THE HUNTERIAN POEMS
Whistler’s Sketch of Annabel Lee
Soundless sea
almost a memory
of a background
sea’s persistent turquoise
refuses Poe’s preposition ‘by’
whose Annabel
was, and lay down
entombed by the sea
kingdom and tomb
oceanic waste
of high-born jealousies
vanished by Whistler:
thigh and groin
varnished body surfaces
woman able
standing opening
Yes, to you Annabel Lee
your sounding torso from Phidias
a still plain –
Venetian balcony cuts the lean of
vertical desire
full disclosure
horizons of railings
and dawn from love
streaking clouds of sun at the lips
bel nebel
I can’t get Poe’s
‘chilling and killing’
out of my
your face smudged dull with paint
grain of wood panel
more paint than soul, Annabel,
a lust
the beautiful, the beautiful Annabel
Jeffrey Robinson
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Annabel Lee,
1869 - 1897.
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