Showing posts with label blank verse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blank verse. Show all posts

Jul 16, 2016

Reynolds & Midway 70

Telephond in from God, the teacher sd,
Leonard, when talking Beethoven mit Max
@ the piano, talking melody
& harmony—his agile fingers making music
out of the black & white, the on & off,
& that 1st symphony by Rachmaninoff
was gorgeous, inexplicably beautiful—
we switcht around, clickt here & there to list
to this & that, Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn,

saving Schubert for a time perceived
like glossolalia in a dream of gardens
where Keats & Severn arm in arm wld join us
in green, red & yellow leaves, for joyous
Bacchanalian revels, seeing him stand tiptoe
upon a little hill and name each flower
he saw & smell the queen's handwaving leaves
of oaks or maples ? willows ? that's never a willow

hearkening back to Monty always Python
in the skullcage rattling round & woody tinny
words & music violins & violence
of scrambling atoms subatomic particles
of Offenbach Rachmaninoff & Rachinoff
& Onandnoff, concerti for the clarinet,
bassoon, french horn & harp & flute & tuba
too. 

      Too much! he says & stands & leaves
the auditorium, there oughta be a
moratorium on woody tinny fluty
music. All this longhair stuff is stuffy as
a new tuxedo, bowtie strangling, how they do it?
bowing sawing tuning breathing piping
blowing!



7.16.16

May 10, 2016

Reynolds & Midway 69

Must it be us & ampersands? he sd
& swishd & swiveld amid the booted girls
that throngd in leggy thongy fleshiness
& selfie-taking phone distracted clutches
all about him in the ailses of boxes—
goods squared up & shined to draw the eye
that some say came by accident & some

say was designed, like clocks & Swiss wristwatches—
Yes, it must be, by the mustard jars
which minds me of those mustard scansions I
could never grok nor reckon writ by Crane
Not Stephen but the other one, that Hart
who leapt into the sea to still his heart
& made those bridges clearer in our heads

for why & wherefore who knows only Who
wich is to cap the double you to say
we mean the Big Guy (Note the capital G).
in any case we hope that Hart found rest
& also John who jumpt, & Sylvia
who breathd her last to gain euphoria
oblivion or quiddity & Ann

who suckd death from an engine was it, sounds
easy, for I'm not one to cut or dive, I want
a bloodless slipping into being nothing,
or hell or heaven, who knows. Only One
wich is to say not witch nor majik— note
the tres chic ultra-modern spelling—but
One Only, whither wheresoever He

Or She may be has been discussd aforetime
& by much smarter creatures—let it be known
that there is nothing new under the sun
& everything that ever could be done's
been done a thousand times a million x
a trillion, also there is nothing written
that has not heretofore been written better

& brighter than our brightest, list to Pound's
Kung to his pupils in that brilliant canto
or to the horse's mouth, in ancient x
& all around the world was wisdom won
in heads of men & women thinking things
& dreaming, sossd or sober, in their tents
wigwams igloos clayhuts, caves & ditches.


5.10.16

Sep 11, 2015

Reynolds & Midway 65

I wanted, rekkin, to rite a ditty for Anne C
but baild on at, for whither wld that get me
question mark. Return to Ezraversity,
wherefrom I baild in late teens & late 20s
took up put down took up put down again
for we are monotongued, sd Midway, sitting,
pecking, dreaming. How many tongues had he?
Heard six, heard nine, now how is 1 to no?
O Tower of Babel, mark it well, remember.
It want for nothing men wrote write to left
in them days, patient, learnèd men, not all
'em bronzeage herders: That is ignorance,
stupidity at large, broadcasted loud
in academia, and on social media.
Read, and teach yr young to read, then
read. Don't speak. Shut up. Button yr lip.
Be quiet. Listen. Meditate in silence.
Go find a quiet place, out of the noise,
and listen. Move yr eyes across the page
and keep yr lips closed. In that silence cometh
a knowing, if yr lucky a shewing (sic). O
-pen yr heart and let Him in, O let Him in,
for now it's party time in the Tower of Babel ,
time for inking & another prick,
another bit of metal through the nose,
the tongue, the ear, another barbd eyebrow,
another fuck-you finger, another sneer,
another primal scream. The darkness calls
and we go running. I go too, we all go
down the black & misty spiral stairwell
into the green & purple life from death,
down to King Rat, down the rabbit hole,
again, againe. Apart we are, unWhole,
but fleety flex & ittybitty bits
cast in avoid, like whan we were a childe
not Harold we wld blow the dandelion
hither & thither, yon & over hill
and over dale, and whan we dreamd we saw
the stars come form a wheel and whirl, and we
were Moses was it, w a writhy staff
a serpent, magic, Cassavetes calld
down magic from the sky, a Tempest, Greek,
& w his glasses he sd, show me , tempting
God Who shant be tempted. Unto Julian
He shewed, and He will choose to whom He shows
until then listen, wait, for those who sit
or stand & wait are also serving, sd
Iohannes Milton who was blind & able
to justify the ways of God to man
in order serviceable.


