Tamerlane’s invaders scale the Rock of Alamut
And breach the Assassin’s citadel, fortress of Hasan-i-Sabbah.
Penetrating deeper and deeper along sinister corridors,
One unwary soldier, probing an unlit tunnel,
Drops with a shriek into the secret honey-store,
And, struggling like a fly in amber, drowns.
The legendary Hasan could not die like any mortal.
Sensing death’s call, he withdrew to his sanctum,
Instructing his attendants to wait three days, then enter.
Alone, he plunged ,with a smile, into a bath of vitriol,
Blissfully dissolving into the Absolute.
On the fourth day, when the door was opened,
Not a trace of the Master remained
In the hushed room, empty except for a raven
Glaring like a demon on its perch.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
In Her Praise
Do you know, have you heard
she is beautiful
as modulating sunlight on Moroccan city walls
as the water spider’s equilibrium
when he runs the meniscus chasing prey
as the mercury in a barometer
or the water in a well
never seen only sometimes heard
when a child drops a stone in
I seek her in recondite corners
a silhouette
a glimmer
a footstep or a giggle
a tightness in the stomach
a maggot in the mind
A swooning apple-tree
I break into blossom
for the air’s delectation
mysterious harmonies
gather me into the earth
Hippos in a mud-hole
we wallow in each other
she is beautiful
as modulating sunlight on Moroccan city walls
as the water spider’s equilibrium
when he runs the meniscus chasing prey
as the mercury in a barometer
or the water in a well
never seen only sometimes heard
when a child drops a stone in
I seek her in recondite corners
a silhouette
a glimmer
a footstep or a giggle
a tightness in the stomach
a maggot in the mind
A swooning apple-tree
I break into blossom
for the air’s delectation
mysterious harmonies
gather me into the earth
Hippos in a mud-hole
we wallow in each other
Charles Mingus
Couldn’t write a straight tune if he wanted to.
Couldn’t read music or keep time.
Couldn’t do anything the way others did it.
Swung at anyone who pissed him off, or pulled a knife, even.
Once threw a piano down the stairs in a rage.
Chased women all the time, white women, especially.
Talked non-stop, always ranting about some kind of mistreatment.
Cheated anyone to get his own way.
Bragged incessantly about himself.
Loved fine wines and exotic cuisines.
Lived rich and died broke.
Had a grin as wide as America.
A voice, a charm, a wit, a charisma, a splendour
That he carried around in his bass.
All that he saw and felt and learned
Went into that instrument,
Nothing was separate, nothing was wasted.
All he had was death and women.
And that sound.
Couldn’t read music or keep time.
Couldn’t do anything the way others did it.
Swung at anyone who pissed him off, or pulled a knife, even.
Once threw a piano down the stairs in a rage.
Chased women all the time, white women, especially.
Talked non-stop, always ranting about some kind of mistreatment.
Cheated anyone to get his own way.
Bragged incessantly about himself.
Loved fine wines and exotic cuisines.
Lived rich and died broke.
Had a grin as wide as America.
A voice, a charm, a wit, a charisma, a splendour
That he carried around in his bass.
All that he saw and felt and learned
Went into that instrument,
Nothing was separate, nothing was wasted.
All he had was death and women.
And that sound.
The Green Man
In an ancient village church, still, so still,
Smelling of wood and stone,
The dust of memory imbuing the air,
I look up and spot the Green Men
Inhabiting the roof bosses,
Snarling, sighing, following me with their eyes,
Disgorging vegetation from their mouths,
A puissant uncanny tribe.
Chartres in the rain:
Stones deepen to brown-orange and blue-grey,
Walls and buttresses glisten,
Portals’ columns and carvings shine.
Nourished at the roots, the whole cathedral
Swells, replenished, green hints in the stone,
The recesses, arches, gables and tabernacles
Revealing some of their mysteries.
Water pouring down the transepts’ facades
Issues from the spandrels, north and south,
Through bestial mouths, jetting in gouts
To splash on steps below...This is the cross-bar
Where the north-south line of time
Transects the east-west line of eternity.
Corbelled out on brackets, carved in waves
Of Deluge, the Green Men and gargoyles
Swim through the sky, as earthly waters
Pour and pour, transfigured into life itself,
And the devout soul, bearing witness,
Leaves this place with newfound vigour,
To bless the world with holy water.
Viriditas: the Divine Word penetrates
Body and soul, here in the branches
Of the Tree.
I have seen the Green Man’s face
In so many places, peering out from the swirl:
Wise, demonic, sinister, angelic,
Contemplative, prophetic, idiotic, frowning,
Benevolent, weary, youthful, primitive,
Leonine, chivalrous, fantastical, amused,
Mournful, bestial, solemn, ethereal,
Omniscient, somnambulant, professorial,
Mischievous, filling the woodland
With laughter, praise and song.
Smelling of wood and stone,
The dust of memory imbuing the air,
I look up and spot the Green Men
Inhabiting the roof bosses,
Snarling, sighing, following me with their eyes,
Disgorging vegetation from their mouths,
A puissant uncanny tribe.
Chartres in the rain:
Stones deepen to brown-orange and blue-grey,
Walls and buttresses glisten,
Portals’ columns and carvings shine.
Nourished at the roots, the whole cathedral
Swells, replenished, green hints in the stone,
The recesses, arches, gables and tabernacles
Revealing some of their mysteries.
Water pouring down the transepts’ facades
Issues from the spandrels, north and south,
Through bestial mouths, jetting in gouts
To splash on steps below...This is the cross-bar
Where the north-south line of time
Transects the east-west line of eternity.
Corbelled out on brackets, carved in waves
Of Deluge, the Green Men and gargoyles
Swim through the sky, as earthly waters
Pour and pour, transfigured into life itself,
And the devout soul, bearing witness,
Leaves this place with newfound vigour,
To bless the world with holy water.
Viriditas: the Divine Word penetrates
Body and soul, here in the branches
Of the Tree.
I have seen the Green Man’s face
In so many places, peering out from the swirl:
Wise, demonic, sinister, angelic,
Contemplative, prophetic, idiotic, frowning,
Benevolent, weary, youthful, primitive,
Leonine, chivalrous, fantastical, amused,
Mournful, bestial, solemn, ethereal,
Omniscient, somnambulant, professorial,
Mischievous, filling the woodland
With laughter, praise and song.
Thomas Hardy as a Boy
The Dorset boy lies on his back in the grass,
Squinting at the summer sky from under a straw hat;
Why can he not stay this way forever
And never have to grow into a man?
He knows every clod of this county,
Every field, hedge and gate, every tree’s silhouette,
The depth and temperament of every stream,
The works of fairies, the scenes of ancestral crimes.
And words emerge from him like miller-moths
From the mouths of the dying.
Solitary Tom sits by, silent, unnoticed,
Watching others sing, play, chatter and jest.
Till the day he dies he will never forget
That smile, so sweet, a nameless beauty gave him
As she passed by on horseback
In the fragrant August lane.
At Dorchester prison he stands, transfixed,
Next to the creaking gallows, staring up
At the murderess who slit her husband’s throat.
Beautiful, she dangles against the rainy sky,
Her black silk gown wound tightly round her,
Her face half-visible through a mask of wet cloth.
Sketch-pad in hand, he walks from village to village,
Prentice architect, surveying ancient churches,
Touching their stones with a lover’s hands,
Tracing their lineaments with a pencil,
His quiet eyes lighting on chronicles and dreams.
Squinting at the summer sky from under a straw hat;
Why can he not stay this way forever
And never have to grow into a man?
He knows every clod of this county,
Every field, hedge and gate, every tree’s silhouette,
The depth and temperament of every stream,
The works of fairies, the scenes of ancestral crimes.
