Free Refuge by Michael Tolkien Page B

murmur disturbed me.
     
    IV.

    Known mainly for tepid social grace,
    she breaks out in sudden praise
    for the lovely sound of silver and bell,
    her tongue tingling with their spell.

POET BROADCASTS
    1.
ME
    I’m all about myth re-explored.
    You can’t exhaust myths: everything itself
    yet something else. Who needs empiricism!
    I’ll match A with B and see what arises:
    lab.-work without a book of formulae.
    I’m after anti-drama, coolly playing down
    the awaited in a world that’s
mezzo-forte,
    mezzo-relievo, mezzo-just-about-the-lot!
    2.
IT
    Take this geranium stewing in its pot:
    it brews aromas of damp nightfall
    on the edge of woods over which a disappointing moon
    hesitates in butterfly clouds that once
    soared over the skies of your brittle childhood,
    or maybe it was after you stepped from the car
    in which Orpheus drove away from his terrible loss,
    stung by the memory of a serpent in long grass
    and of a swaying light, once a promising train
    that resounded with half-forgotten melodies
    before he’d lost his metro ticket...
    Meeting a shadow of what she was
    he’d noticed a slight twist to her mouth,
    lobe-less ears, a high, glacial forehead,
    how her left forefinger itched the air.
    Was it worth encountering those monstrous guards
    and officials with references and excuses in triplicate,
    agreeing to ridiculous conditions for her release?
     
    Even to this day he can’t recall what she wore:
    probably something pleated that bellied out
    in the first blasts of upper air as he turned round
    to warn her about snags in the cave floor...
    And then the automatic doors closed
    and he watched her looking for a seat,
    shaking dust and damp wind out of her hair...
    3.
CHAT AND CIAO
    A poem’s like a boiling. Lid off too soon
    or simmer too long, and it’s fit for the bin.
    A poet’s Tweedledum self-communing under
    an umbrella open for a theoretical shower.
    Thanks for listening in...
     
     
     
    NOTES PROVIDED FOR THE BROADCAST
    1.) One of many tales about the legendary Thracian king, Orpheus is how he lost his young wife, Eurydice, to a snake who bit her as she ran from a man intent on
raping her. Orpheus, a spell-binding musician, descended to the Underworld, charmed its fearful monsters and got permission from its king, Hades, to take his wife back to the upper air, provided
that he did not look back at her before they returned to the light.
    2.) In
Through the Looking Glass
when Alice asks Tweedledum if it’s going to rain, he opens an umbrella over him and his brother (Tweedledee) and
declares it won’t be raining under their cover. Carroll suggests that their world is subjective, a matter of playing with ideas. Tangible facts are of no concern.

DIVINITY THAT SHAPES
    Commod
it
a
s quaevis sua fert incommoda secum.
    Qunitillian
    No wonder there was turmoil in Olympus
    and the gods decided to nail Prometheus
    for the theft of fire. By wielding fire
    we flicker for a moment into gods.
    Land, water, trade seem so much clutter
    if history’s a squabble for a share of fire.
    Eating out our hearts for fire,
    we’ve suffered the Titan’s endless torture.
    Now so few hoard such quantities of fire
    the gods seem amateurs, and we who shivered
    in caves cower from holocausts of fire,
    naked to the bolts of nameless gods.
     
     
     
    NOTE
    Epigraph:
Every advantage has its drawbacks.
    Prometheus
(of the giant race of
Titans
) was chained to a rock for ever. An eagle devoured his liver each day after it had grown back
overnight.

A LEVEL
FANTASY
    ‘...tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here...’
    Alice in Wonderland
    She’d been one to peck up every fact,
    and he’d encouraged her in measured doses,
    ticked margins and given way to
Good!
    Life-lines thrown out before she joined
    the long roll of faceless names and numbers.
    He’d fixed a grin to unwrap her gift:
    Tenniel’s
Cheshire Cat
framed and inscribed
    It’s been great!
Nailing it up he feels
    one grafter’s respect for another.
    She