The Dead Wingman -- Randall Jarrell

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1957) The Dead Wingman Seen on the sea, no sign; no sign, no sign In the black firs and terraces of hills Ragged in mist. The cone narrows, snow Glares from the bleak walls of a crater. No. Again the houses jerk like paper, turn, And the surf streams by: a port of toys Is starred with its fires and faces; but no sign. In the level light, over the fiery shores, The plane circles stubbornly: the eyes distending With hatred and misery and longing, stare Over the blackening ocean for a corpse. The fires are guttering; the dials fall, A long dry shudder climbs along his spine, His fingers tremble; but his hard unchanging stare Moves unacceptingly: I have a friend. The fires are grey; no star, no sign Winks from the breathing darkness of the carrier Where the pilot circles for his wingman; where, Gliding above the cities' shells, a stubborn eye Among the embers of the nations, achingly Tracing the circles of that worn, unchanging No - The lives' long war, lost war - the pilot sleeps. -- Randall Jarrell

I was planning to send in this poem for the flight theme anyway, and a
comment on a recent post made me even more determined.

William Pritchard, in his introduction to Randall Jarrell's Selected Poems
(FSG 1990) bemoans the fact that one poem, the justly celebrated 'Death of
the Ball Turret Gunner' has eclipsed all of Jarrell's other accomplishments
as a poet. The truth is that, coming out of World War II, Jarrell wrote a
number of poems about flying in the war - poems like 'The Dead Wingman', 'A
Pilot from the Carrier', 'Losses' and 'A Front'. These are not poems about
the 'lonely impulse of delight', rather they are poems about isolation,
about the helplessness of suffering; the people in them having more in
common with the disillusioned crew of Heller's Catch 22 than with Yeats'
Airman. There is no balance. There is only death.

Cut off from earthly contact in the desolation of the air, the pilot in his
plane becomes a metaphor for the soul trapped in its body. There is no
question of anything or anyone bidding the pilot to fight because the pilot
has no real choice; the sky is his only reality, and the anguish he feels
surveying the world below him is thus an existential one. The plane, like
the war (for these are, in every sense of the word, war poems) is a
death-dealing machine, one that man is strapped into, an Ixionan wheel, a
negative womb ('A Pilot from the Carrier' opens with the line "Strapped at
the centre of the blazing wheel")

'The Dead Wingman' is my favourite of these poems - in part because of the
incredible way in which Jarrell captures the physical experience of a
circling plane ("Again the houses jerk like paper, turn, / And the surf
streams by"), in part because of the perfection with which Jarrell connects
the failing of hope to external manifestations ("The fires are guttering;
the dials fall") and in part because of the way the poem, starting so
restlessly ("Seen on the sea, no sign; no sign, no sign") ends on a note of
weary, circling resignation. This is a greasy, metallic and yet deeply
moving poem. And it takes a talent like Jarrell's to keep a poem like this
aloft.

Aseem

[Links]

Biography:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Jarrell

from Midsummer -- Derek Walcott

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1953) from Midsummer The jet bores like a silverfish through volumes of cloud - clouds that will keep no record of where we have passed, nor the sea's mirror, nor the coral busy with its own culture; they aren't doors of dissolving stone, but pages in a damp culture that come apart. So a hole in their parchment opens, and suddenly, in a vast dereliction of sunlight, there's that island known to the traveller Trollope, and the fellow traveller Froude, for making nothing. Not even a people. The jet's shadow ripples over green jungles as steadily as a minnow through seaweed. Our sunlight is shared by Rome and your white paper, Joseph. Here, as everywhere else, it is the same age. In cities, in settlements of mud, light has never had epochs. Near the rusty harbor around Port of Spain bright suburbs fade into words - Maraval, Diego Martin - the highways long as regrets, and steeples so tiny you couldn't hear their bells, nor the sharp exclamation of whitewashed minarets from green villages. The lowering window resounds over pages of earth, the canefields set in stanzas. Skimming over an ocher swamp like a fast cloud of egrets are nouns that find their branches as simply as birds. It comes too fast, this shelving sense of home - canes rushing the wing, a fence; a world that still stands as the trundling tires keep shaking and shaking the heart. -- Derek Walcott

When I saw that you were running a flying theme, this was the first poem I
thought of. It is a poem that evokes so perfectly, for me, the experience of
being on a flight - the familiar cycle of staring out of the window, reading
the newspaper for a bit, thinking about distance and the world, looking down
again, seeing the tiny signs of human civilisation get closer and closer as
the flight descends and we come in to land. Walcott describes all of that in
lines at once ponderous and lyrical - that air of something restlessly
inventive but also classically ode-like that he renders so effortlessly.

There are several phrases in here that are permanently inscribed in my head
("The jet's shadow / ripples over green jungles as steadily as a minnow /
through seaweed") and the last eight lines are sheer genius. I could go on
and on about the clever, clever way that Walcott weaves the metaphor of a
book together with the experience of flight, but I'm not going to. Instead,
I'm going to suggest that you read the last lines of this poem again, and
experience once more that sensation of coming closer and closer to the
earth, the acceleration you feel an illusion, your heart waiting for that
final thwack of the wheels that will tell you that you're finally back.

Aseem

[Links]

Biography:
  http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1992/walcott-bio.html
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Walcott

Nice essay on Walcott and his work:
  http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Walcott.html

Where Lesbians Come From -- Jan Sellers

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1933) Where Lesbians Come From It is true that lesbians do not have families; we have pretend family relationships. We do not have mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters; our sons and daughters do not count at all, having no families within which to rear them. And our lovers - there's nothing in that but something mocking truth; for you know it's true that lesbians do not have families, like you... We emerge, instead, complete from some dark shell, beds and beds of us (like oysters, what else would I mean?) sea-born on stormy nights with the wind in a certain quarter. We rise and wiggle, all slippery and secret, curling and stretching and glad to be alive, untangling our hair from the wind and salt and seaweed. We steal clothes from washing lines, and once it's daylight, almost pass for human. Glowing into warmth in the sun or a hard north wind we lick the salt from our lips, for now. And smile. We live for a while, in the light, despite your brutal laws and your wish that we were not here; we return to our beds by moonlight to nurture and foster the sweet salt shells that give birth to our lesbian futures. And there we plot, in our dark sea beds, the seduction of your daughters. -- Jan Sellers

A marvellous poem. The mocking tone is done just right - funny enough to
make you laugh at the absurdity of it, indignant enough to make you realise
that it's not perhaps quite that absurd. The truth pushed just far enough to
make it satire. The poem works because underlying its ridiculous narration
is a deep sense of alienation, of feeling unwanted and other in a world
where choosing to live out your sexual preferences makes you sub-human. Plus
there's the deeply erotic oyster / salt imagery, of course.

