The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

Demarcations


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there's a mountain. the jews climb over it.
orthogonally, the gypsies climb.
there are others who climb, each orthogonal.
the independence of the climbers, the scars.
there are dwarves carrying gold. the dwarves
go through the mountain. the dwarves remain
near origin. the dwarves are neural clade.
orthogonal others grouped in sets descend,
are descendents. the dwarves are descendents.
it's written there someone says traversing.
someone is a definition. of the others,
defined. of the dwarves, defined. of the
mountain. they take turns.

(Celan, Grimm, myself.)


The Fear of Madness


Written While Confined to her Bed, During Her
Last Illness


There is a something which I dread,
   It is a dark, a fearful thing;
It steals along with withering tread,
   Or sweeps on wild destruction's wing.

That thought comes o'er me in the hour
   Of grief, of sickness, or of sadness;
'Tis not the dread of death - 'tis more,
   It is the dread of madness.

Oh! may these throbbing pulses pause,
   Forgetful of their feverish course;
May this hot brain, which burning, glows
   With all a fiery whirlpool's force,

Be cold, and motionless, and still,
   A tenant of its lowly bed,
  But let not dark delirium steal -

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
                             [Unfinished]
(This was the last piece she ever wrote)



- From Poetical Remains of the late Lucretia Maria
Davidson, Collected and Arranged by her Mother,
with a Biography, by Miss Sedgwick, Philadelphia,
Lea and Blanchard, 1841. Lucretia Davidson died at
16 years, 11 months.