Tag Archives: Ferdinand Khnopff

What The —


     What is forgetting ?

A chapbook of dull poetry gathering dust, unread . . .

 

  Today’s prompt asks you to begin by picking 5-10 words from the following list.
Next, write out a question for each word that you’ve selected (e.g., what is seaweed?)

owl / generator / fog / river / clove / miracle / cyclops / oyster / mercurial / seaweed / gutter / artillery / salt / elusive / thunder / ghost / acorn / cheese / longing / cowbird / truffle / quahog / song

Now for each question, write a one-line answer.
Try to make the answer an image, and don’t worry about strict logic.
These are surrealist answers, after all!

After you’ve written out your series of questions and answers, place all the answers, without the questions, on a new page. See if you can make a poem of just the answers. You may find that what you have is very beautifully mysterious, and somehow has its own logic.

In my opinion the above prompt is unworthy of a response, and shows what is wrong with modern approaches to the very concept of poetry. But you do you . . .

 


The problem you have is you’ve nothing to say
These MFA promptings are good for a yawn
So scribble some shit and then call it a day
Since most of your readers have long since moved on.

 

 

Lost Opportunities

Passage from: Scenes From Beyond the Grave published in 1865 by Marietta Davis.

Overcome by her deep feelings, she yielded to the manifestation of grief, and I heard her speak no more; whereupon another spirit drew near, and addressing me, said:

“Go, leave us to our lot. Your presence gives us pain, since it revives the more active memory of lost opportunities; the indulgence of propensities that folded around the soul the elements of evil magnetism, and pervaded the spirit with its deadly miasma.”

Here the spirit paused a moment, then continued, “No, tarry; prompted by a cause I know not, I am desirous to reveal what we have learned while here, relative to the power and influence of evil and its magnetism upon the spirit of man, which, though while man inhabits the tenement of clay is exceedingly subtle, when the spirit leaves the outer world and enters the interior world, forms the external sphere of his existence. Here it is the more external. In the world whence we came, it is the invisible and interior; but now it is our outward dwelling. It arises from the deep. It unfolds from the soul. It encompasses all, pervades all, controls and inspires all. Mortals are opposed to this truth, and from the love and goodness of God, they reason that there can not be suffering in the spirit of man. This reasoning charges evil upon God, since evil and suffering exist with the family of man in the outer world and with us prevail. The cause of this is obvious, and yet men seek to reject the principle.

The Harvest of Sin

“When the harmony and movement of law is disturbed or prevented, evil consequences ensue. Man, by counteracting the movement of law in himself, produces a contrary effect from what is indicated, and therefore, that which was ordained unto life—that which should have perfected him—by improper tendencies, is operative unto death; sin therefore, or the violation of law, unfits the being for proper development, and hence, the violator being removed from harmony, dies unto (ceases to exist in) the law of peace and holy development. This great and irrevocable truth is manifest in every degree of physical and moral movement, where law meets with obstruction; and we have its fruits with us in abundant and fearful harvest.”

to be continued

Strange Graces

khnopff
Ladies, like variegated tulips, show,
‘Tis to their changes that their charms they owe;
Their happy spots the nice admirer take,
Fine by defect, and delicately weak.
‘Twas thus Calypso once each heart alarm’d,
Aw’d without virtue, without beauty charm’d;
Her tongue bewitch’d as oddly as her eyes,
Less wit than mimic, more a wit than wise;
Strange graces still, and stranger flights she had,
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad;
Yet ne’er so sure our passion to create,
As when she touch’d the brink of all we hate.
from:  To a Lady on the Characters of Women  by Alexander Pope

 

Memory, of Lost Opportunity

from:  Scenes Beyond the Grave, by  Marietta Davis (1865)

Overcome by her deep feelings, she yielded to the manifestation of grief, and I heard her speak no more; whereupon another spirit drew near, and addressing me, said:

“Go, leave us to our lot. Your presence gives us pain, since it revives the more active memory of lost opportunities; the indulgence of propensities that folded around the soul the elements of evil magnetism, and pervaded the spirit with its deadly miasma.”

Here the spirit paused a moment, then continued, “No, tarry; prompted by a cause I know not, I am desirous to reveal what we have learned while here, relative to the power and influence of evil and its magnetism upon the spirit of man, which, though while man inhabits the tenement of clay is exceedingly subtle, when the spirit leaves the outer world and enters the interior world, forms the external sphere of his existence. Here it is the more external. In the world whence we came, it is the invisible and interior; but now it is our outward dwelling. It arises from the deep. It unfolds from the soul. It encompasses all, pervades all, controls and inspires all. Mortals are opposed to this truth, and from the love and goodness of God, they reason that there can not be suffering in the spirit of man. This reasoning charges evil upon God, since evil and suffering exist with the family of man in the outer world and with us prevail. The cause of this is obvious, and yet men seek to reject the principle.

The Harvest of Sin

“When the harmony and movement of law is disturbed or prevented, evil consequences ensue. Man, by counteracting the movement of law in himself, produces a contrary effect from what is indicated, and therefore, that which was ordained unto life—that which should have perfected him—by improper tendencies, is operative unto death; sin therefore, or the violation of law, unfits the being for proper development, and hence, the violator being removed from harmony, dies unto (ceases to exist in) the law of peace and holy development. This great and irrevocable truth is manifest in every degree of physical and moral movement, where law meets with obstruction; and we have its fruits with us in abundant and fearful harvest.”

[ to be continued]