< Guy Davenport Home Page >

Guy Davenport:   


 
37, avenue Samson, Cimitičre Montmartre
 

 

 

 

 

37, avenue Samson, Cimitičre Montmartre. [Lexington, KY:] King Library Press, 1985.

"Unpublished poem, set in 18 pt. Canterbury" 150 copies printed on broadside.

Note: Have two copies:  #12 and #64. The latter was Loraine Sander’s gift. A framer accidentally scraped it while mounting to fiber board and, unbeknownst to me, went to GD for a replacement copy (#12) which is framed. Copy #64, scrape and all, seems fine to me (but not to a perfectionist framer).

Note: Poem was published in [Duke University] The Archive 99:2 (1987), pp. 38-39.

'Cimetičre' is the normative spelling of the French word for cemetery. Cimitiere may be an archaic variant spelling of the word.  

Below is the poem laid out as close as possible to its appearance as a broadside. 

 


37, avenue Samson,

Cimitičre Montmartre

 

West was
the Fish.
River of light
between.
The moon
our daimon.

I

 
Nigh mad Nijinski’s wanton bones,
Slant among these cornered stones,
In dust of roses, buttons, cloth,
Promised kingdom of rust and moth,
Circle and parabola stand,
Ellipse and hyperbola and,
Splendid within that tetragraph,
The old accountant's epitaph,
Who spat on silver to inspire
The keepers of the sacred fire:
Eyes in their loving generate
Character, attraction, fate.
Wayfarer, you have come upon
Charles Fourier the merchant's son,
Who is asleep, asleep.  Deny
If you dare that the good can die.

III

The circle's friends, ellipse is love.
Parabola's the mating dove.
In cycloidal quicksilver rolled,
Bound all by logarithmic gold.

 

 

IV

II

 
Here, there,
and the ladder.
The hitched mimestra,
Krios and Tauros.
Buttercup, mousetail,
Didyma and Karkinos.
Meadow with poppies,
Leon and Parthenos.
Brown woodling,
Zygos and Skorpios.
Red Valerian,
Toxotas and Aigoceras.
Strapwort, sea lavender,
Hydrokhoos and Ikthus.
Time is light
stilled to dust.
Journey is place,
end beginning.
North was once
the Twins.
The Young Girl
was once east.
Bowman Centaur
drew south.

             Man and god were one.
The backward onwardness of the sun,
Late for every dawn, left-handed, red,
Set the salmon north.
                                 Fate is the head.
In the eastern leaves midsummer night
See the Twins.
                   That fire in green twilight
If you look south is Virgo and west
Chiron draws the bowstring to his chest.
The cusp, index of the Dragon's
A
In folded time, Vega in its day,
Starlit tiptop in the middle air,
Points to alpha in the Little Bear.
Time is light, stilled and made dust.
The journey is a place that begins by
ending.

North was once the Twins, the Virgin
east,
Bowman Centaur south, west The Fish.
A river of light between.
                    The world's circle threads
through the hundred-branched oak.
South of Andromeda
                      the sun has swallowed
The Fish
The red flag is among the stars
O drums
And the white moon is wild over Illyria.

 

 

Guy Davenport

Unpublished poem, set in 18 pt. Canterbury,
Printed at The King Library Press, 1985.

 

 
Below is my August 1990 photograph of Charles Fourier's grave marker, 37 avenue Samson, Cimetičre de Montmartre, Paris:
 

    

       [CIRCLE]                      [ELLIPSE]

ICI  SONT  DEPOSES  LES  RESTES

DE

CHARLES  FOURIER

NE A  BESANCON  LE  7 AVRIL 1772

MORT A PARIS  LE 10 OCTOBRE 1837

LA  SERIE  DISTRIBUE

LES  HARMONIES

LES  ATTRACTIONS

SONT  PROPORTIONELLE

AUX  DESTINEES

 

 

Back to Books-Pamphlets (All)
   
 

 


Copyright 1998-2005, Charles A. Ralston. All rights reserved.
Send comments to: < [email protected] >

Last revised:  2005-12-02
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1