The 10 of Swords in Poetry

Barleywine

(I had this in Using Tarot Cards at first but moved it before posting since it isn't really about "using" the 10 of Swords.)

Although we as tarot readers are mainly in the business of "empowerment" of self or others to some extent and try to put the best possible (or at least the most constructive) face on the more desperate-looking cards, it's hard to deny that Pamela Colman Smith's version of the 10 of Swords contains an enormity of emptiness and desolation. Today I was looking at the Archibald MacLeish poem "The End of the World" and thinking how well the last half of it expresses what we see in the 10 of Swords, irrespective of the veneer of hope we try to impart to that card. The first half just makes me wish MacLeish and Salvador Dali had collaborated on a tarot deck, with "Ralph the Lion . . . biting the neck of Madame Sossman" as a perverse take on Strength.

Any other poetic allusions to the 10 of Swords (or any other card, for that matter) that you can think of?

https://allpoetry.com/The-End-Of-The-World
 

LeFou

Is it a trapeze artist?
 

headincloud

I thought circus too
 

Barleywine

The first part sounds like a bizarre carnival freak-show. The second part seems like pure nihilism to me.
 

toadwytch

I got a Tower vibe from this, somehow. I felt a sudden shock of fear as the tent was blown away, leaving the motley crew of performers and their audience feeling naked in the dark and the breeze. The jarring way that the night sky opening up above them all at once would tear apart the illusion of separation between the crowd and the performers, leaving them all merely people to contemplate the change as their heartbeats slow back down to normal. The poem kind of left me with this sense of being brought back to reality, shattered illusions and an instinctual fear of sudden changes. The dark "nothing, nothing, nothing" above is, after all, only sky - but in the abrupt absence of the colorful canopy they were accustomed to, "nothing" is supremely terrifying.

I didn't see it as nihilistic so much, but poetry strikes different chords in everyone. It felt more dismissive of the trivial nature of the stunts being performed below - so captivating as long as the safe "top" is overhead, but nothing compared the vastness of the empty sky beyond that was there all along, quietly ignored.
 

toadwytch

I currently study astronomy though and so did my dad when he was in college so I've always liked my night sky as dark as possible, in hindsight I think I was a little too literal and I'm sure that biases me to see it as a less stark picture than the author intended
 

EmpyreanKnight

I always think of the 10 of Swords as depicting one of the lowest points in one's life. All one's fears have been realized, one has tasted utter defeat, and there seems to be nothing but bleakness, hopelessness and misery. But I also think that from that point on, things can only get better. It is, after all, the very end of the Swords cycle, a new story shall open, and at the very least one can always take to heart the lessons of one's debacles so that he may better pursue the path he wishes to embark on.

But right now we're stuck in the 10 of Swords. I can decide to look at it as a good thing, and perhaps even find ways to profit from it. Because I do believe that one day I will rise and bounce back, wiser and stronger, and oh my adversaries better beware. Meanwhile from this great bitterness I shall wring something sweet:

Gibran said:
DEFEAT
Kahlil Gibran

Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;
You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,
And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,
Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot
And not to be trapped by withering laurels.
And in you I have found aloneness
And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,
In your eyes I have read
That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,
And to be understood is to be leveled down,
And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness
And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,
You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,
And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,
And urging of seas,
And of mountains that burn in the night,
And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,
You and I shall laugh together with the storm,
And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,
And we shall stand in the sun with a will,
And we shall be dangerous.
Click to expand...
 

Barleywine

EmpyreanKnight said:
I always think of the 10 of Swords as depicting one of the lowest points in one's life. All one's fears have been realized, one has tasted utter defeat, and there seems to be nothing but bleakness, hopelessness and misery. But I also think that from that point on, things can only get better. It is, after all, the very end of the Swords cycle, a new story shall open, and at the very least one can always take to heart the lessons of one's debacles so that he may better pursue the path he wishes to embark on.

But right now we're stuck in the 10 of Swords. I can decide to look at it as a good thing, and perhaps even find ways to profit from it. Because I do believe that one day I will rise and bounce back, wiser and stronger, and oh my adversaries better beware. Meanwhile from this great bitterness I shall wring something sweet:
Click to expand...

Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for. I was beginning to think we're all literalists here.
 

Tanga

Just to say - LOVE IT - and I'm inspired.
Now looking out for poems that "ping" cards for me.
Thank you for sharing.
 
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