The Second Story of the Country House at Aegae by Daniel Hinds
The Second Story of the Country House at Aegae
She is a siren.
A woman sings,
I shall call her Lorraine,
For now.
It is raining outside,
I suppose that is why I came
To the theatre.
A liquid,
Usually gold,
Poured in the grail.
We know what she can give us.
The Lady of the Lake,
Is the lake.
Why?
Because I say so,
And I am a Lord.
“And that is what Lords
Do to Ladies.”
Wooden Mountains in the sea, creaking rocks,
Curtains in the theatre, a face, red hanging locks,
And a ship; made of red velvet.
I took out my lorgnettes, as was my custom for stargazing.
I had to do it really.
I was tired of her,
Damp,
And Bluebeard
Did it.
Too.
For, that is not objectification;
For, that is how we love.
I notice the frame,
Of her portrait.
I bought that.
It’s made of gold
And would it be awfully bold,
To say so?
Genius is self-conscious,
And so too is love.
Sweet siren! Soprano! A snake hissing! Forked tongue, my trident!
Daniel Hinds was highly commended in the Young Adults category of the NCLA’s Water Poetry Competition 2012.
The NCLA Water Poetry Competition was judged by W.N. Herbert and John Burnside. The ceremony was held at Northern Stage on 23rd February 2012.
Photographs of the event can be viewed here.
NCLA Water Poetry Competition website.
A note from Daniel Hinds on writing this poem: ‘There is a strong mythic and theatrical subtext to the poems, which form a coherent whole. The setting of Aegae, is a punning title on fictional and architectural stories, and is of religious and historical significance to Poseidon legends. The poems are somewhat pastoral, but also focus on the artistic objectification of nature and people, hence the theatrical subtext. The poems were written all at once, quite quickly afore being polished to their finished form as seen here. The main difficulty I faced in writing them was getting them to fit within the 40 line limit and articulate a complete narrative, what with my predisposition to writing quite short lines.’
and a short biography:
Daniel Glen Hinds is currently an undergraduate in his first year at Newcastle University. Daniel has lived most of his life in Newcastle and has only recently begun to submit writing to various contests. After a small success in a poetry competition when he was eleven, Daniel has returned to poetry only within the past few months. He is also currently having a reworking of Dante’s ‘Inferno’, ‘A Grand Undertaking’, a novella which he wrote when he was 17, serialised in the Newcastle University literary magazine, Alliterati magazine.