Experimental, Poetry Bill Boethius
So that the vine burst from my fingers ...

The poet’s voice beams in from another dimension, ‘midst crackles of the wax cylinder –
... the poet himself able to overleap the barriers of time/space and envision Dionysos in his very here and now.

The poet’s delivery is surprising, with archaic trills, and a constant descending cadence, reminding me of blues guitar phrasing.

From there I started to accompany the poet.

‘So that the vine burst from my fingers ...’

And the bees weighed with pollen
Move heavily in the vine-shoots;
chirr – chirr – chirr-rikk – a purring sound,
And the birds sleepily in the branches.
ZAGREUS! IO ZAGREUS!
With the first pale-clear of the heaven
And the cities set in their hills,
And the goddess of the fair knees
Moving there, with the oak-wood behind her,
The green slope, the white hounds leaping about her;
And thence down to the creek’s mouth, until evening,
Flat water before me, and the trees growing in water,
Marble trunks out of stillness,
On past the palazzi, in the stillness,
The light now, not of the sun, Chrysophrase,
And the water green clear, and blue clear;
On, to the great cliffs of amber. Between them,
Cave of Nerea, she like a great shell curved,
And the boat drawn without sound,
Without odour of ship-work,
Nor bird-cry, nor any noise of wave moving,
Nor splash of porpoise, nor any noise of wave moving,
Within her cave, Nerea, she like a great shell curved
In the suavity of the rock, cliff green-gray in the far,
In the near, the gate-cliffs of amber,
And the wave green clear, and blue clear ...

Ezra Pound, Canto XVII
thecantosproject.ed.ac.uk/inde...amp;limitstart=

Bill Boethius; guitars, theremin, synth, production
Ezra Pound; voice, words