Monday, 21. September 2009, 20:41:12
Poetry
Floss won't save you from an Abyss
But a Rope will --
Notwithstanding a Rope for a Souvenir
Is not beautiful --
But I tell you every step is a Trough --
And every stop a Well --
Now will you have the Rope or the Floss?
Prices reasonable --
-- Emily Dickinson [Johnson 1322]
(Very funny -- and wise.)
Monday, 14. September 2009, 21:49:31
Poetry
"One Art"
by
Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost
that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing
isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three beloved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
Even losing you (the joking voice, a gestureI love) I shan't have lied.
It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master. Though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.
(Ovelse gor mester.)
Thursday, 9. July 2009, 22:41:26
Poetry
Anne Sexton.
Well if I only put up poetry during National Poetry Month there
certainly wouldn't be much poetry on this blog. So here are two
poems from Anne Sexton's book All My Pretty Ones (1962).
IN THE DEEP MUSEUM
My God, my God, what queer corner am I in?
Didn't I die, blood running down the post,
lungs gaping for air, die there for the sin
of anyone, my sour mouth giving up the ghost?
Surely my body is done? Surely I died?
And yet, I know, I'm here. What place is this?
Cold and queer, I sting with life. I lied.
Yes, I lied. Or else in some damned cowardice
my body would not give me up. I touch
fine cloth with my hands and my cheeks are cold.
If this is hell, then hell could not be much,
neither as special nor as ugly as I was told.
What's that I hear, snuffling and pawing its way
toward me? Its tongue knocks a pebble out of place
as it slides in, a sovereign. How can I pray?
It is panting; it is an odor with a face
like the skin of a donkey. It laps my sores.
It is hurt, I think, as I touch its little head.
It bleeds. I have forgiven murderers and whores
and now I must wait like old Jonah, not dead
nor alive, stroking a clumsy animal. A rat.
His teeth test me; he waits like a good cook,
knowing his own ground. I forgive him that,
as I forgave my Judas the money he took.
Now I hold his soft red sore to my lips
as his brothers crowd in, hairy angels who take
my gift. My ankles are a flute. I lose hips
and wrists. For three days, for love's sake,
I bless this other death. Oh, not in air --
in dirt. Under the rotting veins of its roots,
under the markets, under the sheep bed where
the hill is food, under the slippery fruits
of the vineyard, I go. Unto the bellies and jaws
of rats I commit my prophecy and fear.
Far below The Cross, I correct its flaws.
We have kept the miracle. I will not be here.
A CURSE AGAINST ELEGIES
Oh, love, why do we argue like this?
I am tired of all your pious talk.
Also, I am tired of all the dead.
They refuse to listen,
so leave them alone.
Take your foot out of the graveyard,
they are busy being dead.
Everyone was always to blame:
the last empty fifth of booze,
the rusty nails and chicken feathers
that stuck in the mud on the back doorstep,
the worms that lived under the cat's ear
and the thin-lipped preacher
who refused to call
except once on a flea-ridden day
when he came scuffing in through the yard
looking for a scapegoat.
I hid in the kitchen under the ragbag.
I refuse to remember the dead.
And the dead are bored with the whole thing.
But you -- you go ahead,
go on, go on back down
into the graveyard,
lie down where you think their faces are;
talk back to your old bad dreams.
Wednesday, 1. April 2009, 13:50:08
Poetry, E. E. Cummings, National Poetry Month
E. E. Cummings.
The third and fourth and last in the series of poems for National Poetry
Month.
NOW I LAY (WITH EVERYWHERE AROUND)
by
e. e. cummings
Now i lay (with everywhere around)
me (the great dim deep sound
of rain; and of always and of nowhere) and
what a gently welcoming darkestness --
now i lay me down (in a most steep
more than music) feeling that sunlight is
(life and day are) only loaned: whereas
night is given (night and death and the rain
are given; and given is how beautifully snow)
now i lay me down to dream of (nothing
i or any somebody or you
can begin to begin to imagine)
something which nobody may keep.
now i lay me down to dream of Spring
I THANK YOU GOD FOR MOST THIS AMAZING
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any -- lifted from the no
of allnothing -- human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
Wednesday, 1. April 2009, 13:43:52
John Berryman, Poetry, National Poetry Month
John Berryman.
