“Eloisa” by Sam Hickford

~ squidditas

The last leper to be saved
scratches out the plaster of the moon
and children fall by bell swoon.

This is all the grace
I spin for you – if I hold you just
so, unfazed by being loved,

the warmth of your goodness flickers away
the law, and we surrender to this fine
corruption, a whirlwind of reason,

and when I reason you
a cloister loiters on a mountain edge
where you are leading me to emptiness

and then I empty every whirling question
towards the rose window of your mind’s soft arch.
The sun light of your spirit calms the fire,
forming in every word of wickedness.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/poems-sketched-upon-the-m60/sam-hickford/9781912412334

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Published by squidditas

Whaddupp, my name is Sam Hickford. I am due to graduate my PhD from St Andrews in December. I wrote about Clare and contemporary poetry. I have a book, Poems Sketched Upon the M60, published in 2021. I have quite a few academic papers which you can find here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sam-Hickford. I publish other people here too, but unless it is signalled that someone else is the author, I am the author.

4 thoughts on ““Eloisa” by Sam Hickford”

    1. Dear Eloisa, I don’t like very much that Alexander Pope has written, but he did write a beautiful poem called “Eloisa to Abelard” (Eloisa to Abelard | The Poetry Foundation). I love this story of two medieval intellectuals separated and independently pursuing God, renouncing each other ostensibly while actually transmuting their love into a kind of faith. Heloise and Abelard wrote two each other Platonically as “man” and “woman”. Their letters to one another are amazing. But, of course, this poem is not about that, it’s a poem trying to stand on its own two feet, teetering, plodding.

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  2. thank you sam! i suspected it was based on the medieval tale, but have never read pope’s poem (which i realise is quite silly given my name), so i’ll go look at it right now!

    and worry not about the poem standing alone. i found it very evocative, with a hint of magic!

    it was brought to me by a sponsored tumblr post — the result of some very targeted advertising, i’m guessing — but i’ll gladly check out more of your writing 🙂

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