[Rick Mullin]

I made a few changes in response to comments.

I'm settling, I think, on "Jack of Bone" for the description of death in the first stanza. There is an upturned card game in the picture.

"crone" is now "chaperone".


RM

[Jim Ramsey]

Hi Rick,

I think I would like "your chaperone" better than "the chaperone." It seems a case of whether the king is being chaperoned or the skeletal figure is definitively a chaperone independent of proximity to the king—sort of a definite article versus indefinite article type issue? Just my sense of it since I am no grammar expert. I get the feeling you might be avoiding another use of "your" but it seems best to me.

Jim

[Rick Mullin]

Hi James,

Why would it be possessive? The chaperone (another name for death) shows up unexpectedly.

[Jim Ramsey]

Originally Posted by Rick Mullin

Hi James,

Why would it be possessive? The chaperone (another name for death) shows up unexpectedly.

Hi Rick,

I have no clear argument here. It's just a sense I have. I can muddle through reasons to say it either way and either way is probably OK. Here are a few factors that are influencing my perception (though in the end I may side with you if I think it through enough):

Death is the chaperone to life, a metaphorical statement generalizing death as the chaperone of all lives.

Your N is directly addressing the king throughout the poem and making reference to the two skeletal representations of death chaperoning him, especially the one holding the instrument of time measurement. Your N uses "your" a lot.

I have a choice as reader of seeing all the Skeletons in the painting as a collective metaphor of death, a single symbol of death, ie. the chaperone of death...

(or)

I can see the skeletons attending the king as two chaperones to just the king specifically (his chaperones)—or even as just one chaperone if I focus on the one holding the hourglass, or small pendulum, or as a keeper of time, a sundial, or clock, or watch, or whatever the imagination of the writer wishes to insert. (maybe where I am going wrong is that there is a pendulum and sundial elsewhere in the painting but so far I am keeping my focus on the king, where I think the poem wants it to be.)

Two hypotheticals: Suppose I am at a high school dance and there are multiple parent chaperones present. The principal announces up front as a general rule via microphone to all the students, "You must obey the chaperones." The principal could indeed say "your chaperones" in this instance and make sense. But then the chaperones divide the students in a way that no parent supervises their own child. Later a parent advises two students that they cannot leave the building but they do anyway. The principal is summoned and can either again make the general announcement, "you must obey the chaperones," or can individualize the command to the isolated situation and tell the two miscreants "You must obey your [assigned] chaperone," and thereby more personalize the instruction. It would seem odd to me at this point for the principal to say, "You must obey the chaperone [singular needed]"

Now, I've been a boor, probably best ignored, and, why did I bother. Probably because I've lived my life as a metaphor for the ignored father.

Jim

[John Riley]

I like this poem and like your concept of what an ekphrastic poem should do. It isn’t a retelling. It’s a reimagining. Thanks for this.

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the attention you're giving to the poem! My response, I guess, is that while the initial address--thus the repeated address--is to the king-looking character in the lower left corner with an emphasis on the skeleton antagonizing him, I mean for the poem to address all of us. A memnto mori. Similarly, I mean for the skeleton, the embodiment of death-come-a'callin', to represent all of the skeletons rampaging through the landscape.

Thanks John,

I'm glad you like this one. Tonight I came across a truly excellent example of ekphrasis as I understand it: Albert Pinkham Ryder's "The Temple of the Mind", a response to Poe's "The Haunted Palace", which the poet incorporated into "The Fall of the House of Usher". There are likely Goggleable spiels on this, but one interesting note is that Ryder puts the Three Graces in for Poe's "troup of Echoes".

Note to all!: One more pass at describing death in line 2: "Jack of Bone", which is marvelous but maybe too much so, is now "grinning bone", a better image, perhaps.