Poets and spies .
Andre Willers
27 Apr 2013
Synopsis :
Intuitive poetical paranoia makes for good spies .
Discussion :
1.Poets are drawn to intuitive connections . Like bees to
nectar .
2. Spies depend on them for survival . Like flies to aspidistra
.
3. Any reasonable poet is a potential paranoid , as long as
he does not get into a position of power .
4. Then all those metaphors connecting distant meanings
translates into lopped-off heads .
See Appendix A .
5.Beware of poets .
“The heart does not know itself
In grasping all , it loses all .”
Andre
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Appendix A
A very short list of Poets who are Lovers , spies and tyrants .
c.Hendry VIII poems :
The poet and the painter .
A real-life poet , spy and secret policeman .
At least he had the sense to limit his paranoia to fiction .
Angleton was a poet and, as a Yale undergraduate, editor,
with Reed Whittemore, of the literary magazine Furioso, which published
many of the best-known poets of the inter-war period .
Ultra-secret enforcer in WW II .
In 1954 he was tasked with the assassination of Alan Turing
on direct orders of Churchill and
Eisenhower (for short-term political gains) . This broke him . Paranoia and
despair .
He never got over the apple .
g.Ivan the Terrible
“Ivan was a poet, a composer of considerable talent, and supported
the arts. His Orthodox liturgical hymn, "Stichiron No. 1 in Honor of St.
Peter", and fragments of his letters were put into music by Soviet
composer Rodion Shchedrin. The recording was released in
1988, marking the millennium of Christianity in Russia, and was the first
Soviet-produced CD.”
h. Napoleon .
His love letters were free-form poems . Quite good ones , too .
Notice that the bit below is a poem , but trying to recast it into
a more traditional format destroys it . That takes a bit of talent .
|
Napoleon Bonaparte
to Josephine De Beauharnais
Paris, December 1795 |
|
|
I wake filled with thoughts of you. Your portrait and the
intoxicating evening which we spent yesterday have left my senses in turmoil.
Sweet incomparable Josephine, what a strange effect you have on my heart!
Are you angry?
Do I see you looking sad? Are you worried? ...
My soul aches with sorrow, and there can be no rest for your lover; but is there still more in store for me when, yielding to the profound feelings which overwhelm me, I draw from your lips, from your heart a love which consumes me with fire? Ah! it was last night that I fully realized how false an image of you your portrait gives!
You are leaving at noon; I shall see you in three hours.
Until then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none in return, for they set my blood on fire.
Sweet incomparable Josephine, what a strange effect you have on my heart!
Are you angry?
Do I see you looking sad? Are you worried? ...
My soul aches with sorrow, and there can be no rest for your lover; but is there still more in store for me when, yielding to the profound feelings which overwhelm me, I draw from your lips, from your heart a love which consumes me with fire? Ah! it was last night that I fully realized how false an image of you your portrait gives!
You are leaving at noon; I shall see you in three hours.
Until then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none in return, for they set my blood on fire.
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