I know practically nothing about Jan Sellers. The Virago New Poets (Virago
Press, 1993, edited by Melanie Silgardo and Janet Book) from which this poem
is taken describes her as a "part-time adult education worker, full-time
lesbian and intermittent performance poet".

Aseem

With God on our Side -- Bob Dylan

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1801) With God on our Side Oh my name it is nothin' My age it means less The country I come from Is called the Midwest I's taught and brought up there The laws to abide And that land that I live in Has God on its side. Oh the history books tell it They tell it so well The cavalries charged The Indians fell The cavalries charged The Indians died Oh the country was young With God on its side. Oh the Spanish-American War had its day And the Civil War too Was soon laid away And the names of the heroes I's made to memorize With guns in their hands And God on their side. Oh the First World War, boys It closed out its fate The reason for fighting I never got straight But I learned to accept it Accept it with pride For you don't count the dead When God's on your side. When the Second World War Came to an end We forgave the Germans And we were friends Though they murdered six million In the ovens they fried The Germans now too Have God on their side. I've learned to hate Russians All through my whole life If another war starts It's them we must fight To hate them and fear them To run and to hide And accept it all bravely With God on my side. But now we got weapons Of the chemical dust If fire them we're forced to Then fire them we must One push of the button And a shot the world wide And you never ask questions When God's on your side. In a many dark hour I've been thinkin' about this That Jesus Christ Was betrayed by a kiss But I can't think for you You'll have to decide Whether Judas Iscariot Had God on his side. So now as I'm leavin' I'm weary as Hell The confusion I'm feelin' Ain't no tongue can tell The words fill my head And fall to the floor If God's on our side He'll stop the next war. -- Bob Dylan

     (from the album The Times they are a-changin')

Reading the Star Spangled Banner [Poem #1730] on Minstrels made me think of
another song - one that does more justice, IMHO, to the 'glorious' history
of the United States. It's a song that's probably more chillingly apt today
than it was in 1963, when it was first written, if only because of the
increasing frequency with which religion is being invoked to justify acts of
mindless violence against other human beings. I, personally have no use for
religion, but I see how it can be a powerful force to unite and motivate
great masses of people - that it should be used for this purpose by evil,
power hungry men is at once one of the greatest ironies and one of the
greatest tragedies of our time.

'With God on our Side' is a wonderful illustration of the way that a
lifetime of indoctrination can make otherwise decent, clear-thinking people
support the most henious crimes against humanity in the name of some
imagined God. Dylan attacks the propaganda of God with conscious irony,
exposing again and again the hypocrisy that lies at the heart of much of the
history that a nation prides itself on. Going sequentially through war after
war in US History [1], Dylan, shows us the terrible pointlessness and waste
of war, forcing you to ask the question: Was it worth it? There are some
truly memorable lines here, and the conscious caricatures of the
justifications given for war would be hilarious if they were not both
incredibly tragic and frighteningly close to the truth (if there's one point
that both sides of the Iraq conflict would agree on, it's that "You don't
count the dead / When God's on your side").

I admit this isn't by any means one of Dylan's greatest poems - without his
flat, matter of fact delivery of the lines it may barely be a poem at all -
but as we struggle to come to terms with the bombings in London and the
continuing carnage in Iraq, I feel these are lines that are useful to
remember. There may be many things that you can believe in to justify the
West's intercession in Iraq (though I'm not sure I know what these might
be), but God cannot and should not be one of them. As the democracies of the
West prepare to face a determined assault from an enemy whose key weapon is
a religious fanaticism, it would be tempting to follow the path of their
opponents and sacrifice human life in the name of God, but that temptation
is precisely what they must guard against. God, in the final analysis, is
the one thing we should not trust in, because it is the one weapon and the
one justification that both sides will always have equal access to.
Besides, as Dylan so eloquently puts it "If God's on our side / he'll stop
the next war".

Aseem

[1] The one glaring ommission is of course, the war in Vietnam, which took
place largely after this song was written. Incidentally, the Star Spangled
banner makes interesting reading in the light of that war, with some of the
lines serving as a wonderful paean ("And where is that band who so
vauntingly swore / That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion / A home
and a country should leave us no more?" "Thus be it ever, when freemen shall
stand / Between their loved homes and the war's desolation / Blest with
victory and peace") to the eventual victory of the VietCong. Another apt
reminder of why it's dangerous to believe your own propaganda.

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall -- Bob Dylan

Guest poem sent in by "Aseem"

(Poem #1770) A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son? Oh, where have you been, my darling young one? I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains, I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways, I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests, I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans, I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard, And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard, And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son? Oh, what did you see, my darling young one? I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it, I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin', I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin', I saw a white ladder all covered with water, I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken, I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children, And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son? And what did you hear, my darling young one? I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin', Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world, Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin', Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin', Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin', Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter, Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley, And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son? Who did you meet, my darling young one? I met a young child beside a dead pony, I met a white man who walked a black dog, I met a young woman whose body was burning, I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow, I met one man who was wounded in love, I met another man who was wounded with hatred, And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son? Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one? I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin', I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest, Where the people are many and their hands are all empty, Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters, Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison, Where the executioner's face is always well hidden, Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten, Where black is the color, where none is the number, And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it, And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it, Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin', But I'll know my song well before I start singin', And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. -- Bob Dylan

As the death toll from the recent flooding of Bombay climbed higher each
day, and I sat half way across the world, surfing the images of tragedy and
despair (feeling strangely guilty, somehow, for not being there) this is the
song that kept playing in my head.

There are many stories that came out of that fateful day - indeed, as
someone said, everyone has a story to tell. There are many different
emotions in these stories - some are filled with hope, others with despair;
some speak of small miracles, others of senseless misfortune; some allow us
to celebrate the brotherhood, the fundamental decency of man towards man,
others highlight the world's indifference to the plight of the victims.

