The Third Story of the Country House at Aegae by Daniel Hinds
The Third Story of the Country House at Aegae
I reflect on the rain.
I asked for you,
When I was on the cross,
“I’m thirsty.” I said.
When madness took me,
You drowned,
In a lake full of lilies,
Ophelia.
When I am called upon
To write. It is you,
That spills forth.
It rains,
On the ruins,
Of the blackened house,
After I am gone.
Steam,
From the ruins,
The Forest seethes,
I am out,
At last!
Sitting as I am,
With the Gods.
She sings,
And I start,
Which is very amusing,
Because I never gave her a voice.
A Muse,
me? She says.
But I’m just,
Water in a glass,
Changing and insubstantial.
I speak: I can’t even remember,
The original name of Lorraine,
I shall call myself Poseidon!
It rains on all men, artist, God alike!
It rains, Lorraine.
An actress, hence, I think she knows what she does; Leading Lady,
Out into the rains.
On the third story
A draught!
?
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.