POEMS PENNYEACH

   

Florence from San Miniato at Vespers

 

 fled my mother's hate in Florence
For my father's exiled silence.
I take the veil and Beatrice's name
Amidst Ravenna's tesserae.

e are Milton's nameless daughters,
Forbidden Hebrew, Greek or Latin,
Who copy down his hellish vision
Of lost England from blind silence.

left my father's London hatred,
I found my son's Italian music,
And, in Casa Guidi's sunlight,
Write, 'O bella libertà!'

Holman Hunt Chalice, Paten, St Mark's Church, Florence

ake with the harsh hands
Water, wine, bread from stones,
Make blood.
They've spilt enough of it for this.

Bread from stones, make flesh.
Blood's been often shed in exchange for bread.
Take with the harsh hands,
Water, wine, bread from stones.

Rivulets of blood shed for creed and bread.
They knew not which nor why nor where
On the barbed wire lies impaled the lacerated flesh.
Take with the harsh hands.

1957

 

Vallombrosa

 



lice, an ancient pilgrim,
Wandered,
            By the way,
Backwards through time,
To become, not the loathly hag
Of Bath, nor Malory's Alys
Le Beall Pylgryme,
Bride to the Orphelyn,
But carolling Alice,
Child as Swain, whose tale,
Said Victoria's mathematician
             Dodgson
Was a wither'd wreath of
Flowers plucked in a far-
Off land of dreams
And forbidden gardens.
 

                

                   Sinai from Saint Catherine's, 1992

On My Father

Passage to and from India

e told me of the long drawn out
         ship
voyage through the
Red Sea to
Bombay,
the White Cliffs being
Malabar hills.
I never saw it
though my godmother's
chichi
sounds amidst
the tea cups.
My imperial father
telling fables to his colonial child.
                                                      1957              
                                                
On my Father's Death in Italy, 1975

Roman Forum

I

utlined by light of Roman eve
At his study my father sits
Needing lions to pull his thorns,
An old Jerome in a red walled room,
Geraniums, swallows, on the sill.
Books build perilous Babel towers
Upon the black oak thorn carved chairs
While Colosseum lions
Roar writers' requiems.

Laurentian Library, Cloister

II

, outraged, found some one with
red ink, large crude letters, his death date had
writ on library catalogue card,
printed black on white.
American abstract.

I could not throw black funerary earth,
though others did,
into the palm-lined grave,
only red geraniums from his study window sill.
Italian exile.

Radcliffe Camera and Bodleian Library, Oxford

III

hey are not pearls that were my father's eyes
Though he was like a poet's tale
The Bodley orphan fetching books for Yeats,
Buried now by Cestus' pyramid.
My son, my brother, stand by my side,
Blue-eyed as he, beneath the Roman charnel rood.
Nuns and atheists bring him flowers and
'Glorney Bolton, Writer', says his stone.

        

 Oxford's Dreaming Spires                              Oxford's University College




arya said,
Come,
Look at our child.
I am afraid.
He sleeps with his
arms outstretched as if in blessing
or in crucifixion

      osef,
whose weary feet had trod
Calvary all day,
muttered from
behind the evening paper,
What fools you women are
over religion
and babes.

             1959
 
 

              

Window at Sessa, 1968                                                               Paris, Palais de Justice  

wheat
and grapes
bread and wine,
flesh and blood,
death and
life
 

grano e uva
pane e vino
carne e sangue
morte e vita
 
 

Holman Hunt's Chalice and Paten

 

Words on paper

 contain words, - a word hoard, a chest containing words.
You can stir, disturb my ordering, flung ripples on
            the pond from cast stone.
For once I, paper, am poem.
            And you, reader, are poet.
The fascism of poetry becomes ecology, democracy.
Null'altra pianta che facesse fronda
    o indurasse, vi puote aver vita,
    però ch'a le percosse non seconda.
Change me, arrange me, suspend me lend me new meanings.
Form me into a crown of peace, of words recycled,
                         rewoven.
I am paper                                             I am words.
         Together we are poem, your poem.
                      You made me.

