‘The Elm Of The Aeneid’ and ‘Spadework’ by Peter O’ Neill

The Elm of the Aeneid

 
After Virgil , Lines 282-295, Book VI
 
 
In the vast shadows of the Elm,
Under her ancient boughs where,
According to men dreams are allied to nightmare,
Intricately woven into every arrow-headed leaf,
There monstrous shapes and forms
Become crafted by the elements,
As beheld through the Light Trees,
Where everyone fashions for themselves
The proper demons which people their most
Specific exactitude; Just as Aeneas saw,
Him-self, those heady Chimera and which
He pursued with wrought steel,
On through the torturous waters of the
Tarterean Archeron, where the roads led.
 
This translation of The Elm of the Aeneid, After Virgil , Lines 282-295, Book VI is © Peter O’Neill

Spadework

 
 In memoriam
 
Out in the allotment, thinking and digging,
And considering Heaney’s analogy
Of the opened field – Immense acreage
Of sovereignty to be found there
 
Emanating beneath the wood of his words,
Their clayey, and powderish substance.
And, pausing to take a breath, before I too
Rake up the skeletal remains of Baudelaire.
 
Field then as page, words as soil or clay;
Tossing the stones and weeds from the mind,
Into Hell’s ditch! The Norsemen and
  
Bog bodies, as with the spectral corpse of Croppies,
Figuring there, as in any archaeological site,
All with neurological accordance of mind.
 
Spadework, in Memoriam is © Peter O’Neill

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