Dylan's song captures perfectly that sense of a fractured world, the
reduction of the truth into a series of images, the impossibility of taking
in exactly what has happened. At one level this is a confused, restless
song. It moves from phrase to phrase, vision to vision, leaving you with the
sense of some sweeping, momentous message, combined with a sense of dread.
But it is also a song of great courage - a song that grits its jaw and braces
itself for the devastation it knows is coming. There are some beautiful phrases

here - lines that demonstrate how true, how fine a poet the young Dylan really
was - but the overall message of this song is that we shall face the whole of
our sorrow and not be defeated by it.

Aseem

I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed -- Emily Dickinson

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1743) I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed I taste a liquor never brewed, From tankards scooped in pearl; Not all the vats upon the Rhine Yield such an alcohol! Inebriate of air am I, And debauchee of dew, Reeling, through endless summer days, From inns of molten blue. When landlords turn the drunken bee Out of the foxglove's door, When butterflies renounce their drams, I shall but drink the more! Till seraphs swing their snowy hats, And saints to windows run, To see the little tippler Leaning against the sun! -- Emily Dickinson

Just a quick response to Zen's tea poem [Poem #1743] (which, incidentally, I
have absolutely no memory of ever sending her). Figured if we were doing
poems about drinking and beverages more generally (I sense a theme coming on
- Martin / Thomas?) we can't do without including this little marvel of a
poem.

Today's poem is not, emphatically, one of Dickinson's best. Some of the
lines border on trite and the overall effect is of something light and
harmless, the intense power that I love Dickinson for is missing. But it's
precisely this frothiness that makes this poem such a delightful read.
Poetry really doesn't get sweeter and happier than this - to read these 16
lines is to experience the very giddiness that Dickinson is trying to
describe. There are some exquisite phrases here "Inebriate of air am I / and
debauchee of dew" and "inns of molten blue" and Dickinson's quicksilver
lines create a sense of footsteps dancing lightly through across the page
which is simply exquisite.

This is a poem one could truly get drunk on.

Aseem

Other suggested reading on minstrels:

John Agard's Coffee in Heaven [Poem #1071]
(another poem we owe to Zen - you're really obsessed, aren't you?)
Vikram Seth's Sit [Poem #966]
Harold Monro's Milk for the Cat [Poem #727]
Rumi's The Tavern [Poem #514]
Harivansh Rai Bacchan's Madhusala [Poem #72]
Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat (extract) [Poem #162]

To the Moon -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1741) To the Moon Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth,— And ever-changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy? -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Every time I look through the Minstrels archive, I'm always saddened to see
how poorly represented Shelley is on the site (yes, Martin, I know you don't
much care for him, but still). All right, so he tends to get a little
carried away; yes, he doesn't have quite the ear that Keats does, or Byron;
fine, his images tend to pile one upon the other until they become
suffocating, almost annoying (What was it Shakespeare said: "give me excess
of it, that surfeiting / The appetite may sicken and so die."); true, he
could have used a good editor. All of that does not detract from the fact
that Shelley is, IMHO, one of the most visionary and passionate of poets to
grace the English language, one of its most strident and lyrical voices; a
young man capable, at his best, of such burning purity of image that few
poets before or since could match him.  Certainly a poet who deserves to be
better represented on the site than he currently is.

This poem is the first step towards achieving that representation. It's a
brilliant little gem of a poem, a glorious example of just how stunning
Shelley could be when he didn't overdo it. The double image of the moon
roaming disconsolate through the night sky and Youth searching restlessly
for spiritual beauty is both crystal clear and oddly compelling. To read
this poem aloud is to experience the sadness and the despair of the speaker
- no mean feat for a poem that is all of six lines long. This is a
quintessentially romantic poem: it combines a sense of haunting lyricism
with one of the most spectacularly visual closing lines in all of poetry:
'Ever changing like a joyless eye / That finds no object worth its
constancy'. (The failure of the last line to rhyme only heightens the
overall impact of the stanza in my view - it sharpens the ending, makes it,
somehow, more fragile).

It's always seemed to me that Shelley, with his restless, tormented, uneven
poems, with his visions of political and lyrical grandeur combined with
periods of dark depression, is truly a poet of a 'different birth'. The
least we can do is make sure he has all his best poems with him, to keep him
company.

Aseem

[Martin adds]

While it is true that I dislike the majority of Shelley's work, I have never
denied his essential genius, and I have ever urged readers who *are* fans of
his poetry to fill up the lacuna. I heartily agree that he deserves to be
better represented in the archives, but my primary criterion for selecting a
poem has always been my enjoyment of said poem; therefore, I leave the
Shelley poems to people like Aseem, who has done a far better job of writing
about him than I could have. (I believe that I speak for Thomas too in this
regard.)

martin

Blowin' in the Wind -- Bob Dylan

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1707) Blowin' in the Wind How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly Before they're forever banned? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. How many years can a mountain exist Before it's washed to the sea? Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist Before they're allowed to be free? Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head, And pretend he just doesn't see? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. How many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky? Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows That too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. -- Bob Dylan

If there's ever a song that cries out to be memorised - this is it. I
can still remember being nine years old and listening to it over and
over, trying to ensure that the words would stay in my head forever. It
wasn't just that the words were beautiful and moving (if anything the
message of war and oppression seemed far less relevant then - back in
the 80's, at the age of 9 - than it does now); it was that listening to
the rhythm of the questions and the soft strumming of the guitar and
that simple, weary, heartfelt and almost speaking voice that could only
be Dylan, I was discovering what poetry really was. Not just pretty
images and melodic rhymes, not just fine sounding words arranged in
neat stanzas, not just daffodils and boys on burning decks, but the
voice of a real person, an attitude, a way of looking at the world.

The folksy "Yes 'n"'s notwithstanding, this is a great poem. Not just
because the rhyme scheme works perfectly, and the pattern of three
repeated questions is brilliant and the metaphors are powerful and the
lines themselves are memorable; but because it's a collection of a few
simple words that has the power to reach out and grab you by the heart.
Because every time you see the war footage on CNN or the pictures from
Abu Ghraib or Sudan or 9/11, the words will come back to haunt you.
Because long after Dylan is dead generations of singers and activists
will find in these simple lyrics  a sense of understanding and the
courage to go on. Because this simple little song sums up the entire
history of the human endeavour: our struggle to define ourselves as
people, our quest for peace and our bewilderment at the world's
cruelty. Because there's something about this song that makes it an
authentic poetic experience, something that you can't pin down but
can't help feeling, something that is, well, "blowin' in the wind".