And words emerge from him like miller-moths
From the mouths of the dying.
Solitary Tom sits by, silent, unnoticed,
Watching others sing, play, chatter and jest.
Till the day he dies he will never forget
That smile, so sweet, a nameless beauty gave him
As she passed by on horseback
In the fragrant August lane.
At Dorchester prison he stands, transfixed,
Next to the creaking gallows, staring up
At the murderess who slit her husband’s throat.
Beautiful, she dangles against the rainy sky,
Her black silk gown wound tightly round her,
Her face half-visible through a mask of wet cloth.
Sketch-pad in hand, he walks from village to village,
Prentice architect, surveying ancient churches,
Touching their stones with a lover’s hands,
Tracing their lineaments with a pencil,
His quiet eyes lighting on chronicles and dreams.
Lightning Bird of Africa
Africa, where spirits abound,
The baleful and the benign!
The seer breathes life into the bones;
They open their eyes,
Smile, walk and speak.
Man from elsewhere, who are you?
What do you dance?
I dance the crocodile,
The antelope,
The aardvark,
The baboon,
The porcupine.
In the beginning was the Great Serpent,
Whose seven thousand coils gave birth to the stars
And the earth, gouging out rivers and streams.
See him now, moving in the river,
Lashing up waves in the sea;
See him rainbow the sky.
A woman astride a quern
Grinds the grain and sings.
A woman strikes her grindstone
And it rings like a gong.
Perfect. Without flaws.
The sky hears it and smiles with pleasure.
All across Africa,
The stones are growing, singing to themselves.
The new chief at his inauguration
Swallows a crocodile stone.
It is his head, his life, his power.
Have you seen how a captured snake,
After that first wild battle,
Never shows the same ferocity again,
Its spirit broken,
The will to be free lessening by the day?
A hamerkop stands in a pool of water,
Staring intently at its own reflection.
It knows the unknown.
It knows those things that vanish
When you look at them.
It stands alone.
It cannot be pointed at.
It indicates wizards, for it shares their powers.
Once in many generations,
The Lightning Bird,
Pursued by wind and rain,
Assumes human form.
A rock-gong hums
And the hills throb with one fundamental note.
Bare red mountains,
Waterless citadels with the smell of leopards,
Caves filled with paintings.
On one wall a witch doctor,
In mask and tail,
Poised on the ball of one foot,
Reaches out his hand
To cup an impala’s head.
The creature stretches forward its neck,
Meeting the sorcerer mouth to mouth
In a kiss,
The two of them sharing breath.
In the impala’s dark uterus
A pair of eyes stare out,
Bright and watchful.
The first men left their footprints
And we must follow,
In a world black, white and red.
The man struck by lightning
Got up and walked away.
The trees looked after him.
The rocks sang to him.
He wandered with leopards and antelopes.
He vanished in the mountains with the evening sun.
Under a thorn tree the black bull is sacrificed,
While the women chant shimmering praise;
A hammer stone strikes between the horns,
The throat is slit.
Let it rain, let it rain!
In the old days the people buried their dead
Sitting up, facing the rising sun.
But now the world is sad and the land is thin.
The old customs are forgotten.
But still there is water,
And water knows everything,
All secrets,
Mine and yours.
The baleful and the benign!
The seer breathes life into the bones;
They open their eyes,
Smile, walk and speak.
Man from elsewhere, who are you?
What do you dance?
I dance the crocodile,
The antelope,
The aardvark,
The baboon,
The porcupine.
In the beginning was the Great Serpent,
Whose seven thousand coils gave birth to the stars
And the earth, gouging out rivers and streams.
See him now, moving in the river,
Lashing up waves in the sea;
See him rainbow the sky.
A woman astride a quern
Grinds the grain and sings.
A woman strikes her grindstone
And it rings like a gong.
Perfect. Without flaws.
The sky hears it and smiles with pleasure.
All across Africa,
The stones are growing, singing to themselves.
The new chief at his inauguration
Swallows a crocodile stone.
It is his head, his life, his power.
Have you seen how a captured snake,
After that first wild battle,
Never shows the same ferocity again,
Its spirit broken,
The will to be free lessening by the day?
A hamerkop stands in a pool of water,
Staring intently at its own reflection.
It knows the unknown.
It knows those things that vanish
When you look at them.
It stands alone.
It cannot be pointed at.
It indicates wizards, for it shares their powers.
Once in many generations,
The Lightning Bird,
Pursued by wind and rain,
Assumes human form.
A rock-gong hums
And the hills throb with one fundamental note.
Bare red mountains,
Waterless citadels with the smell of leopards,
Caves filled with paintings.
On one wall a witch doctor,
In mask and tail,
Poised on the ball of one foot,
Reaches out his hand
To cup an impala’s head.
The creature stretches forward its neck,
Meeting the sorcerer mouth to mouth
In a kiss,
The two of them sharing breath.
In the impala’s dark uterus
A pair of eyes stare out,
Bright and watchful.
The first men left their footprints
And we must follow,
In a world black, white and red.
The man struck by lightning
Got up and walked away.
The trees looked after him.
The rocks sang to him.
He wandered with leopards and antelopes.
He vanished in the mountains with the evening sun.
Under a thorn tree the black bull is sacrificed,
While the women chant shimmering praise;
A hammer stone strikes between the horns,
The throat is slit.
Let it rain, let it rain!
In the old days the people buried their dead
Sitting up, facing the rising sun.
But now the world is sad and the land is thin.
The old customs are forgotten.
But still there is water,
And water knows everything,
All secrets,
Mine and yours.
In The Days of Ancient China
1
Tsung Ping loved landscapes more than any man.
In the west, he ascended Mounts Ching and Wu,
In the south he stood on Heng’s summit.
On Mount Heng he constructed a hut
And lived in tranquiliity, until he fell ill
And was forced to return home to Chiang-ling.
“My wandering days are over, “he lamented,
“It befalls me to meditate on the Tao,
Only to roam in dreams...”
All that he had seen his travels
He painted on the walls of his house.
2
Po Chu-i, in official disfavour,
Ended up in a rat-hole on the Yangtze,
Blue-shadowed by the peaks of Lu-Shan.
Tramping the hills, he chose a site
And contrived a thatched cottage retreat.
One night’s lodging there brought rest to the body,
Two nights were a guarantee of peace;
Three nights and nothing existed at all
But the bamboo’s dripping
Amid rocks, clouds and trees.
He sowed the pool with lotus
And stocked it with fish,
And a pine-shaded torrent sang in his ears.
Springwater pearls trickled over the ledges,
Turning to mist on the breeze.
Tsung Ping loved landscapes more than any man.
In the west, he ascended Mounts Ching and Wu,
In the south he stood on Heng’s summit.
On Mount Heng he constructed a hut
And lived in tranquiliity, until he fell ill
And was forced to return home to Chiang-ling.
“My wandering days are over, “he lamented,
“It befalls me to meditate on the Tao,
Only to roam in dreams...”
All that he had seen his travels
He painted on the walls of his house.
2
Po Chu-i, in official disfavour,
Ended up in a rat-hole on the Yangtze,
Blue-shadowed by the peaks of Lu-Shan.
Tramping the hills, he chose a site
And contrived a thatched cottage retreat.
One night’s lodging there brought rest to the body,
Two nights were a guarantee of peace;
Three nights and nothing existed at all
But the bamboo’s dripping
Amid rocks, clouds and trees.
He sowed the pool with lotus
And stocked it with fish,
And a pine-shaded torrent sang in his ears.
Springwater pearls trickled over the ledges,
Turning to mist on the breeze.
The Napoleonists
It is always a question of fathers:
The good papa, distant in his foreign realm,
The rotten dad here at home.
