Nov 30, 2013

Reynolds & Midway XXII.


In the documentary I saw the words—
I forget already, the words I heard were—
I forget, re:Prophets from The Buik;
but there was something else that I was fain
to tell you now that's buried under heapes
of garbage, as at Gehenna, which is what
I thought I so desired to speak of. For of Hell
it most disturbs me, for, from e'en my birth
my fears were of a Hell of sorts, a dark
so dark that not one shred of light wd strike
my eyes, & not my hand before my face:
a child of six or sev'en I stood, my mother's
hand in mine, it could've been my father's,
plumb in a cave, in Southwest U.S.A.,
wherein the guide had plungd us into night
so night-like I had ne'er seen night before,
and queried, whoso wishes the light returne
please raise yr hand, and lo, the only hand
struck-up was yrs, sincerely, so they laughd
at one so dumb & young, or innocent ?
All three, no doubt, a three-in-one:trifecta—
trinity with minor 't', like that
softsoap that claimeth, 3-in-one, & that
snakeoil that offereth daily clarity,
I noticed of an evening: can this be
coincidence & happenstance, I wonderd,
but knew the answer in my latherd loins,
sd Midway, at which saying let us turn
back to the lantern slides: I saw
a man with quhite flanks on a public road
nude as a jaybyrd (naked hast too many),
who was to be the person of Isaiah,
at which point Reynolds clamord: be the Jazers!
forfend such visions, at which time did Midway
rub his chin & recollect his dreams
wich had been full of mony a bare behind
(Imagine me in the forest, with a beare
be-yoind ! The maiden with a bonnet sd
to Benny 'ill, who then screwd up his mug
& brought greate laughter sans an iteration)
not only of the spice & sugar kind,
not only of the waking kind, neither—
but dreams "wrought of volition", as I tappt
in Radcliffe, which was but a theft from Stevens,
one of the first things that I made
in this electric, softer mode: say things
said Midway, for the title "poem" must
be granted by another. Reynolds? No,
an other, not a sprite of thy invention,
thy shameless vanity, thy undead ego,
that stalketh still & loude inside of thee,
sticky w blood & sick, undisciplind flesh.
We made us cigarettes & watchd the screen
and learnd a tittle, which we will forget
despite the notes, despite the copy-pasted
chunks of information, bytes of data
that flow like rhinorrhea, true or false,
and clusterjammd for fingers to unpack
and hopefully unfuck, although our hope
is fading, for the world, both soft & hard,
is festering with minds & tongues that seek
destruction, not enlight'enment, that prefer
a loud guffaw & giggle to a fact,
who hold the truth in somewhat more contempt
than but beneath, scowling & sneering mouths
effeminate, insolent, & whorish-red
with shameless shaming, backwards industrie,
& duncy Alexander Potpourri.
Indeed, we're in a catch, & stuck between
the rock & hard place :seek & ye shall find
or seek & ye shall have the devil's index
+ fuckyou finger clapt inside yr nose
and led whither the Good Lord only knows.
'Tis time to pay attention, tappeth Midway,
and more, & closer. Deep. Be of good cheer
and of good faith, for God will make ye hear
despite yr stubborn creaturely stiff necks.
It hath been written, and will be againe
when you are changed back into elements,
whan that great Conqueror Worm & progenie
make windows in your skull & winde yr bones
in dirt & maggots. Maker of gold & bungholes,
of silver tongues & bullets, Lord of Hosts,
and of the world, Who maketh high the low
& low the high, Whose voice is from the little child
& sage, philosopher and lunatick, from wild
& cultivated, all, from lyon downe to lambe,
He speaketh via signs hid in plain sight, resplendent,
from asse to ant; and so He ruleth man, whose sins
are read, be His ways by the clock, or widdershins,
nathless they werke & are beyond ken, His Iamb
beyond all men, before us, obvious, transcendent.


11.30.13

A Word on Reynolds & Midway 2.

