HW: M.Moorcock (or Bob??) IT took me ages!Enjoy?

[Doug Pearson]

On Fri, 2 May 2003 20:21:48 +0100, "Alan Linsley" <alankerren at YAHOO.CO.UK>
wrote:

>*Ode To A Time Flower* by Robert Calvert (New Worlds 5, pub.1973)
>
>Your calyx hides a nectary of time
>That with my fingers I could pluck as easily
>As sounding strings to recite their chime.
>And your most exquisite petals melt icily
>In my palm.  To hold the flow of moments past
>As carefully as I would my last
>Few seconds on Earth.  Would that be Crime?
>Or if I picked you just to see you turn
>To crystalled pearl in my eyes, and learn
>How Man is Angel on his way from slime.
>
>Did heedless Eve think twice before she broke
>The enjewelled fruit from its brittle stem.
>Or the first man to reach out and stroke
>The marijuana leaf condemn
>Himself for greed when harvesting
>And burning such a golden thing.
>As this dreaming poet who just then spoke
>Of your sacredness, and is now prepared
>to do exactly as he first declared
>And make of his museful words a joke.
>
>But not quite as easy after all
>I find, as my fingers reach to grasp,
>Your gleaming head to wrench from its tall
>Transparent stalk, they refuse to clasp.
>As did Pandora's eager hands hold still
>At the thought of the box containing ill.
>Or the stoned explorers of Medusa stall
>For time, not entered in their log,
>Before they dared the petrific fog
>That holds them still in its timeless thrall.
>
>********* a nectary of time
>That with my fingers I could pluck as easily
>As sounding strings to recite their chime.
>And your most exquisite petals melt icily
>In my palm.  To hold the flow of moments past
>As carefully as I would my last
>Few seconds on Earth.  Would that be Crime?
>Or if I picked you just to see you turn
>To crystalled pearl in my eyes, and learn
>How man is Angel on his way from slime.
>
>Note the references to (First Landing on) Medusa and the (Hawkwind)
>log.  Read by Moorcock (strangely, as Bob was there) at Windsor 1973.

Like many of Calvert's poems/lyrics, this one is based on the work of
another author, J.G. Ballard (who wrote the novel 'High Rise' [1975], tying
in with the other thread even though that one's more about bassists than
authors; also, his first novel, 'The Drowned World' [1962] provided the
title for "City Of Lagoons").  Ballard's 'The Garden Of Time' (1962)
concludes with its protaganists turned to statues (sorry to spoil the
ending!), hence the Medusa reference.

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com