A mad god rules the centre.
The sons of despots become despots, too,
Rulers of their own rival courts.
They ride with Napoleon in the wilderness,
Banished from the corrupt citadel,
Rallying the righteous legions of the dead
Against the present, under the future’s flag.
Only revolt is pure and religious:
Mercurial escapists, spitting cobras
Of the mind, they relish their venom,
Yet believing their hatred benign,
All too ready to turn the dagger
Against themselves, in vicious despair.
Dandy’s nonchalance turns to violence,
Persuaded of its own moral right,
Against the loved detested patriarch.
The cold moon promises final defeat,
After grand performances of nursery games,
The exercise of narcissistic martyrdom
In “revolution” or “enlightened reform”.
And all these faces, theoretically loved,
Are but masks in a sinister charade.
The good papa, distant in his foreign realm,
The rotten dad here at home.
A mad god rules the centre.
The sons of despots become despots, too,
Rulers of their own rival courts.
They ride with Napoleon in the wilderness,
Banished from the corrupt citadel,
Rallying the righteous legions of the dead
Against the present, under the future’s flag.
Only revolt is pure and religious:
Mercurial escapists, spitting cobras
Of the mind, they relish their venom,
Yet believing their hatred benign,
All too ready to turn the dagger
Against themselves, in vicious despair.
Dandy’s nonchalance turns to violence,
Persuaded of its own moral right,
Against the loved detested patriarch.
The cold moon promises final defeat,
After grand performances of nursery games,
The exercise of narcissistic martyrdom
In “revolution” or “enlightened reform”.
And all these faces, theoretically loved,
Are but masks in a sinister charade.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Secrets
These secrets are Promethean fire.
A path, a riddle, a jewel, an oath...which will you choose?
Those who answer the Sphinx incorrectly are torn to pieces and devoured.
Insiders, outsiders, guarding the unspeakable with circumlocutions, we draw boundaries round names. Transparency may tempt us, at times, yet we remain, with guilty gratitude, opaque.
Who controls this information? Who penetrates the enemy’s defences? Who is augmented and who is reduced?
What is open closes, what is closed opens-under the spell of a secret, a formula for creation and destruction, a chemical catalyst.
Bodily excretions, mental secretions...here goes another stab at definition, another attempt to put birds in cages.
The initiate is led through gloomy mazes, by vertiginous precipices, into a monster's den, a coven of torments. Until he reaches the Holy of Holies and the hallowed words.
I must have a confessor. Someone to show sympathy, someone to intrigue and shock, to manipulate with flaunted weakness and concealed strength. I name my temptations the better to resist them. Dear listener, will you interpret my indiscretions and guide me to release? I am here to seduce, to exploit, to elicit responses.
Invisible crimes infest the air. Who does not crave the exposure of justice? Who does not wish to unmask?
The devilish secret is stolen and then offered as a gift.Why, friend, are you reluctant to accept it? It is simply a trade, a property.
This gossip is a substitute for understanding. Not to reel at dangerous complexity. Not to blink and look again.
Did I exist? Did I have an effect? I dabbled in judgements, dealt a few blows, kept most things to myself.
A path, a riddle, a jewel, an oath...which will you choose?
Those who answer the Sphinx incorrectly are torn to pieces and devoured.
Insiders, outsiders, guarding the unspeakable with circumlocutions, we draw boundaries round names. Transparency may tempt us, at times, yet we remain, with guilty gratitude, opaque.
Who controls this information? Who penetrates the enemy’s defences? Who is augmented and who is reduced?
What is open closes, what is closed opens-under the spell of a secret, a formula for creation and destruction, a chemical catalyst.
Bodily excretions, mental secretions...here goes another stab at definition, another attempt to put birds in cages.
The initiate is led through gloomy mazes, by vertiginous precipices, into a monster's den, a coven of torments. Until he reaches the Holy of Holies and the hallowed words.
I must have a confessor. Someone to show sympathy, someone to intrigue and shock, to manipulate with flaunted weakness and concealed strength. I name my temptations the better to resist them. Dear listener, will you interpret my indiscretions and guide me to release? I am here to seduce, to exploit, to elicit responses.
Invisible crimes infest the air. Who does not crave the exposure of justice? Who does not wish to unmask?
The devilish secret is stolen and then offered as a gift.Why, friend, are you reluctant to accept it? It is simply a trade, a property.
This gossip is a substitute for understanding. Not to reel at dangerous complexity. Not to blink and look again.
Did I exist? Did I have an effect? I dabbled in judgements, dealt a few blows, kept most things to myself.
Black Widow Pulsar
Brittle rock cries out.
Glitter-birds consecrate the air.
Prayers float downriver.
Statues look around.
Lava bubbles up.
Centre and circumference are one.
A woolly mammoth is raised intact from the ice.
How can the material convolutions of a brain
Contain a mind?
Through spring the alien rainbow woman strolls.
Warm reefs grow coruscations
While human generations live and die.
A small boy passes his finger through a candleflame, delighted.
A jeweller sits at his table, shaping a diamond with infinite patience.
How much damage have I done in my life?
How much damage?
Who built the cyclopean cities,
The semi-visible capitals of time?
Stones into plants into animals into men.
The somnambulist walks among the dead,
Faces he never really looked at.
The funambulist sets out on the rope,
Wobbling, stopping, advancing step by step.
In a frozen rock-wave an ammonite is sleeping.
A bloody hare soaks in a jug.
The marketplace is deserted.
Where have all the noisy demons gone?
A man with forged documents crosses the border.
A red horse canters alone in a field
Where the sun plays dice.
The glittering fleece hangs on a tree
On an island at the end of the world.
The enemies of poetry sit in contracting rooms,
Counting grains of dust
And checking the exchange rate.
Mountains inverted in a lake.
A squirrel leaps between two branches.
Lightning flickers under the sleeper’s eyelids.
A green snake sheds its skin in the undergrowth.
An ox’s carcass shines in the hot sun.
The stranger will come as foretold.
Glitter-birds consecrate the air.
Prayers float downriver.
Statues look around.
Lava bubbles up.
Centre and circumference are one.
A woolly mammoth is raised intact from the ice.
How can the material convolutions of a brain
Contain a mind?
Through spring the alien rainbow woman strolls.
Warm reefs grow coruscations
While human generations live and die.
A small boy passes his finger through a candleflame, delighted.
A jeweller sits at his table, shaping a diamond with infinite patience.
How much damage have I done in my life?
How much damage?
Who built the cyclopean cities,
The semi-visible capitals of time?
Stones into plants into animals into men.
The somnambulist walks among the dead,
Faces he never really looked at.
The funambulist sets out on the rope,
Wobbling, stopping, advancing step by step.
In a frozen rock-wave an ammonite is sleeping.
A bloody hare soaks in a jug.
The marketplace is deserted.
Where have all the noisy demons gone?
A man with forged documents crosses the border.
A red horse canters alone in a field
Where the sun plays dice.
The glittering fleece hangs on a tree
On an island at the end of the world.
The enemies of poetry sit in contracting rooms,
Counting grains of dust
And checking the exchange rate.
Mountains inverted in a lake.
A squirrel leaps between two branches.
Lightning flickers under the sleeper’s eyelids.
A green snake sheds its skin in the undergrowth.
An ox’s carcass shines in the hot sun.
The stranger will come as foretold.
Henry James
History’s passenger, the fastidious American
Observes and records with cool discernment,
Passionate for art, not for passion.
All these adventures in the mind-
Indirections, omissions, anxiety, control...
A lonely old celibate in an English villa,
Surrounding himself with precious artefacts,
He rewrites their beauty with critical élan,
His solitary solace this difficult craft
That wrings a man out, squeezes him dry.
