[matilda] A Belt of Fire, A Crown of Leaves

[Alice Collins]

Thanks for poem, Ben
A suggestion about art exhibition - can we take the little flyers to other
places in Art 05. Most places haven't got them.
Love alice.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Benjamin Major" <complexitybenjamin at hotmail.com>
To: <matilda at lists.aktivix.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 9:29 PM
Subject: [matilda] A Belt of Fire, A Crown of Leaves


>
> Hi,
>
> I hope that everyone has hugged and made up at tonights social. Here, a
poem
> for you all, who spend so much of your day locked in e-mail combat. Take
> note, in the last stanza; flame man and blood man say to each other;
'We're
> bound to fight: it's all we have, our common ground.'. Let's not be flame
> man nor blood man; please be aware that so many of the e-mails sent in the
> last two days haven't got anyone anwhere; why do we seek to perpetuate our
> conflicts, why do we want to simulate on a small scale the despair, hatred
> and mistrust that permeates the rest of the world?
>
> Anyway, I'll let the poem speak for itself...
>
>
>
> A Belt Of Fire, A Crown Of Leaves
> by Carol Rumens
>
> I dreamed about the simplest thing:
> Two men fighting. One was bloody foam.
> The second, swirling over him, in flame,
> Frantically tried to end the blood-man's writhing.
> Time and again, into that gasping head,
> The rifle butt swung down. My dream voice told me
> These soldiers were past soldiering: flame-man's pitted
> Onslaught was a last-ditch act of mercy
> Although it looked like rage. And I was sure
> That when they sank together, blood and fire
> Would flare again like an old friendship, bond it.
> But when I woke I knew myself a liar.
> These two were locked in endless, hellish war.
> They'd fought it to the death: they'd fight beyond it.
>
>
> They'd fought it to the death: they'd fight beyond it.
> They'd fight it in the trenches, in the hedges
> And coffee shops and caves, and on the bridges:
> They'd fight it with the fear they'd never find it.
> They'd fight it on the boards of advanced studies,
> And on the heights of learning. On the moon,
> Bleached faintly by moon sunshine, but un-torn,
> Their rigid flag still cries, 'It's ours now, buddies!'
> Perhaps if we'd gone native, somehow learned
> Moon-manners from the lack of atmosphere
> We might have found a way to live, suspended
> In mutability. Our heels as homeless
> And feathery and quick as those of Hermes,
> We'd diet on stars; no need for agriculture.
>
>
> Our diet starts! No need for agriculture -
> A happy breed of gene-re-coded men,
> We share exact, un thieved supplies. What then?
> How will we choreograph so fixed a future?
> No killing-field, no concentration-camp,
> No no-man's land - but where will vision go
> Without hard ground to struggle over, stamp
> With forts and bones? We'll die, who learned to grow
> Human and beautiful. Remember once,
> When wishful flags bore neither stripes nor stars,
> But apples? When we sang that all we needed
> Was love, and dreamed that governments acceded?
> Womanly times, we chanted. War is man's.
> We've always said that those bastards were from Mars.
>
>
> We always said those bastards were from Mars,
> But others knew war's Venus side: their daddies,
> Brothers, lovers, sons wore brilliant scars,
> Wore stone. They sorrowed at their hollow bodies,
> And when they got the chance, stood to attention
> And knew it was all lies, the fear of blood,
> Delicate mortals, motherly convention.
> Others still fiercer in their sisterhood
> Felt the fire-belt weave inside them where
> The crying had begun. They slipped it on,
> Modelled it for the dead, their army bling,
> And swept their shawls and skirts into a pyre,
> And dedicated thus their suffering:
> They burned and bled as well as any man.
>
>
> They burned and bled as well as any man,
> Once lit. There was some minor variation.
> The brittler bones in age, the pale striation
> And limpness of some areas of skin
> Suggested they had been designed for more
> Or less - but it was more or less the same
> In their ascendant years. They wanted power
> Since wisdom without power remains a form
> Of ignorance. And so the monster breeds,
> Petted by every hand that marks its cross,
> Demos, homely hermaphrodite fool,
> Or Theos, promising a good deal less.
> Oh, womanly times, oh, widows, sisters, brides,
> Truly you did not turn the word to well.
>
>
> Truly you did not turn the word from ill,
> Either, you holy men. A sage once said,
> 'Religion's like the weather, very good
> Sometimes, and at times completely dreadful.'
> Dreadful. It was too small a word last Christmas
> When weather burst out of the sea in slews
> Of hydro-concrete, jet-propelled, its fathoms
> Crashing through frail-skinned human things. But this is
> What war does nightly, on and off the News,
> Stamped with our science, our gods, our guarantee.
> We cry at what blind waves do, but resist
> Dissection of the shatter-work of bombs,
> The running fires that have our votes and eyes.
> Religion's worse than weather. So are we.
>
>
> 'Religion's worse than weather. So are we
> To stop?' Flame-man and blood-man paused. 'We're bound
> To fight: it's all we have, our common ground.'
> And each once more seized his antagonist.
> Coldly I sat and typed their dreary tale
> In language that I knew I couldn't trust.
> The sky outside gradually grew pale;
> Once, I was staring as a rainbow thrust
> It's stalk into the clouds. I dreamed again -
> This time, about two giants. Hammer Rain
> And Mad Sun cracked heads till one rolled free,
> And spilled green, fragrant blood. Then it was spring.
> My pregnant daughter's daughter danced for me.
> I dreamed about the simplest human thing.
>
>
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