I thought of the name Midway for a variety of reasons: the first line of Dante's Inferno, if I can try it from memory: Nel mezzo del cammin de nostra vita, which I believe means something like: in the middle of life's way, or road. The line has stuck with me throughout my life, probably from the first time I knew what it meant. It gained in significance, naturally, the closer I approached to middle-age, which when I first used the name Midway - in my 5 sonnet sequence entitled Midway - was around forty or so: I don't wish to look back now and see how old I was exactly when I wrote that first sonnet - why? because I'm lazy. I intended that sequence to be longer than 5 sonnets—actually one of the poems, as it occurs to me now, was not a sonnet but a little piece amounting to 4 lines— but at some point I either abandoned the project or it morphed into the Reynolds & Midway poems, or poem. Midway is me, myself, the author: William A. Baurle, at least currently. At the very beginning he was to be a character based on myself, but not myself. In the 1st poem from Midway I believe he was an astronomer. How I intended to build on that I have no idea, since I know nothing of astronomy, science, or even the history of those disciplines. It's no doubt for the best that that little sequence died when it did. Which is not to say that it may not be revived at some point in the future. Who knows what the Lord intends? I certainly don't. Do you? If you do, please tell me. I am open to any and all comments, good or bad. Notice that this blog, now some 6 yrs in process, has received all of one single comment from a genuine, non-spam source. Whooooo-eeeeeh! I'm rackin' up the numbers! All for now. 11.30.13

A Word on Reynolds & Midway 1.

The name Reynolds popped into my head one day. I was writing a poem, the exact one I don't recall at this time, and it literally just popped into my head. At the moment it had no significance at all, it was just a name; but as I reflected on it (much later), I wondered if it had anything to do with the friend of Keats, John Hamilton Reynolds, to whom many of Keats' letters were addressed. Of course I had read many of the letters as a youth, as well as the poems, footnotes, etc, so the name is deeply impressed  in my brain. Keats was my first love as far as poetry is concerned. I fell in love with him without reading much of his poetry: just by opening a volume of his in the bookstore in fact. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I couldn't buy the book because I had no money, but I desired it so badly, words cannot express the feeling. It was similar to the feeling I had, a while before, perhaps years, when I opened the Fellowship of the Ring at a bookstore, but couldn't buy it. I remember the texture of the pages - it was a softcover, same as the Keats volume - the smell of the paper, the attractiveness of the words on the paper, the heft of the book, everything. Back to Reynolds: Reynolds was not only the friend of Keats but a poet himself, not a great poet but not a bad one either. Nowadays he is virtually forgotten as a poet and remembered as the friend of the great poet. To continue: as far as the poem Reynolds & Midway is concerned, Reynolds represents a friend, not any particular friend necessarily, although at specific parts of the poem I had a specific person in mind: Jim Walker, Mike Brown, Mike Canausa, Mario Zumbo, Tom Kennedy, at first; later it was my brother Kurt. Currently, it could be anyone: anyone who is not me, that is: my sons, people on the Internet, writers, authors, poets past & present: a biggy being Berryman, with whom I have not really engaged in a very focused way. He has fluttered around on the periphery, mainly because of his typography: the ampersand, dropping of 'e's: for example: stoppt or stoppd, pluckd or pluckt, etc, which I find appealing to the eye. Only recently (as in the last few days or weeks) have I discovered that he loved God at the end of his days. He was not the only modern poet to use this kind of typography (is this the correct usage?). Robert Duncan was another. I have yet to break bread with Duncan, though I have his Selected Poems. What I have read I have admired very much. Ginsberg also did those things, and him I have read more closely and been more intimate with, though we still have a future together. Blake, of course, used the ampersand and his own abbreviations, etc. I have read him closely, have "broken bread" with him, but have I understood him? I doubt it. Blake and I, if I am granted at least a few more years, will sit down together again. I never even finished reading the Four Zoas. I have not read Milton, or the other long works. I've never read Urizen all the way through. I've been a poser my whole life: taking Urizen as my username at PFFA for instance. Let me break here and explain Midway in the next post. 11.30.13