The last springtime of the century:
Mourning a absent young ephebe
Held off-perhaps wrongly-but tenderly-
He sees, in the mirror, grey streaks in his beard...
Too late? Too late? He must begin again,
Believing in new discoveries and ambitions,
To ensphere the soul entire,
Open himself to all he has neglected,
Break out to the great world beyond
And share in unpretentious human warmth.
Too long concealed and muffled by this beard,
With sudden resolution, he shaves
And stares back at the clean rejuvenated face,
Domed skull, strong nose, sensuous lips,
The deep blue lyncean eyes of the Master.
In his mind, a new book is taking shape:
His grave, measured voice sounds through
The hosue, dictating to an amanuensis,
Evolving long sinuous sphyngine sentences.
On his bicycle, he hums along seaside lanes,
Enacting his mind’s looping motions,
Winding in and out with aristocratic aplomb.
Observes and records with cool discernment,
Passionate for art, not for passion.
All these adventures in the mind-
Indirections, omissions, anxiety, control...
A lonely old celibate in an English villa,
Surrounding himself with precious artefacts,
He rewrites their beauty with critical élan,
His solitary solace this difficult craft
That wrings a man out, squeezes him dry.
The last springtime of the century:
Mourning a absent young ephebe
Held off-perhaps wrongly-but tenderly-
He sees, in the mirror, grey streaks in his beard...
Too late? Too late? He must begin again,
Believing in new discoveries and ambitions,
To ensphere the soul entire,
Open himself to all he has neglected,
Break out to the great world beyond
And share in unpretentious human warmth.
Too long concealed and muffled by this beard,
With sudden resolution, he shaves
And stares back at the clean rejuvenated face,
Domed skull, strong nose, sensuous lips,
The deep blue lyncean eyes of the Master.
In his mind, a new book is taking shape:
His grave, measured voice sounds through
The hosue, dictating to an amanuensis,
Evolving long sinuous sphyngine sentences.
On his bicycle, he hums along seaside lanes,
Enacting his mind’s looping motions,
Winding in and out with aristocratic aplomb.
Samuel Johnson
Large unpredictable hands zoom in, assail him,
Freakish through his eyes’ semi-darkness,
Whudding round his head’s cracked bell,
Violating with a will to correct.
Little Samuel sits in scrofulous stupor,
Defiantly gulping down the painful world,
Wills himself independent, responsible,
Not to blame the world for anything,
But cure himself with unceasing ambition.
What if disease should unman him,
Make him crave self-pity, and forfeit
The hopeful energy to strive and fight?
The inner man is madness, treachery, fear...
He gropes at the solid world for support,
To sober his erratic mind with fact.
The young man stares up at the town clock,
Too stunned by lassitude even to recognise
The hour. Suicide or lunacy? Reason has
No jurisdiction here. Every resolution
Disillusions itself, stranded in self-loathing.
Mile after mile, the cumbersome idiot
Tramps the roads, trying to forget himself,
To outpace the demons of sloth.
Self-persecuting his soul with scruples,
He teeters, besieged, in self-revenge,
Bedevilled by angry tics and compulsions.
Imagine, imagine, imagine!-Attack the void
With ferocious invention, toil, travail
To outmanoeuvre despair...or die...
On a Lincolnshire hill, with friends,
Johnson surveys the steep slope, mischievously
Grinning: “Why, I haven’t had a proper roll
In ages!”In a moment, he empties his pockets
And lies on the edge, then launches himself,
Turning over and over, bouncing down
To the bottom, then clambers to his feet,
Huffing and laughing, big face flushed
With childish triumph.
Sleepless, the sage paces up and down his rooms,
Measuring out the floor with heavy tread,
-Will it bear his weight, his confusion and grief?-
Contriving ritual patterns with heels and toe,
Soothing himself with arithmetical exercises.
In the neighbouring room sleeps a sick young
Prostitute, a hollow-cheeked wretch he had lifted
Out of the utter the night beforehand carried
Safely home on his broad back. The destitute
Would always find succour under his roof,
Where he returned, always, with pockets empty,
All the coins given in alms to street-beggars.
Hunched at table, through the night, he hews
Out solemn stately periods, solid bridges
To hold him to the earth and carry him over.
Freakish through his eyes’ semi-darkness,
Whudding round his head’s cracked bell,
Violating with a will to correct.
Little Samuel sits in scrofulous stupor,
Defiantly gulping down the painful world,
Wills himself independent, responsible,
Not to blame the world for anything,
But cure himself with unceasing ambition.
What if disease should unman him,
Make him crave self-pity, and forfeit
The hopeful energy to strive and fight?
The inner man is madness, treachery, fear...
He gropes at the solid world for support,
To sober his erratic mind with fact.
The young man stares up at the town clock,
Too stunned by lassitude even to recognise
The hour. Suicide or lunacy? Reason has
No jurisdiction here. Every resolution
Disillusions itself, stranded in self-loathing.
Mile after mile, the cumbersome idiot
Tramps the roads, trying to forget himself,
To outpace the demons of sloth.
Self-persecuting his soul with scruples,
He teeters, besieged, in self-revenge,
Bedevilled by angry tics and compulsions.
Imagine, imagine, imagine!-Attack the void
With ferocious invention, toil, travail
To outmanoeuvre despair...or die...
On a Lincolnshire hill, with friends,
Johnson surveys the steep slope, mischievously
Grinning: “Why, I haven’t had a proper roll
In ages!”In a moment, he empties his pockets
And lies on the edge, then launches himself,
Turning over and over, bouncing down
To the bottom, then clambers to his feet,
Huffing and laughing, big face flushed
With childish triumph.
Sleepless, the sage paces up and down his rooms,
Measuring out the floor with heavy tread,
-Will it bear his weight, his confusion and grief?-
Contriving ritual patterns with heels and toe,
Soothing himself with arithmetical exercises.
In the neighbouring room sleeps a sick young
Prostitute, a hollow-cheeked wretch he had lifted
Out of the utter the night beforehand carried
Safely home on his broad back. The destitute
Would always find succour under his roof,
Where he returned, always, with pockets empty,
All the coins given in alms to street-beggars.
Hunched at table, through the night, he hews
Out solemn stately periods, solid bridges
To hold him to the earth and carry him over.
The Initiation (Papua New Guinea)
Sinuous, impeded current, cargoeing terremote debris,
All the soil sucked from the screes,
Frothing like a sick horse, the river churns downward,
Kicking hillocks dropped from heaven.
Rock-dice spin amid panting vapour,
Ferrous waters oiled with plant decay.
Stumble, stumble through strangling purgatory,
Purblind through thickets, lianas, thorns.
Scratches. Ant-bites. Hunger. Rotting skin.
Bellyaches. Isolation. Fever. Eyes won’t focus.
Paltry bivouacs; leaves clatter; lukewarm rain.
Bottlegreen monotony, falling, bruising.
Cold bone-crack nights of mosquito savagery,
Led astray, disoriented, by a false twinkle,
Drowning in chaos of flagellating branches,
Knotted and noosed nothing straight or true...
Rainblack bark: leeches stretch and lean,
Waving as they wait to fasten.
Cobble-scouring river gushes slower, darker.
Slowly loose-clustered bats flap across pink sky.
A subtle orange sun goes to ground
Behind the village. Naked children, balanced
On slick black branches, launch into the water,
Kicking as they crash; they surface, shrieking
With joy. Tinfoil moisture peels down
Treebrown skin, as they monkey up
Their makeshift divingboards again.
Slimy slugbodied clouds dawdle over
The treetops, where spirit houses hide
In forests enclaves, under the mottled full moon.
