This link... turned me into a thief
Perhaps I always was a thief coveting
That which I never had like that poem The Cool Web
The one by Robert Graves who lived on the island I coveted
In that one too short day exploring Majorca. May I not live here too?
Why only you?
In 1965 it was the place to take my breath away
The sheer beauty of it all, the men slitting glances so like
Predator and prey. And you were there writing love poems on that day
Like the cool web the island cast on me. Writing love poems to whom?
Why not to me? Had I only known then what I know now, I would have left the ship
and looked for you. Why not me too?
©2010 Peggy Pendleton
3 comments:
Robert Graves was a genius. He seemed to reinvent poetry - which might be like reinventing the wheel. He wasn't too bad of a novelist either - I, Claudius. Happy to have increased his fan base :)
Incidentally he was writing love poetry to his 'muse', a spirit called The White Goddess, and of whom he wrote a lengthy book by that title.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Goddess
"The White Goddess is a book-length essay upon the nature of poetic myth-making by author and poet Robert Graves. First published in 1948, based on earlier articles published in Wales, and revised, amended and enlarged in 1966, it represents an approach to the study of mythology from a decidedly creative and idiosyncratic perspective. It proposes the existence of a European deity, the "White Goddess of Birth, Love and Death," inspired and represented by the phases of the moon, and who, Graves argues, lies behind the faces of the diverse goddesses of various European mythologies.
Graves argues that "true" or "pure" poetry is inextricably linked with the ancient cult-ritual of his proposed White Goddess and of her son. His conclusions come from his own conjectures about how early religions developed, as there is no historical evidence that the "White Goddess" as he describes her ever figured in any actual belief system."
"Cup of Wonder"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs-ZiRs_isM
Thank you for the most informative comment I've ever seen.
My interest in mythology stems from my father and his friends talking about the Oedipus complex and other crap like that. My father was a psychologist/torturer/pedophile. I saw myself as both Persephone (this is probably pretty self explanatory) and then later when I was older and had more experience I saw myself as Circe. I believed that it was not that sailors were lured to her island and turned into pigs by Circe, but that they invaded her island and she saw them as the pigs they were, and thus they saw themselves as the pigs they were.
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