The Writing Artist- D H Lawrence

My final writing artist of the week is D H Lawrence. Born David Herbert Richard Lawrence, he was a playwright, painter, essayist, poet, critic and novelist and with English heritage who explored the issues of modern times on the human condition. His views caused him to go into exile for half of his life in which he named a “savage pilgrimage”. Below is his poem A Spiritual Woman.

A Spiritual Woman

Close your eyes, my love, let me make you blind;
They have taught you to see
Only a mean arithmetic on the face of things,
A cunning algebra in the faces of men,
And God like geometry
Completing his circles, and working cleverly.

I'll kiss you over the eyes till I kiss you blind;
If I can--if any one could.
Then perhaps in the dark you'll have got what you want to find.
You've discovered so many bits, with your clever eyes,
And I'm a kaleidoscope
That you shake and shake, and yet it won't come to your mind.
Now stop carping at me.--But God, how I hate you!
Do you fear I shall swindle you?
Do you think if you take me as I am, that that will abate you
Somehow?--so sad, so intrinsic, so spiritual, yet so cautious, you
Must have me all in your will and your consciousness--
I hate you.

-        D H Lawrence

~ Nia Andino~