while i’m scrounging through the Grendel novel for the umpteenth time: i’m gonna put 10 examples of Grendel’s canon poetry under the cut, from his earliest explorations of language and form to the panicked song Beowulf forced him to sing as he killed him.
you would never guess it from how he speaks, but his writing is beautiful. intelligent.
i guess that’s kind of the point.
[ POEM I ]
December, approaching the year’s darkest night,
and the only way out of the dream is down
and through it.The trees are dead.
The days are an arrow in a dead man’s chest.Snowlight blinds me, heatless fire; pale, apocalyptic.
The creeks are frozen; the deer show their ribs.
I find dead wolves – a paw, a scraggly tail
sticking up through snow.The trees are dead, and only the deepest religion
can break through time and believe they’ll revive.Against the snow, black cuts on a white, white hand.