With an elephant to ride upon—“with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,”
she shall outdistance calamity anywhere she goes.
Speed is not in her mind inseparable from carpets. Locomotion arose
in the shape of an elephant, she clambered up and chose
to travel laboriously. So far as magic carpets are concerned, she knows
that although the semblance of speed may attach to scarecrows
of æsthetic procedure, the substance of it is embodied in such of those
tough-grained animals as have outstripped man’s whim to suppose
them ephemera, and have earned that fruit of their ability to endure blows,
which dubs them prosaic necessities—not curios.
About This Book
A collection of concise lyric pieces that employ precise diction, striking imagery, and ironic observation to examine perception, art, and everyday life. Poems shift between playful personifications of machines and animals and sober meditations on aesthetic judgment, moral intention, and human foibles, often using concrete objects as metaphors. The speaker alternates between wit and seriousness, favoring compressed forms, unexpected juxtapositions, and careful detail to probe how language, experience, and power shape understanding.