Morning miasma. A sprightly canoe
Cuts the channel, sticky new cobwebs
Snapping in the paddlers’ faces,
Damp air sickly with overripe fruit.
Bat-squadrons whud away to somnolent asylums.
Egrets lodged on drift-logs poise their scissor profiles.
The crocodile awakes...initiates sleep with their fear...
The panting river shimmers, mercury near boiling...
Tick-tock: hand-drums, a monster stamping...
In the crocodile’s nest, the threshing floor
Of manhood, beaten, bleeding, mud-shrouded
Sleepwalkers dance...submitted to perfect pain,
The delving knifepoint’s dreamy shock...
Dueting parent flutes lull the little ones to sleep.
Shavenheaded, scarified, they sing out
Their suffering, tortured and mocked
In the hallowed arena, forbidden the privileges
Of men, to please a cruel loving god.
All the soil sucked from the screes,
Frothing like a sick horse, the river churns downward,
Kicking hillocks dropped from heaven.
Rock-dice spin amid panting vapour,
Ferrous waters oiled with plant decay.
Stumble, stumble through strangling purgatory,
Purblind through thickets, lianas, thorns.
Scratches. Ant-bites. Hunger. Rotting skin.
Bellyaches. Isolation. Fever. Eyes won’t focus.
Paltry bivouacs; leaves clatter; lukewarm rain.
Bottlegreen monotony, falling, bruising.
Cold bone-crack nights of mosquito savagery,
Led astray, disoriented, by a false twinkle,
Drowning in chaos of flagellating branches,
Knotted and noosed nothing straight or true...
Rainblack bark: leeches stretch and lean,
Waving as they wait to fasten.
Cobble-scouring river gushes slower, darker.
Slowly loose-clustered bats flap across pink sky.
A subtle orange sun goes to ground
Behind the village. Naked children, balanced
On slick black branches, launch into the water,
Kicking as they crash; they surface, shrieking
With joy. Tinfoil moisture peels down
Treebrown skin, as they monkey up
Their makeshift divingboards again.
Slimy slugbodied clouds dawdle over
The treetops, where spirit houses hide
In forests enclaves, under the mottled full moon.
Morning miasma. A sprightly canoe
Cuts the channel, sticky new cobwebs
Snapping in the paddlers’ faces,
Damp air sickly with overripe fruit.
Bat-squadrons whud away to somnolent asylums.
Egrets lodged on drift-logs poise their scissor profiles.
The crocodile awakes...initiates sleep with their fear...
The panting river shimmers, mercury near boiling...
Tick-tock: hand-drums, a monster stamping...
In the crocodile’s nest, the threshing floor
Of manhood, beaten, bleeding, mud-shrouded
Sleepwalkers dance...submitted to perfect pain,
The delving knifepoint’s dreamy shock...
Dueting parent flutes lull the little ones to sleep.
Shavenheaded, scarified, they sing out
Their suffering, tortured and mocked
In the hallowed arena, forbidden the privileges
Of men, to please a cruel loving god.
Nichiren Shoshu
Always the ten worlds, from moment to moment-
Hell, hunger, animality, anger, tranquillity,
Rapture, learning and realisation,
Boddihisattva, buddhahood!
Infinitely fluctuating mind, feverish merry-go-round...
You worry at dire imaginings,
Slander yourself with grimacing glee...
From hell to heaven the road is short but steep.
Hunger, hunger...desire loves only itself...
Who but you can turn poison into elixir?
Shakyamuni, walking in the Deer Park,
Came upon a deer lying stricken by an arrow;
Two learned Brahmins stood there, arguing
Earnestly the nature and meaning of death,
And ,turning to the stranger, asked his opinion.
Shakyamuni, silently, simply knelt
And pulled the shaft from the suffering animal’s side.
The urge to live and live, and never die,
Clumsy destructive greed,
All the animal dread in your instincts,
Making hostile and blind...
Angry idiot, attached and detached,
Suprerior, so superior (to what?),
Feigning benevolence, righteousness, propriety,
Disfigured underneath...
Contemptuous one, is it fame you want,
Is it success?
Human, be true, be tranquil,
Excellent and wise in every motion.
Do you smother yourself in sloth?
Do you fear the risks of change?
Rapture of fulfilled desire-
All formlessness and form-
The ridiculous orgasm-gone!
Your goodness may imperil you more than your evil.
In everyone is a mother’s devotion,
The vacuum is a plenum of love,
Absorbing all evil, unlocking all prisons
In an everlasting instant.
When there is war in a single particle,
How can there be peace anywhere?
If the soul condescends or begrudges,
So much good will is undone.
The entire world is latency,
The seen from the unseen, here and not here,
Memories now unconscious, now manifest,
Cherry blossoms appearing and disappearing as they will.
The cause is the effect.
Miraculously, exquisitely strict and harmonious-
The laws, the connections everywhere!
Each moment offers the gift to choose
And become.
Hell, hunger, animality, anger, tranquillity,
Rapture, learning and realisation,
Boddihisattva, buddhahood!
Infinitely fluctuating mind, feverish merry-go-round...
You worry at dire imaginings,
Slander yourself with grimacing glee...
From hell to heaven the road is short but steep.
Hunger, hunger...desire loves only itself...
Who but you can turn poison into elixir?
Shakyamuni, walking in the Deer Park,
Came upon a deer lying stricken by an arrow;
Two learned Brahmins stood there, arguing
Earnestly the nature and meaning of death,
And ,turning to the stranger, asked his opinion.
Shakyamuni, silently, simply knelt
And pulled the shaft from the suffering animal’s side.
The urge to live and live, and never die,
Clumsy destructive greed,
All the animal dread in your instincts,
Making hostile and blind...
Angry idiot, attached and detached,
Suprerior, so superior (to what?),
Feigning benevolence, righteousness, propriety,
Disfigured underneath...
Contemptuous one, is it fame you want,
Is it success?
Human, be true, be tranquil,
Excellent and wise in every motion.
Do you smother yourself in sloth?
Do you fear the risks of change?
Rapture of fulfilled desire-
All formlessness and form-
The ridiculous orgasm-gone!
Your goodness may imperil you more than your evil.
In everyone is a mother’s devotion,
The vacuum is a plenum of love,
Absorbing all evil, unlocking all prisons
In an everlasting instant.
When there is war in a single particle,
How can there be peace anywhere?
If the soul condescends or begrudges,
So much good will is undone.
The entire world is latency,
The seen from the unseen, here and not here,
Memories now unconscious, now manifest,
Cherry blossoms appearing and disappearing as they will.
The cause is the effect.
Miraculously, exquisitely strict and harmonious-
The laws, the connections everywhere!
Each moment offers the gift to choose
And become.
The Phoenicians
From wilderness they came the ocean’s Bedouin,
Their vessels indomitable camels saddled,
The watery wastes their pasture and delight,
Roaming far from cities’ clenched fists,
Their liberty in impermanence, in perpetual motion,
the night sky their flickering compass and dream.
They arrive, do there business, disappear again,
A voluble people, with thin canny features,
Trading wares found only in their ships’ holds,
Hinting at shores no mere Greek ever trod;
And many an Athenian captain’s cry of discovery
Dies on his lips as a rounds a newfound headland,
Only to find the Phoenicians there before him.
Their hooded agents stand behind the throne
Of Egypt, and mingle at the highest courts,
Whispering in the ears of Eastern kings.
Even Alexander’s eyes are dark with envy
At these mysterious seafowl gliding, untouchable,
In their element, masters of infinite chance.
Yes, he, Alexander, will break their proud wings
And forbid them, cast the back onto land
In abjection, drain the ocean from under them,
Laughing to see them marooned, undone!
There shall be no demi-gods but he alone!
