Well, OK. First I need to figure out what he is talking about...
Quote:I am that saint uncanonized,who saw
the copulation of the toad-like stones
and spawning of the seer, sun-mumbled bones
to golden efts and flowers without flaw.
The narrative voice makes the general claim to have witnessed something like a miracle: stones that looked like toads, mating, followed by the apparent birth of salamanders and flawless flowers from dry and sun-bleached bones.
Also, "the seer" of the title, I suppose.
Gosh.
Quote:The clouds were squared to temples of the Law,
the clouds were sphered to pandemonian thrones.
OK, this seems to be an implied allusion to the act of "squaring the circle"--which is another way of saying doing the very difficult, if not impossible.
Of course CAS says "sphere" not circle, and this could be a mixed metaphor, since there is also the concept of cubing the sphere, also very challenging.
But his two operations, the squaring of the clouds and the "sphering" of the clouds yield conceptually opposing outcomes--the squaring to Law; the "sphering" to what might be another way to say Chaos, so who knows what the intent actually was?
Quote:Out of the beaked and feathered telephones
There came the falcon s cry, the raven s caw.
So a "beaked and feathered telephome" is either a direct metaphor for a bird, or else a surrealistic image designed to further disorient the reader.
Again, hard to say what CAS intended.
Quote:
Riding the inland sunset rose anew
triremes of Carthage and Columbian sails
convoyed by sirens with their fan-like fins.
More dissonant and contradictory imagery...
Here we have a sunset, but not just any sunset: and
inland sunset--but then we have both ancient (Carthaginian) and early modern (Columbus era) watercraft being escorted by mythical beings.
Quote:Over the mountains a mad tortoise flew,
spouted upon by levitating whales
that in the zenith hung like Zeppelins.
The mad tortoise is difficult to pin down, but the spouting "levitating whales" that hung over the highest part of the (sky?), sure seems to me to refer to the way that ancient maps were detailed with fanciful artwork.
So taken altogether, what in the world does this whole thing mean?
But you know, the entire 2nd stanza looks to me like a description of an ancient map, what with the illustration of old ships, perhaps superimposed over the land masses, being escorted by sirens and flying tortoises and spouting whales in other parts of the map.
So...
CAS was an early experimenter in psychedelia, huh? ;^)
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 1 Sep 20 | 03:07PM by Sawfish.