Collected Poems of Robert Hayden by Robert Hayden

Author:Robert Hayden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liveright

The Peacock Room

(in memory of Betsy Graves Reyneau)

Ars Longa Which is crueler

Vita Brevis life or art?

Thoughts in the Peacock Room,

where briefly I shelter. As in the glow

(remembered or imagined?)

of the lamp shaped like a rose

my mother would light

for me some nights to keep

Raw-Head-And-Bloody-Bones away.

Exotic, fin de siècle, unreal

and beautiful the Peacock Room.

Triste metaphor.

Hiroshima Watts My Lai.

Thus history scorns

the vision chambered in gold

and Spanish leather, lyric space;

rebukes, yet cannot give the lie

to what is havened here.

Environment as ornament.

Whistler with arrogant art designed

it, mocking a connoisseur

with satiric arabesque of gold

peacocks on a wall peacock blue

in fury trampling coins of gold.

Such vengeful harmonies drove

a rival mad. As in a dream

I see the crazed young man.

He shudders in a corner, shields

his face in terror of

the perfect malice of those claws.

She too is here—ghost

of the happy child she was that day.

When I turned twelve,

they gave me for a birthday gift

a party in the Peacock Room.

With shadow cries

the peacocks flutter down,

their spread tails concealing her,

then folding, drooping to reveal

her eyeless, old—Med School

cadaver, flesh-object

pickled in formaldehyde,

who was artist, compassionate,

clear-eyed. Who was beloved friend.

No more. No more.

The birds resume their splendored pose.

And Whistler’s portrait of

a tycoon’s daughter gleams

like imagined flowers. What is art?

What is life?

What the Peacock Room?

Rose-leaves and ashes drift

its portals, gently spinning toward

a bronze Bodhisattva’s ancient smile.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.