Who, frittering sand through superstitious fingers,
Riddles the riddle of glass? You Lebanese mages
Inexplicably turn the sombre into light.
Little murex shells plucked from shallows
Are milked with tender cunning for their secret
Splendour-that stately purple cloth that lies
Nonchalantly on monarchs’ and senators’ shoulders.
Cockleshell boats cast off into the chartless,
Caulked and buoyed audaciously, risking all
On the wind’s evil eye, the sailors striking
Bargains with the gods, from dawn to dawn.
Jezebel Phoenicia- Europe astride the white bull;
Aphrodite’s bare feet on the sands of Paphos,
As she wades ashore, out of the shimmering East...
Hawk nosed Adonis, that pungent brown Semite,
Is smelted and recast in foreign climes;
Dionysus, dragon in a bubbling chalice,
Breathes fire into Crete and Hellas,
Beer-bibbers’ nemesis, man-shaped vine...
Aleph, beth, daleth...ox’s head, house, door...
Merchants’ tally, the sea’s exclamations,
Crane-wings’ casual genius on the air!
Notches in the tongue bespeak the tempest,
History’s roaring assaults and weird lulls,
The longing for a firm and bounteous shore...
Their vessels indomitable camels saddled,
The watery wastes their pasture and delight,
Roaming far from cities’ clenched fists,
Their liberty in impermanence, in perpetual motion,
the night sky their flickering compass and dream.
They arrive, do there business, disappear again,
A voluble people, with thin canny features,
Trading wares found only in their ships’ holds,
Hinting at shores no mere Greek ever trod;
And many an Athenian captain’s cry of discovery
Dies on his lips as a rounds a newfound headland,
Only to find the Phoenicians there before him.
Their hooded agents stand behind the throne
Of Egypt, and mingle at the highest courts,
Whispering in the ears of Eastern kings.
Even Alexander’s eyes are dark with envy
At these mysterious seafowl gliding, untouchable,
In their element, masters of infinite chance.
Yes, he, Alexander, will break their proud wings
And forbid them, cast the back onto land
In abjection, drain the ocean from under them,
Laughing to see them marooned, undone!
There shall be no demi-gods but he alone!
Who, frittering sand through superstitious fingers,
Riddles the riddle of glass? You Lebanese mages
Inexplicably turn the sombre into light.
Little murex shells plucked from shallows
Are milked with tender cunning for their secret
Splendour-that stately purple cloth that lies
Nonchalantly on monarchs’ and senators’ shoulders.
Cockleshell boats cast off into the chartless,
Caulked and buoyed audaciously, risking all
On the wind’s evil eye, the sailors striking
Bargains with the gods, from dawn to dawn.
Jezebel Phoenicia- Europe astride the white bull;
Aphrodite’s bare feet on the sands of Paphos,
As she wades ashore, out of the shimmering East...
Hawk nosed Adonis, that pungent brown Semite,
Is smelted and recast in foreign climes;
Dionysus, dragon in a bubbling chalice,
Breathes fire into Crete and Hellas,
Beer-bibbers’ nemesis, man-shaped vine...
Aleph, beth, daleth...ox’s head, house, door...
Merchants’ tally, the sea’s exclamations,
Crane-wings’ casual genius on the air!
Notches in the tongue bespeak the tempest,
History’s roaring assaults and weird lulls,
The longing for a firm and bounteous shore...
Cornwall
Radioactive granite. Hard rocks. Sharp coast.
This land breaks you down so you can live anew.
Blackbacked gulls and oystercatchers
Angel the winter beaches.
Bladderwrack and tangleweed
Wave brown in remotest coves.
Jagged rocks torn from the land lie tumbled
Amid seaweed and anemone,
Cormorants and shags stand, shivering on rocks,
Staring deep into the sea,
Nightwalkers’ country: a fish rises in a stream,
Drum-loud plop rippling in the still.
Dry sticks crackle. Something is moving
In the deep secretive wood.
Suddenly the sad cry of a rabbit
Pounced on by a fox.
A badger emerging from its sett
Raises its muzzle to the moon in homage.
The furious moon gallops down into the sea,
The dizzy earth turns over like a foetus in the womb.
The churning gull-stormed Atlantic is my own pulse.
Billows shatter against headlands,
Throw white foam-spouts into the air.
Morning sun paints rainbows in the salt drift,
Waves are blustering, breaking, besieging,
All fluttering flaking whirling white steam;
The sun’s reflection in the water
Is juddering disintegrating fire-flakes...
In the abandoned slate quarry
Saplings of ash, beech and willow have rooted;
Rusty deserted tramways and disused machinery,
Rusted wagons and winches lie around.
Half-hidden under ferns and wildflowers;
Slate-red, green and white- winks in the sun;
Jackdaws nest on ledges.
Buzzards and ravens fly overhead.
Purple orchids, hawkweed, thistles and sloe bushes
Thrive among spoil heaps.
God the hermit clenches in the granite,
The desolate moorland, the bogs, the buttercup meadows.
The harsh fanatical voice of a Celtic saint,
Uttering terror and peace.
Look at the isolated farms, shouldering the wind,
Confronting the sea and its dead,
Ricks crow-and-jackdaw-stewarded,
Stonechats frickering over gorse-thatched greystone walls.
Megalithic stone circles dance under the sky,
Summer sea-mists curl up to slumber
In obsolete quarries and mines.
Can you hear , when the tide is running,
The bells and voices of drowned Lyonesse?
Here the Celtic missionaries walked, ragged and wild,
Preaching and healing like the wind,
Tasting the blown sea-salt on their tongues
As they shook their staves in righteous anger.
Their gnarled fists christened granite,
Raising baptisteries over heathen springs and wells.
At night, they lay down with the sheep for warmth;
At dawn, they sang as they bathed in cold rivers.
They grew old and gnarled like winter elms and thorns,
And fell, at last, gladly into God’s hands,
Absorbed into the moors’ endless prayer.
The lights of Bodmin Moor are the milkwort and lichens,
Skylarks’ wings and wide skies,
A realm more dangerous and exquisite,
Where birds sing themselves into ecstasy,
A chalice uplifted swirling with murmurous spirits.
Heal yourself by clinging to granite,
Shed sickness into the immovable incorruptible stone,
Among the wastes and ruins, forced to face yourself,
Initiated into humility and courage
By Neolithic stillness.
The sun settles on your face
Like a dragonfly on a stream.
Thin earth drizzled over granite.
Grass. Rock. Wind. Marsh. Bog.
Uncanny horses appear out of nowhere,
Charging into the cold air, manes blazing, heads high,
Dragon-pennants of breath streaming
From strained nostrils and shining backs;
They gallop across their winter underworld,
Lift their sovereign heads in piercing neighs.
Faint eerie murmurings hang over the stone circles,
Voices of the Beaker People who saw
The sun spinning off the summer tors
And the moon swimming like a sea-monster
Through their dreams, as they danced
To hold the sky up...
Shipwrecks’ whale skeletons litter the bays.
Desolate waves boom in caverns, bite at rocks.
Crabs and lobsters pick out drowned sailors’ eyes,
Tear the flesh from their limbs.
Along bare cliffs only winter gorse blooms.
Everything is crumbling away
Into that vast invincible sadness
Under the shrunken phantom sun.
Seals gaze out to sea with the eyes
Of drowned souls, beyond hope or prayer.
White china clay waste pyramids gleam
In the sun, reflecting the sea off the clouds,
And the whole hill-range shivers with the windy light,
Silver, blue and gold, and sometimes magenta...
Here, you are death’s astronaut, cut off
In white space, belittled yet exalted,
Turned into a ghost, until sunset
Crimsons the hills, lava streaming into darkness.
