"To keep your cell the way you keep your soul, / Untidy-minded, neither soiled nor sold / For next to nothing, a treasury of old / Notions like the notes of a piano-roll / Which cannot improvise though it knows a whole / Repertoire, what ought one to withhold?"
— Hine, Daryl (b. 1936)
Author
Work Title
Date
December 2009
Metaphor
"To keep your cell the way you keep your soul, / Untidy-minded, neither soiled nor sold / For next to nothing, a treasury of old / Notions like the notes of a piano-roll /
Which cannot improvise though it knows a whole / Repertoire, what ought one to withhold?"
Metaphor in Context
To keep your cell the way you keep your soul,
Untidy-minded, neither soiled nor sold
For next to nothing, a treasury of old
Notions like the notes of a piano-roll
Which cannot improvise though it knows a whole
Repertoire, what ought one to withhold?
Idiosyncrasy is nobody else’s business.
Of all omens the soul provides the sole
Depository. How many oceans can it hold
In its infinite & unfathomable isness?
(ll. 31-40)
Untidy-minded, neither soiled nor sold
For next to nothing, a treasury of old
Notions like the notes of a piano-roll
Which cannot improvise though it knows a whole
Repertoire, what ought one to withhold?
Idiosyncrasy is nobody else’s business.
Of all omens the soul provides the sole
Depository. How many oceans can it hold
In its infinite & unfathomable isness?
(ll. 31-40)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Hine, Daryl. "from &: A Serial Poem." Poetry Magazine. December, 2009. <Link to the Poetry Foundation>
Date of Entry
12/03/2009