Aseem

When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes (Sonnet XXIX) -- William Shakespeare

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

Continuing the theme of poems worth memorising:

(Poem #1689) When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes (Sonnet XXIX) When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself and curse my fate. Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur'd like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least, Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the Lark at break of day arising) From sullen earth sings hymns at Heaven's gate, For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with Kings. -- William Shakespeare

It's not so much that this sonnet moves me to memorise it, it's more that
(like much of Shakespeare) the language in it rings so true that having read
it once it's impossible to get it out of my head.

In many ways, Sonnet XXIX has always struck me as the perfect sonnet.  It's
not just that it's a brilliant demonstration of Shakespeare's incredible
command over the language. It's also the flawless marriage of that language
with form and content. Notice how the first eight lines form a sort of
prison of despair - a prison in which the lines pace restlessly back and
forth - and then the sextet that follows is a soaring escape from this
feeling, five lines of such incredible beauty that just reading them you can
hear your heart soar like a bird released. And Shakespeare doesn't just give
you the image to go with the feeling, he gives you a 12th line that seems to
follow from both the 10th and the 11th, making an otherwise tired metaphor
come breathlessly alive.

Plus of course there's the rhythm of the whole thing, the way every line
seems to trip so lightly onto your tongue, that it's almost impossible to
see how the thing could have been said any differently.  This is the
Shakespeare of the great monologues - a man whose gift for speech writing
has few equals. The wording is precise (and rich with little nuggets of wit
such as "what I most enjoy, contented least" or "change my state with
Kings") yet amazingly natural, even four centuries after the sonnet was
written. And there's something about lines 10-12 - a sort of singing
exultation - that make them truly unforgettable. The only thing I can think
of that can bring me such instant joy is the opening movement of Beethoven's
6th Symphony.

W.H. Auden described poetry as "a way of happening, a mouth". (In Memory of
W. B. Yeats [Poem #50] - another poem I remember every word of). Nowhere is
that as true as it is in Shakespeare - this is not simply a poem I remember,
it's a poem that is a part of how I think, a voice in my head.  Every time I
find myself envying someone in office, I can hear that voice mutter
"Desiring this man's art and that man's scope"; every time I try to get a
document through some government bureacracy I find myself repeating "Trouble
deaf heaven with my bootless cries"; every time I step out of my building
with a hangover and it's a beautiful, sunlit morning and the sky is a
brilliant blue the words in my head are "Like to a lark at break of day
arising / From sullen earth sings hymns at Heaven's gate".

Aseem

P.S. I can't believe you don't already have this on Minstrels!

The Rose of the World -- William Butler Yeats

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1656) The Rose of the World Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna's children died. We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men's souls, that waver and give place Like the pale waters in their wintry race, Under the passing stars, foam of the sky, Lives on this lonely face. Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode: Before you were, or any hearts to beat, Weary and kind one lingered by His seat; He made the world to be a grassy road Before her wandering feet. -- William Butler Yeats

I was reading Yeats on Minstrels in honour of St. Patrick's day and realised
to my horror that the thirty or so poems of his on Minstrels did not include
one of my personal favourites - this one.

This is, quite simply, a beautiful poem. For starters, it's a wonderfully
melodic poem - with a soft cadence to the words and an intriguing rhyme
pattern (abba followed by that breathtaking shortened b again). Then there's
the vividness of the images - the crimson fire of the first stanza, the
gently rippling wake of the second and the verdant green of the third - and
the way that they mirror so perfectly the three stages of the poet's
emotion: the passion of the first stanza, the uncertainty and restlessness
of the second, the surrender of the third (elsewhere (Poem #597) Yeats
writes "I have spread my dreams under your feet / Tread softly, because you
tread on my dreams" - it's hard to read the last lines of this poem without
thinking of those lines).

But what makes this poem truly unforgettable for me is the question that it
opens with. It's an incredible first line; not just because it's so
memorable and sticks in your head forever, but because it sets the tone so
beautifully for what is to follow - the dreaminess, the sadness, the sense
of defeat, the sense of acceptance.

Aseem

[Links]

 For reference to Usna's children, see the story of Dierdre of
Sorrows:
http://www.irishmythology.com/Irish_Mythology_Conor_&_Deirdre_Page_2.htm

My Death -- Raymond Carver

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1632) My Death If I'm lucky, I'll be wired every whichway in a hospital bed. Tubes running into my nose. But try not to be scared of me, friends! I'm telling you right now that this is okay. It's little enough to ask for at the end. Someone, I hope, will have phoned everyone to say, "Come quick, he's failing!" And they will come. And there will be time for me to bid goodbye to each of my loved ones. If I'm lucky, they'll step forward and I'll be able to see them one last time and take that memory with me. Sure, they might lay eyes on me and want to run away and howl. But instead, since they love me, they'll lift my hand and say "Courage" or "It's going to be all right." And they're right. It is all right. It's just fine. If you only knew how happy you've made me! I just hope my luck holds, and I can make some sign of recognition. Open and close my eyes as if to say, "Yes, I hear you. I understand you." I may even manage something like this: "I love you too. Be happy." I hope so! But I don't want to ask for too much. If I'm unlucky, as I deserve, well, I'll just drop over, like that, without any chance for farewell, or to press anyone's hand. Or say how much I cared for you and enjoyed your company all these years. In any case, try not to mourn for me too much. I want you to know I was happy when I was here. And remember I told you this a while ago - April 1984. But be glad for me if I can die in the presence of friends and family. If this happens, believe me, I came out ahead. I didn't lose this one. -- Raymond Carver

The Roger McGough poem a few days back (Poem #1628) made me think of this
gem of a poem by Raymond Carver. I first heard of Carver thanks to an
incredible essay about him in Salman Rushdie's Imaginary Homelands - he is,
in my opinion, one of the most overlooked and underrated poets of his time.

Carver's gift, as this poem amply demonstrates, is for simplicity - his
poems are unadorned, almost casual, but they have a conversational honesty
that reminds me of Chekhov. In addition he has an uncanny ability to sharpen
the most familiar of images into poetry; his poems read almost like highly
condensed stories - a few simple lines painting an everyday scene with
incredible clarity - only at the end there's usually a line or two that will
suddenly re-imagine the picture for you, turning it into something
breathtakingly beautiful (for a particularly good exampe of this see
'Happiness' [Poem #1099]).