9.11.15

Jul 30, 2015

Reynolds & Midway 62

°
O Lord? For we cannot decide—wait. What?
< that sh*t annoys me, for it's everywhere,
that forum where our fingers flew, elsewhere,
all social media, medium? Once we tried
to learn some Latin, as we did whan young
and poring over Dante: bought a book—
Italian/English dictionary—in
the naive hope we'd learn enough to grok
the lefthand page, but ended up in tears.
^That much is true, God bless my infant spirit,
gifted? but ignorant of that small voice
I heard at all times. < That is also true,
you, reader, ages hence, if ought there be,
so mark it down. ¶ I happen on, in books
I relishd whan in high school, pages bent,
passages marked with this*, or bracketed,
that tell my older & much wiser spirit
that he was listening than, tho' far more oft'
his mind wld wander while his eyes criss-crossd,
likely to girls who struck his boyish fancy,
and thus to secret thoughts we still think up
but won't relate—for what wld be the point—
the point!  as Julian of Norwich sd
was God, and we believe, the Genesis,
the Alpha & Omega: One wee point,
from wich that still small voice. Around it, what?
Nothing. But what is nothing? Nothing naughts
itself, a letterd signal, utterance
so trivial it wastes the time it takes
to speak or write it. < All of that was known
in ancient times, for there is nothing new—
(aha! ) Then, Lord, what would You have us do?°
Repeat in newer fashion, make again
in other form what has been sd & sd
and sd again? Repeat, reiterate,
the opening of the throat— the primal ,
the aum of consciousness? No, Midway. Work
is what we're here for, for there's virtue in't,
as Robert may have written: not that Robt
of whom we speak at times whan steepd in sin,
but one that was committed to the Word
in heart & mind, so gifted he cld spin
1,000 lines as we might spin a sonnet;
late-bloomer, who left home at 34,
the lucky son of loving parents. Love,
the message of our Lord, Who knew the Word
and was the Word in flesh, Who walkd the world
and gave us truth in every word He spoke,
Who taught the rich & poor, the young & old,
crippled & kings, lectors & lepers, all
who stoppd and gave an ear. Now listen—


7.30.15

A Conversation Between Robert Browning & Wallace Stevens

A fancy restaurant, circa 1925.


B: Huzzah! My friend, what thinkst thou of my poem
Sordello?

S:          That Sordello of whom, or which,
Pound mentioned in his canto?

B:                                  That's the same.
Zooks, what's the hubbub there? Those waiters swivel
and swerve like dancers in Le Sacre du
Printemps. Hast seen it, Wallace? As a spirit
that lurk'd unseen, my keen unsubtanced eye
partook at—Paris, was it, or Verona?— Grr,
the memory fuddles e'en in afterlife!

S: Stravinsky's? Yes, but let's talk of Sordello.
I read the book, but like Lord Alfred, read
but two lines that seemed lucid, and the rest
mere huff and hum, a hullabaloo of words
put on the page to make poor widows wince
and scholars' fingers rush to dusty tomes
in search of fact and date.

B:                            Mere huff and hum
thou sayst? A hullabaloo of words!
Grr, Stevens, I had thought thee better read
than wincing widows. 'Zounds! that racket! Where's
my wine? But of Sordello, of my book
that critics found unworthy; my poor book
that left bluestockings and great men befuddled!
Zooks! Lizzy understood the thing, and more,
but what is that? The world is none the wiser
albeit a touch less patriarchal.

