The cruelest month: You might as well live

We couldn’t get through National Poetry Month without a bit of bite. In case there's any question, I’m talking Dorothy Parker.

In Parker we see crystallized the concept that poems pack a lot of punch in just a few words. I love her stuff, and here are two I can recite all on my own.

Resumé

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

Comment

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

A medley of extemporanea;

And love is a thing that can never go wrong;

And I am Marie of Roumania.

I've been known to declare myself, sotto voce, Marie of Roumania in more than one project meeting.

A short-chamber Boxer-Henry point-four-five calibre miracle

Writing my post on“Dulce et Decorum est”, I got to thinking about all the misery of the First World War. And this coincided with a thread one of my Facebook friends started.

He posted a link to a book about (I presume) gallant stands made by small forces against large ones. You know, like Custer against "all the Indians in the world" (old Bill Cosby routine). I don’t know anything about Outnumbered, Outgunned, Undeterred: Twenty Battles against All Odds, or its author; and I can’t find it in any of my local library systems, so I’m unlikely to read it soon.

But the FB thread took an interesting turn when one of the contributors thought it a shocking crime that the book doesn’t appear to include an account of the battle of Saragarhi, at which 21 Sikh soldiers fought to the last man against all the Afghans in the world (apparently; well, okay, 10,000 of them).

This person’s primary source was a site called Badass of the Week, with which I’m not taking any issue. Although where I come from, you don't spout streams of factoids as gospel when you only cite a single source, and that source's name is Badass. Just sayin'.

It was when someone put forth the example of the battle of Rorke’s Drift that things got cherce, IMO. If you’re unfamiliar with the incident, it was part of the British campaign against the Zulus, fought in 1879. At its most basic, about 150 British and colonial troops fought off an assault by somewhere between 3000 and 4000 Zulu warriors.

(And if you’re of a mind, I commend to you the 1964 film Zulu, which has its historical limitations, but presents the most powerful battle sequence I’ve ever seen in a movie; and I’ve seen a lot of them.)

Well, Ms. Badass was apparently not fully conversant with Rorke’s Drift, but sniffed it off as “somewhat…less noble [than Saragarhi]…b/c the British at that time were defending themselves on turf that was not rightfully theirs in the first place. The Sikhs, OTOH…Saragarhi was right there in the Punjab—their home.”

Leaving aside the rather fine point that the Sikhs in question were actually serving in the British Army (or, technically, in the Indian Army, which was an imperial arm of the Brits), and therefore defending (British) imperial interests; and also leaving aside the fact that on the subcontinent if you try to lay out clear boundaries as to what plot of land “belongs” to which group of people, you’ll drive yourself nuts…that little bit of snottery just ate my lunch.

Because here’s the deal: if the point under discussion is the few taking a stand against the many, the issue of the political ends that caused the soldiers to be sent to defend (or attack) a particular place doesn’t factor into the evaluation of their last full measure of devotion to duty. The PBI (poor bloody infantry) of any army never gets to vote on whether they’re going to deploy to Iraq, Islandlwana or Illium.

It’s what they do when they get there that can inspire admiration or revulsion.

The cruelest month: Guttering, choking, drowning

The First World War is one of my research concentration areas as a military historian. It was a cataclysmic convergence of technological advances, imperial and nationalistic policies, and just plain unfuckingbelievable stupidity. What a way to usher in the 20^th Century, eh?

Rather oddly, a lot of poetry came out of those four years—at least amongst the British forces. Robert Graves, Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon are a few of the best-known. My favorite, though is Wilfred Owen, who was killed in action just seven days before the Armistice of 11 November 1918.

It’s hard to choose which of his poems to share; every one of them puts you through some horror that the Western Front vomited forth to everyone in the vicinity of the trenches. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” could be applied to any soldiers of any war

But the first poem of Owen's I ever read was “Dulce et Decorum est”, so that’s what I’m giving you.

