already done this. "Slow Graffiti"? Someone made me a tape and put "Pictures of Lily" on it. I think that's an example of a song about youth that's more. Are there more songs by the Who like that? +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo(a)majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

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