#530 - two ekphrastics at the AGNSW - Frederic Leighton, Fred Williams

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530

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two ekphrastics at the AGNSW

 

‘winding the skein’

Frederic Leighton 1878

Lindos, Rhodes

 

gilt frame of hours

 

I believe it is morning

purple, in shadow

empire almost

sea yet to sail

 

and rather than words

a waste shore

roses in those cheeks

 

hillshorn

far jagged

 

slaves on the terrace

 

hands measure to hold

a silence between

 

soft suns fallen there

 

vestigial draperies of cloud

 

just this much allowed

 

 

 

Fred Williams’ ‘You Yangs’ 1963

 

I throw the day at it

to fracture, spread ages

 

a gilded laud, bronze to stick

horizonless

though tracked

 

by totem

scrub tree

conurbation

 

one colour is another hides

travels of the underbrush

 

irregular conversation

 

waves look into

 

ride the other in

I think it is a dream to be

            far from source

 

each of the angels       

        eagle spread

 

all ways between are

 

all this punctuation

fire falls for a guess

 

everything dries, nothing drips

moist lips

as on the first day signed