Say a prayer

Given recent (and you can define the time period however you like) events, Nina’ Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” pretty much sums up my mood, National Poetry Month or not. So, here you go.

We sing sin

If you’ve not yet met Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, I’m honored to make the introduction. Brooks reminds me a little of Dorothy Parker inasmuch as she packs tremendous wallop in such a few words. It’s like she distills her experience down to the barest essence, and then sets you alight with it.

Of course, you can also liken her to Maya Angelou. Look at Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” (including her reading it), and then get to know Brooks’ “Weaponed Woman”. They’re kin, don’t you think?

“Weaponed Woman”

Well, life has been a baffled vehicle
And baffling. But she fights, and
Has fought, according to her lights and
The lenience of her whirling-place.

She fights with semi-folded arms,
Her strong bag, and the stiff
Frost of her face (that challenges “When” and “If.”)
And altogether she does Rather Well.
I believe that all girls should aspire to do Rather Well.

But the poem of hers I love most is “We Real Cool”. This is what I mean when I say she delivers nothing but the purest distillation of the lives, aspirations and predictable future for the pool players. And then she sets a match to it.

“We Real Cool”

The Pool Players.
Seven at the golden shovel.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We 

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

 

Perpetually awaiting

You know who speaks to me during this particular time? The Beat poets. And particularly Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who, at his death two years ago at 101 was still a fixture of the San Francisco cultural scene.

Okay, Ferlinghetti didn't think of himself as a Beat; he preferred philosophical anarchist. And at his core he was anti-totalitarian, which is a recommendation at any time, but particularly now.

For National Poetry Month, we’re having “I Am Waiting”. It’s long, but it goes so fast.

“I Am Waiting”

I am waiting for my case to come up   

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone

to really discover America

and wail

and I am waiting   

for the discovery

of a new symbolic western frontier   

and I am waiting   

for the American Eagle

to really spread its wings

and straighten up and fly right

and I am waiting

for the Age of Anxiety

to drop dead

and I am waiting

for the war to be fought

which will make the world safe

for anarchy

and I am waiting

for the final withering away

of all governments

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming   

and I am waiting

for a religious revival

to sweep thru the state of Arizona   

and I am waiting

for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored   

and I am waiting

for them to prove

that God is really American

and I am waiting

to see God on television

piped onto church altars

if only they can find   

the right channel   

to tune in on

and I am waiting

for the Last Supper to be served again

with a strange new appetizer

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called

and I am waiting

for the Salvation Army to take over

and I am waiting

for the meek to be blessed

and inherit the earth   

without taxes

and I am waiting

for forests and animals

to reclaim the earth as theirs

and I am waiting

for a way to be devised

to destroy all nationalisms

without killing anybody

and I am waiting

for linnets and planets to fall like rain

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers

to lie down together again

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed   

and I am anxiously waiting

for the secret of eternal life to be discovered   

by an obscure general practitioner

and I am waiting

for the storms of life

to be over

and I am waiting

to set sail for happiness

and I am waiting

for a reconstructed Mayflower

to reach America

with its picture story and tv rights

sold in advance to the natives

and I am waiting

for the lost music to sound again

in the Lost Continent

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day

that maketh all things clear

and I am awaiting retribution

for what America did   

to Tom Sawyer   

and I am waiting

for Alice in Wonderland

to retransmit to me

her total dream of innocence

and I am waiting

for Childe Roland to come

to the final darkest tower

and I am waiting   

for Aphrodite

to grow live arms

at a final disarmament conference

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting

to get some intimations

of immortality

by recollecting my early childhood

and I am waiting

for the green mornings to come again   

youth’s dumb green fields come back again

and I am waiting

for some strains of unpremeditated art

to shake my typewriter

and I am waiting to write

the great indelible poem

and I am waiting

for the last long careless rapture

and I am perpetually waiting

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn   

to catch each other up at last

and embrace

and I am awaiting   

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder

How I wonder

Well, opening arguments today in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against Captain CAPSLOCK in federal court. In honor of that, let’s have something from another Carroll—Lewis—for National Poetry Month.

Specifically, one from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I don’t think it needs much of an introduction from me; I’ll just point out that Lewis Carroll’s silliness makes more sense than any batshit lunacy from RWNJs these days.

“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat”

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Turning Darkness into Light

Within the space of a day a few weeks ago, two couples of my acquaintance lost four-pawed family members; one a floofy cat and one an old, old dog. Neither death was unexpected, but the great gaping hole in the family fabric is still palpable. And even though I’ve never actually met the particular animal in each case, I feel the sense of grief, even at a distance.

Today I’m grateful for the pets that enrich lives around them, amusing us with their shenanigans, comforting us in our sorrow, waking us at 0430 to insist it’s breakfast time somewhere…And I’m grateful for the people who make space in their homes and hearts for the critters, tripping over pet toys, putting veterinary clinics on direct deposit and willingly taking on the shattering grief when it’s time to let them go.

Today’s National Poetry Month post was going to be poems about cats and dogs, but I’ve been searching without success for a dog poem that isn’t treacly. So, here’s a photo of my sister’s dog Bindi, who is her companion and comfort.

For the felines, we’re going to a Ninth Century Irish monk, who jotted Pangur Bán in the margins (or on the back of a page) of a manuscript, with locations ranging from a copy of Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Book of Kells.

Clearly, Pangur Bán brought companionship and comfort to the monk.

“Pangur Bán”

I and Pangur Bán, my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;|
Pangur bears me no ill will;
He, too, plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry thing to see
At our task how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find|
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
Into the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den.
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine, and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade ;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning Darkness into light.'