One of the examples of monumental stupidity during that war was the use of lethal gas, either delivered via artillery or just released. It’s like the morons running the show never considered that they were surrounded by winds, which can shift and send your hot-shot latest chemical weapon…well, anywhere, including through your own lines. Chlorine, phosgene, mustard and other types were all deployed by armies on both sides. They caused serious damage to individual pulmonary systems without having any serious effect on strategy. The descriptions of poison gas victims are not for the faint of heart: imagine being blind and feeling your lungs being on fire even as they fill up with fluid and drown you.

In this poem Owen describes the aftermath of such an attack. It, also, is not for the faint of heart.

Dulce et Decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

If you’re unfamiliar with the final line, it’s from an ode by the Roman poet Horace. It translates roughly to, “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”.

Native criminal class in session

The action of 46 of our Senators (all but four of them Republicans) today in blocking a bill that would have expanded the current system of background checks for gun purchasers caused me to flash back to that formerly-august chamber’s history.

It was in 1954, when Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisc.) was conducting his anti-communist witch hunt, & had moved into a fight with the US Army, which hired Joseph Welch to defend it. In true Tail-gunner Joe fashion, McCarthy accused one of Welch’s associates of having Communist ties. Welch’s response must have sunk into the very wallpaper of the chamber.

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” & when McCarthy blustered, Welch just ran him over (& effectively ended his career). “You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” Have you left no sense of decency?”

Well, times have changed in the last 60 years. Not a one of those 46 has any shred of decency.

The cruelest month: Neither slumber nor sleep

For today in National Poetry Month, I was going to give you something by John Donne. Donne is easy to absorb as a teenager, which is when I became aware of him. He wrote both sacred and profane poetry. I was surprised at how, ah, earthy some of the latter were. (Well, I was kind of naïve in my teens.) But he was quite the Jack-the-lad before he became Dean of St. Paul’s.

Everyone—everyone knows his “No man is an island” (officially, “Meditation XVII” from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and maybe not even a poem in structure) and perhaps it might be therapeutic to put it here, since it’s good to be reminded that we’re all connected to events that take place far away from us. The incidents in Boston this week diminished us all—as do events in Iraq and Pakistan and Somalia.

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thine own

Or of thine friend's were.

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

But in some ways, Donne is a cheap shot. We all know we’re involved in mankind, even if we try to dodge it. And Donne’s words have been with us for nearly 400 years. Have we paid attention? Only sporadically.

So my official entry today is from the Book of Psalms (King James version). You can squawk if you want about whether any individual Psalm is a poem, but this is my damned blog and I’m the boss of it.

I’m sharing with you one that was given to me by a fellow retreatant when I was in my 20s. We were at a convent somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, on a weekend retreat; three women trying to work through individual challenges to our lives. I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently, because I appear to have got lost along the way from that place & I’m not sure how to get back.

Anyhow, this woman—much more adept with scripture than I’ll ever be—looked at me, put her hand on my shoulder and said, “This is your Psalm.” I don’t know why it should be, but here it is, number 121:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,

   from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the LORD,

   which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:

   he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel

   shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD is thy keeper:

   the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day,

   nor the moon by night.

The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil:

   he shall preserve thy soul.

The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in

   from this time forth, and even for evermore.

I’m strangely comforted by the idea of a presence shading my right side. It may not be as important that it be there, as that I believe it is.

You have to start small and work your way up to mankind.

Policing up the area

You may or may not care that today they’re burying Margaret Thatcher, who died earlier this month, aged 87.

I’m interested because she was a piece of work and I sometimes wonder what the UK would be like if she hadn’t had a death-grip on its society for 11 years.

But I’m also interested because the Brits know how to throw a funeral and there’s been a tremendous fracas over the details of Thatcher’s. The party in power—the Tories—has basically planned for a state funeral in everything but name; everyone else is bitching about both the intent and the cost.

(They’re also silencing the bells in Big Ben and the Great Clock at Westminster for the duration of the proceedings; but since that’s free there’s only a continuo of grumbling. Something to the effect that not even the Luftwaffe silenced Big Ben. But, of course, there are those who hold that the Iron Lady could have whupped Hermann Goering’s ass with just her handbag.)

