Taking A Liberty

Tags

anarchy, Andromeda, Animal Farm, Burne-Jones, Cassiopeia, casuistry, censorship, Diaz, Dr Atl, etymology, free expression, guerilla warfare, hacendados, Heaven, Hell, Liberty, liberty/licence, Pre-Raphaelites, Prometheus, revolution, volcanoes

Another poem inspired by Prometheus Unbound

by P B Shelley:

Andromeda by Burne-Jones: Wikipedia

 

A wheel will come full circle, you will find.

The outcome’s in the etymology

of ‘revolution.’  Think ‘Animal Farm.’

 

‘You seize the flower; the bloom is shed,’ Rab said.

Heaven and Hell are one’s inner landscapes.

Give a man an inch; he’ll take a mile.

 

Liberty/ licence – where to draw the line?

Free expression/ censorship : who can judge?

Anarchy is based on casuistry.

 

Prometheus played with fire and was burnt.

Imagination versus tyranny.

He who is king over himself is free.

 

Cassiopeia took the liberty

of a frank assessment of others’ looks.

Say nowt if you can’t say anything nice.

 

Why did the Pre-Raphaelites feel free

to create soft porn from mythology?

Liberty bodices off; shackles on.

 

‘When tigers are unleashed, who controls them?’

said Diaz, while Dr Atl opposed

slaves’ exploitation by hacendados,

 

exploding guerilla warfare into print,

like lava from his beloved volcanoes –

but he still became a neo-Nazi.

 

So, I’m suspicious of all these Titans,

larger than life, whose words stream in the wind.

They’re the self-acknowledged legislators,

 

crying, ‘Liberty, equality… (Blah!)

prior to being overthrown – not by a coup –

yet everywhere men are free, but in chains.

 

St Frideswide

Tags

Aelfgar, Aelfgith, Burne-Jones, Christ Church Cathedral, Frideswide, leper, Oxford, St Catherine, St Cecilia

(I use the Medieval pronunciation- something like ‘Fridesweedah’)

(window by Burne-Jones- Christ Church, Oxford)

 

 

After her mother’s death, she, with Aelfgith

(a holy woman) lodged.  Then to Oxford,

to ask her father to build her, forthwith,

a church and convent, where she could board

with twelve other women and take the veil,

in seclusion, and do works of charity.

Her beauty would always attract a male.

Prince Aelfgar would see no disparity

in seeking to attain, through compulsion.

one who was devoted to freely love

all, but who would simply feel revulsion

at sabotage of her call from above.

Discovering his scheme, she fled to a hut,

which sheltered swine, who foraged in the wood.

With well water, she survived three years, but

Aelfgar, furious at her hardihood,

was determined to sustain his assault.

When she returned to Oxford, he made threats

that he would torch the town – all for her ‘fault’ –

and have her ravished by his own subjects.

Frideswide prayed to St Catherine,

to Cecilia, for preservation.

Immediately, the prince was supine:

struck blind, in response to invocation.

English kings feared to enter, from then on,

the city, lest they a similar fate

would be dispensed- the same phenomenon

assail them, if they tried to storm the gate.

The nunnery then received the princess

and she established a seat of learning,

treating loathsome lepers with a largesse

beyond the call of duty, meriting

sainthood; eventual burial, where now

Christ Church Cathedral stands.  Pilgrims flock still

to honour the abbess, whose sacred vow

identified her union with God’s will.

 

(As for Prince Aelfgar, she restored his sight

and, at her well, a toad would often spit

at a base suitor, whose credentials might

not meet his intended’s family’s ambit.

The nineteenth of October- her Feast Day-

is thought to be the date she passed away.)