The second in a series of poems for National Poetry Month.
SONNETS TO LISE, 113
by
John Berryman
'I didn't see anyone else, I just saw lies.'
Anne Frank remorseful from the grave: ah well,
it was a vision of her mother in Hell,
a payment beforehand for rebellion's seize,
whereby she grew up: springing from her knees
she saw her parents level. I ward your spell
away, and I try hard to look at you level
but that is quite unaccustomed to me, Lise.
Months I lookt up, entranced by you up there
like a Goya ceiling which will not come down,
in swirling clouds, until the end is here.
Tetelestai. We steamed in a freighter from Spain
& I will never see those frescoes again,
nor need to, having memorized your cloudy gown.
Wednesday, 1. April 2009, 13:38:28
Poetry, Theodore Roethke, National Poetry Month
Theodore Roethke.
Once again it is April, and it is National Poetry Month here in the U.S.
In previous years I have put up three poems, one of my own and two from
actual good poets. But not having done any poetry this year to speak of,
I am instead putting up poems by three great poets. I am also modifying
my usual practice by doing two poems by Cummings. So this will be four
poems by three poets. This is the first one.
IN A DARK TIME
by
Theodore Roethke
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood --
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
That place among the rocks -- is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is --
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
Monday, 9. February 2009, 21:00:02
Poetry
the fog comes
on little fat feet
Wait a minute. Let's try that again.
the fog comes
on little rat feet
No no no no no. Start over.
the fog comes
on little bat feet
Damn it! O, never mind...
Sunday, 28. December 2008, 08:19:08
The Four Seasons, Poetry
I don't read much anymore. It's difficult to explain why, exactly.
Glossing it over quickly let's just say that I really am tired of it --
and I think this has something to do with my medical condition. It's
not that I've given up on learning, far from it. But I guess at this
point it feels like I'm living off of the highlighted passages of every
book that I've ever read. And it just doesn't interest me to add new
books. It doesn't seem like it would make much difference at this
point.
Last year someone gave me a copy of Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon.
I love Pynchon, and I thanked her greatly for the gift. I leafed through
the book a bit. But I haven't read it. I also have a couple of P.I. novels
laying around, in fact they've been laying around for some time without
being read. And they will most likely lie there much longer. Last year
I bought Anna Karenina, thinking that getting into one of the great epics
would inspire me to get to work on the new novel. But the book laid around
for months, until last April, when I finally gave it to my sister as a
birthday present. And the other day I came across a series of novels by
John Crowley that ordinary I would have eaten up as fast as possible.
I thought about buying the set for about ten minutes. And then said to
hell with it. For a brief time last week I got the idea that perhaps I
should read Durrell's Alexandria Quartet again after an interval of 30
some years, or at least the first volume, Justine. But I decided that
given my track record lately with books that I probably wouldn't read
that one either and that it would just be a waste of money buying it.
It's not that I read nothing. I read blog posts and stuff on the internet.
I also consult my reference books occasionally -- dictionaries, an old
atlas I have, a very outdated world almanac and a few other references
that I have in my bookcase. I use them as needed. That also applies to
some of the other books in my little library on an as-needed basis.
There is some reading that I still do -- at least occassionally. I go back
over something or other in Herodotus. Or I read this or that section of
a book that I have carried around since the 70s, Wittgenstein's Vienna
by Janik and Toulmin.
But the book that draws me back most frequently is my Johnson copy of
the poems of Emily Dickinson. Sometimes I'll leaf though the volume,
reading this or that poem. Her range is the world. And her mind shatters
language for a higher use than that normally put onto paper.
It helps me somehow. In some way.
Unto my Books -- so good to turn --
Far ends of tired Days --
It half endears the Abstinence --
And Pain -- is missed -- in Praise --
As Flavors -- cheer Retarded Guests
With Banquettings to be --
So Spices stimulate the time
Till my small library --
It may be Wilderness -- without --
Far feet of failing Men --
But Holiday -- excludes the night --
And it is Bells -- within --
I thank these Kinsmen of the Shelf --
Their Countenances Kid
Enamour -- in Prospective --
And satisfy -- obtained --
-- Emily Dickinson, [Johnson: 604]
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