So the planners are tut-tutting that it’s not going to cost all that much, really. But what’s interesting is that they’re, ah, fudging the figures—pulling out the costs of the military and police participating. Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (and I swear I’m not making that up) announced on BBC Radio 4 that, you can’t count those salaries of “people doing their ordinary jobs”. These are “costs which are being borne in any event. We have not hired more soldiers, we haven't hired more police. There is no one who has been hired who would not be doing their ordinary jobs which they would not be doing in any event. We are not hiring more police.”

(By way of reference, the last state funeral was for the Queen Mother, in 2002, and about half the £8M price-tag was for police.)

Well, no—not hiring more police; but if all the coppers are performing crowd-control duties or mounting an anti-terrorism watch for half the day, then they aren’t out actually, you know, policing. This would be a prime time to knock over a liquor store or take out that annoying neighbor of yours, because the cops aren’t doing their ordinary jobs.

You know—the ones they’re actually paid to do.

The cruelest month, Tasting desire

Tomorrow is Poem in Your Pocket Day—choose a poem you love; memorize it or print it out and carry it with you to share with friends, family, colleagues, people on the bus…

Last year my pocket poem was e.e. cummings’ “plato told”. You kind of have to print that out to show people, because of the literal structure.

My poem this year is one I’ve had imprinted on my mind since high school. It’s always been something that gives you food for thought.

I’m only looking it up to make sure I’ve got the punctuation right; but if you were to ring me and say, “Bas Bleu—that Robert Frost one”, I’d give it you without hesitation.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

What poem will you share with the world tomorrow?

The cruelest month: Whatever is fickle

Today’s National Poetry Month poem is one of my all-time favorites. I can’t even say the opening line without my spirits lifting. It’s Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Pied Beauty”.

It makes me think of tabby cats, speckled carp, English sparrows and playgrounds full of redheaded pale-skinned Irish lads and lasses.

And--seriously, is there a better entry into a poem than “Glory be to God for dappled things”? Where would that be? This poem practically sings itself.

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.

At the moment (April being indeed the cruelest month), my spirits are in dire need of lifting. I’m holding on to this one.

But I’m sharing, too.

The good in the evil

I don’t have anything to say about the people who set off explosives at the finish line of the Boston Marathon yesterday. But photos of the aftermath reminded me of something I posted around the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

God bless the first responders. The cops, the firefighters, the paramedics; the doctors, the nurses; the bomb squad, the blood-donors; the comforters, the blanket-wrappers, the water-givers; the marathon staffers, the spectators—every last one of them who ran into the carnage to help, both immediately and in the aftermath.

Seriously—I cannot imagine speeding towards an explosion, or towards people who are badly injured, bleeding, in shock. But it gives me hope to know that they are out there, and they were in Boston yesterday.

Manhattan memories

A friend of mine is of a mind to post pictures of his after-work cocktails, & one of last week’s was of a Manhattan. 

That shot a blast from the past across the bow of my memory.

The summer between junior & senior year of high school I was on a student tour of Mexico. We were on a bus, stopping at hotels in different cities. We’d have dinner & breakfast at the hotel’s diningroom, & staff would pack us bag lunches for the journey.

(BTW—every freaking day it was invariably ham & processed cheese sandwiches on white bread. We even wrote songs about them.)

At dinner we could choose from the fixed menu, usually a starter, a main course & a dessert; nothing exotic. We spent two nights at Acapulco—or maybe it was Mazatlán; somewhere tropical. On the first night the choice for the first course was a shrimp cocktail & a Bacardi cocktail.

Well, in Mexico there was no minimum drinking age. A few of the kids on the tour got daring & ordered the Bacardi (basically a daiquiri with Grenadine syrup) & most of the others—including my two 15-year-old roommates—saw a lost opportunity.

So, the next night, when the choice was between shrimp cocktail & a Manhattan, my two roomies went for the latter.

Well, a Manhattan is basically booze diluted by booze, & back in those days kids not yet eligible for a learner’s permit didn’t regularly score beer & recreational drugs. So this was a big freaking deal for them.

The three of us spent the night without sleep, since they were loopier than a hooked rug & I was run off my feet trying to keep them from spilling over into the hallways. (Okay, I was a bit of a pill.) I recall some hoo-hah about one of them wanting bottled water to wash her hair in, & I was the one elected to fetch it from the dispenser down the hall.