Carver is also one of those rare entities - a poet of ideas. His work rises
above mere images or wordplay, thrusting you into situations or thoughts
that deepen and enrich your everyday life. Most of all though (and perhaps
because of the simplicity of the writing) Carver is one of the most moving
poets I have ever read - poem after poem of his brings tears to my eyes; his
very matter of factness conveys a depth of emotion that few poets writing
today can match. And there are few better examples of this than today's
poem. It's not a hard poem to criticise, but it's a hard poem to disagree
with.

Raymond Carver died of lung cancer in August 1988. From what I can tell, he
got his wish and died in the presence of friends and family. We should all
be so lucky.

Aseem

[Links]

Biography: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rcarver.htm

suppose -- e e cummings

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1628) suppose suppose Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head. young death sits in a cafe smiling, a piece of money held between his thumb and first finger (i say "will he buy flowers" to you and "Death is young life wears velour trousers life totters, life has a beard" i say to you who are silent. - "Do you see Life? he is there and here, or that, or this or nothing or an old man 3 thirds asleep, on his head flowers, always crying to nobody something about les roses les bluets yes, will He buy? Les belles bottes - oh hear , pas cheres") and my love slowly answered I think so. But I think I see someone else there is a lady, whose name is Afterwards she is sitting beside young death, is slender; likes flowers. -- e e cummings

Some people are just too smart for their own good. And E E Cummings is,
IMHO, one of them. Not that I don't get a kick out of his ingenious
punctuation, his intriguing line breaks, his frequently bizarre
spacing, his clever little witticisms ("3 thirds / asleep"). Reading
Cummings is like listening to some great jazz pianist at work - the
endlessness of his improvisations takes your breath away, the little
tone jokes make you laugh out in surprise.

Except that you get so caught up in these clever little tricks that you
never notice that underneath all that jazz is a sweet old melody.
Underneath Cummings' witty style is an incredible, singing,
old-fashioned poet, a master of image and emotion. Cummings writes
elsewhere "since feeling is first / he who pays attention / to the
syntax of things / will never wholly kiss you". And he who pays
attention to the syntax of cummings' poems will never wholly appreciate
them.

This poem is an excellent illustration: the punctuation and word play
are tame, by Cummings standards, but the image of life as a poor old
man selling flowers to a young, rich death is one of the cruellest and
most heartbreaking that I've ever come across, and Cummings draws you
deeper and deeper into the pathos, until that final two word line
leaves you with a sense of infinite hope. Pay attention to the syntax
here, and you'll see why this is a really clever poem. Ignore the
syntax and you'll see why it's a beautiful one.

Aseem

Resignation -- Nikki Giovanni

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1623) Resignation I love you because the earth turns round the sun because the North wind blows north sometimes because the Pope is Catholic and most Rabbis Jewish because winters flow into springs and the air clears after a storm because only my love for you despite the charms of gravity keeps me from falling off this Earth into another dimension I love you because it is the natural order of things I love you like the habit I picked up in college of sleeping through lectures or saying I'm sorry when I get stopped for speeding because I drink a glass of water in the morning and chain-smoke cigarettes all through the day because I take my coffee Black and my milk with chocolate because you keep my feet warm though my life a mess I love you because I don't want it any other way. I am helpless in my love for you It makes me so happy to hear you call my name I am amazed you can resist locking me in an echo chamber where your voice reverberates through the four walls sending me into spasmatic ecstasy I love you because it's been so good for so long that if I didn't love you I'd have to be born again and that is not a theological statement I am pitiful in my love for you The Dells tell me Love is so simple the thought though of you sends indescribably delicious multitudinous thrills throughout and through-in my body I love you because no two snowflakes are alike and it is possible if you stand tippy-toe to walk between the raindrops I love you because I am afraid of the dark and can't sleep in the light because I rub my eyes when I wake up in the morning and find you there because you with all your magic powers were determined that I should love you because there was nothing for you but that I would love you I love you because you made me want to love you more than I love my privacy my freedom my commitments and responsibilities I love you 'cause I changed my life to love you because you saw me one friday afternoon and decided that I would love you I love you I love you I love you -- Nikki Giovanni

[Note: The reference to the Dells in line 47 is to "Love is so simple"
a 1968 song from their album 'There is'. According to Giovanni, the
rhythm of this poem is the rhythm of the song.]

All right, if we have to give in to the Valentine spirit and get all
teary-eyed and maudlin about love, we might as well do it properly.

What I've always loved about Giovanni is her attitude - the deceptive
simplicity of her lines, the tone not only conversational but intimate
- so that reading her is like hearing yourself talk to a friend.

This is a superb example of that. It's not that the lines here are polished
to perfection, it's precisely that they wouldn't be if someone were really
saying this out loud, and what they lack in finesse they more than make up
in energy, in momentum, in sheer street-smartness.  And then of course, just
when you're beginning to run out enthusiasm, there's that one beautiful
little line (because only my love for you / despite the charms of gravity /
keep me from falling off the Earth) that keeps you going.

The other thing I like about this poem is the way Giovanni both expresses
the absoluteness of her love and (refusing to laud it for more than it is)
laughs at herself for it. Love is not a magical communion of souls here; it
is a bad habit that you can't get out of, a necessity, something you're too
used to to even question, much less give up. It is a love that gives you
both intense joy and honest suffering, it is deeply flawed and therefore
deeply personal. And this is not, in Giovanni, a cynical point of view, it
is a warm and real one.

If there's such a thing as being helplessly in love, this is it!

Aseem

[Links]

Biography:
  [broken link] http://pages.ivillage.com/crowyne/nikkibio.html

Give All To Love -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1616) Give All To Love Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame, Plans, credit, and the Muse - Nothing refuse. 'Tis a brave master; Let it have scope: Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope; High and more high, It dives into noon, With wing unspent, Untold intent; But it is a god, Knows its own path, And the outlets of the sky. It was not for the mean; It requireth courage stout, Souls above doubt, Valor unbending; Such 'twill reward, - They shall return More than they were, And ever ascending. Leave all for love; Yet, hear me, yet, One word more thy heart behoved, One pulse more of firm endeavor,- Keep thee to-day, To-morrow, for ever, Free as an Arab Of thy beloved. Cling with life to the maid; But when the surprise, First vague shadow of surmise, Flits across her bosom young Of a joy apart from thee, Free be she, fancy-free; Nor thou detain her vesture's hem, Nor the palest rose she flung From her summer diadem. Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Though her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive; Heartily know, When half-gods go, The gods arrive. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first time I came across this poem I was 16 (I was going through a major
Poe phase and ended up with a book that also included a bunch of poems by
Emerson). I remember being fairly unimpressed by it at the time. The short
lines had a restless, seductive beat, but the sentiments seemed trite and
the imagery uninspired and the whole thing had a vaguely Hallmark Card feel
to it.