Nov 28, 2013

Reynolds & Midway XXI


This is the font David, David having
many significances, if that's a coinage,
if not, it is now, the first significance being
Solomon's Pop & slayer of Goliath,
He of the harp & sling, king & soldier;
also my brother's middle name; & Dovid,
Menke's son, to raise a cry for remembrance,
he of the great locks & the beard of Adam,
primaeval father, & first to raise rebellion:
a poisond headship, down from son to son,
& father of the first red hand of murder
in ancient acreage of husbandry;
progenitor of jealousy, & the seven 7
deadly paths to desolation, weeping,
tearing of hair & Jewry cast like doung,
like seeds of the dandelion, scatterd
impotent & wailing, drying seeds
unfecund in the ditch: a stink in the nostrils
for graven imagery, concupiscence,
& lifted skirts showing the opulent rumps
of whoredom | had enough? he asked, art-
fully flipping the soggy end of a cheroot
to the western side of his wide & parched mouth
& squinting like the blonde & pistold hero
whose spurs jangled in Italy; & Midway
shook his head, keep it coming, for we are
a lot of snorting swine, & swaggring sows
that swivel, swill-drunk, petulant, thankless
pigs & hogs, led through the abattoir,
that is, which are not little sheep: quhite lambkins
gaily galumphing, clumsily galloping
& heedful of the shepherd's call & staff,
yappt into line by smart unslavering dogs:
obedient canines, not like urchin curs
at fireplugs, furtive, snarling at mild milkmen |
Whan he stopt and there was a serious spark-
El in his eye, for he had gatherd up
too many labels for the same object,
wich was our subject, or is that the object ?
which brings us once again to Bishop Berkeley,
where Wi hath never been erstwhile, I reckon
in these soliloquies, these silly & daffy
dialogues, & this one peckt whilst deep
in Yirmiyahu, that uneasy prophet
whom with I've broken bread & come to terms
with mine owne hertes infidelitie
& shame for speaking of my Lord & standing
on His holy Word, & hiding in the cedars.
O Gilead, O Lebanon, hear my cry,
O Father high in Heaven, I have put
mine idols down & coverd up their faces,
& turnd to You, my LORD, the Lord of hostes,
O Laird of oists, wich is to mind of Gawin
thy faithful servant, Bishop of Dunkeld,
teller of Vergil to the common rabble,
of golden tongue & true humilitie,
quho brocht me back to that John Smith
who got it over with & took a jump,
& landed hard, & was not than a chump,
liken to those who but proclaim & prate it,
quod Frank of California, San Berdino,
maestro, unbeliever intransigent
unto his death-bed. I can hear him deeply
resonate: ram it up your snout,
or poopchute*, even if ye been a ladie.
But God hath made the world & He hath made
the black hole & the asshole*, all within
His perfect meditation: there be none
of nature nor of man not of His making,
no note of pitch nor word of song, no thought
can have its birth unless the germ is Him,
the gist, genius & genesis of All,
the Alpha & the Maker of megadeath,
Who hath ordaind the Sabbath & the right
to break the Law: in His Son Yeshua,
Immanuel, the Morning Star, the King
of Kings; in Him & only Him Who walkd
on Galilee and made the waters calm,
who fed the multitudes, who lifted up
the lame, the shamed, the losers of the world,
the poor, the shoeless, all the homeless masses
quashed silent, helpless, weeping, by the heel
of wanton Industrie & Usury—
which brings us back to Ezra, he whose name
I saw as Erza, head mired in my nether part
& eyes distracted, never focused, blind
to all but me & me & more of me—
of Idaho, whose pen was not a lume
spento but loud & harsh & accurate
who made Hugh Selwyn Mauberley & sd
I, even I, in mimick not in mockery
of Yahweh, who did shew to Yirmiyahu
that He was Lord & that He meant business,
not this milktoast & wishywashy pile
of vowels & consonants that poets dream
will give them glory permanent & hope
beyond the blink of their mortality,
allowing the inversion for the moment,
albeit it rankles & someday will go
the way of the lemming & the Dodo Byrd.
Estop this talk of cliffs & bridges please
sd Reynolds, holding in his hand a pack
of cards, to shew a trick, or tell a tale,
I know not, rather let us play a hand
of 21, and round this whole thing out.