Purgatorio I.103.5

                                                                    1969

          Georgia O'Keefe's Abiqui

Parole sulla carta

Custodisco parole, - un calepino, uno scrigno di parole.
Puoi agitare, scompigliare il mio ordine, col sasso increspare
lo specchio d'acqua
Per una volta io, carta, sono poema.
   Tu, lettore, sei poeta.
Il fascismo della poesia diviene ecologia, democrazia.
No other plant that would put forth leaf
       or harden can live there, where the wave beats it,
       because it yields not to the buffetings.
Trasformami, accordami, sospendimi, concedimi nuovi significati.
  Sia io corona di pace, di parole che ritornano,
                       ritessute.
Sono carta                                sono parole.
            Assieme siamo poema, il tuo poema.
                     Sei tu il mio fattore.
Purgatorio I 103-5
                                                           1969

And a better poem than mine, Malcolm Guite's 'Cutting Edge' http://www.ampublishing.org/flanagan/riprap-guite-cutting edge.mp3

On Battle Abbey Sold

he Webster woes
upon the walls,
where are they now?

Where the buskin'd boy
in woods
bow in hand, hound at side?

Where is Abigail now found
Restoration bosom rounded
Beribbon'd with satin?

Where is Godfrey gone,
Of eighteenth.century hauteur,
Snuffbox and fair linen?

Where the Webster portratis,
tarnished gilding,
crested silver, holly on mahogany?

Where, beyond Queen Ann windows,
the mocking child of terrace stone
as snow down palls?

                                                      

Mandala x, eagle, man and lion Create the cross that I die on. Eagle, ox, lion and man Shape the world in which I am Man, lion, ox and eagle Make us equal to all people. Man, eagle, lion, ox New-born child in manger box.

Mandala quila, uomo, leone, bue Creano la croce sulla quale muoio Aquila, bue, leone, uomo Plasmano il mondo in cui sono Uomo, bue, aquila, e leone Noi eguagliano agli altri Uomo, bue, leone, aquila Il bambinello nella mangiatoia

S. Felice Cloister, Pavia

 

Prophecy he sallows basket the fern strewn manger Of Miram and Mary splendid with apples foretell of fir and oak almond and pomegranate hazel and mistletoe holly and ivy  shepherd boy from the Abruzzi flauting in wintry Roman streets heralds today in a grove of twelve Aaron and Christ

Profezia a cista di salici rivestita di felci la mangiatoia di Miriam e Maria ricca di pomi oracoleggia di abete e quercia di mandorlo e melograno nocciolo e vischio di agrifoglio ed edera n pastorello degli Abruzzi zampogna per le fredde vie di Roma annuncia oggi in un boschetto di dodici Aronne e Cristo.

 

Cypress at Montebeni

The Ploughman's Tale

n March Adam is ploughing,
sowing of seed
upon parchment's furrows ruled.
The wind and the rain are at my back
Driving me forth from warmth of byre
Into bitter cold.

n Christ April the seeds tendril
To coils of green, soon calyx flowers,
the sanguine rubric, the emerald vert,
twist and twine, run riot
amongst the black and white.

n World May flowers full bloom
the vermilion poppy with leaves of vert,
The azure corn flower amidst golden wheat,
Though thrashing alchemy shall outcast cockle
Till nought remains but gold.

oomsday harvest reaps them,
Winter December slays,
Save in warmth of byre
There where verbum caro factum est.
 

Joyce Bolton, Water Colour, Harvest at Sessa

In Quincy, following Berkeley, I wrote a series of poems I called the Alexandrines, because like those in Alexandria they played games with shapes. In Princeton, Richard Kinsey calligraphed them.

