zumpoems

The Sassoon Collection

iii. Blonde

Her head-weak thoughts that once eagerly gave way
to looks that leapt sure from eye to brain and into heart,
Weaving unconscious promises of love,
Are now thrust outward, dangerously heard from lips to air.
And he who has watched one world and loved it all,
Star-struck with blindness, an ensnared example for pity,
With feeble hopes of attracting a returning glance,
now listens with his ear to the rambling noise.

— Zumwalt (2011)

Copyright © 2011

For the entire set, please visit: https://zumpoems.com/2012/02/29/the-sassoon-collection/

Admin’s note: In this third of a series of poems based on Siegfried Sassoon’s works, Zumalt adheres more closely to the original, making the necessary changes to transform it into the thoughts of an unsympathetic narrator commenting on a recently disillusioned and dissatisfied admirer.

Here is the original Siegfried Sassoon poem (initially published in the Lyrical Poems: 1908–1916 section of The Old Huntsman):

Blind

His headstrong thoughts that once in eager strife
Leapt sure from eye to brain and back to eye,
Weaving unconscious tapestries of life,
Are now thrust inward, dungeoned from the sky.
And he who has watched his world and loved it all,
Starless and old and blind, a sight for pity,
With feeble steps and fingers on the wall,
Gropes with his staff along the rumbling city.

Sassoon’s subject suffers because his thoughts are trapped inside (“thrust inward, dungeoned”). Zumwalt flips this like a pancake. The woman’s “head-weak thoughts” (a sharp contrast to Sassoon’s “headstrong” intellect) are “thrust outward, dangerously heard from lips to air.” Both poems reflect on tragedy: Sassoon’s a deep tragedy not of the victim’s making, Zumwalt’s a self-inflicted tragedy of infatuation. Hardly comparable, and yet, Zumwalt chooses to draw an ironic parallel by limiting his deviations from the original.