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Home>>Poetry>>Poetry Collections>>Nefertiti in the Flak Tower>>Monja Blanca

Monja Blanca

Picture
The wild White Nun, rarest and loveliest
Of all her kind, takes form in the green shade
Deep in the forest. Streams of filtered light
Are tapped, distilled, and lavishly expressed
As petals. Her sweet hunger is displayed
By the labellum, set for bees in flight
To land on.  In her well, the viscin gleams:
Mesmeric nectar, sticky stuff of dreams.
This orchid’s sexual commerce is confined
To flowers of her own class, and nothing less.
And yet for humans she sends so sublime 
A sensual signal that it melts the mind.
The hunters brave a poisoned wilderness
To capture just a few blooms at a time,
And even they, least sensitive of men,
Will stand to look, and sigh, and look again,
Dying of love for what does not love them.
Transported to the world, her wiles inspire
The same frustration in rich connoisseurs
Who pay the price for nourishing the stem
To keep the bloom fresh, as if their desire
To live forever lived again through hers:
But in a day she fades, though every fold
Be duplicated in fine shades of gold.
Only where she was born, and only for
One creature, will she give up everything
Simply because she is adored; and he
Must sacrifice himself. The Minotaur,
Ugly, exhausted, has no gifts to bring
Except his grief. She opens utterly
To show how she can match his tears of pain.
He drinks her in, and she him, like the rain.
He sees her, then, at her most beautiful,
And he would say so, could she give him speech:
But he must end his life there, near his prize,
Having been chosen, half man and half bull,
To find the heaven that we never reach
Though seeking it forever. Nothing buys
Or keeps a revelation that was meant
For eyes not ours and once seen is soon spent:
For all our sakes she should be left alone,
Guarded by legends of how men went mad
Merely from tasting her, of monsters who
Died from her kiss. May this forbidden zone
Be drawn for all time. If she ever had
A hope to live, it lies in what we do
To curb the longing she arouses. Let
Her be. We are not ready for her yet,
Because we have a mind to make her ours,
And she belongs to nobody’s idea
Of the sublime but hers. But that we know,
Or would, if it were not among her powers
Always across the miles to bring us near
To where she thrives on shadows. By her glow
We measure darkness; by her splendour, all
That is to come, or gone beyond recall.
-- New Yorker, July 27, 2009

Poems

Nefertiti in the Flak Tower
Oval Room, Wallace Collection
Against Gregariousness
Fashion Statement
Whitman and the Moth
Monja Blanca
​Book Review
Beachmaster
Peter Porter Dances to Piazzolla
Silent Sky
Signing Ceremony
Numismatics

Vertical Envelopment
Nimrod
Castle in the Air
Culture Clash
Language Lessons
Pennies for the Shark
​The Buzz
And Then They Dream of Love
Andantino
Spectre of the Rose
Stage Door Rocket Science
A Spray of Jasmine
A Bracelet for Geoffrey Hill
​
The Later Yeats
A Perfect Market
Australia Felix
Continental Silentia
On a Thin Gold Chain
The Falcon Growing Old
Habitués
Same River Twice
Plate Tectonics
Message from the Moon
Special Needs


