Poetry Sunday

Today I'd like to honor the great Lawrence Durrell, that mercurial "assassin of polish," by sharing two of his better poems. "Bitter Lemons" speaks for itself, while "Style," which I've often used in my teaching to introduce freshman to the study of poetry, is a delightful bit of ars poetica.

BITTER LEMONS

In an island of bitter lemons

Where the moon's cool fevers burn

From the dark globes of the fruit,

And the dry grass underfoot

Tortures memory and revises

Habits half a lifetime dead

Better leave the rest unsaid,

Beauty, darkness, vehemence

Let the old sea-nurses keep

Their memorials of sleep

And the Greek sea's curly head

Keep its calms like tears unshed

Keep its calms like tears unshed.

STYLE

Something like the sea,

Unlaboured momentum of water

But going somewhere,

Building and subsiding,

The busy one, the loveless.

Or the wind that slits

Forests from end to end,

Inspiriting vast audiences,

Ovations of leafy hands,

Accepting, accepting.

But neither is yet

Fine enough for the line I hunt.

The dry bony blade of the

Sword-grass might suit me

Better: an assassin of polish.

Such a bite of perfect temper

As unwary fingers provoke,

Not to be felt till later,

Turning away, to notice the thread

Of blood from its unfelt stroke.