Beyond a purple twilit plain
Rears the city revealed and concealed
By sunset and slanting rain:
Its jeweled stairs and amber towers,
Floating banners, garden bowers
Amid drifts of smoke and plaintive song
To some splendid state belong,
Or to its hollow haunted ruin
Unmasked by a later, colder moon.
***
Still tweaking this one for an eventual multiple edition book art piece. It was inspired by bits of Beddoes and De La Mare, and Calvino's 'Irene' passage from Invisible Cities.
1) I couldn't get The Wylie Agency to answer my permission request in a timely manner, and 2) I'm not embroidering 307 words 5 to 10 times each on a set of fiber art books. Not even for $600 each.
This original bit of doggerel is only 50 words, and more spooky than philosophical, which fits the project better.
Rears the city revealed and concealed
By sunset and slanting rain:
Its jeweled stairs and amber towers,
Floating banners, garden bowers
Amid drifts of smoke and plaintive song
To some splendid state belong,
Or to its hollow haunted ruin
Unmasked by a later, colder moon.
***
Still tweaking this one for an eventual multiple edition book art piece. It was inspired by bits of Beddoes and De La Mare, and Calvino's 'Irene' passage from Invisible Cities.
1) I couldn't get The Wylie Agency to answer my permission request in a timely manner, and 2) I'm not embroidering 307 words 5 to 10 times each on a set of fiber art books. Not even for $600 each.
This original bit of doggerel is only 50 words, and more spooky than philosophical, which fits the project better.