New poem: "Wounded by Wonder"

 

Wounded by Wonder

 

Restless, I couldn’t sleep and got out of bed

and browsed YouTube, not looking for anything

in particular, when I spotted a 2-part documentary

on Dirk Bogarde, an actor who had piqued my interest

for years, not for the roles that he played, which

were often dark and sinister, but for who Dirk Bogarde

was, the man who played those roles, like Thomas

Mann’s Gustav von Aschenbach’s in Luchino Visconti’s

iconic movie Death in Venice who became erotically

transfixed by the young Polish boy Tadzio who pierced

Aschenbach’s heart with such wonder that it wounded

him immortally; and then, for reasons known only to

the gods of literature, I landed upon an old interview

with “the world’s most eminent literary critic,” Yale

professor emeritus Harold Bloom, who, asked by Paul

Holdengraber, “What do you mean when you say

‘immortal wound’?” after professor Bloom had revealed

that Walt Witman’s poem “The Sleepers” had given

him an immortal wound, Bloom replied—oh wonder

of wonders! — “Well, if a poem pierces you enough

in heart and intellect so that you never really get over it,

it qualifies as an immortal wound. Shakespear, or rather,

his Hamlet, speaks of wonder-wounded hearers; and, you

know, any poet who wounds you by wonder has given

you, probably, an immortal wound,” as young Tadzio

had immortally wounded Aschenbach in the great Italian

director’s Death in Venice, and only by the illuminating

grace of coincidence did it become clear to me that Gustov

von Aschenbach’s death in Venice, as the beautiful Polish

boy played in the water, was the tragic death of Aschenbach’s

ego self that was trapped in the transient now of his mortal

body; and, in wonder, I composed my poem for posterity’s

sake, and then went back to bed.

 

Composed in Georgian Bay, Ontario

Saturday, June 15, 2024