The Anathemata

Keel, Ram, Stauros (continued)

Recumbent for us

the dark of her bilges

for fouled canopy

the reek of her for an odour of sweetness.

Sluiced with the seep of us

knowing the dregs of us.

Hidden wood

tree that tabernaclesa 

the standing trees.

David Jones notes

additional notes

a tabernacles: used in the shipwright’s sense of the socket into which the mast is fitted.

comments

We return to the keel and peer down into the bilges.

But since the last paragraph ended with an implication of Good Friday, there is also here a suggestion of ‘He descended into Hell’ from the Credo (‘descendit ad infernos’, ‘infernos’ meaning ‘lower regions’).

semantic structures

glossary