 

 

I never writ

We don’t know exactly when William Shakespeare was born, in 1564, but he was baptized on 26 April, and baptisms were typically done back then within a couple of days of birth, in case the infant didn’t survive. So it’s possible that today is the 454^th anniversary of his birth. It is the 402^nd anniversary of his death. And since it’s not possible to get through National Poetry Month without something from the heavy artillery of English letters, today’s a good day for Will.

As is my custom, I’m giving you something from one of his plays, as well as a sonnet.

I realized that in the 11 years I’ve been marking NPM, I’ve never given you Antony’s eulogy for Caesar, so I’m fixing that here.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

As a treat, I’m also giving you Alun Armstrong as Brian Lane reciting that speech in his New Tricks working-class Northern accent:

And now for the sonnet—Number 118, which Alan Rickman read as one of the highlights of Sense and Sensibility, although I sadly do not have a suitable video of that. You’ll have to use your imagination.

Sonnet 118

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

 

 

They lying long

Well, of course you can’t have a National Poetry Month without something from Dylan Thomas. I expect Thomas is the best-known poet to come out of Wales, and he’s been part of my life since my friend Gretchen Pullen introduced me to him in high school. Gretchen was crazy mad for Thomas in the way I was besotted with Yeats.

To tell you the truth, I might just have been too young in high school to appreciate Thomas, but he grew on me. So much so that in my freshman year in college I chose to do a paper comparing his life and poetry with those of Brendan Behan. On the surface they had similarities—larger-than-life personas, hard-drinking, womanizing and poem-making Celts; pretty much everything that sends Sassenachs purse-lipped and pucker-arsed into tut-tutting tizzies.

There were major differences, of course; one being that Behan had politics in his blood, while I have this memory of finding a quote from Thomas that “politics is bloody awful”, although I’ve not been able to track it down recently. (That is a maxim that I have adopted to technology, by the way: technology is bloody awful. If you're not careful.) Another is that the general public (certainly in America) is much more familiar with the Welshman’s work than the Irishman’s.

(When I lived in Britain, I was driving somewhere with one of my English colleagues, a technocrat at the data networking company that employed me, and he mentioned "that Welsh poet" and vaguely referred to "…some really famous poem" by him. I chirped, “Do not go gentle into that good night?” He was quite pleased that I knew about it.)

If you’re a fan of Paul Simon, you might recall the line from “A Simple Desultory Philippic”:

“He doesn't dig poetry. He's so unhip that when you say Dylan, he thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas, whoever he was. The man ain't got no culture.”

Well, I got culture.

We live in weird, weird times, with more than a whiff pf apocalyptic sulfur swirling around. I admit that every single day I feel more despondent about the way things are going. So we’re having Thomas’ “And Death Shall Have no Dominion”, which is my way of sending two poetic straight-up fingers to all the assholes and Christo-fascists out there.

“And Death Shall Have No Dominion”

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

 

 

2 pair of glasses

Given the outrageous state of our judicial system—from the top to the bottom (Clarence Thomas cocking a snook at any whisper of ethics; Greg Abbott whipping out a pardon for a convicted murderer before the ink is dry on the jury’s decision; Gym Jordan taking his “Judicial Oversight” clown car to yammer about criminal prosecutions at a local DA; a grand jury in Akron, Ohio, no-billing eight cops who drilled 46 rounds into a Black man over a traffic stop; RWNJ federal judge and Fifth Circuit Appeals bench in Texas wiping out negating FDA approval of mifepristone, in safe use across the country for more than two decades; and bladdy-blah-blah)—today’s entry for National Poetry Month is Tupac Shakur’s “Lady Liberty Needs Glasses”.

Because both ladies—Liberty and Justice—appear to be losing to the plutocrats, racists, misogynists, xenophobes and evangelicals. No doubt about it.

 

Loaded like spoons

When I went in search of poems from Lucille Clifton for today’s National Poetry Month post, I had the worst time trying to pick just one. Clifton, born in DePew, NY, in 1936, was prolific, both as a poet and an author of children’s literature. Her focus was on the African American experience, but so many of her poems resonate with me because they’re about women’s experience. Viz:

“poem in praise of menstruation"

if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon          if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta          if there

is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain          if there is

a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel          if there is in

the universe such a river          if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave

Clifton was Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979 to 1985. She died in Baltimore in 2010. Her poem “slaveships” makes me think of Phillis Wheatley, as well as the way Christianity was used as a mechanism to keep slaves and their descendants in their (inferior) place.

‘Scuse me—still used to do that. And also to keep women in their place.

“slaveships”

loaded like spoons
into the belly of Jesus
where we lay for weeks for months
in the sweat and stink
of our own breathing
Jesus
why do you not protect us
chained to the heart of the Angel
where the prayers we never tell
and hot and red
as our bloody ankles
Jesus
Angel
can these be men
who vomit us out from ships
called Jesus    Angel    Grace of God
onto a heathen country
Jesus
Angel
ever again
can this tongue speak
can these bones walk
Grace Of God
can this sin live

 

 

 

Despite expert advice

 I could not make it through National Poetry Month without Dorothy Parker. She’s not someone you want to binge-read, because poem after poem of biting wit begins to feel like the death of a thousand cuts. She's like the very best Courvoisier: sip a little and savor it.

Parker’s life wasn’t happy; she repeatedly loved not wisely but too well, and her longest relationship was with booze. So it’s not surprising that her short stories are deeply depressing and that her poetry is bitter. Still—like Courvoisier—in moderation, there’s nothing like a bit of her verse to say what you’d like to; if you only had both the skill and the nerve.

“Neither Bloody nor Bowed”

They say of me, and so they should,
It’s doubtful if I come to good.
I see acquaintances and friends
Accumulating dividends,
And making enviable names
In science, art, and parlor games.
But I, despite expert advice,
Keep doing things I think are nice,
And though to good I never come—
Inseparable my nose and thumb!