Reviews of Nefertiti in the Flak Tower

Stephen Romer
Robert Conquest
PBS Transcript
Open Letters Monthly
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  • Home
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    • The Blaze of Obscurity
    • Latest Readings
    • Cultural Amnesia
    • Play All
    • A Point Of View
    • Flying Visits
  • Essays
    • Visions Before Midnight
    • The Crystal Bucket
    • Glued To The Box
    • The Metropolitan Critic
    • At the Pillars of Hercules
    • As of This Writing
    • The Meaning of Recognition >
      • Introduction
      • Polanski and the Pianist
      • Fantasy in the West Wing
      • Pushkin's Deadly Gift
      • Great Sopranos of Our Time
      • A Memory Called Malouf
      • Bing Crosby's Hidden Art
      • Larkin Treads the Boards
      • The Iron Capital of Bruno Schulz
      • Criticism a la Frank Kermode
      • Fast Talking Dames
      • Rough Guides to Shakespeare
      • General Election Sequence 2001
      • Primo Levi and the Painted Veil
      • A Big Boutique of Australian Essays
      • Cyrano on the Scaffold
      • A Nightclub in Bali
      • Aldous Huxley Then and Now
      • A Man Called Peter Porter
      • Philip Roth's Alternative America
      • The Miraculous Vineyard of Australian Poetry
      • Save Us From Celebrity
    • The Revolt of the Pendulum >
      • The Question of Karl Kraus
      • John Bayley's Daily Bread
      • Kingsley and the Women
      • Canetti Man of Mystery
      • Camille Paglia Burns for Poetry
      • The Guidebook Detectives
      • Zuckerman Uncorked
      • The Flight from the Destroyer
      • Saying Famous Things
      • Insult to the Language
      • The Perfectly Bad Sentence
      • Happiness Writes White
      • All Stalkers Kill
      • Best Eaten Cold
      • White Shorts of Leni Reifenstahl
      • Made in Britain, More or Less
      • Movie Criticism in America
      • Show Me the Horror
      • The Measure of A.D. Hope
      • Robert Hughes Remembers
      • Modern Australian Painting
      • On Diamond Jim McClelland
      • The Voice of John Anderson
      • Niki Lauda Wins Going Slowly
      • Damon Hill's Bravest Day
      • Jonathan James-Moore
      • Ian Adam
      • Pat Kavanagh
      • Starting with Sludge
    • Guest Writers >
      • Zoe Williams
      • Russell Davies
      • Bryan Appleyard
      • Marina Hyde
      • Bruce Beresford
      • Michael Frayn
  • Poetry
    • Poetry Collections >
      • Injury Time
      • Sentenced to Life >
        • Japanese Maple
        • Sentenced to Life
        • Procedure for Disposal
        • Leçons des ténèbres
        • Driftwood Houses
        • Event Horizon
        • Neuland
        • Echo Point
        • Change of Domicile
        • Holding Court
        • Too Much Light
        • Nature Programme
        • My Latest Fever
        • Nina Kogan's Geometrical Heaven
        • The Emperor's Last Words
        • Winter Plums
      • Nefertiti in the Flak Tower >
        • Whitman and the Moth
        • The Falcon Growing Old
      • Angels over Elsinore
      • The Book of My Enemy >
        • Recent Verse
        • Verse Letters
      • Opal Sunset
      • Other Passports >
        • Recent Verse >
          • The Book of My Enemy has been Remaindered
        • Parodies etc.
        • Earlier Verse
        • Verse Diaries
      • Fan Mail >
        • To Russell Davies: a letter from Cardiff
        • To Martin Amis: a letter from Indianapolis
        • To Pete Atkin: a letter from Paris
        • To Prue Shaw: a letter from Cambridge
        • To Tom Stoppard: a letter from London
        • To Peter Porter: a letter to Sydney
    • Epic Poems >
      • The River in the Sky
      • Gate of Lilacs
      • The Divine Comedy >
        • Hell - Cantos 1-3
        • Purgatory - Cantos 1-3
        • Heaven - Cantos 1-3
      • Poem of the Year
    • Books About Poetry >
      • Somewhere Becoming Rain
      • Poetry Notebook >
        • Listening for the Flavour
        • Five Favourite Poetry Books
        • Velvet Shackles
        • Meeting MacNiece
        • The Donaghy Negotiation
    • Poetry Readings
    • Articles on Poetry
    • Back from The Web
    • Guest Poets >
      • Daniel Brown
      • Liane Strauss
      • Les Murray
      • Peter Porter
      • Alan Jenkins
      • Stephen Edgar
      • John Stammers
      • Simon Barraclough
      • Isobel Dixon
      • Christian Wiman
      • Olivia Cole
      • Judith Beveridge
      • Peter Goldsworthy
      • Kapka Kassabova
  • Lyrics
    • My life in lyrics
    • Selected Song Lyrics >
      • Dancing Master
      • Faded Mansion
      • Have You got a Biro I can Borrow?
      • I Have to Learn to Live Alone Again
      • Hill of Little Shoes
      • History & Geography
      • I See the Joker
      • Laughing Boy
      • My Brother's Keeper
      • National Steel
      • Nothing Left to Say
      • Sessionman's Blues
      • Song for Rita
      • Stranger in Town
      • Sunlight Gate
      • The Egoist
      • The Eye of the Universe
      • The Ice Cream Man
      • Femme Fatale
      • The Master of the Revels
      • Thirty-year Man
      • Winter Spring
  • Video
    • Talking in the Library >
      • Series One
      • Series Two
      • Series Three
      • Series Four
      • Series Five
    • Postcards
    • CJ on YouTube
  • Radio
    • A Point Of View
    • Book Talk