The next morning they (& half the bus) were not feeling on top form, but at least the blonde had clean hair.

Ever since then, whenever someone mentions the drink, that’s what I think of. Perhaps I should try drinking one?

The cruelest month: toujours gai

Okay, I’ve given you some high-flown stuff for National Poetry Month. Looking back on it, a lot of it has dealt with heavy-duty subjects. Tennyson and Thomas, on reaching the end of one’s life; Arnold, on the loss of joy, love, light, certitude, peace and  help for pain; Yeats, on the shattering of pretty much the same.

It’s time for a bit of a break, for an entirely different perspective on things. Like from a vers libre poet reincarnated as a cockroach, writing on an old newsroom manual typewriter. Which he does as described thus by his “literary agent”, Don Marquis:

”He would climb painfully upon the framework of the machine and cast himself with all his force upon a key, head downward, and his weight and the impact of the blow were just sufficient to operate the machine, one slow letter after another. He could not work the capital letters, and he had a great deal of difficulty operating the mechanism that shifts the paper so that a fresh line may be started. We never saw a cockroach work so hard or perspire so freely in all our lives before. After about an hour of this frightfully difficult literary labor he fell to the floor exhausted, and we saw him creep feebly into a nest of the poems which are always there in profusion.”

Now, when I started in the newsroom at the Pasadena Star News, we used those old manual typewriters, which is why—to this day—I smack the hell out of any keyboard I use, because you had to apply a lot of force to the keys to get the letters to strike the page. So give it up for archy, who loves an alley cat named mehitabel (a female feline who gives new meaning to the phrase, “she’s been around”) so much that every night he pours his heart (and pulps his head) out to her glory.

(I must have been in high school when I first came across archy and mehitabel. But what I remember is mentioning the poems to my mother, who had known them from when they’d been syndicated in the newspapers she read as a young woman. At the time I’m sure I thought it more bizarre that Mom had read poems than that a cockroach would write them.)

Do not be deceived by his present appearance, however; archy is definitely tackling the Big Things—transmigration, descent into hell, beer. There are plenty of allusions splattered through the poems; I had to look up Gambrinus.) You have to set yourself down one evening in a darkened room, with just one lamp on (with maybe a glass of whisky), and take up with archy and mehitabel.

archy’s writing style—no caps, no punctuation—has been revived in today’s texting/IMing world. The difference is, he knows what he’s doing, and he's making a point in the process.

Anyhow, by way of introduction, I give you “the song of mehitabel”:

this is the song of mehitabel

of mehitabel the alley cat

as i wrote you before boss

mehitabel is a believer

in the pythagorean

theory of the transmigration

of the soul and she claims

that formerly her spirit

was incarnated in the body

of cleopatra

that was a long time ago

and one must not be

surprised if mehitabel

has forgotten some of her

more regal manners

i have had my ups and downs

but wotthehell wotthehell

yesterday sceptres and crowns

fried oysters and velvet gowns

and today i herd with bums

but wotthehell wotthehell

i wake the world from sleep

as i caper and sing and leap

when i sing my wild free tune

wotthehell wotthehell

under the blear eyed moon

i am pelted with cast off shoon

but wotthehell wotthehell

do you think that i would change

my present freedom to range

for a castle or moated grange

wotthehell wotthehell

cage me and i d go frantic

my life is so romantic

capricious and corybantic

and i m toujours gai toujours gai

i know that i am bound

for a journey down the sound

in the midst of a refuse mound

but wotthehell wotthehell

oh i should worry and fret

death and i will coquette

there s a dance in the old dame yet

toujours gai toujours gai

i once was an innocent kit

wotthehell wotthehell

with a ribbon my neck to fit

and bells tied onto it

o wotthehell wotthehell

but a maltese cat came by

with a come hither look in his eye

and a song that soared to the sky

and wotthehell wotthehell

and i followed adown the street

the pad of his rhythmical feet

o permit me again to repeat

wotthehell wotthehell

my youth i shall never forget

but there s nothing i really regret

wotthehell wotthehell

there s a dance in the old dame yet

toujours gai toujours gai

the things that i had not ought to

i do because i ve gotto

wotthehell wotthehell

and i end with my favorite motto

toujours gai toujours gai

boss sometimes i think

that our friend mehitabel

is a trifle too gay

You can find more of a sampling here.

