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Friday 23 October 2009

Moira, or Fate


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File:Lightning striking the Eiffel Tower - NOAA.jpg





A flash of the spinning hand of Moira at the head
Of the bed upon which bolts crackle and strike,
A flash of the hand of nature in the genetic chain,
Divine anger signifying energy, law
Destiny of all men being the same, death


One doesn't argue with this any more,
Amid the blasted neurons, than a bell with its flaw:
The crack of determination under the hood
Of the chromosome. Her messages get lost in the soft
Blue dust left by the memory of light.






File:Lightning storm over Boston - NOAA.jpg





Lightning striking the Eiffel Tower, June 3, 1902: from Tonnerre et éclairs, Camille Flammarion (image via NOAA, 2000)
Lightning strike over Boston, 1967: photo by Boston Globe (image via NOAA, 2005)


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love how you see things and how you allow the reader (this reader) to see things through your eyes. I am lking the placing of commas and how eac is placed just right for that dramatic pause.I never know where to put the 'buggers' half the time.I shall have to post my Baby 'Semi's'then you will know what I'm talking about!
I am liking the soft subtle rhyme woven through your words and you know something Thomas? I am even beginning to not mind all those 'Caps' now. But sssssshhhhhhh don't tell...I have a reputation to keep up!

TC said...

SarahA,

Thanks very much for noticing that after many years of inconsiderateness toward commas (for which I must now repent), in the middle of the night last night I had a small epiphany in the course of which I vowed to be kind to the little buggers forever, they remind me of sleeping cats and for that reason alone I planted five of them in this poem.

They provide the dramatic paws, as you have noted.

Meanwhile I've had a long talk with my Caps and explained to them that as they under Scrutiny, they had best mind their behaviour in future.

(Stubborn things that they are they responded by threatening to turn into bold italics if further reprimanded.)

TC said...

(... and they also reminded me that if I am to speak of them in public I had better use good English and not say "they under Scrutiny" when I mean "they are under Scrutiny"-- for after all to be honest if Scrutiny is to be directed it must be toward not them but me if anyone...)