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Littlestone 5386 posts |
Mar 06, 2008, 15:38
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Maiden Castle They said it could not be conquered guarded by silent eyes and fierce hearts. ~ How tight is your grip son thrust here – strike low find the tendon release it from the bone ~ Who comes to such a place there was no prize here. Why did you come across Poseidon’s plateau? This castle was not the heart of the people! The fort may have been their body ringed in complex configuration but each blade of grass was their soul planted in rapacious repetition. ~ For it will come to pass mark my words true Belatucadros has spoken All hail the god’s vengeance! We may slip into his arms this day but our souls will never be taken We look out to our enemy and know that for every one of their victories we take two for our own! ~ Persephone Vandegrift
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gjrk 370 posts |
Mar 08, 2008, 02:08
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I had read and reacted to this poem before it was posted here and I would feel slightly uneasy about reusing any of the superlatives that I have already attached to it, but perhaps Persephone will forgive me if I just make one comment? It is so uncommon to read any few lines that can drop you effectively back into the prehistoric moment, into the lives of the people that used and erected monuments, and for whom they must have been so vitally important. While the 'grey, haunted stone on the hill' type of reference can speak to our experience, Persephone looks behind and beyond that, to the possible minds of the movers of the stones. Anyone wishing to open a gift with their eyes can link here: http://www.thisisby.us/index.php/?sc=2&u=7235 *I can particularly recommend 'I Was Here', which concludes with the finest few phrases of new poetry that I have read in years.
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Littlestone 5386 posts |
Edited Mar 08, 2008, 20:50
Mar 08, 2008, 20:44
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Thanks for those comments gjrk, and I completely agree with you when you say, "It is so uncommon to read any few lines that can drop you effectively back into the prehistoric moment..." I confess I didn't know much about Maiden Castle until I read Persephone's poem, and that prompted me to do a bit of reading. There's a lot on the internet but this bit at http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/early%20ages/maiden%20castle.htm helps put Persephone's poem into its historical context. "'Maiden' derives from the Celtic Mai Dun, which means great hill. It was known to have been the stronghold of the Durotriges tribe, until it fell to the 2nd Legion Augusta, under Vespasian, during the Roman invasion in AD43. The battle for the fort was a bloody one, and centered on the eastern entrance. Excavations carried out in the 20th century uncovered the bodies of 38 Iron Age warriors, who had been laid to rest by their Roman victors, along with food and drink for their journey into the after life."
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gjrk 370 posts |
Mar 09, 2008, 11:35
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Thanks for the info LS. I had a similar search through my bookshelves -heaving with unhelpful Irish history/prehistory - and only managed to find some sceptical comments from Francis Pryor and a quick mention from Richard Bradley. If I can get to southern England at some point, I think it's a place that I will have to go and see. g
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Seph 7 posts |
Mar 12, 2008, 07:11
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Oh, so here's where you two are hiding! Can't thank you enough for including my poetry on here. It is wonderful to have an outlet for them. These ancient sites will always inspire me and confound me. Also many thanks for your supportive comments - glad I got you both reaching for those text books again! cheers, sephers
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Littlestone 5386 posts |
Mar 12, 2008, 10:28
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Can't thank you enough for including my poetry on here. The pleasure's ours. Nice to see you here Seph.
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Littlestone 5386 posts |
Mar 15, 2008, 19:32
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I see the first ones lately much more clearly Spilling blood along the turning ground Diving... In your eyes... Will you feel the softly spoken lies Will you find what lives behind my eyes... Lyrics by Caroline Lavelle from her song Turning Ground. Video by Matthew De Haven, Ode to Stonehenge at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq3QS4W2uBQ
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moss 2897 posts |
Mar 20, 2008, 16:13
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Grauballe Man As if he had been poured in tar, he lies on a pillow of turf and seems to weep the black river of himself. The grain of his wrists is like bog oak, the ball of his heel like a basalt egg. His instep has shrunk cold as a swan’s foot or a wet swamp root. His hips are the ridge and purse of a mussel, his spine an eel arrested under a glisten of mud. The head lifts, the chin is a visor raised above the vent of his slashed throat that has tanned and toughened. The cured wound opens inwards to a dark elderberry place. Who will say ‘corpse’ to his vivid cast? Who will say ‘body' to his opaque repose? And his rusted hair, a mat unlikely as a foetus’s. I first saw his twisted face in a photograph, a head and shoulder out of the peat, bruised like a forceps baby, but now he lies perfected in my memory, down to the red horn of his nails, hung in the scales with beauty and atrocity: with the Dying Gaul too strictly compassed on his shield, with the actual weight of each hooded victim, slashed and dumped. Seamus Heaney This poem is about one of the bog men found in Jutland, his date is about 290bc. Heaney studied at Queen's University, Dublin, and he must have taken in archaeology. Anyway he came across this book by P.V.Glob on the Bog People, which obviously inspired him to write the above, also Tollund Man and one about the Goddess Nerthus, who has a fascinating if somewhat gruesome tale to tell. Glob shows a photo of Nerthus in his book, it is a 'cloven' oak-branch 9 ft in length and, according to Glob, possesses natural feminine form, the goddess herself. The branch was found in a sacrificial site at Foerlev Nymolle under a heap of stones. And it seems these few lines describe the branch, though Heaney says it is ash not oak... For beauty, say an ash-fork staked in peat, Its long grains gathering to the gouged split; A seasoned, unsleeved taker of the weather Where kesh and loaning finger out to heather
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Littlestone 5386 posts |
Edited Mar 21, 2008, 17:30
Mar 21, 2008, 17:28
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Thanks for that Moss. Another bog body-inspired poem by Heaney, as you know, is his The Tollund Man; bit more info here - http://www.tollundman.dk/heaney.asp The Tollund Man Some day I will go to Aarhus To see his peat-brown head, The mild pods of his eye-lids, His pointed skin cap. In the flat country near by Where they dug him out, His last gruel of winter seeds Caked in his stomach, Naked except for The cap, noose and girdle, I will stand a long time. Bridegroom to the goddess, She tightened her torc on him And opened her fen, Those dark juices working Him to a saint's kept body, Trove of the turfcutters' Honeycombed workings. Now his stained face Reposes at Aarhus. II I could risk blasphemy, Consecrate the cauldron bog Our holy ground and pray Him to make germinate The scattered, ambushed Flesh of labourers, Stockinged corpses Laid out in the farmyards, Tell-tale skin and teeth Flecking the sleepers Of four young brothers, trailed For miles along the lines. III Something of his sad freedom As he rode the tumbril Should come to me, driving, Saying the names Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard, Watching the pointing hands Of country people, Not knowing their tongue. Out here in Jutland In the old man-killing parishes I will feel lost, Unhappy and at home. Seamus Heaney
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Seph 7 posts |
Mar 22, 2008, 16:52
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Both poems are stunning, embracing and communicating so well the experience of witnessing the past. I left the confines of my room and was easily transported to witnessing it too. Brilliant journey - thanks for this LS! seph
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