The "Cento" or "found" poem below is inspired by Cy Twombly's paintings, and the poetry scribbled, scrawled, scratched, painted over and erased in them. Most of the quotes come from poems CT used in his Quattro Stagioni cycles (Four Seasons; one at the MoMA and one at the Tate), and his epic 13 x 52 foot tripartite poetry-&-paint canvas, Say Goodbye, Catullus to the Shores of Asia Minor.
(Quattro Stagioni = Four Seasons: Primavera=Spring, Estate=Summer, Autunno=Fall, Inverno=Winter).
Quattro Stagione: A Cento for CYT, after Keats, Rilke, Seferis, Howard...
Prologue: Quattro Stagione (Keats: The Human Seasons; Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy)
Four seasons fill the mind of man measure
Spring clear easy beauty
Summer honey’d cud of thought dreaming high
nearest Heaven quiet coves
His soul in Autumn mists in idleness most melancholy
Winter too of pale misfeature
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
I. Primavera (Seferis, “Summer Solstice,” Three Secret Poems; Rilke, Duino Elegy, # 10)
You spoke about things they couldn’t see / and so they laughed
And you who have always thought
of happiness flowing would feel the
emotion that almost overwhelms
when happiness falls.
They couldn’t spoke so they laughed about / you and things see
you thought happiness overwhelms
happiness falls
So you couldn’t laugh see they spoke / about things and they
And always / flowing feel / emotion almost / when
II. Estate (Rilke, Catullus, Seferis)
But to have / been / this Once / completely / even if only / Once (Rilke, Duino Elegies, 9)
(Nine gates. Nine clues. Nine shapes. Nine boats. Nine ciphers.)
Say Goodbye, Catullus to the shores of Asia Minor
Once for each / only / once once / no more / only once / Never again.
High on light / how the dizziness / slipped away / like a fish / in the Sea
Between the hammers our heart
lives on, as the tongue,
even between the teeth, remains
unceasing in praise.
Say Catullus to the goodbye minor shores of Asia
how even sorrow’s lament resolves upon form
high sea fish how slipped on the light in a dizziness like away
what transformation urgent charge
existence wells within
High on light dizziness slipped like a sea fish
Catullus say minor goodbye to Asia of the shores
III. Autunno (Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, 7, Seferis, “Summer Solstice”)
His mortal heart / presses out / inexhaustible wine
His heart ephemeral press wine unending
Mortal presses his inexhaustible wine out
Your life is what you’ve given / this what is what you’ve given, / the blank page
Press his ephemeral heart unending wine
Inexhaustible mortal presses out his heart wine
Unending heart his ephemeral wine press
What you’ve given blank page this what your life what
PAN IC
Epilogue: South ripened / gods / messengers / doors of the dead / bowls fruits praise
IV. Inverno (Seferis, Three Secret Poems)
your life is what you gave
this void is what you gave
the white sheet
this ravaged present
like a fish gleaming
sleep had fallen
among the laurels of the dead
Postlude: Inverno (after Howard, Alassio: 1889)
bare, scored, broiled, scraped, blotched, scalped, flayed, flogged & ruined
a country calcined, grimy, powdered / parboiled, without trees, water, grass
dead branch
my soul
odoriferous / decay
solitary pacings gray beach
langours
in the realm of Time
another misshapen passion
my exile
Pippo has left me for the last time. / Again. The point is, he has left me again:
in the white air
in white light
in the white flat sea. / La bella / noia!
these Italians
I confess / to love for red
names, vermillion, scarlet floating crimson silk
contortions of the Sibyl
inspiration utterance mystery
passionate
unspeakable
obscure
We are all and everlastingly alone
__
Tamuz 5779 | VA | HLM