S:                                Hah!
Sweet Robert, have you found the time to look
at my Comedian as the Letter C?
Of all the scribblers come to Kingdom Come
I fancy you would find it to your taste.

B: What? Did you speak? Hoorah! The wine at last!
But hold, good sir, what's this? I said your best
chianti, in the bottle!  Take the glass
and bring a bottle ;  but make sure, thou knave,
the cork is stuck! If not, I'll have thy hide!
Lo! there he scampers. I'd not have his hide,
poor scamp, for I have yet a heart in me.

S: Forget it, Bob. Now where's that menu? Ah!

B: Zooks!  Look!

S:                  These prices! Ho! Harrumph. Harrumph.




7.30.15

Jul 21, 2015

Reynolds & Midway 60

     "The nest is full of nothing when the bird has flown." - I.A.

I see kiniggits pricking on the plain,
the crosses on their breasts, the horses' nostrils
steaming, and the stamping clopping hooves
with iron shod, I see the clumps of earth
fly up, and in the distance from a square
cut in the stone I see a rope, a braid
of maidenhair, say chestnut? Lethian,
or some rapunzeled girl, trapped in a cell

twain storeys high, of smooth wood and baroque,
fine carven, swirling stuff, and on the mantles
many vials, vases, polished mirrors,
porphyrian oddments, or of whiter work,
blue filigreed marble, flakier sandstone, veined
we should have said, for he was thinking deltas
deep inlaid, and Pound had come again
with some new brighter stuff, can someone list?

Can someone come along with us, O come
ye blousy spirits, there be avatars
in me and many, may we be possessed
of thee, but soft, for there beyond the door,
beyond the gate, be darkling things that cry
and wait and lie, that gibber in unjoy,
ungainly in ungrace, not far afield
but close and clustered, toady moist and gaunt,

or in an ungallumphing gravid mass—
Then pray upon the Cross, and say, O Christ,
for Thou art with me, I shall fear no evil:
None shall taloned tear me limb from limb,
O Lord, for I have with my rubbing thumb
upon Thy body, narrow on the Cross,
thanked Thee with gratitude, and anxious love,
and unaccosted laid me down to dream.

7.21.15

Jul 2, 2015

Reynolds & Midway 57

Now let us speak of Gorlim, Barahir,
& Beren, not of Bob, who in the hands
of Julia lay idle in the bed
of Mark that beta who with mouth full-wet
did thru the fluttring shutterd lens betray
himself & wife; and that of Midway, torn,
conflicted, pinprickd by a rash of arrows,

redfaced & sacrletsinnd, who w/ clencht knees
did hearken unto demons & those angels
of his better nature, led afar astray
but not with fierce twang, as had sung that Robt
who told to Wm of those loaves of stone
where 2 cld walk abreast & of those birch
& apple trees, of departmental ants

(& those w Quaker hats were Simic's ants),

& waiting wives by hills where millers stalkd
where low greene hills did pop w dandelions
milkweed (milkweed?) daisies, beetles, cows
whose mild & comely girth did frighten Willie
whan he had hid behind his mother's hip
and thoght him that that milk wast tasty pee
& dreamd of ants that nite whan Daddy sd
Billy the ants are in yr head

& Billy cried in terror anxious fear
& dread of dreams before the skull machine
welcomd such visions: That Lovecraftian crackt
and cakelike mould of stinky mildewd stairs
where chains did clang below & clammy walls
& gappy crookéd wooden concrete steps
that wound & wound 
around & round
O cabbages & kings 
& queens & guillotines


far farther down than any wandring lad
wld wander had he will & wakend choice
deep in the ground where moles & slippry snails
& salamanders newts (who knew too much)
did slyly slither with those slithy toves
beneath the stones that gatherd Howard Moss

whan older he had taught us how to sing
in perfect measure, him the poet prophet
spectacled & modest, editor
& master, who had made the summer start—
and in a renaissance of rings—
who told of Midas who wld touch
the world to gold & thereby sufferd much—

O cabbages & kings 
& queens & guillotines
& Brad's left fingers dazzling on the board
we thoght were Joe's whan we were young & narrow|

Now, we have never spoke of Barahir
nor Gorlim, nor of Beren & we shant
for one far greater did that wonder thing
& died, alas, but lives w Luthien
in that Tol Galen, island in the stream
of Adurant, where they forever thru
for aye far fresher fields make pastures new.