Nov 26, 2013

Self-Interview


(Copy pasted from reviews, commentaries blog. Early genesis of the Reynolds & Midway  poems. 12.2004)


I.

Open the curtains, darkness, flip switches,
darkness; darkness so thick it hurts
there. In that here. An abyss.
You stumble blindly through the house
you grew up in. Yes. Always.
But you left years ago. Did you feel
No. I never felt completely secure there.
Alright, ask. The cause of all that?
How many times can I say it, yes yes yes.
Confined, lazy. All of those,
all at once. Absolutely no reason. But you
Absolutely no reason, because I could have
changed everything. I had no strength.
Now look out the window to the left
past the casements which I mentioned
many times. Old hunting cabin Dad
made over, no closets, frames put up
but never finished, had my own bed,
double-wide. You were about to describe
the window. Not describe. Look out of.

Trees with soldiers in them. Remember now
these are dreams. My brother and I
would lay on the bed with invisible rifles
and pick them off, one by one they'd drop
thump thump on the ground, roll down
the slope of the hill like boulders.
You killed them. They weren't really there.
But in the dreams I have now, those trees
are dark and breed darkness, multiply
and weave darkness upon darkness,
in the winds outside the window they sway,
like monsters. Leviathans. Sure, I like that.
Behemoths, more like, land-locked.

But it's every night, or every other.
The family is out, the cars are gone.
It's night time. Bang. Black-out. Always
the same. Silver horn of panic. Bile
in the throat. No lights. Paw under shades,
mildewy shades, can't find the switch.
Relax. Can't. It's always the same. TV
pops off, zoomph, black. No lights. I know,
the power goes out, but in the dreams
I don't realize. I mean, I don't make
the connection. It's not that the power
is out, it's that all of the bulbs give
up the ghost, all at once. Just my luck
kind of thoughts. You feel persecuted?
Victim of bad luck? Last one. Not so first.
Bad luck, bad juju. Or haunted? God, yes.
You know I don't believe in the supernatural.
Not at all? No. But I'm afraid of ghosts.
Hear me out. I didn't mean to laugh.


II.

Towns I've never seen, on the bright edges
of cities no maps take note of. Gothams.
But these are real towns, full of teens
in convertibles tearing down boulevards,
not the teens I knew, but I'm stuck with them.
Handsome devils all, with perfect girls,
never lost, never abandoned. How do you
know they are not the ones you went with?
I don't recognize them, and I don't like them.
Can we move on? No. Like I said, cruising.
Finding parties to which I'm not invited.
Finding a girl. Losing the girl. Chasing her
through labyrinths, crowds always smothering her,
snuffing her like a taper. I found my wife kneeling
by a divan, giving some quarterback
a hand-job. About eight times my size it was, in
her tiny hand, tattooed, with buttons, levers,
bells and whistles. I'd been given the standard
issue. She seemed delighted. Who wouldn't be?

