The Gnostic Underground
It is easier to die than to remember.
Name and date
split in soft slate
a few months obliterate.
– Basil Bunting, Briggflats, Stanza 1
In the Ambergane time capsule there is a copy of Briggflatts signed by the poet, gifted to me by Terry. For a sample of Bunting reading it, go here, and here.
Briggflatts summons the mythic image of the Bull to invoke a meditation on time and death loaded with strong erotic overtones, the memory of sexual virility, its momentary ecstasis, and its decline. It plays strongly on nautical tropes with explicit reference to the constellations:
Young flutes, harps touched by a breeze,
drums and horns escort
Aldebaran, low in the clear east,
beckoning boats to the fishing.
Capella floats from the north
with shields hung on his gunwale.
That is no dinghy’s lantern
occulted by the swell — Betelgeuse,
calling behind him to Rigel.
Starlight is almost flesh.
Great strings next the post of the harp
clang, the horn has majesty,
flutes flicker in the draft and flare.
Orion strides over Farne.
Seals shuffle and bark,
terns shift on their ledges,
watching Capella steer for the zenith,
and Procyon starts his climb.
The striking meme, “Then is Now,” could be the motto for this block.