{"id":9493,"date":"2018-06-30T21:47:15","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T20:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9493"},"modified":"2018-07-02T07:57:12","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T06:57:12","slug":"two-poems-47","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9493","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>A NEW DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD<\/h5>\n<p>The weather girl warned us of the weather to come<br \/>\nbut we could not imagine it: black crows<br \/>\nlike emissaries of a missionary church<br \/>\nshaking the rain from their black hoods. <\/p>\n<p>Soon the sea walls were taking their punishment<br \/>\nand the one road leading somewhere<br \/>\nwas losing ground to the flood.<br \/>\nThis was a Venice without the carnival, <\/p>\n<p>a city drowned in its own bad luck.<br \/>\nThe river was rising and took the chance<br \/>\nto wander where it could, places it had never been.<br \/>\nIt was time to write a new description of the world. <\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h5>APHRODITE<\/h5>\n<p><em>She was smiling to herself<br \/>\namong the heavy-scented magnolia bowers,<br \/>\nchic, with shining eyes\u2026<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thomas Kinsella <\/p>\n<p>She dined with those who ruled the earth,<br \/>\nwho stood in her aura, close to every nuance<br \/>\nof the stoic smile, the cool poise \u2013<br \/>\nthe one we saw as she tended her American idol<br \/>\nin the reel of  film from the home movie camera.<\/p>\n<p>I saw her once, not in the year of the assassin,<br \/>\nthat grey November on Dealey Plaza<br \/>\nand not in her stint as <em>Aphrodite in Washington<\/em><br \/>\nnor as Warhol\u2019s Madonna with the red stain<br \/>\non her hem and in her arms her own Sir Lancelot<\/p>\n<p>but into a throng divided between inquisitors<br \/>\nand those who stayed silent<br \/>\nshe came among us, out of her widow\u2019s veil.<br \/>\nI saw her walk through rooms of rare editions,<br \/>\nportraits, mirrors that caught that shine in her eyes \u2013<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;their iridescence.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A NEW DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD The weather girl warned us of the weather to come but we could not imagine it: black crows like emissaries of a missionary church shaking the rain from their black hoods. Soon the sea walls were taking their punishment and the one road leading somewhere was losing ground to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":255,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[351,353],"tags":[355],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.2.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Two Poems - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9493\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9493&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Poems - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A NEW DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD The weather girl warned us of the weather to come but we could not imagine it: black crows like emissaries of a missionary church shaking the rain from their black hoods. Soon the sea walls were taking their punishment and the one road leading somewhere was losing ground to [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9493\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-30T20:47:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-07-02T06:57:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gerard Smyth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gerard Smyth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9493\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9493\",\"name\":\"Two Poems - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-30T20:47:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-07-02T06:57:12+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/faa248903db32592c92c3c29fcad14f6\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9493\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/faa248903db32592c92c3c29fcad14f6\",\"name\":\"Gerard Smyth\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"Gerard Smyth\"},\"description\":\"Gerard Smyth has published nine collection, including A Song of Elsewhere ( Dedalus Press 2015), The Fullness of Time: New and Selected Poems ( Dedalus Press, 2010 ) and The Yellow River (with artwork by Se\u00e1n McSweeney and published by Solstice Arts Centre, 2017 ). 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