7.2.15

Jun 18, 2015

Reynolds & Midway 56

My odalisque be narrow, lithely gilt
at tail, but swiveld @ her centre, made
of goodly stuff, and mayhap she will tilt
just so, adornd with diamond emerald—
a prick—a sapphire black obsidian
and there, just there below meridian
beneath and to the west & east that white
enamel nub prest out against the sheath
of velvet satin olive alabaster

Rotormobile, savage, pigeon-toed
and knobby kneed, not splayd:
No waddling duck for this sick drake
of twisted form, not made for sportive trix
his spine 19° curved left for sin
@ 15, lockt in padded corsetbrace
in pimpled shame, in bumping corridors
hard plastic puppetboy, strapt in, tied up|

Thy odalisque be slender, spider-leggd,
come cherrytopt & cherrylipt and slay
us, brown black Dian Artemis O silver
horn, we watching in a thorny thicket:
Horny hunters, thou in Grecian glade
nimroddy toms, we peeping, run us thru

Thou odalisque O comely concubines
my slim & limber troupe
of cantaloupian musky melon loves
in closely clusterd groups like grapes
and bunches of well rinded fruits
of yellow, tan, or tawny
flesh O mellow meat O no !
she saw
                                

6.18.15

Jul 13, 2014

Reynolds and Midway 48

                  Like a tiger in the cage
                  we begin to shake with rage - Rob Halford

Yes, of the feet, for fourteen hours I walked
those small square tiles and eyed the chalky grout
where seeds and grains of salt and flour and spice
would gather daily, in that concave space
that made the plane a grid. To get it clean
and keep it clean required the utmost care,
my eyes directed downward, spotting flecks
of contraband packed in the soles of shoes,
the tiny rocks and specks of matter dragged
in from the outside. This is pure defeat:
to do a task and know that one is conquered,
a tedious and nonproductive toil
they pay you for, but not enough. My heart
goes out to every soul who ever worked
in similar futility: To fill
a belly, and to have one's labor turned
to shit, to gratify the basic needs of Man
with little recompense and scant reward.
Reynolds and Midway stand aloof and yawn.
They stretch their wispy arms and laugh at me.
My brow is sheened with sweat, my back aches,
my feet are sore from walking up and down
and to and fro, my shirt and slacks are soiled,
my fingers puckered, over-sanitized,
my pockets filled with scraps of sugar packets,
bingo chips, squashed peas, kernels of corn
I pick up from the floor. Not just for Christ,
but for my own wellbeing, and my keeping,
O, yes, for Him, I kneel and bend my head,
I scrape and gather like a scavenger
among the table-legs and tattered chairs,
wheelchairs, walkers, in the stink of cheap
institutional food, the clink of cup,
saucer and plate, and flimsy silverware,
for love of self, for love of these I serve,
and which is greater, only Christ will judge,
and only Christ can know; for when I speak
I hurt, and when I kneel my spirit aches,
and when I bow I show my spine that once
was crooked, and I hide a crooked heart
that, though it overruns with honest love,
and pounds with joy to honor God and Christ,
is yet a catacomb of jealousy,
a house of loud pulsating pride and hope,
for one who loves not me, an echo hall
of vanity and lust, a red devil
flapping in rage. Screaming in rage,
sorrow, and pain, it beats its cage.

7.12.14

Jul 11, 2014

Reynolds and Midway 47

                        "Take it away, Howard." - Woody Allen's Bananas
 
On the road he was on He came to him, and he
fell, as we fell, Reynolds and me (we should say 'I'),
as if down steps or stairs, and woke up wounded.
We felt it first, a deep ache in the side, 
then black and blue, then red, then multicolored.
For hours we lay in the emergency room
with no emergent physical trauma, triaged
fairly to a bright cold room to wait.

We slept and dreamed, and this is what we dreamt:
An Ozymandias, a monument
in some imagined past or future: Desert
civilized, but prehistoric: beginning
times, wound back to start, biblical settings.
We thought of Adam and Eve, of Cain and Abel,
a populous in utero, we thought
of Noah and his kin, but not the Flood.
 