Six years later, looking for a poem to console a friend who was going
through a break-up I came across it again - and realised how totally perfect
it is. It's not just the breathtaking optimism of the last three lines (so
much more heartening, for example, than "Better to have loved and lost /
than never to have loved at all"). It's also that reading the poem a second
time you realise that all that stuff that seemed like a rehearsal of
platitudes the first time around is really unflinching courage - an almost
heroic refusal to shy away from love just when it would be most tempting to
deny it. Emerson has elevated love to an act of faith - he demands that we
believe in it with every morsel of our being but also denies us any claims
on it.

The other thing that makes this poem so moving is the simplicity of the
phrasing. Which is not to say that the language isn't beautiful (where else
can you find a love that "dives into noon / with wing unspent" only to
discover that it "knows its own path / and the outlets of the sky"), but the
overall effect is not of someone trying to write poetry, but of someone
simply saying what he thinks. Emerson is so sure that the emotion in his
poem will ring true that he isn't afraid to use cliche, isn't afraid of
overstating his point. That's why he can bring himself to say "Though her
parting dims the day / Stealing grace from all alive" - words that will seem
overblown to the sophisticated critic, but frighteningly real to someone
disappointed in love.

It's probably a morbid thing to say, but this is my favourite break-up poem.
It's the one I prescribe to every one of my friends who's been through a
broken relationship (and the number just grows and grows).  It's the one
I've used myself. So I figured you might as well have it up on Minstrels.
Just in case.

Aseem.

P.S. Speaking of famous poets not represented on Minstrels - Emerson is
another startling exception - you don't have a single of his poems
officially in the index (though comments to both Poem #949 and Poem #580 do
quote him)!

[Links]

Biography and Works:
  http://www.online-literature.com/emerson/
  http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/

Ode on a Grecian Urn -- John Keats

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1603) Ode on a Grecian Urn Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness! Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never, canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou have not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! Ah, happy, happy, boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. -- John Keats

If we are on the subject of grand old poems that have slipped through the
Minstrels net - I can't think of a more startling omission than this one.
For sheer lyricism, Keats is hard to beat. Byron is wittier, I'll grant you,
and certainly more conversational, but nowhere (except perhaps in
Shakespeare) is the English tongue so ravishingly beautiful.

Ode on a Grecian Urn, is, of course, one of those established classics about
which it's difficult to say something without having about half a million
Eng Lit undergrads breathing down one's neck. What I love about it is its
almost solipsistic brilliance - the way the poem, in some sense contains its
own meaning (a distinction it shares with Shakespeare's "Not marble, nor the
gilded monuments" [Poem #1575] - a poem that makes interesting reading with
this btw). For nowhere is the truth of "Beauty is Truth, Truth beauty" more
evident than in this poem.

It's a stunning achievement really - a poem so incredibly sensuous, so
amazingly rich and pleasing to the ear, that manages at the same time to not
only paint with exquisite precision a series of delicate images (so that
reading it you can almost imagine this great mythic vase) but also to be a
direct and compelling statement of Keats' overall aesthetic philosophy. If
you want poetry at its purest, its most classical - this is it.

It's ironic perhaps, and also one of the greatest joys of this poem that
much of what Keats says of the Urn is as true today of his own poetry. "When
old age shall this generation waste / Thou shalt remain, in midst of other
woe / Than ours, a friend to man." If that isn't true of John Keats, I don't
know what other poet it's true of.

Aseem

P.S. Another interesting read to go along with this poem is of course Yeats'
Byzantium [Poem #60] - two great poets, saying, in a way, the same thing,
yet so very different!

from The Estranging Sea -- Derek Walcott

Aseem

(Poem #1592) from The Estranging Sea 1 Why? You want to know why? Go down to the shacks then, like shattered staves bound in old wire at the hour when the sun's wrist bleeds in the basin of the sea, and you will sense it, or follow the path of the caked piglet through the sea-village's midden, past the repeated detonations of spray, where the death rattle gargles in the shale, and the crab, like a letter, slides into its crevice, and you may understand this, smell the late, ineradicable reek of stale rags like rivers at daybreak, or the dark corner of the salt-caked shop where the cod barrel smells of old women and you can start then, to know how the vise of horizon tightens the throat, when the first sulphur star catches the hum of insects round the gas lantern like flies round a sore. No more? Then hang round the lobby of the one cinema too early in the hour between two illusions where you startle at the chuckle of water under the shallop of the old schooner basin, or else it is still under all the frighteningly formal marches of banana groves, the smell from the armpits of cocoa from the dead, open mouths of husked nuts on the long beach at twilight, old mouths filled with water, or else with no more to say. 2 So you have ceased to ask yourself, nor do these things ask you, for the bush too is an answer without a question, as the sea is a question, chafing, impatient for answers, and we are the same. They do not ask us, master, do you accept this? A nature reduced to the service of praising or humbling men, there is a yes without a question, there is assent founded on ignorance, in the mangroves plunged to the wrist, repeating the mangroves plunging to the wrist, there are spaces wider than conscience. Yet, when I continue to see the young deaths of others, even of lean old men, perpetually young, when the alphabet I learnt as a child will not keep its order, see the young wife, self-slain like scentful clove in the earth, a skin the colour of cinnamon, there is something which balances, I see him bent under the weight of the morning, against its shafts, devout, angelical, the easel rifling his shoulder, the master of Gregorias and myself, I see him standing over the bleached roofs of the salt-streaked villages, each steeple pricked by its own wooden star. I who dressed too early for the funeral of this life, who saw them all, as pilgrims of the night. -- Derek Walcott

(From Another Life; part IV, The Estranging Sea)

Nobody writes about the sea as well as Walcott. As we struggle to come to
terms with the horror of the tsunami, as we come face to face with these
"spaces wider than conscience" and find the basic order of things that we
depend on suddenly, horifically overturned ("when the alphabet I learnt as a
child will not keep its order"), his is the voice I find myself turning to
for comfort.

