I'd intended, when I could find the time, to talk about Henri Coulette on this thread. He was, to my mind, one of the four or five best poets of his time; hell, come to that, he's one of the four or five best of our time. Here's an ekphrastic poem of his, a very early one:
INTAGLIO
I have a picture in my room in which
Four gawky children strike a pose and stare
Out at the world without a worldly care.
Three girls and a boy in a paper hat:
The one too much a mouse to be a bitch,
The bitch, the actress, and the acrobat.
The roles I give them, half suggested by
The poses that they took, are meaningless,
For they are playing games. It is recess
Or summer--we have interrupted them.
They pose for us, with Agile romping by
And dark-eyed Pensive plucking at her hem.
This is my family. I dust them now
And then, and they return the courtesy
By never growing up. Thus, irony
Becomes a kind of family likeness, treasured
Not for the casual sameness of a brow
But for the attitudes one's mind has measured.
I knew an Agile once. To prove himself
The nimbler one, he pushed his books aside,
And crossed to Europe and the war, and died,
And his agility, which I believed a power
Then, then was gone, and his books on my shelf
Harvest the sunlit dust, hour after hour.
And there was Pensive, too, and everything
She touched was touched with fear. She married well,
Her people said, but marriage proves a hell
For those who marry but the flesh alone.
Who would have known a turn of mind could bring
Such knowledge to a girl? Who would have known?
I think of her, the child with heavy heart,
Heavy with child, and, Child, I think of you
And all the follies you will journey through;
I know them as an author knows his book.
Action and thought are nothing if apart.
Love in a gesture, wisdom in a book--
These are the real births for which we die.
Outside, the neighbor children startle me,
Calling, Allee, alleeoutsinfree.
They cut for home. I hear a whirring skate
Fading through the darkness like a sigh.
I dust the frame and set the picture straight.
I think, despite a few small flaws, that this is very fine.
And speaking of ekphrastic poems, I've written a couple myself that are not altogether without virtue, "Evening Wind" and "Tea Dance at the Nautilus Hotel."
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