Waterfall. Pardon? Waterfall. Lights on a hill
in a ring, a sheer drop, tree roots hanging,
and a waterfall. They climbed through it,
brave, undaunted. I couldn't go through. I
could never get to the other side. Slopes. Floors
sloped. Driveways at impossible angles,
red-tiled floors I'm slated to mop, steep. Water
related to loss? Water related to inadequacy?
Of course. I'm afraid of water. I can't swim.
Tidal waves, submarines, collossal vessels,
everyone's smiling. A day at the f#$*ing beach.
Tanned, smiling. When my toes can't touch bottom
I'm a dead man. And then they dive:
From cliffs to slender, uprising columns
of stone. They somersault, swandive, jack-knife,
hundreds of feet, and always land upright, dead-
center. Balance, no worries. Turn and dive a hundred
feet lower, onto a narrower platform. Then they
look up dot-size and beckon with peachy arms.
They don't understand your fear? No, and
why should they? It's so damned easy for them.


III.

Looked for C-wing, but wound up
in cellars, or out side doors I never knew
were there. That were not there.
Rows of blue lockers went on and on
ad infinitum, an illusion, done with mirrors.
How would I find mine, nothing
I had was there, I'd long since forgotten
the combinations. A pink flimsy paper
with my classes clutched in hand,
no books. No familiar faces.
Hallways sloped like irregular hills
and at their mysterious ends small white
holes of light, mold, rot, dead teachers.
Biology lab, test tubes, bunson burners,
students I've seen full grown at gas-stations.
C-wing senior homeroom, for the thousandth
time, elusive door, flag and book-stink.
No I have not done the assignment. I did not
know of the assignment. Let's go back to the
cellars was it? Bathrooms, but deep down,
low ceilings, pots with floaties, paper
wadded in corners. No stall doors and where
there are doors, they don't function, won't lock.
The place is usually the same, not much
changes, and it's not so much fear as shame.
Where is that g-ddamm room, the seven
or eight searches between bells. Mile-long
corridors boiling with impossible girls.
In the back of my dreaming mind I think
I still don't give a damn, can't find the door.


Late 2004

Nov 22, 2013

Reynolds & Midway XX


Jim Morrison croon'd it and by now we
don't need to do we? You see, it's simple,
as we sd before, he sd, Midway, trying
to avoid the Beat which will not be easy
for it is stampt, deep impressd in the you-
know-whatsis    speaking of whom, those
20th century foxes, they are present
and vividly standing, as in not dancing,
before me, bare-behinded, a cru el vision
because we have not, save 1 unfortunate
even, at which . now I hear a sacred song|
but to continue: and to ask a question of
ourselves, is this the work of Satan, that sly
& witherering apple salesman ? D'evil,
depending on whom one turns to bend an ear
to hear the truth, which is a slippery thing?
Doer of evil? Let us recall Ezekiel:
God Himself, Who can and will deceive
whomever He chooses, or, which is to say,
elects. I do not mean to stir the pot
nor bring confusion, only to seek clarity
and understanding, quoth Midway, which
is me, William, having surely come to the
middle of life's way, 1 shy of Elder brother
born also in July on the 1st day, one yr &
1 day prior, in nineteen-sixty-three,
that awful year when Jack was taken out
by one or several 'gunmen', pending on
where you turn & where you look to seek
the knowledge that you need to make
a judgment. Midway scratcht a villanelle
about that terrible day, but it was reckd
for being the trivial & mechanical object
it was, and so was thereby taken out.
Now to return to the heart of the matter:
the quhite & waxen haunches in the skull
that rankle & distract the mind
that wills to focus on the Lord & stick
to the path. Can I dissolve these images?
He asked, hands mentally smitten together
in prayer whilst lying on his side in half-
sleep, when those visions come disturbing
& send the blood to Mr. Johnson, who
can do no less than what he is commanded,
but hath been ruind by the lawful Lord
because we said, Midway & I, that: that
great crooked beast, Leviathan, hath sown
his seed upon my spine, a line from Hymns
I scribbled in my grave concern & fear
& used the stately and magnificent pace
of In Memoriam to set it straight & make
it plain to God and to what ears wd listen
which have been few, but goode, such as
Tim and Alan, who gave me Beowulf;
David, who sent my villanelle to England;
and Robbie Mac, to whom I made offense
by leading him unto a spurious guide
for Quiche Lorraine. & so it goes 4 Midway
who cannot even with a tractor pull
his head from out his ass: these words are true,
let no-one be ashamed who uttered them,
the man I have dishonored many times,
without whose strength and guidance, and
pure love, I should be dead a 1,000 x,
quod John of Birmingham, whose golden throat
was rarely heeded by the stinging pens
of critics, wielders of cliche and envy,
who stand upon the shoulders of great men
and spout their mockery in wanton fury,
as Carlyle warned, to preface that Novalis,
poet whose beauty shows in portraiture
whom I have not read; tho' there be a great
many whose names will live on. Let us pause,
& look about us, Reynolds interjected,
whom I've all but forgotten, and neglected.


