{"id":17707,"date":"2025-05-13T11:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T10:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=17707"},"modified":"2025-05-13T11:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T10:46:08","slug":"poem-oblique-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2025\/05\/13\/poem-oblique-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem: ‘Oblique Landscape’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Oblique Landscape<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

JP Jacobsen, I read your poem
\n<\/span>of a boundless heath with mossy stones
\n<\/span>where you were born and where you returned
\n<\/span>with the\u00a0tungsind\u00a0<\/i>poet
\n<\/span>that \u2018died the death, the difficult death.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Shadowgraph naturalist, translator of Darwin
\n<\/span>enduring sufferer of tuberculosis
\n<\/span>who loved six enraged steadfast women
\n<\/span>for the poet to tune the mood to its core.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

JP Jacobsen, can you tell me of my oblique landscape?
\n<\/span>the thick darkness envelopes the drastic day
\n<\/span>I am visited by the Intelligent Angel,
\n<\/span>the Neutral Angel, and the Terrifying Angel
\n<\/span>each one brings a gift impossible to decipher.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Follow the footprints.
\n<\/span>We are walking.
\n<\/span>Let us be crooked once again.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The trembling question is asked
\n<\/span>whether the fourth New Angel is
\n<\/span>localized or\u00a0<\/span>metastasized.
\n<\/span>Generalizations are for the Devil.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s focus rather on the moment:
\n<\/span>see the spider on the web
\n<\/span>listen to the rain on the window pane
\n<\/span>let\u2019s be wildly polylogic
\n<\/span>my soul-explosion expands in laughter
\n<\/span>and expounds out onto outrageous love.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This walk is not straight
\n<\/span>it is a crooked tale
\n<\/span>my feet and fingers wander wayward
\n<\/span>isn\u2019t it good to be lost in the wood?
\n<\/span>with the mind\u2019s ears and eyes of darkness
\n<\/span>the screech owl glides through the dusk
\n<\/span>searching for philosophers who have gone blind
\n<\/span>madness is a forgotten way
\n<\/span>so let us be crooked once again.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Pay attention.
\n<\/span>This is my dialectic.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Meeting a badger for the first time in the midnight rain
\n<\/span>loping between the wood and the retreating road
\n<\/span>before descending into the multi-chambered sett
\n<\/span>hearing the magnificent frog
\n<\/span>croaking on a leaf in the tepid pond
\n<\/span>then leaps down diving into another world.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

JP Jacobsen<\/a><\/span>, can you hear me still?
\n<\/span>this is my diremption
\n<\/span>my broken middle
\n<\/span>forever dwelling in the contradiction.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bartholomew Ryan is the author of Critical Lives: Fernando Pessoa<\/a><\/span> (Reaktion Books, 2024).<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

www.bartholomewryan.com<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n