Antedeluvian, the land was young
and ripe for husbandry,    yet not rife
with throngd humanity. Entwined with these
dream thoughts, or visions, were impossible
absurdities, my chair a captain's chair,
I had the conn, commanded with my clicks,
as ages happend past my ogling eyes.
Spirk at my hand and I a James T. Cock,
 
cook of the walk and riler of the roost,
an i am i, faux tetragrammaton
in silly miniature, a puppeteer
of myriads of poor Pinocchios
(his voice is dead for three days as I write)
and meaty marionettes who span the globe
to bring the constant variety of sport—
the thrill of victory,    andthe     agon


7.11.14

Jul 2, 2014

Reynolds and Midway 46



          KING
          Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
          QUEEN
          Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.


"Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen, hier
kommt die Sonne..." hier I sit again—
tambien y Also, not as in as well,
but so , or thus, as in Herr Nietzsche's Buch
and Strauss's tondichtung, and not that Strauss
who made The Blue Danube, but Richard, he
who hymnd w his triumphant brass and chords
the Cosmos ere that cinematic wizard
Kubrick borrowd them and also made
those notes Eternal— Sing, then, muse of song,
Apollo, he whose son usurped the reins
and drove the sun across the vaulted dome
that spans the Earth, like Icarus, whose father
watchd him fashion wings: both vainly fell
for their ambition, like that fiend of old,
the brightest angel Lucifer, by Milton
glorified who told in his 12 books
of that archangel's ancient hate and fall
with his one third the populous of Heaven,
who warrd with monumental engines, strove
with futile energy and negative power
against the greater Seraphim and hosts
immeasurable, when One born in the Light
and coeternal with the Lord enthroned,
greater than Michael, mightiest of angels,
Him to be brought low and born of woman
in Bethlehem, that tender Nazarene
Who wanderd weakend in the flesh of men,
constraind to poverty and mildest temper,
Who, puissant on high and formed of might,
drove Satan and his hosts to depths of woe
and dark regret: Like that, he sd, and I:
There is a painting of young Phaethon
downtumbling from the sky, by Johann Liss,
and flabby bodies, nigh on corpulent,
watching in terror and astonishment.
Better the scene envisiond by Brueghel
and later immortalized by Wystan Hugh,
of Icarus, an object in the distance;
better that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
should move to center stage and Hamlet brood
alone in wafty castle corridors.
But wherefor, is the question Reynolds puts,
and Midway: Few get saccharine violins
and windy music as the credits roll,
as teary-eyed invigorated viewers
rise and, clutching empty popcorn boxes,
walk the graded carpet to the square
of light that takes them back under the sun
and to the ordinary. Many pine
and everything goes foul; and every day
a question forms its curved, quizzical mark
in that Platonic plane where Absolutes
exist unquestionably and absolutely,
of that material of which the World
is made, or should we say, is in the making,
the Light, the Waters, and the Firmament,
and all that creepeth on the field One made
Who knows the field and Is its Knower, One
Who sees the salamander in the ground
beneath the stones we overturnd, the cool
wet soil where wiggld worms, where went
the multipedald centipede and ant,
Also observed and numberd, as the hairs
upon our heads, so warnd the lamblike Christ
Who was His Father's embassy on Earth—
O Word made flesh, Who also sees the scales
of fish flash in the Waters, and the spume
of whales, Who walkd the lake of Galilee,
and in the garden of Gethsemane
cried on the Father, Abba, Adonai,
and chastend Peter, who denied him thrice,
and, kissd by Judas, went to pay the price
of our salvation, bound, a criminal,
spat on and scourgd. O Lord, my Saviour, Christ,
let me be chastend also, make me love
all those that hate me, let me speak of them
who in this minute, while my fingers move,
are trappd in desperation's snares, whose hearts
have not Thee, who are in despair, whom hope
has left, who wear the woven shoes of Sorrow,
who go w soundless and w sudden feet
and over Goldengrove unleaving mourn
and live in darkness. Grant these, Lord, Thy light
and gentle hand, in Thee reborn.


7.2.14