The Poet John Dryden: SEAWEED, SALT AND SEX
SEAWEED, SALT AND SEX :arrow: John Dryden, an English poet(1631-1700), wrote the poem Marriage A-La-Mode and this poem of Dryden's was the starting point, the basis for the following derived piece. It is “difficult to isolate the essentially poetic,” wrote T.S. Eliot in his analysis of Dryden. I have found this to be so true of writing poetry that I call my ‘prose-poetry’ and whoever comes to my poetry will have to bring a different standard for evaluating it. Eliot wrote that we must bring different standards to each poet. Dryden, he went on, was able, among other poetic abilities, to take the trivial and make it magnificent, make it into something greater. Dryden has taken here in his poem a subject, namely marriage, and stimulated me to write on a theme I have often contemplated but not put into words, at least not quite as I have here. “And how do I know what I think until I see what I’ve said,” so goes one of the famous aphorisms many an English teacher has used. The following is just a collection of thoughts, more prose than poem, more psychological than erotic. I leave it with you dear readers. -Ron Price with thanks to T.S. Eliot, John Dryden, Roger White and the three women in my life who have taught me something about marriage: my mother and my wife-numbers one(1967-75) and two(1975-2008). :arrow: Why should a foolish marriage vow, which long ago was made, oblige us to each other now when passion is decay'd? That’s a good question, John, and one also asked by millions who thought to themselves as you have thought: this thing can not last for willions. We lov'd and we lov'd as long as we could, ‘til our love was lov'd out in us both: this act was dead when the pleasure had fled: ‘twas pleasure first made it an oath, an agreement, a vow from us both. Like you, I’ve often thought love 'twould be a delight with a friend to have a fresh passion in my store, 'twould be a delight and so much more. What wrong would it be after so many years for a man whose joys have now ended, when such a man had no more to give? And as you say, John: 'tis a madness that one’s mate should be jealous, or that he should bar him from another: for all we can gain is to give ourselves pain, as we go on hindering the other from getting it off as they say. Well, I might add and very well, too, that what you say is so common; but we’ve found a different pleasure than the one that put us in a bed so long ago when we were at it head to head and thought our love truly said. Our treasure is more than the body galore. We’ve had our pain for these many years enough to tear our hair and our very spirit to pieces. But at the end of the day a fortress has been built. Withstanding the slings and arrows of that outrageous fortune, as the Bard once said some four centuries ago so well. Although I must confess, indeed, that some arrows got through the walls and slung us, carved us to the bone. But a wave of tenderness surged. It surged onto our shores of life; sometimes ‘twas soured with seaweed and salt. The brew was sometimes heavy, yes, a hellish torment, truly, soon or late. But here we are after 33 years. Perhaps it’s loyalty that is purely what makes it so enduring: for the bond that unites hearts most perfectly, another bard said, is loyalty--and marriage is, as he also said: productive of a wave of tenderness that issues onto the shores of life and casts the pearls of pure and goodly issue on the shores of life, but between them is "a barrier which they overpass not" said a good Book.(1) (1)Qur'an 55: 19-22 For Erotic Romance Writers Forum Updated on this 15th day of April 2008 Ron Price August 8th 20051 Note: Dryden’s exact words or very close approximations of his words were originally put in italics, but not here. The initial idea behind this poem seemed like a good one when I began, but the longer I spent on the poem the less happy I was with it. This happens with many of pieces of poetic effort and it did with this. For that reason I will add this poem to the pile "to be worked on, probably, in perpetuity."
SEAWEED, SALT AND SEX :arrow: John Dryden, an English poet(1631-1700), wrote the poem Marriage A-La-Mode and this poem of Dryden's was the starting point, the basis for the following derived piece. It is “difficult to isolate the essentially poetic,” wrote T.S. Eliot in his analysis of Dryden. I have found this to be so true of writing poetry that I call my ‘prose-poetry’ and whoever comes to my poetry will have to bring a different standard for evaluating it. Eliot wrote that we must bring different standards to each poet. Dryden, he went on, was able, among other poetic abilities, to take the trivial and make it magnificent, make it into something greater. Dryden has taken here in his poem a subject, namely marriage, and stimulated me to write on a theme I have often contemplated but not put into words, at least not quite as I have here. “And how do I know what I think until I see what I’ve said,” so goes one of the famous aphorisms many an English teacher has used. The following is just a collection of thoughts, more prose than poem, more psychological than erotic. I leave it with you dear readers. -Ron Price with thanks to T.S. Eliot, John Dryden, Roger White and the three women in my life who have taught me something about marriage: my mother and my wife-numbers one(1967-75) and two(1975-2008). :arrow: Why should a foolish marriage vow, which long ago was made, oblige us to each other now when passion is decay'd? That’s a good question, John, and one also asked by millions who thought to themselves as you have thought: this thing can not last for willions. We lov'd and we lov'd as long as we could, ‘til our love was lov'd out in us both: this act was dead when the pleasure had fled: ‘twas pleasure first made it an oath, an agreement, a vow from us both. Like you, I’ve often thought love 'twould be a delight with a friend to have a fresh passion in my store, 'twould be a delight and so much more. What wrong would it be after so many years for a man whose joys have now ended, when such a man had no more to give? And as you say, John: 'tis a madness that one’s mate should be jealous, or that he should bar him from another: for all we can gain is to give ourselves pain, as we go on hindering the other from getting it off as they say. Well, I might add and very well, too, that what you say is so common; but we’ve found a different pleasure than the one that put us in a bed so long ago when we were at it head to head and thought our love truly said. Our treasure is more than the body galore. We’ve had our pain for these many years enough to tear our hair and our very spirit to pieces. But at the end of the day a fortress has been built. Withstanding the slings and arrows of that outrageous fortune, as the Bard once said some four centuries ago so well. Although I must confess, indeed, that some arrows got through the walls and slung us, carved us to the bone. But a wave of tenderness surged. It surged onto our shores of life; sometimes ‘twas soured with seaweed and salt. The brew was sometimes heavy, yes, a hellish torment, truly, soon or late. But here we are after 33 years. Perhaps it’s loyalty that is purely what makes it so enduring: for the bond that unites hearts most perfectly, another bard said, is loyalty--and marriage is, as he also said: productive of a wave of tenderness that issues onto the shores of life and casts the pearls of pure and goodly issue on the shores of life, but between them is "a barrier which they overpass not" said a good Book.(1) (1)Qur'an 55: 19-22 For Erotic Romance Writers Forum Updated on this 15th day of April 2008 Ron Price August 8th 20051 Note: Dryden’s exact words or very close approximations of his words were originally put in italics, but not here. The initial idea behind this poem seemed like a good one when I began, but the longer I spent on the poem the less happy I was with it. This happens with many of pieces of poetic effort and it did with this. For that reason I will add this poem to the pile "to be worked on, probably, in perpetuity."