What roots
what branches
this stony rubbish,
…………………man.
A heap of broken sunbeats,
a dry stone.
Come,
I will show you
…..shadow.
I will show you
……………………dust.
Call me the hyacinth girl,
the Hyacinth garden.
…….Neither.
Nothing.
……..Silence.
Nevertheless,
……….be
wicked.
..
A found poem from the text of Eliot’s “Wasteland”.
Prompted by Toads.
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Oh-ho, love how your closing turns the mood to teasing.
a wicked hyacinth girl… that’s rich – love it.
Oh you clever girl
That is such a killer title.
I love it when you play with indentations to force out different words.
Like here:
“this stony rubbish,
…………………man.” — I see hiding both of the following: “are you babyish, man” and “are you BBish man” (which either means he’s like a BB gun OR that his bra is a size double-B)
Plus, “stony” is so close to “story.” But if you’re “stony rubbish,” that means you’re only fake stone. So maybe he’s actually not so hard after all, or not so much statue as flesh-and-blood. Or maybe “rubbish” equals “rub-eye-shh” (when you’re sleepy, like a little kid ready for a nap) or “ruby shh.”
I love this line: “A heap of broken sunbeats”
“a dry stone come” Ha.
“Come,
I will show you
…..shadow.
I will show you
……………………dust.” — This whole stanza is very clever; the way you used indentations to control the way I read the words, and thereby to draw out different meanings in otherwise identical lines. Come. I will // show you. S had ow. I will-show you. With intention. With force. Also the will one writes out before dying. D us t. Stud. I will show you, stud. That’s what you mean. Also “dust hyacinth girl.” (Remember when I had that blog? What was it called?)
“Call me the hyacinth girl,
the Hyacinth garden.” — Very smart, the way you moved from a lowercase “h” to an uppercase, which draws out the ladder. A ladder for you? A ladder for someone else? To climb up and over the garden wall? To come into the garden with you? To sneak you out of the garden?
Also, your placement of “dust” breaks up “hyacinth.” High a synth. Hi(gh) ache in th(e). I ache in thee. Hi(de), a sin th(igh).
Also, there’s a mini-poem made with your indented words: man-shadow dust (in ether) (sigh leans) be … you are dust; you want him to lean against you, in the shadows … to be, and to make you be
nevertheless *never* the less … be … why ked … wick-ed … de-wick
All kinds of fire here, I think.
Your unerring eye has found the poem within the poem. I love the cadence of the words, and the sense of the speaker calling to the reader.
That closing makes me want to be perfectly wicked… such a seductive piece you turned it into.
I agree with Kerry…I love what you found and I love the hyacinth portion…great work!
Nevertheless be wicked…love that.
This puts me in mind of the fey folk, creeping out from under winter’s bones to tease humans when spring arrives.
You’ve done a marvelous job of salvaging this broken prompt…making an eraser poem is perfect, De! Give her an ‘and’ and she makes an ‘A’ –A+