11.22.13

Reynolds & Midway XIX


Use The Force, Luke, quoth that Obi Wan,
God told me to endite this daye the twentieth
~ One minus wich ~ November, there ! to him
That hath an ear, pray, let him listen than
& heede what we wi Christes' succor spieth
As thro' the luikinge glass our eye descryeth,
Quod Reynolds, in the welkin waxen dim

And thicke with mony spiral galaxies,
And nebulas, and vasty constellations,
Wherein we may imagine sundrie things
Swich as the Scorpion, that poisond is;
The greate Beare; & the Haywaine; & creations
Of still more coy and subtile variations
To glad the harts of pauperes and of kings

Of any race of loose or stiffneckd people,
Whether they haile out of the balmy dessert
Or northen tundras of quhite ice and snowe
That braketh mony a prow & goode shippes cripple.
'Tis written there for any quho will hazard
Ane upward glance. Ye need not bene a wizzard
To see the signes and signals wrote thereto,

Made large by One whose hand doth never shirke
Nor vainly tarry on a trivial matter,
But is the Fountainhead of Industrie,
The Prime, set standard of all goodly werke,
Who in th' eternal void the Light did scatter;
Who on the globe divided erde and water,
And lit His living lanterne in the skie.


11.21.13

[Chaucer, Douglas, Spenser, Berryman]

Nov 20, 2013

Note on font

To anyone (Ecoecoeco....) who might happen upon this blog, and who may want to read what it contains, please note that the Old English font used for the last two entries, Reynolds & Midway parts 17 & 18, is mainly a bit of fun on my part, though also done with a purpose: to point to what seems to me an almost universal human tendency to mistranslate and misinterpret what others have said or written. As for things spoken, we have a thousand excuses for passing them on incorrectly; as for things written, what excuse do we have? None. We only need to pay more, and closer, attention. But knowing that very often we do not pay enough attention, and that this is one of our most common and most ungodly attributes, and having so much written material behind us, I find it amazing that anything like a single coherent sentence, let alone a single coherent doctrine or thesis, has been able to survive and be handed down to us, intact, from antiquity. My atheist spirit of only a few years ago would see that bafflement as a perfect excuse to ignore anything resembling authoritative, and yes, intimidating, wisdom from those times; but so much has happened to me of late, that my astonishment now arises from witnessing the determination with which so many millions of human beings are seeking to obliterate, or at least obviate, the superlative achievements of our distant ancestors, whose work is saturated with goodwill and well-wishes for us who in their time were hazy, vague abstractions: a people of the future, a new and improved version of humanity. I feel deep shame for having once, and often, been so ungrateful and so blind as to have thought it sophisticated, even necessary, to casually trifle with the Bible and other ancient and sacred texts from all over the world. Shame on me. I hope God will forgive me.
 
