Poem: "One Humor"

One Humor

From where I stand the sea is just a rumour.
--Eavan Boland, “Our Origins Are in the Sea”

In medieval theories of medicine, one humor
escaped the logic of the lovely charts.
From where I stand the sea is just a rumor.

I love the way the year cycles into summer,
the sun characteristic as the parts,
in medieval theories of medicine, of humor.

But from the times, closely watched, swells a tumor
and the tide of recrimination starts.
From where I stand the sea is just a rumor.

Damn the homosexual. Blame the consumer.
Fault the degeneration of the arts
or medieval theories of medicine. Ill humor.

Fear grows like barnacles on baby boomers
while the young sails resent the ancient farts.
From where I stand the sea is just a rumor.

We hold to different memories of summer
as yellow bile possess our yellow hearts.
In medieval theories of medicine, one humor,
from where I stand to see, was just a rumor.

*

Comments

Calder said…
loved this piece especially...
"Fear grows like barnacles on baby boomers"

This piece has sort of a Neruda feel about it. Lovely writing Jee!

Smiles
R Jay
(I got rid of Calder...lol)
9:02 PM
Eric Norris said…
E.M.W. Tillyard: The Elizabethan World Picture. 1942. Absolutely corking read on the Elizabethan understanding of science and organisaton [sic] of the world.

Shakespeare never reads the same after this book. Nor Donne. Nor Milton. It's about 100 pages, if I remember correctly, and very smartly written.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._M._W._Tillyard

I found it remaindered once at The Strand...
11:19 PM
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