One reason I love this poem is because the landscape Walcott so skillfully
paints here is at once vividly familiar and strangely hostile- the poem both
captures the sights and smells of a small coastal fishing village and turns
it into something darker, more sinister. It is, I feel, the right landscape
for the hour.

More importantly, however, I think the poem echoes the sense of confused
loss that we have all felt over the last few weeks. The poem starts
aggressively, but the question raised there is never quite answered, and
Walcott is barely able to maintain this balance between a view of the world
as haphazard and contrary and the glimpse he has of a tired yet still
dominant figure behind all this sorrow. It would be easy (and somewhat
trite) to offer words of understanding here, but Walcott gives us something
deeper: the struggle to understand.

Aseem

P.S. Another poem that is sadly apt is Marianne Moore's the Grave [Poem #986]

At a Lecture -- Joseph Brodsky

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1588) At a Lecture Since mistakes are inevitable, I can easily be taken for a man standing before you in this room filled with yourselves. Yet in about an hour this will be corrected, at your and at my expense, and the place will be reclaimed by elemental particles free from the rigidity of a particular human shape or type of assembly. Some particles are still free. It's not all dust. So my unwillingness to admit it's I facing you now, or the other way around, has less to do with my modesty or solipsism than with my respect for the premises' instant future, for those afore-mentioned free-floating particles settling upon the shining surface of my brain. Inaccessible to a wet cloth eager to wipe them off. The most interesting thing about emptiness is that it is preceded by fullness. The first to understand this were, I believe, the Greek gods, whose forte indeed was absence. Regard, then, yourselves as rehearsing perhaps for the divine encore, with me playing obviously to the gallery. We all act out of vanity. But I am in a hurry. Once you know the future, you can make it come earlier. The way it's done by statues or by one's furniture. Self-effacement is not a virtue but a necessity, recognised most often toward evening. Though numerically it is easier not to be me than not to be you. As the swan confessed to the lake: I don't like myself. But you are welcome to my reflection. -- Joseph Brodsky

Gotcha.

It's so rare to find a truly great poet who's not represented on
Minstrels, that discovering that you don't have a single Brodsky poem
was an almost electric shock of opportunity. And so, like water pouring
into a plug suddenly pulled, this poem.

One reason, perhaps, that Brodsky doesn't feature on Minstrels is that
most of his best poems are too long to fit on the site (see for example
'A part of speech' or 'Strophes' or 'Lullaby on Cape Cod' or the
incredible 'Gorbunov and Gorchakov') - finding something short enough
proved quite a task.

This poem, written in English in 1995, will do nicely though. For one
thing, it expresses brilliantly the sense I always have while reading
Brodsky of listening to someone older and infinitely wiser talk - an
urge to just shut up and listen. Not that Brodsky ever talks down or
lectures (self-effacement, as the poem suggests, is a common theme in
his work) but because his words have such an aching yet simple ring of
truth that one wishes one could memorise them forever just as one is
sure one will have forgotten them tomorrow. Brodsky is not a poet who
can be remembered or quoted - his voice is not so easily trapped (In A
Part of Speech he writes: "Hence all rhymes, hence that wan flat voice
/ that ripples between them like hair still moist / if it ripples at
all). And yet to read him is to experience a sense of quiet and
half-cynical longing that stays with you long after the words of the
poem are forgotten.

That's why I think the last line of this poem captures Brodsky exactly.
To read him is to be a mirror to a truly great intellect, holding on to
his images for as long as one can, knowing that once they leave the
world will seem strangely blank.

Aseem.

Biography:
  http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1987/brodsky-bio.html
        Joseph Brodsky died on January 28, 1996.

Surprised by joy -- William Wordsworth

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

To Catherine Wordsworth 1808 - 1812:

(Poem #1571) Surprised by joy Surprised by joy - impatient as the Wind I turned to share the transport - Oh! with whom But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find? Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind - But how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so beguiled as to be blind, To my most grevious loss! - That thought's return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more; That neither present time, nor years unborn Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. -- William Wordsworth

I don't like Wordsworth. Over the years I've tried very hard to like
him, tried convincing myself that there was some deep and mystical and
moving beauty to his work, worked very hard at trying to discover the
poet of whom Browning (who I love) once wrote: "We who had loved him,
worshipped him, honoured him / Lived in his mild and magnificient eye /
Learnt his great language, heard his clear accents / Made him our
pattern to live and to die". And I STILL don't like Wordsworth.[1]

The one exception to that rule is this poem. Not that I think it's a
brilliant poem or anything - there are lines in it that still make me
wince when I read them (who describes a tomb as "that spot which no
VICISSITUDE can find"? Outside of gawky english lit undergrads that
is). But despite the number of failings I see in it there's something
about it that's so heartfelt, so achingly honest that it (yes, I
confess it) moves me. The starting line is pure genius, of course, the
image of someone turning with a joke on his lips so vivid and the let
down in the second line ("Oh! with whom") so sudden that you feel the
hurt of it deep, deep inside you. And the sixth, seventh and eighth
lines are superb as well - blending so realistically their tones of
sorrow, wonder and accusation. And the defeat and sadness at the end
make such a beautiful contrast with the exuberance of the starting.
This is a wonderfully dramatic poem, but the very awkwardness of some
of its lines lend it a genuineness that a more polished rendition would
have destroyed. This is not a great poet expressing some mighty vision,
this is a mourning father, speaking simply and plainly about his loss.

The other reason I love this poem is because it speaks of a feeling
that i can relate to - the half-guilty, half-surprised sensation of
remembering something serious and sad just when you were most enjoying
yourself. It's a feeling I can relate to well as I type this, because
looking through the Minstrels archive I realised just now that the 8th
of December (two days ago) was Agha Shahid Ali's third death
anniversary, and I completely forgot. So in a way this poem is a way of
making up for having forgotten. It's not a particularly good way, but I
think it's one that would have amused Shahid.

Aseem

[1]These labours of mine have not been entirely in vain, of course. As
a child of eight I remember being convinced that 'Daffodils' was kind
of cute. On sundry vacations in the countryside I've even managed to
read all of 'Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey' with mild
interest. And once, on a drunken dare I even got through most of 'The
World is too much with us'.

