Metamorphosis

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Once upon a time, there were Adam and Noah.
Their story was direr than the Messiah.
One got robbed of a fraction of rib; 
The other suffered tides of rips. 

For one, God was the Creator; 
For the other, He was the Destroyer. 
The former wore a twig of fig in shame; 
The latter waited for leaves of olive in pain. 
Adam in Eden was a namer; 
Noah from the ark was a collector. 
They, with events and changes, 
Planted a Tree of Knowledge.
This Tree of Knowledge had a trunk of rock;
It grew a golden bough and a cowhide bark.
Our ancestors stayed under the lofty arbor,
Amazed at this creation of mental labor.
Then, from above struck a thunder.
The Tree was hit and split asunder.
Yet, in time it spread its ruby seeds,
And they drifted onto the vast sea.
Many of them became fodder for a whale,
But two, fortunately, got blown by a gale.
They caught the attention of one blue bird,
And finally settled onto some green turf.
The warbler sang the tale to a bard,
And the old man retold it to a jock.
The garish jock listened in tears,
So he passed the story from ear to ear.
Meanwhile, the seeds started to sprout,
By the late June, they reached the cloud.
Due to their grand stature and august carriage,
The blue bird built a nest among the foliage.
So now we had two trees of the same kind.
Apart as their boles were, their branches twined.
Upon the harvest, they yielded peach of luck,
Pear of brotherhood, and orange of love.
(To Be Continued)

 

Sick of Bishop's "One Art"? Try this!
The art of hatred isn't hard to master; 
so many things seem filled with the intent 
to be hated that their hatred is no disaster. 
Hate something every day. Embrace the fluster 
of hated door keys, the hour badly spent. 
The art of hatred isn't hard to master. 
Then practice hating farther, hating faster: 
places, and names, and where it was you meant 
to travel. None of these will bring disaster. 
I hated my friends' duplicity. And look! my last, or 
next-to-last, of three loved friends went. 
The art of hatred isn't hard to master. 
I hated two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, 
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. 
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. 
---Even hating you (the joking voice, a gesture 
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident 
the art of hatred's not too hard to master 
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Out of sight, out of mind.
This is how I want to die.
I have tried; I would fight.
I miss you one thousand and one nights.

He's a verbal wizard par excellence.
Ambivalent rhetoric does he breed.
As for relationship, beyond question,
He speaks thousandfold louder than his deeds.

She lit his cigarette, sniffed his pomade, 
Touching the writing desk that reeks of him.
She slipped into his flat while he's away,
And left in time before her will grew limp.
She peruses his words, decoding phrases,
Imagining what he's thinking, elsewhere; 
She seals her comments in secret cases,
Hopefully to resist Time's wear and tear.
She shall arise now, waitin' for no tidings.
She'll be fine if that's what she wishes for.
Yet she wallows in reveries, dreaming──
The good old days when parting was no lord.
He said, "It's nothing but a rehearsal."
"It hurts still. My acting is abysmal."

Deriving from Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the Lady of Shalott, through Lord Alfred Tennyson's rendition, becomes a mythological figure. Confined to an isle upstream from King Arthur's Camelot, she weaves what she sees in the mirror into tapestries. Later on when Pre-Raphaelitism was at its height, "The Lady of Shalott," due to its medieval aura, its tragic beauty, and its artist trope, gained popularity among painters like William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) and John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). While most people read this fictional character as a tragic yet beautiful heroine--Poe's poetic taste indeed--contemporary critics also start to interpret this consummate weaver as a prototype for artistic representation. The tapestry as text(ile) especially attracts feminists, poststructuralists, and postmodernists.
The first painting here was finished by Hunt between 1889 and 1892; it was actually his last major painting recorded. Due to Hunt's failing eyesight, he completed this painting with the help of an assistant. Noticeably, this ornate painting--beyond its iridescent colors--abounds with symbolism. Here the bare-footed Lady of Shalott poses like a deity, her red hair twitching as vigorously as that of the serpentine Medusa. While one critic comments that she is almost hanged by her unrestrained lock--a foreshowing of her later suicide--I am inclined to interpret the hair as an emblem of her creative power. Engrossed in her tapestry, the Lady of Shalott observes her work with a critical eye, her right hand holding the needle which will eventually turn threads into tours de force. Outdoors the field is sunny and serene; indoors she is perfectly in harmony with her medieval setting. Apparently, what Hunt had in mind is an ingenious artist, not a forlorn lover.