The Apollo Has Landed (July 20, 1969)

          For aeons the goddess
          rolled her eye
          like Polyphemus*
          across infinity's
          sky, letting drop
          her lid languidly
          over each fourth week.
           
          Her beauty dismayed
          the cavemen
          as they crowded
          round their cathedral
          spires from the sun.
          Shuddering with fear
          and cold they
          understood
          the fanning of such
          astral lashes
          would beat out this
          same pitiful flame . . .
          especially if they closed their own eyes--
          she had also an ugly side.
           
          Thief, she stole
          her light from day--
          though they never could have explained that--
          they merely knew
          she'd steal theirs too.
           
          So they meted out
          their tribute
          and despite her
          absconding ways
          she proved constant,
          ushering in their plantings and harvests,
          welcoming
          every offspring,
          towing her barge of tides.
          She stayed throughout
          all floods and famines,
          scudded under clouds
          and indolent stars,
          odd times aberrant and
          apocalyptically
          hiding. But always
          she returned with promise,
          sliding her
          Mona Lisa gleam
          across heaven's dark face.
           
          All men craved her.
          Hours they stood
          on lonely beaches,
          sentinels scheming
          to master her;
          for centuries they prayed
          and wrote her lyrics, offering their souls
          for consumption: the bond
          was symbiotic.
           
          And in my lifetime
          I have seen men
          plunder her;
          never will she
          be the same.
          Rejoicing victory,
          the seed of male
          was meant for all;
          yet she, and she alone
          would flower
          by metaphor.
           
          Now men have held her
          in their hands and
          she has turned to stone.
           
          Eyeless, the cyclops weeps.
                  N.N.
           
          *Cyclops in THE ODYSSEY
              ****

           

           
          A true poem is necessarily an invocation of the White Goddess, or Muse, the Mother of all Living, the ancient power of fright and lust . . .
           
          The White Goddess is anti-domestic; she is the perpetual "other woman", and her part is difficult indeed for a woman of sensibility to play for more than a few years, because the temptation to commit suicide in simple domesticity lurks in every maenad's and muse's heart . . .
           
          That is not to say that a woman should refrain from writing poems; only that she should write as a woman, not as if she were an honorary man.
              Robert Graves
              THE WHITE GODDESS
               
              ****
               
           
          With Words
               
          With words I'll bind your heart
          Tethered to my love
          Strain not wild one
          The brain strikes a mighty whip
          When passion cries
          Whoa
          Come, it is time for taming.
                  P.N.
           
 
      A Man Invoking the White Goddess
       
      YOU THINK TOO POETICALLY, HE SAID
      SHAKING HIS HEAD, COFFEE COLD, UNTOUCHED;
      REAL LIFE HAS NOT SUCH BOLD OLYMPIC SHAPE.
       
      Desolate Across The Table's Wide Abyss,
      Averted Eyes Could Not Yet Retrieve
      The Goddess, The Answer Of The Muse.
       
      the poet must define man's epic contours
      though they seem pale platonic shadows
      dim icons cast on cavernous dreary days
                N.N.
         
        ****
         
      The Goddess is a lovely, slender woman with a hooked nose, deathly pale face, lips as red as rowan berries, startlingly blue eyes and long fair hair. She will suddenly transform herself into sow, mare, bitch, vixen, she-ass, mermaid or loathsome nag. The Night Mare is one of the cruelest aspects of the White Goddess.
        Robert Graves
        THE WHITE GODDESS
         
        ****

         

       
       
      Death of a Dog
       
      One day while I wrestled with the words of a poem
      A dog died and I the would-be poet
      Surrendered to the Goddess's seduction
      Sounding a death knell for that devoted one.
      Could the bewildered eyes of that betrayed beast
      Comprehend such duplicity such deceit?
      What Belle Dame Sans Merci would ever compel
      A poet to place his grace with deathless words:
      Though she may walk in beauty like the night--
                  still
      I shudder at such a chill and pitiless Belle!
                  N.N.
                   
                   
      You Wonder Why I do It
       
      Pity not the poet in his garret
      For he takes both cure and nourishment
      From the myths that he can make or recreate,
      Fabrics of his truth with fable interfaced.
      He starves not in his apparent state of pathos
      Cursed only by his slavery to the Goddess.
      Other men may slave unsure shy will guess;
      Poets well know their mistress whose embrace
              postponeth death.
                  N.N.
                   
      Creator Created
       
      In the circle that is mine I have fashioned the face of God;
      In the confines of my mind
      I have built the temple.
      In a heap of hoarded words
      God comes dressed in my design.
                P.N.
                 
                 
      To a Housewife
       
      She kept her house so clean and bright,
      She slaved throughout the day.
      She scrubbed and swept and swept and scrubbed
      And worked from May to May.
       
      And now her house is standing still,
      But in it reigns another,
      Who cares not if the dust is deep
      And thinks not of the other.
       
      The house remembers not her love,
      Her husband has forgotten
      And now she lies but in the past
      And dust from dust's begotten.
                P.N.
                 
                 
      Sphinx
       
      In the blue tent beyond the hill,
      Lies the watcher of my will.
      There I hide my fears serene,
      There I worship a silent queen--
      Mistress of my mind,
      Keeper of my fright.
            P.N.
             
             
      Frantic Sonnet
       
      Frantic poems like sprayed cockroaches
      Emerge from the fissures of my Brain:
       
      Bugs obsesses with airing themselves
      Scurrying forth to escape poison fumes
      Insidiously creeping
      Into former nooks of respite
      Now knowing no rest, no peace
      But this ceaseless pencil scratching.
      And still these insect images--
      Primitive, atavistic
      Intruders of worthy parlors--
      Serve to rescue me, revive me:
       
      Grubs and maggots can sustain
      With their vile uncouth proteins.
                N.N.