[Martin adds]

I was struck by Aseem's uneasy relationship with the poet Wordsworth because
it so closely mirrors the way I feel about his contemporary Shelley. I
wonder if it is the mark of a great poet to produce this kind of
polarisation in attitudes, and if the more mediocre poets evoke not an
enduring distaste but at most a bored indifference.

Marriage -- Gregory Corso

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1569) Marriage Should I get married? Should I be good? Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustus hood? Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries and she going just so far and I understanding why not getting angry saying You must feel! It's beautiful to feel! Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky - When she introduces me to her parents back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie, should I sit with my knees together on their 3rd degree sofa and not ask Where's the bathroom? How else to feel other than I am, often thinking Flash Gordon soap - O how terrible it must be for a young man seated before a family and the family thinking We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou! After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living? Should I tell them? Would they like me then? Say All right get married, we're losing a daughter but we're gaining a son - And should I then ask Where's the bathroom? O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded just wait to get at the drinks and food - And the priest! he looking at me as if I masturbated asking me Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife? And I trembling what to say say Pie Glue! I kiss the bride all those corny men slapping me on the back She's all yours, boy! Ha-ha-ha! And in their eyes you could see some obscene honeymoon going on - Then all that absurd rice and clanky cans and shoes Niagara Falls! Hordes of us! Husbands! Wives! Flowers! Chocolates! All streaming into cozy hotels All going to do the same thing tonight The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen The lobby zombies they knowing what The whistling elevator man he knowing Everybody knowing! I'd almost be inclined not to do anything! Stay up all night! Stare that hotel clerk in the eye! Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon! running rampant into those almost climactic suites yelling Radio belly! Cat shovel! O I'd live in Niagara forever! in a dark cave beneath the Falls I'd sit there the Mad Honeymooner devising ways to break marriages, a scourge of bigamy a saint of divorce - But I should get married I should be good How nice it'd be to come home to her and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen aproned young and lovely wanting my baby and so happy about me she burns the roast beef and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf! God what a husband I'd make! Yes, I should get married! So much to do! Like sneaking into Mr Jones' house late at night and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky! And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him When are you going to stop people killing whales! And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust - Yet if I should get married and it's Connecticut and snow and she gives birth to a child and I am sleepless, worn, up for nights, head bowed against a quiet window, the past behind me, finding myself in the most common of situations a trembling man knowledged with responsibility not twig-smear nor Roman coin soup- O what would that be like! Surely I'd give it for a nipple a rubber Tacitus For a rattle a bag of broken Bach records Tack Della Francesca all over its crib Sew the Greek alphabet on its bib And build for its playpen a roofless Parthenon No, I doubt I'd be that kind of father Not rural not snow no quiet window but hot smelly tight New York City seven flights up, roaches and rats in the walls a fat Reichian wife screeching over potatoes Get a job! And five nose running brats in love with Batman And the neighbors all toothless and dry haired like those hag masses of the 18th century all wanting to come in and watch TV The landlord wants his rent Grocery store Blue Cross Gas & Electric Knights of Columbus impossible to lie back and dream Telephone snow, ghost parking - No! I should not get married! I should never get married! But - imagine if I were married to a beautiful sophisticated woman tall and pale wearing an elegant black dress and long black gloves holding a cigarette holder in one hand and a highball in the other and we lived high up in a penthouse with a huge window from which we could see all of New York and even farther on clearer days No, can't imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream - O but what about love? I forget love not that I am incapable of love It's just that I see love as odd as wearing shoes - I never wanted to marry a girl who was like my mother And Ingrid Bergman was always impossible And there's maybe a girl now but she's already married And I don't like men and - But there's got to be somebody! Because what if I'm 60 years old and not married, all alone in a furnished room with pee stains on my underwear and everybody else is married! All the universe married but me! Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible then marriage would be possible - Like SHE in her lonely alien gaud waiting her Egyptian lover so i wait-bereft of 2,000 years and the bath of life. -- Gregory Corso

One of my all-time favourite poems. Every time I get invited to a friend's
wedding (and that happens with distressing regularity now) I pull out a copy of
this poem and read it. It's not just that it's a wildly funny poem (though it
is that too -  I still can't keep myself from laughing out loud every time I
read it) or one that, unlike many other beat poems, doesn't take itself too
seriously. It's the balance of it - the combination of a faux yet visionary
ecstacy ("Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust") with
snatches of quiet, understated yearning ("But there's got to be somebody!");
the juxtaposition of these simple yet vivid everyday scenes with some truly
startling imagery ("telephone snow, ghost parking", "take her not to movies,
but to cemeteries"); the vicious lampooning of stereotypes interspersed with
lines of true poetry ("woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky"
or "I see love as odd as wearing shoes"); the emergence of almost universal
themes from amidst some fairly contextual references.

It would have been easy for Corso to go too far here - he could easily have
made this just another juvenile rant against marriage. Instead he pulls of a
real masterpiece of a poem.

Aseem

[Links]

Biography:
  [broken link] http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=421

Some more Corso poems:
  http://www.rooknet.com/beatpage/writers/corso.html

A tribute by Robert Creeley:
  http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/creeley/corso.html

I'm not Lonely -- Nikki Giovanni

Guest poem submitted by Aseem:

(Poem #1540) I'm not Lonely i'm not lonely sleeping all alone you think i'm scared but i'm a big girl i don't cry or anything i have a great big bed to roll around in and lots of space and i don't dream bad dreams like i used to have that you were leaving me anymore now that you're gone i don't dream and no matter what you think i'm not lonely sleeping all alone -- Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni is (IMHO) one of the most under-represented poets on
Minstrels - you have just one poem by her! So figured I would put in one of
my favourites to even things up a little. Actually started thinking about
her after reading National Brotherhood Week, reading her more political
poems (see the Funeral of Martin Luther King Jr, for example) but finally
settled on this one to send in.

What I love about this poem is the aching simplicity of it - the almost
tearful courage of lines like "i'm a big girl / i don't cry or anthing" and
the bitter irony of getting over your bad dreams by having them come true
(also the brilliant double edge to "now that you're gone / i don't dream").
The real beauty here is that Giovanni does not protest too much - there's a
part of you that's tempted to believe her and there's a part of you that
knows it isn't true and you kind of get the sense that she doesn't believe
herself either. But would like to.

Aseem.