                          

                                  

       

Perdita/Miranda o lose poems - A jealous would-be writer spouse destroys a unique manuscript, destroys a son's passport. A computer pen malfunctions and poems are lost. - is nevertheless not to lose them. o lose friends, to lose a son, to lose a family - is nevertheless not to lose them o lose a garden, to weedkiller, to trees cut down, to bushes uprooted - it can be planted again from memory. o lose a house, a convent - sold off, bulldozed, to lose a dowry or two - is nevertheless not to lose them. oethius, poor, in prison, awaiting execution, remembering his books in their ivory and crystal book cases. ll these are here, in poems, in minds, in our memory.                                                        2008

 

Greek Epitaphs for Tombs in
Florence's Swiss-Owned 'English' Cemetery

I, wife to Mr Browning, mother to Pen, lay my weary bones here. Many poems I wrote to him. He one of murdering me. I, Hiram, of Vermont and Cincinnatti, sculpted 'America', the 'Greek Slave', the 'Last of her Tribe'. A Swedenborgian, I hated slavery. I, Nadezhda De Santis, came to Florence from Nubia at fourteen, a Black Slave. I, Elizabeth Shinner, maid to the Trollopes, was given by them a fine funeral and touching epitaph. Read it. I am Theodore Parker, preacher against slavery. To my grave came Frederick Douglass. I, Maurice Baruch, librarian at Holy Trinity, loved books and am a blessing. I, James Lorimer Graham, American, my bones shattered in shipwreck, give all my books and art to New York's Century Club. I am Isa, friend to Browning, friend to India's Viceroy, friend to all, but none would marry me. John Sinclair of Edinburgh I am, son of a soldier, a soldier. Another John Sinclair joins me here in Florence I am William Somerville. My wife Mary discovered two planets for which I and her son are members of the Royal Society. I am Louisa Adams Kuhn. Read of my dying in my brother Henry's book, its 'Chaos' chapter. Catherine McKinnon is my name, Born on Mull, I came to Russia, Governess to the Tsar. Prince Corsini on the Arno Took my inheritance.

Southwood Smith, doctor, am I, who worked against employing, abusing, children in mines and factories. Read my epitaph by Leigh Hunt. I could not face celibacy, I could not face marriage. Arthur Hugh Clough am I, beneath Champollion's wingéd globe. I, Henry Savage Landor, journey Everywhere, then die where I was born. I, Robert Davidsohn, write Florence's history out from her archives. Read my books to understand Dante. I am Theodosia Garrow Trollope. My mother Hebrew, my father the son of an Indian princess, my daughter Bice. I, Walter Savage Landor, wrote many quatrains for my tomb. Instead, Algernon Swinburne's epitaph is on it. I, Giampietro Vieusseux, work for Florentine freedom, but do not let women enter my reading room. I am Major William Sewell, son of a king, friend to a fellow soldier, husband of Georgina. I stepped out of Jane Austen's pages, came to Florence to die in childbirth. Sarah MacCalmont is my name. My husband paints me, sculpts my tomb, my son Benoni lives, I am Fanny Holman Hunt. I am Frances Milton Trollope With many children to support So write novels with more Vinegar than Jane Austen, And more social compassion.                                                      JBH

Julia Bolton Holloway
Florence, Italy

Water colours, Julia Bolton Holloway
Calligraphy, Richard Kinsey
 

Window, Brigittine Convent, Altomunster, 1992

 

See also Family and Convent Albums:

     

Mosaic; Gandhi; BBC http://catskill.gcal.ac.uk/repository/repos-fs/gcu/a0/a1/gcu-a0a1k7-b.mov recording of many voices 'Talking of Gandhiji', my father's voice being one of these, for he was Gandhi's friend and biographer; Death Valley Incident; Family Album; Halbert Harold Holloway, The Woman, the Sun, the Flowers and the Courage; Sir James Roberts; My England (in progress); Morris Dances of England; Nigel Foxell, Amberley Village; The Joy of the Bicycle; Richard Ben Holloway, Together Let Us Sweetly Live; Jonathan Luke Holloway, Home Birth Can Be An Option; Holmhurst St Mary; Mother Agnes Mason, C.H.F.; Rose Lloyds, Rose's Story; Deaf/Death; David and Solomon; How to Make Cradles and Libraries; Hazel Oddy, Martha's Supplication; Tangled Tale; Oliveleaf Chronicle; Vita

See also Poets' Corner, Epitaphs, Italian Sonnet

And hear http://www.umilta.net/poemspennyeach.mp3

Google 'tg1 speciale silenzio di Dio' filmed by Isabella Schiavone and go towards the middle of the video.