Imperial Triptych

poems 5, 6, & 7 from The Ancient Elm

In The Ancient Elm cycle, the next poem is actually a group of three interrelated poems called 'Imperial Triptych'. This was a really tough part of the cycle to write. In 'Siegecraft', the speaker finds that the internal power he has gained over himself leads to external success, as well. More success, actually, that anything he anticipated. What I wanted to explore was the idea that this success can become a bit of a trap. At bottom, it's illusion. However, it can slowly come to be thought of as the source of that peace and power, which is actually only gained and maintained through inner truth via Zen.

The idea of a triptych came to me because getting all this across was leading to a really long and convoluted poem, so I needed some kind of structure that would allow me to get all of this across through images rather than resorting to a lot of preaching. I was paging through a book of painting by Hieronymus Bosch and came across several works of his that were done in the triptych form (click on the image to make it larger and see an example).

I immediately realized that a poetic version of a triptych was exactly what I was looking for. After that, it became very easy to break up the ideas I was trying to communicate into different poems and get this part done. The first and third poems are meant to mirror one another and yet present polar opposite situations. The second (or middle poem) offers a transition between the other two and provides insight into why they are different.

I'll start posting them one at a time, but it's pretty important to get the idea of how the parts of a triptych interact. If I ever published this in print, I wonder what would have to be done to lay out the three poems in order to replicate the idea of a triptych!