A few more words: what may appear as mockery, satire, or just me trying to be cute, in my recent poems, particularly in my ongoing sequence, Reynolds & Midway, is really me being as straightforward as possible. There are no hidden meanings or puzzles here, at least not deliberate ones. The audience I envision are well-read, adult lovers of poetry who know more than I do, not less, who will get whatever there is to 'get' and who will know the many allusions, imitations, and references in the work; or, short of that, will at least be interested enough to use a search engine or a good reference book in order to track them down. I do not intend to be an 'intellectual' poet, or a novel, avant garde, eccentric, wily, coy, secretive one. My intention is to be understood and hopefully appreciated by a handful (more would be wonderful, but I don't anticipate that happening) of fairly well-educated and interested readers of poetry: not people who go to readings or buy books of poems to appear fashionable, smart, or quirky, just people who sincerely cannot live without poetry in their lives, people who view poetry not as a hobby, or a prop, or simply a sounding box for neurotics, political activists, or sissies (male or female), but as a genuine and time-honored form of art which is still alive and well and will not be phased out any time soon.
 
If the last two entries are difficult to read (which they would have been for me only a year ago), an easy fix is to copy and paste them into a simple text document,  or to a file where the font as they are presented in on this blog will either not be carried over or be alterable to something else. I assure you (if any there be: this blog attracts only spam traffic thus far) once again, I am not trying to be clever, nor to cause confusion, nor to impress, nor to dither without purpose. The meaning of my poems, and their deeper meaning, is very simple. I should also mention that it could very well be that I'm a terrible poet, a hack, just mediocre, or balls-to-the-wall insane. I'm not the one to make that judgment. I write primarily for God and for myself. Any extra ears are gravy, but they would be most appreciated. I have a difficult time selling myself and my poems. Thirteen of my poems have been published in mid to fairly-reputable journals over the years: twelve in print, one online. I hardly ever submit.

The world is choked with poets, so I don't think there should be any hurry to get another one out on the stage. I'd most likely piss myself and run away in any case. What I really wish is that the poets of today would spend less time worrying about their own posterity and more time reading the works of our fathers and mothers. For every poet I never heard of until a week ago, or a day ago, there are hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions - given roughly three millennia and a big world full of smart, opinionated, passionate human beings - that I haven't heard of, and to whose work, be it bad or good, I may be ignorant forever.
 
Wee Willie Winkie, 11.20.13

Reynolds & Midway XVIII

The child is father of the man, Bill spake,
as Sammy totterd on his shoulders, whilst
beneath Will's dirty shoes another stood
& held the younger's ankles, and so on,
so long, & down, & all the one-way down,
until the well-lickd boots of multitudes
devolved to plethoras of ruder footwear,
&, at the last, nude shoulder & bare heel;
yet whither went the longfaced oliphaunt,
the hearty tortoise, slow & shell-encased ?
queried Midway, his quhite-browd roving I
attending to the sunbaked hides of bronze
of college girls, who capered 'round about,
in & around the lake, whereto they flockt
when Spring did break upon the London Bridge,
and under, where expatriated blocks
were markd & reassembled faire & square.
Meanwhile did Reynolds scolde & laugh at him
who shyly and most slyly eyed them there
& said, O lurching dosser, look away,
for Heaven's sake, for tho thine hoary age
prickleth an interest in each henna's curl
& every curve & slope that wandereth
yet art thou impotent & shrivelld up,
crippled, & Mr. Thomas nothing worth
save| Yes, I interrupted, with my hand
awave, and eyes thereafter readjusted
forward, & on the straight & narrow way
my Lord hath put me, tho' from wich I turn
in creaturely abandon night & day,
& w/ self-willd intent & tongue let loose|
The number ! Reynolds interjected, he
being the voice of Reason, & Midway
wast shaken from his stupor, from his vain-
glorious self-reflection, GOD his witness,
and said, tho they be yonge & tender yet
they are of age, wich is to say not under,
in these United States, wich is the number
we have arrived @: arbitrary ? line
we cannot cross, which minds us of the Cross
lest any should consider this in vain:
a simple jest, tho' we, in motley dight,
caper, a fool without a king or court,
the amorous looking-glass besmeard whereon
we wrote, I love you GOD & Thine own Sonne
Whom Thou hast giv'n so that a wretch like us
might benefit of Thy Amazing Grace
& sit in comfort whilst far greater blood
is spilld upon the warfields of the world
that we might sing their honor & their memory :
Virgins with rifles , scarcely old enough
to raise a beard yet old enough to raise
a carbine, yet too young to raise a drink.
At West Point, where a major pulld me forth
into the cold & brilliant light, they learn
the craft of killing, & the art of dying,
& yet by law art deemd too greene to bend
an elbow. There's yr fine American logic
scoffd Reynolds, ever of the weather eye
& Quaker heart, ore was it me, he queried,
& turnd a full three-sixty in the quad
which was as quiet as a hearth at Christmas,
wich was to say, at Yule (w/ reservations ),
speaking of which, now let us tip ovr hat
to one who walkd upright & as a man:
magnificent in black & suave of pate,
whose voice on celluloid wast withovt match
who one time spake as great King Solomon
also: so let it be written, so let it be done ,
he sprach erstwhile, in nineteen-fifty-six,
when Charlton, alpha-mega, saw the Hand
of GOD write in the stone the Decalogue,
which to this day rebuketh the straying hart
& keepeth the right man on the garden path.

