Tag Archives: Derek Walcott

P is for Pasquinade

pasquinade: noun – 1. a lampoon posted in a public place 2. satirical writing: satire: pasquinade – transitive verb

Pasquino

The statue Pasquino in Rome is a place where people post pasquinades. Image from atlanteditorino.it

 

The Next Pasquinade

While he pillages the public square,
She looks deeply into the pirate’s murky eyes
Called to action by pasquinade
Cleaned from view by the corrupt
The statue still glistening damp
Plump fruits abandoned, their vendors joining
The stampede over the trampled
Creating new satire between the fear
The attack litters bodies, looted to skeletons
Nothing left to tell their tales
Who will dress Pasquino,
And laugh at the undressing of powers?
Terrorists along a fine line to define
Where the cobbles were once flat
They crack and rise to trip the unfortunate fleeing
The coming dusk smells of blood and ejecta
An accumulated concentration of defeat
Splattered upon the gray armless torso, the first to talk
Spreading from the Palazzo Brashi,
The conquerors whoop victory and begin their play
The joke-revealing slant-light of sunset their audience.

 

This poem was inspired by “Roman Outposts” from The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2013

 

I posted this to Open Link Night #218 on dVerse Poets Pub

H is for Hypotyposis

hypotyposis: noun – lifelike description of a thing or scene; a vivid, picturesque description of scenes or events.

Contrast

Hypotyposis

They suffered in those seconds turned to years
because a spat became a war when a look cut to murder

The warbler’s whisper twirled to hurricane
A goof that grew to cyclonic calamity

The mouse removing the lion’s thorn proved harder than
Separating the infant from the mob; the pebble from the mountain

A fleck in the eye scratched a swath of brilliant red pain
The minuscule damage opening space for the microbe

Multiplying to pandemic wreckage
A minute seed grown to the height of epic redwood

Termites amassed chew away the home
Never a stitch to sail nor to heal.

monster dancer

I found inspiration for today’s poem in The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2013 especially the poems in the section “from Tiepolo’s Hound.” Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992.

Interesting side note: This month is the first time I’ve been very interested in the Nobel Prize for Literature and there just so happens to be a scandal going on right now with the prize committee. Swedish Academy in Crisis – New York Times. The story broke in the Swedish news last November: Man with Swedish Academy ties accused of sexual assault – Dagens Nyheter

If you’re interested in learning more about the Nobel Prize, you may want to check out these books:
The Nobel Prize: The Story of Alfred Nobel and the Most Famous Prize in the World
The Nobel Prize: A History of Genius , Controversy and Prestige
Nobel: A Century of Prize Winners

Happy Reading and Writing!

See you tomorrow.