This land breaks you down so you can live anew.
Blackbacked gulls and oystercatchers
Angel the winter beaches.
Bladderwrack and tangleweed
Wave brown in remotest coves.
Jagged rocks torn from the land lie tumbled
Amid seaweed and anemone,
Cormorants and shags stand, shivering on rocks,
Staring deep into the sea,
Nightwalkers’ country: a fish rises in a stream,
Drum-loud plop rippling in the still.
Dry sticks crackle. Something is moving
In the deep secretive wood.
Suddenly the sad cry of a rabbit
Pounced on by a fox.
A badger emerging from its sett
Raises its muzzle to the moon in homage.
The furious moon gallops down into the sea,
The dizzy earth turns over like a foetus in the womb.
The churning gull-stormed Atlantic is my own pulse.
Billows shatter against headlands,
Throw white foam-spouts into the air.
Morning sun paints rainbows in the salt drift,
Waves are blustering, breaking, besieging,
All fluttering flaking whirling white steam;
The sun’s reflection in the water
Is juddering disintegrating fire-flakes...
In the abandoned slate quarry
Saplings of ash, beech and willow have rooted;
Rusty deserted tramways and disused machinery,
Rusted wagons and winches lie around.
Half-hidden under ferns and wildflowers;
Slate-red, green and white- winks in the sun;
Jackdaws nest on ledges.
Buzzards and ravens fly overhead.
Purple orchids, hawkweed, thistles and sloe bushes
Thrive among spoil heaps.
God the hermit clenches in the granite,
The desolate moorland, the bogs, the buttercup meadows.
The harsh fanatical voice of a Celtic saint,
Uttering terror and peace.
Look at the isolated farms, shouldering the wind,
Confronting the sea and its dead,
Ricks crow-and-jackdaw-stewarded,
Stonechats frickering over gorse-thatched greystone walls.
Megalithic stone circles dance under the sky,
Summer sea-mists curl up to slumber
In obsolete quarries and mines.
Can you hear , when the tide is running,
The bells and voices of drowned Lyonesse?
Here the Celtic missionaries walked, ragged and wild,
Preaching and healing like the wind,
Tasting the blown sea-salt on their tongues
As they shook their staves in righteous anger.
Their gnarled fists christened granite,
Raising baptisteries over heathen springs and wells.
At night, they lay down with the sheep for warmth;
At dawn, they sang as they bathed in cold rivers.
They grew old and gnarled like winter elms and thorns,
And fell, at last, gladly into God’s hands,
Absorbed into the moors’ endless prayer.
The lights of Bodmin Moor are the milkwort and lichens,
Skylarks’ wings and wide skies,
A realm more dangerous and exquisite,
Where birds sing themselves into ecstasy,
A chalice uplifted swirling with murmurous spirits.
Heal yourself by clinging to granite,
Shed sickness into the immovable incorruptible stone,
Among the wastes and ruins, forced to face yourself,
Initiated into humility and courage
By Neolithic stillness.
The sun settles on your face
Like a dragonfly on a stream.
Thin earth drizzled over granite.
Grass. Rock. Wind. Marsh. Bog.
Uncanny horses appear out of nowhere,
Charging into the cold air, manes blazing, heads high,
Dragon-pennants of breath streaming
From strained nostrils and shining backs;
They gallop across their winter underworld,
Lift their sovereign heads in piercing neighs.
Faint eerie murmurings hang over the stone circles,
Voices of the Beaker People who saw
The sun spinning off the summer tors
And the moon swimming like a sea-monster
Through their dreams, as they danced
To hold the sky up...
Shipwrecks’ whale skeletons litter the bays.
Desolate waves boom in caverns, bite at rocks.
Crabs and lobsters pick out drowned sailors’ eyes,
Tear the flesh from their limbs.
Along bare cliffs only winter gorse blooms.
Everything is crumbling away
Into that vast invincible sadness
Under the shrunken phantom sun.
Seals gaze out to sea with the eyes
Of drowned souls, beyond hope or prayer.
White china clay waste pyramids gleam
In the sun, reflecting the sea off the clouds,
And the whole hill-range shivers with the windy light,
Silver, blue and gold, and sometimes magenta...
Here, you are death’s astronaut, cut off
In white space, belittled yet exalted,
Turned into a ghost, until sunset
Crimsons the hills, lava streaming into darkness.
Ivan Turgenev
That brave handsome face, always distant, like the stars...
A single kind word or gesture from his father
Startles the little lad into incoherent babbling,
A grateful sinner in the presence of God.
Just for a moment, the idol is a friend,
Loved and trusted without restraint,
Then suddenly, inexplicably, that magisterial hand
Brushes him aside like a bothersome fly,
But with such terrifying courtesy-and then he is gone.
Once, only once, did his father caress him-
So tenderly, so unexpectedly, that the boy
Thought he would burst into sobs like a ninny,
Shocked by the possibility of love.
Be decisive, be determined! If only!
If only he could please his idol thus.
To be a hero...but what kind of hero?
Something like that forbear, Peter the Great’s jester,
Who enlightened shaggy boyars with a barber’s shears?
The big house, swarming with gossip and intrigue;
The serfs in the fields, carrying the world on their backs,
Tensed for the next blow to fall...
The gentle boy’s greyblue eyes are always watching:
Registering his mother’s cruel caprice
As she sends a domestic out to be flogged.
This is the miniature state she has ordained,
Her lackeys given courtly titles and ministerial dignity,
And her own police force at her beck and call.
Expert at inflicting humiliation and distress,
She guards her own almighty serenity at all costs,
Checking her reflection in the glass.
From a Parisian window, Turgenev trains his telescope
On the East, and rolls superb Russian syllables
On his tongue, wondering at his countrymen’s folly:
How could the possessors of such enchanted speech
Not themselves be beautiful, just and free?
Surrounded by vivacious blasé French chatter,
The courtly Russian bulks in his own slow timezone,
Maintaining stately balance and control...
But sometimes a wind blows in from the East,
Carrying the sound of quarrelling voices,
And he yearns for the motherland’s dark earth.
A single kind word or gesture from his father
Startles the little lad into incoherent babbling,
A grateful sinner in the presence of God.
Just for a moment, the idol is a friend,
Loved and trusted without restraint,
Then suddenly, inexplicably, that magisterial hand
Brushes him aside like a bothersome fly,
But with such terrifying courtesy-and then he is gone.
Once, only once, did his father caress him-
So tenderly, so unexpectedly, that the boy
Thought he would burst into sobs like a ninny,
Shocked by the possibility of love.
Be decisive, be determined! If only!
If only he could please his idol thus.
To be a hero...but what kind of hero?
Something like that forbear, Peter the Great’s jester,
Who enlightened shaggy boyars with a barber’s shears?
The big house, swarming with gossip and intrigue;
The serfs in the fields, carrying the world on their backs,
Tensed for the next blow to fall...
The gentle boy’s greyblue eyes are always watching:
Registering his mother’s cruel caprice
As she sends a domestic out to be flogged.
This is the miniature state she has ordained,
Her lackeys given courtly titles and ministerial dignity,
And her own police force at her beck and call.
Expert at inflicting humiliation and distress,
She guards her own almighty serenity at all costs,
Checking her reflection in the glass.
From a Parisian window, Turgenev trains his telescope
On the East, and rolls superb Russian syllables
On his tongue, wondering at his countrymen’s folly:
How could the possessors of such enchanted speech
Not themselves be beautiful, just and free?
Surrounded by vivacious blasé French chatter,
The courtly Russian bulks in his own slow timezone,
Maintaining stately balance and control...
But sometimes a wind blows in from the East,
Carrying the sound of quarrelling voices,
And he yearns for the motherland’s dark earth.