11.20.13

Nov 18, 2013

Reynolds & Midway XVII.

Sing, Muse, of having scratcht a 17th part
but yesternight, and having put it up,
which is to post, nay, not a beam, nor beame,
but a continuance, but too poste-haste.
For the LORD GOD, to Whom I made an oath,
saw fit to have me take it down again,
for it wast naught at all, but mockery,
& not great art, quoth Robbie Stevenson,
who said that man is wont to see the sin
and not the good that is a part of man;
who had endited many a goodly booke
that soon were etcht on our collective mind
and raised him to the upper stratosphere,
whence few can fly, that blessed aire to breathe.
Full stop. Estop, quod Berryman, for we
must amble onward, and by our design'd
perambulations wamble nigh on what
our issue is, which is: to glorify GOD
& humble man, who smiteth at his breast
like him that walketh on his hairy fists
& swaggreth in the lawless wildernesse:
that buff baboon, of muscle & great might,
of narrowe hind & broadnesse in the shoulder.
Let us proceed, quoth Reynolds, in annoy,
& Midway, both entrencht in mental fight:
internal war betwixt neuron & dendrite,
insipid battle 'tween a silly twain
of mark'd men; for the keen crosshairs of CHRIST
have wrought a plus upon them & transfixd
their wings of clay, those lepidopteran ghostes
that gad about inside the skull machine
and wreak much havoc on the back of Will:
obsequious donkey saddled with a brace
of misty and mysterious entities
who prick toward hell, San Juan, or Baltimore,
an hare-eared beast of burden, sad-eyed ass,
whose jawbone slayed a thousand Philistines,
whose lowly back bore up the Son of GOD
when He went riding to Jerusalem.
Speake of the number, then, ze vain galoots,
wich James, hight Paul, the Liverpudlian
born in the sixt month, nineteen forty-two,
declaimd with certitude that she was just
whenas he saw her standing there; and Joan,
not Jeanne d'Arc, but of the locks of Jett,
who spied him nigh unto the box of jukes;
and that stray cat whose plectrum pluckt
by shapely f-holes. There we lose a foot,
crieth Midway, of the Menke-clept hemstitch,
the primal iamb, one iambic tet
laid with rude guile, or by a sure neglect
abandoned like a babe amid the pent,
quad-pedall'd foundling wrapt & bundled up
in dingy swaddling fingerd in a brothel,
where waifly urchin maidens live enslaved
and jolly melon-faced & toothless hens
eke out long days in druggd & wretched pain
because of knuckle-dragging earthly brutes
who have not learned to love, or, having faild
in wedlock, reconnoiter in the dark
thro shabby streets, inevitably led
by urgent dictates of a smaller head.

11.18.13