The cruelest month: The blood-dimmed tide

When it comes to my featured National Poetry Month poet for today, I’m back to my Shakespeare problem: the poet is William Butler Yeats, And which of his poems do I pick?

The one that introduced me to him was “Lake Isle of Innisfree”. That was in high school. And the poem that sparked the argu—I mean, discussion about poetic meaning versus sounds with my French professor was “Host of the Air”. And then there's "An Irish Airman Foresees his Death"; see what I mean?

(And, MSWord, are you kidding me? You’re not recognizing Innisfree?)

You can get lost in Yeats, or in any of his poems. I have done, many, many times. It’s hard to pick up anything he’s written and not become completely enmeshed in his imagery, in the world he builds. I was walking around the Sligo countryside (okay—this is just beyond the beyond: MSWord doesn’t like Sligo) a good 20 years on from high school and completely thought, “peace comes dropping slow”—that’s how much Yeats gets into your blood.

So, I don’t know what to give you.

Well—I’ll start with “Easter, 1916”. The historical event—one of the periodic attempts by the Irish to drive out the English; this one was supposed to be funded and supplied by the Germans, who reckoned that they could benefit from Britain facing a two-front war, so to speak. The old Irish motto has always been, “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity”, but in this instance, there was confusion, lack of coordination and an unexpected reaction from the English involving heavy artillery and vicious executions of the leadership.

(Why, exactly, that came as a surprise I’m not clear. But that whole Anglo-Irish situation isn’t going to be solved or even explained in a single post, so we’ll just carry on, okay?)

It was a whole thing. And I’ve made my own pilgrimage to the General Post Office, where you could still see the bullet holes (like you can at Chapultepec). Yeats was an Irish nationalist, but not a revolutionary. He decried the use of violence, as, indeed, did a large number of the Irish—until the Brits started the summary executions. And--like the man said—a terrible beauty was born.

(Yeats was so revolted by the executions that he was even willing to count John MacBride as a hero/martyr—whom he loathed as the drunken, vain-glorious lout who married the woman Yeats loved hopelessly his whole life.)

Easter, 1916

I have met them at close of day

Coming with vivid faces

From counter or desk among grey

Eighteenth-century houses.

I have passed with a nod of the head

Or polite meaningless words,

Or have lingered awhile and said

Polite meaningless words,

And thought before I had done

Of a mocking tale or a gibe

To please a companion

Around the fire at the club,

Being certain that they and I

But lived where motley is worn:

All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent

In ignorant good will,

Her nights in argument

Until her voice grew shrill.

What voice more sweet than hers

When young and beautiful,

She rode to harriers?

This man had kept a school

And rode our winged horse.

This other his helper and friend

Was coming into his force;

He might have won fame in the end,

So sensitive his nature seemed,

So daring and sweet his thought.

This other man I had dreamed

A drunken, vain-glorious lout.

He had done most bitter wrong

To some who are near my heart,

Yet I number him in the song;

He, too, has resigned his part

In the casual comedy;

He, too, has been changed in his turn,

Transformed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone

Through summer and winter, seem

Enchanted to a stone

To trouble the living stream.

The horse that comes from the road,

The rider, the birds that range

From cloud to tumbling cloud,

Minute by minute change.

A shadow of cloud on the stream

Changes minute by minute;

A horse-hoof slides on the brim;

And a horse plashes within it

Where long-legged moor-hens dive

And hens to moor-cocks call.

Minute by minute they live:

The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice?

That is heaven's part, our part

To murmur name upon name,

As a mother names her child

When sleep at last has come

On limbs that had run wild.

What is it but nightfall?

No, no, not night but death.

Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith

For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough

To know they dreamed and are dead.

And what if excess of love

Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse –

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

But I couldn’t let you go without “The Second Coming”. This one, written in 1919, is just so powerful. “Easter, 1916” is specific; “Second Coming” is universal.

We’re still working to understand what rough beast has emerged from that widening gyre.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?