Thanks all for the fine poems; please, keep them coming! Bill has suggested that I post Heart's Needle; here's a
link. Yes, it is a great poem.
I've promised you some Snodgrass; apparently he got divorced four times so he had plenty of inspiration from life. There's a great run of divorce / failed marriage poems in his 1987 Selected; here are a few:
A Valediction
......Since his sharp sight has taught you
To think your own thoughts and to see
What cramped horizons my arms brought you,
......Turn then and go free.
......Unlimited, your own
Forever. Let your vision be
In your own interests; you've outgrown
......All need for tyranny.
......May his clear views save you
From those shrewd, undermining powers
That hold you close just to enslave you
......In some such love as ours.
......May this new love leave you
Your own being; may your bright rebirth
Prove treacherous, change then and deceive you
......Never on this earth.
......Now that you've seen how mindless
Our long ties were, I pray you never
Find, all your life through, such a blindness
......As we two shared together.
......My dark design's exposed
Since his tongue opened up your eyelids;
May no one ever lip them closed
......So cunningly as I did.
Old Jewelry*
This Gypsy bodice of old coins
......From seven countries, woven fast
So that a silver braidwork joins
......The years and places their tribe passed;
This crown-shaped belt, cast in Souflí--
......Jeweled, enameling on silver-gilt--
A trothplight, then that surety
......On which a family would be built;
This Roman fibula, intact
......From the fourth century though bent;
This Berber fibula, once blacked
......With layers of thick tar to prevent
Theft but that, scoured and polished, shone
......As luminous as it ever was;
This lapis, Persian, the unfading stone
Gold-flecked and implicate with flaws;
Brass arm bands, rings, pins, bracelets, earrings--
Something from nearly every place
We'd been. Once more to see these dear things
Laid out for buyers in a locked showcase.
I'd known them, each one--weighed in hand,
......Rubbed, bargained, and then with my love,
Pinned each one on for her, to stand
In fickle times for emblems of
What lasts--just as they must have once
......For someone long dead. Love that dies
Can still be wrung out for quick funds;
......Someone, no doubt, would pay the price.
*
In typing this poem out I have faithfully followed the indentation format in my 2006 Selected. However, it looks wrong, for obvious reasons. Does anybody have another edition of his poems, to see if this haphazard indentation is really what he intended? I'm beginning to suspect this is a rather shoddily-edited volume...
Love Lamp
There's our candle, on the bedstand still
That served, warm nights, for lovelight
And the rays of its glass panels played
On our entangled legs and shoulders
Like some sailor's red and blue tattoos
Or as cathedral stained glass alters
Congregated flesh to things less
Carnal, tinged by its enfolding glow.
What could that frail lamp seem
To prowlers outside--the fox, say, the owl,
Or to some smaller creature, shrieking,
Pierced in the clutch of tooth and claw
That interrupted love's enactments?
Our glancing flashlight, though, showed
Only scattered grey fur, some broken
Feathers, bloodstained, on the lawn.
Scuttling back to bed, a little
Chilled from the wet grass, we scratched
A match restoring our small gleam
To see there, sinking in soft wax,
The wings and swimming dark limbs
Of that moth--still there, hardened
By the years like amber. While I remember
The scathing fire-points of his eyes.
Divorce Poems
Hybrid Mode
