stonepicnicking_okapi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stonepicnicking_okapi) wrote2021-04-15 07:43 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi) wrote2021-04-15 07:43 pm
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Poet's Corner: The Unswept by Sharon Olds
The Unswept by Sharon Olds
Broken bay leaf. Olive pit.
Crab leg. Claw. Crayfish armor.
Whelk shell. Mussel shell. Dogwinkle. Snail.
Wishbone tossed unwished on. Test
of sea urchin. Chicken foot.
Wrasse skeleton. Hen head
--eye shut, beak open
as if singing in the dark. Laid down in tiny
tiles, by the rhyparographer,
each scrap has a shadow--ach shadow cast
by a different light. Permanently fresh
husks of the feast! When the guest has gone,
the morsels dropped on the floor are left
as food for the dead--O my characters,
my imagined, here are some fancies of crumbs
from under love's table.
---
Note: rhyparography - the painting or literary depiction of mean, unworthy, or sordid subjects.
Broken bay leaf. Olive pit.
Crab leg. Claw. Crayfish armor.
Whelk shell. Mussel shell. Dogwinkle. Snail.
Wishbone tossed unwished on. Test
of sea urchin. Chicken foot.
Wrasse skeleton. Hen head
--eye shut, beak open
as if singing in the dark. Laid down in tiny
tiles, by the rhyparographer,
each scrap has a shadow--ach shadow cast
by a different light. Permanently fresh
husks of the feast! When the guest has gone,
the morsels dropped on the floor are left
as food for the dead--O my characters,
my imagined, here are some fancies of crumbs
from under love's table.
---
Note: rhyparography - the painting or literary depiction of mean, unworthy, or sordid subjects.
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I like this one a lot. The sense that what's left over/discarded isn't nourishing. And there's a parable in the Christian Bible that the image of table scraps alludes to, isn't there? *googles* Yes! It's in Luke 16, Lazarus under the rich man's table. And the dogs come and lick his sores. Eesh.
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Yes, I went through the Sharon Olds book from the front until I found the first I posted, then I kept going, finally reading only the first two lines and it was Child Birth, Breastfeeding, Her Kids, Her Parents, Her Very, Very Heterosexual Sex, Abortion, and I finally gave up. And started at the end and this one was the last poem of the collection and I started reading upstream (from back to front and it was the same ugh-ness) so for me this is the Best of Sharon Olds.
Yeah, I definitely think she's referencing Lazarus here. It also made me think of that artist I posted about a while back [Joseph Cornell] with the found objects dioramas.
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