03 III 2002 - 14:55 - verba11

There's a little bit of background you'll be needing before you go through my Alchera monthly assignment. This project period, there were two choices (spread over two months); since school seems to be going mad, I think I'll be doing only one. Here's the topic:

PROJECT NO. 04

Project Begins: Saturday, February 02, 2002
Project Ends: Sunday, March 31, 2002

Project Details:

(1) Pick up a collegiate or an otherwise non-specific dictionary (i.e., no medical dictionaries), open to a random page with your eyes closed, and pin down your index finger somewhere on one of the pages. Wherever your finger lands is your subject. DO NOT try again if you don't like your subject. If you land on the word "the," than that is your subject, and I expect a very interesting piece from you ;-)

(Want to skip the explanation? Go ahead.)

So, yes. With those as instructions, I went to find a dictionary. I was itching, however, to justify spending 580$NT on the Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases. (Why do I go to Taiwan to buy these things? Good question.) After getting permission from the all-powerful projectmaster, I flipped through, and the entry I came up with follows:

telamon noun plural telamones : early 17th century, Latin (telamones (plural) from Greek telamones plural of Τελαμων Telamon, a mythical hero). Architecture A male figure used as a pillar to support an entablature or other structure.

The female equivalent is a caryatid.

Rodin made a sculpture titled "The Caryatid Fallen Under Her Stone." If you do a Google search for both Rodin and Caryatid, it's relatively easy to find a picture of the sculpture. The sculpture got me to thinking (never a good sign), and the result is below. (Actually, you know what's amusing to me is that I never would have come across the sculpture had it not been mentioned in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.)

rodin spoke
(each word a bronzen, gifted bend)
and litheness fell under its weight:

and at the caryatid
some spoke Futile
some Courage and
she alone, Silence

silent in the shadows
the telamon bent strains:

bitter for him,
no memorial for quiet strength
(capable without reward)
as the devout
-ize (altar-, cathech-) mere effort
noble yes but must we note
not entirely reliable
(and where's reward for that:)

     strong
young succesful Telamon
  hot in summer
    cold in winter
no visitors but defiling pigeons:

no one to give him dignity
of a job through-done and known:
decision comes from reft and light
and:

thick calves and broad back undoubleup
as new freedom is to be reveled­ushered in:
his roof will fall but the burden's not to him
who stretches now, whose day is come
who wanders off (chest undescribed veins popping in)
to the pleasures (stonestiff joints like stirring treacle)
denied for so long:
  shelter movement life

and watch out caryatid
the stone man's got a grudge to be fed

That's it for now, then. No weekly challenge entry for me this week, won't be doing the other topic, and since poetica-collab is back up, it means I've two other assignments due soon. I hope the rest of your weekend is a good one.

By the way: "onus" is not the English word; it's the Latin one which can mean "burden."