Poetry Blog No 117 Two Clocks (Christian Morgenstern)

TWO CLOCKS

(English versions- Mark Scrivener)

 

      The "nonsense" poems of the German poet Christian Morgenstern, like many of those from Lewis Carroll, would be better described as surreal philosophical jokes. This is evident in these two poems with two different sorts of clocks which play with our conceptions of time- gently suggesting there may be more to the subject than mathematical chronology.

       Palmström and Von Korf are two characters often found in Morgenstern's humorous verse. Von Korf is inclined to come up with strange inventions while Palmström has a strong aesthetic and feeling side that also produces curious effects.

       The mimosa in the second poem is "sensitive mimosa" - Mimosa pudica (from Latin: pudica "shy, bashful or shrinking"; also called sensitive plant, sleepy plant or shy plant) is a creeping annual or perennial herb of the pea family Fabaceae often grown for its curiosity value: the compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken, defending themselves from harm, and re-open a few minutes later -From Wikipedia

 

 The Persistence of Memory - painting by Salvador Dali

                       THE KORFISH CLOCK

Korf invents a clock where two

pairs of circling hands are found,

one runs forward as clocks do,

but as well one's backward bound.

Pointing two- but also ten;

pointing three- but also nine;

one has but to see it, then

gone is every fear of time.

For with clocks on Korfish time,

with their Janus-parted course,

(that is why their strange design)

time keeps cancelling its force. 

               PALMSTRÖM'S CLOCK

Palmström's clock, another kind,

reacts, mimosa-like, refined

He who asks it will receive.

Often it has gone indeed,

as one really wished it to:

running back or forward through

just an hour or two or three,

in accord, in sympathy.

Though a clock, with its strict times,

it is not to rules inclined:

like the rest, each working part,

but, along with them... a heart.

Poetry Blog No 113 January Song

JANUARY SONG

Written a few years ago but still applicable to this time of year- a sort of new year poem from sub-tropical southern hemisphere. January is named after the Roman God Janus.

Quotes from Wikipedia - In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions, and thereby of gates, doors, doorways, passages and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. It is conventionally thought that the month of January is named for Janus.

The pheasant coucal is a type of large cuckoo- The pheasant coucal (Centropus phasianinus) is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. It is found in Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical mangrove forests. It has adapted well to canefields in northern Australia. The pheasant coucal is unusual among Australian cuckoos in that it incubates and raises its own young instead of laying its eggs in the nest of another species.

 James Niland from Brisbane, Australia - Pheasant Coucal Uploaded by snowmanradio

Janus

                              JANUARY SONG

The rain arrived, the grass is high,

Green armies raising overnight

Their spears to eat the sun and seed

And conquer all the space around.

The sky is cloud-patched and the air

Sits heavy with day’s humid heat

And stillness brings a visitation

Of flies upon their summer wings.

The pheasant coucal’s mating call

Whoop-whoops through drifting afternoon

With faintest smell of maybe rain-

Then all around cicadas drum.

The god with his two faces looks

To past and future standing now-

The Janus of the month whose mind

Would gaze through these warm-dreaming days.

The new year dawns in summer heat

With holidays’ up-springing green.

My mind is not so god-like keen

And struggles with my purposes.

Still days shall rise. I try to set

Some course for future hours to be

And once more trim that frail craft hope

To sail upon that endless sea.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 103 Advent Calendar

ADVENT CALENDAR

Wikipedia defines an Advent calendar thus- An Advent calendar is a special calendar used to count or celebrate the days in anticipation of Christmas. Since the date of the first Sunday of Advent varies, falling between November 27 and December 3 inclusive, the Advent calendar usually begins on December 1, although many include the previous few days that are part of the season. The Advent calendar was first used by German Lutherans in the 19th and 20th centuries but is now ubiquitous among adherents of many Christian denominations.

This Advent calendar was not like the ones in supermarkets in Australia with chocolates behind the doors, but rather images that glowed if it was on a window in the day as the paper backing was thinner than the front. Of course, in Australia Christmas is in summer. This was a gift from a lady who had escaped the Nazi's with her Jewish husband. It was as little like the one in the illustration. The poem is about time, memory, meaning and vision. 

 

 

 

                   ADVENT CALENDAR

So many years have passed to old

from long-past time of child

where wish for free and festive weeks,

beneath the south-world sun,

came with the turn to hot December

when all the year of school was done.

As inward power,

what's past is present now

as I remember

some many-detailed parts

of such departed days.

Those times would start

with one old advent calendar,

a European gift,

upon a window's morning light,

light bright as summer sight,

its twenty-five doors shut from lying

beneath hard books, eleven months below...

its village street in moon-still snow,

its river frozen and its church

in silent prayer to star-deep sky:

a night of winter-folded world,

apart, in my imagination,

from all free summer days' creation.

And I recall a wonder at each revelation,

each door I opened with an eager sight

to find behind an image shining:

an angel winged with white,

a large-eyed owl

like wisdom's sight,

a sunken treasure in a river,

a pirate with his cutlass high

and in a barrel curled

a worm with spectacles and book.

And through the opening of each morning,

I found another pictured nook

until upon the twenty fourth

came Father Christmas sweeping through the starry sky.

And on that final day of child's delight,

upon that long-awaited dawning,

the last illumination was

nativity in summer light.

Though this is all long lost

in time's unresting turning,

and most of its once-glowing scenes

forgotten in their fullest shine,

I grow aware of time's rebirth:

how even smallest things

leave traces after vanishing,

and resurrect

in inner sense;

like silence that informs

imagination opening doors,

beyond the obvious, to other being...

the secret birth of other light,

and a sight beyond the outward seeing.