Timothy Steele
Posted in Literature, Poetry, and Books by Peter W. Schramm
I just discovered what a sapphic is. From Timothy Steel:
SAPPHICS AGAINST ANGER Angered, may I be near a glass of water; May my first impulse be to think of Silence, Its deities (who are they? do, in fact, they Exist? etc.).
May I recall what Aristotle says of The subject: to give vent to rage is not to Release it but to be increasingly prone To its incursions.
May I imagine being in the Inferno, Hearing it asked: "Virgilio mio, who's That sulking with Achilles there?" and hearing Virgil say: "Dante,
That fellow, at the slightest provocation, Slammed phone receivers down, and waved his arms like A madman. What Attila did to Europe, What Genghis Khan did
To Asia, that poor dope did to his marriage." May I, that is, put learning to good purpose, Mindful that melancholy is a sin, though Stylish at present.
Better than rage is the post-dinner quiet, The sink's warm turbulence, the streaming platters, The suds rehearsing down the drain in spirals In the last rinsing.
For what is, after all, the good life save that Conducted thoughtfully, and what is passion If not the holiest of powers, sustaining Only if mastered. |
11:57 AM / December 8, 2011
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For the last few days my husband has been talking about agape covering a multitude of sins; this morning saying it is the love we must ask for. What he says come roughly in sapphics, seemingly without context. I get a packet while watching my sink's suds swirl away; then get another with a cup of tea later in the evening. Busy and preoccupied, I have only half listened. We have a lot of silence around here, lately. I give him the "Uh-huh" of married life. Reading that poem, I begin to wonder whose sins he is talking about that need the covering of agape.
That's a good poem.
Nicely said.
Thank you.
Thank you for offering us Steele's poetry, too. I am liking him.