Franz Liszt
Will lightning strike through the drawing room ceiling?
Gazing upward in solemn supplication, he
Lets his hands fall casually to the keyboard,
Dishevelled head motionless, in suspense,
As the haughty philistines wait to be entertained,
To have their luxurious expectations fulfilled.
Those stern white hands tease across the keys,
Trembling into a numinous prelude...
Abruptly the maestro starts to his feet,
Bangs the piano lid shut with imperious flourish-
No! The bear will not dance tonight!
In his rooms Liszt paces back and forth...
Too many years performing for idiots,
Titillating with idle brilliance,
When he should give himself to solitude and creation,
Abandon vanity’s charavari...
Like a jockey on an Arab mare,he jumps the piano,
Daredevil storming the atmosphere,
His galloping fingers an entire orchestra,
Hurtling into the abyss.
Genteel ladies’ faces boggle with rapture,
Electricity jolting them out of their seats,
Hoisting their skirts over their heads.
Gazing upward in solemn supplication, he
Lets his hands fall casually to the keyboard,
Dishevelled head motionless, in suspense,
As the haughty philistines wait to be entertained,
To have their luxurious expectations fulfilled.
Those stern white hands tease across the keys,
Trembling into a numinous prelude...
Abruptly the maestro starts to his feet,
Bangs the piano lid shut with imperious flourish-
No! The bear will not dance tonight!
In his rooms Liszt paces back and forth...
Too many years performing for idiots,
Titillating with idle brilliance,
When he should give himself to solitude and creation,
Abandon vanity’s charavari...
Like a jockey on an Arab mare,he jumps the piano,
Daredevil storming the atmosphere,
His galloping fingers an entire orchestra,
Hurtling into the abyss.
Genteel ladies’ faces boggle with rapture,
Electricity jolting them out of their seats,
Hoisting their skirts over their heads.
Pierrot Mask
amnesiac anaesthetized in my mind out of my mind in two minds no more
am I anywhere or nowhere
at all times or no time
I am metaphor I am symbol
every possible antithesis simultaneous
looking for coigns of vantage for pitfalls for confrontations with the other
contemptuous and contrite
how many letters unopened faces avoided or misread how many places passed through blindly and words spoken stupidly and things idly lost
inadvertently I breathe exist ad infinitum ad nauseam to stop short
denouements none but moments dense and unreal a grammar never mastered
accidence of happenstance
solipsist’s solfeggio recidivist’s fandango
history histories for all it is worth
catoptromancer in a city of mirrors I do my thing and eat from demons’ hands
apathy aeipathy my identical twins
am I anywhere or nowhere
at all times or no time
I am metaphor I am symbol
every possible antithesis simultaneous
looking for coigns of vantage for pitfalls for confrontations with the other
contemptuous and contrite
how many letters unopened faces avoided or misread how many places passed through blindly and words spoken stupidly and things idly lost
inadvertently I breathe exist ad infinitum ad nauseam to stop short
denouements none but moments dense and unreal a grammar never mastered
accidence of happenstance
solipsist’s solfeggio recidivist’s fandango
history histories for all it is worth
catoptromancer in a city of mirrors I do my thing and eat from demons’ hands
apathy aeipathy my identical twins
Goethe
In Weimar, tormented by doubt and despair,
Goethe strikes out on muddy winter roads,
Through wind, rain and mist, into the Harz Mountains,
To climb the Brocken, citadel of witches and demons,
To seek a sign, and question the cryptic Fate
That brought him so oddly to Weimar
As courtier and official to an autocrat,
The same Fate that decreed his sister’s death,
And would thwart his own inspiration.
Spirit of the Mountain, answer me, answer me-
Am I on the right path? Is my ambition approved?
Half-human whispers and warnings swarm
In the thick mist enveloping anfractuous heights;
Denied the summit, Goethe rests on a rock,
Heavy-hearted, asking: Must I even now turn back?
Then, suddenly, wondrously, the weather
Starts to clear, and a sun-ray strikes the Brocken
Like a torch setting a beacon on fire,
Signalling to the quester that the challenge is still on.
Onward, upward, through deep snow, Goethe
Slogs, and, standing, at last, breathless, on the peak,
Gazes round, in exultation, at the glorious chaos
Of cloud and light, crowned lord of the world,
Boundless in vision, power and potential.
At the Devil’s Altar he offers thanks to God,
That, yes, he can exalt his life with meaning,
Still the beloved, conquering son of Fate,
Able to overcome any perplexities!
Knapsack on back, on geological expeditions,
Goethe leaps from rock to rok, pursuing
Some principle of harmony and order in nature,
The path direct to the centre of the maze.
In his study, he broods over an elephant’s skull,
Awaiting an insight, an answer to the riddle,
Te unity in multiplicity, the origin, the essence.
Constricted with long stern routine, he
Suffocates within a stiff benevolent public dignitary,
Emotions suppressed, rebellions quelled.
Italy’s dusty roads open ahead, as the coach
Rattles into an idyll of mulberries, quinces and vines,
Plump grapes drooping over lizard-basking walls;
A northern bear set free from dark forest,
Into a carnival of light, too vivid to be real,
The intoxicated German plucks peaches ad figs
From branches, sucking at life’s core.
On the Venice Lido, watching crabs scrabble
Over breakwaters, he marvels at the tenacity
Of life, absorbed in inexhaustible oneness.
In the museum, transfixed by antique statues,
He feels new inspiration stirring in his guts,
The same secret grace every age has known.
Goethe strikes out on muddy winter roads,
Through wind, rain and mist, into the Harz Mountains,
To climb the Brocken, citadel of witches and demons,
To seek a sign, and question the cryptic Fate
That brought him so oddly to Weimar
As courtier and official to an autocrat,
The same Fate that decreed his sister’s death,
And would thwart his own inspiration.
Spirit of the Mountain, answer me, answer me-
Am I on the right path? Is my ambition approved?
Half-human whispers and warnings swarm
In the thick mist enveloping anfractuous heights;
Denied the summit, Goethe rests on a rock,
Heavy-hearted, asking: Must I even now turn back?
Then, suddenly, wondrously, the weather
Starts to clear, and a sun-ray strikes the Brocken
Like a torch setting a beacon on fire,
Signalling to the quester that the challenge is still on.
Onward, upward, through deep snow, Goethe
Slogs, and, standing, at last, breathless, on the peak,
Gazes round, in exultation, at the glorious chaos
Of cloud and light, crowned lord of the world,
Boundless in vision, power and potential.
At the Devil’s Altar he offers thanks to God,
That, yes, he can exalt his life with meaning,
Still the beloved, conquering son of Fate,
Able to overcome any perplexities!
Knapsack on back, on geological expeditions,
Goethe leaps from rock to rok, pursuing
Some principle of harmony and order in nature,
The path direct to the centre of the maze.
In his study, he broods over an elephant’s skull,
Awaiting an insight, an answer to the riddle,
Te unity in multiplicity, the origin, the essence.
Constricted with long stern routine, he
Suffocates within a stiff benevolent public dignitary,
Emotions suppressed, rebellions quelled.
Italy’s dusty roads open ahead, as the coach
Rattles into an idyll of mulberries, quinces and vines,
Plump grapes drooping over lizard-basking walls;
A northern bear set free from dark forest,
Into a carnival of light, too vivid to be real,
The intoxicated German plucks peaches ad figs
From branches, sucking at life’s core.
On the Venice Lido, watching crabs scrabble
Over breakwaters, he marvels at the tenacity
Of life, absorbed in inexhaustible oneness.
In the museum, transfixed by antique statues,
He feels new inspiration stirring in his guts,
The same secret grace every age has known.
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