1 post tagged “rilke”

I'm racing my way up to page 43 so far (it's been 5 months).  It's funny, his poems are so image intensive, I never really know how to read, say, 20 at one sitting.  That said, here's one of the three I read this morning--its images have some real gems:

Spanish Dancer

As on all its sides a kitchen-match darts white
flickering tongues before it bursts into flame:
with the audience around her, quickened, hot,
her dance begins to flicker in the dark room.

And all at once it is completely fire.

One upward glance and she ignites her hair
and, whirling faster and faster, fans her dress
into passionate flames, till it becomes a furnace
from which, like startled rattlesnakes, the long
naked arms uncoil, aroused and clicking.

And then: as if the fire were too tight
around her body, she takes and flings it out
haughtily, with an imperious gesture,
and watches: it lies raging on the floor,
still blazing up, and the flames refuse to die--.
Till, moving with total confidence and a sweet
exultant smile, she looks up finally
and stamps it out with powerful small feet.

----

Lovely!  The image of her arms as startled rattlesnakes, aroused and clicking, is very nice.