An Apology for Bad Poems
I’ve been talking at you for years
like a deaf grandfather. I don’t mean
to lecture, that’s death for poetry.
But if poetry can’t compete
with “The Wall of Death,”
at least it can be a Ferris Wheel.
At the zenith of our revolution together,
your head jerking like a gopher sitting sentry,
I’d like to hear, “Grandpa, what’s that?”
“That’s where the A-Bomb hit in ’62.
Nothing grows there except man-eating radishes.”
“Really? And Grandpa, over there, over there!”
“That’s a whale sunning himself in a tree.
Those are sea otters flying about.
The gleaming carousel is made of abalone.”
“And there, Grandpa, what’s that?”
“That’s the Red Giant, gouty Antares
limping out to milk his Apatosaurus.”
“Really? What does the milk taste like?”
“Like vanilla ice cream smothered in caramel
and melted into a thick, sweet soup.”
We descend and dismount. Carnies bark
from booths overflowing with kitsch.
Sorry, son, the poem is over.
I penned (typed) this one first thing this morning. Notice how deafness recurs as a metaphor for me. ;-)
Incidentally I stole the title for today's poem from Robinson Jeffers.
I'm trying to loosen up my verse a little. But there’s always a catch.
The tradition of Parnassian verse, as in Homer, Virgil, Beowulf, Spenser, Shakespeare (ignoring comedies and comedic interludes), Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson—a type of poetry Matthew Arnold wrote of as containing "high seriousness"—seems clearly over.
Yet much of the magic of poetry depends upon such high seriousness, since we must take poetry seriously to set up heroic expectations, or even anti-heroic expectations. (See "The Hollow Men" by Eliot, "Out, Out" by Frost, or "Roan Stallion" by Jeffers. The moderns could still do high seriousness.)
What am I trying to say? There must be a point between the conversational voice of Billy Collins and the often elevated voices of Milosz, Larkin, Yeats and the like.... I think Eliot mixes the conversational with the Parnassian better than anyone:
From “Gerontion":
"The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom."
(italics mine)
I find the conversational more effective when set up by the serious, the empyrean, or the Parnassian, but so few poets can do this—change voices in mid-stream successfully. You have to be very good to do this. Most of us can only write well employing one voice. In reading Jane lately, as good as she is, she doesn't even attempt this. Most poets don’t.
Again, without form verse libre is impotent; without seriousness the conversational becomes banal. The necessary dualisms of great writing are in the very nature of writing, just as Shakespeare relieves the political machinations of Henry IV with Falstaff.
Here’s a different example of coming from the conversational to a conclusion of high seriousness (Yeats):
CRAZY JANE TALKS WITH THE BISHOP
I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
'Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.'
'Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.
'A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.'
(italics mine)
Since first being enamored of poetry, I have been enamored of poetry of power. I find Plath powerful at times but not Collins. Dylan Thomas is powerful, as Larkin can be, but Walcott rarely. Milosz can do it, though he is a bit jagged. Coleridge's "Rime" must be the most powerful poem ever written in the sense I mean.
I wrote an essay called "Power Lyrics" several years ago in which I tried to develop this theme more clearly, but I doubt I'll ever explain it properly; it's like what Blackwell said about pornography; I know it when I see it.
What is even more powerful is when the poet has the skill to interrupt serious verse with a snatch of the intimately conversational, even ridiculous, or vice-versa, which takes us completely by surprise and works despite (and because of) the momentary jarring of switching inputs.
If you are confused by these points, it is the fault of the author, not your brain. Maybe I’ll nail the concept another time.
All for today,
CE
Monday, May 21, 2007
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Baby Steps
"Jealousy" by Edvard Munch:
Since coming out of my depression, now on firm ground for nearly a month, breaking into kilobunnies at times, clean and sober save for my prescribed medications, I have had a return of sanity to my art as well.
I have been guilty in the past of whining in a corner, decrying the state of contemporary poetry, jealous of the successful, feeling my "genius" ignored, yada yada piss bam boom.
I recall a moment of sanity I had once in Palm Springs, where in driving around I noted that over 25% of the cars on the road were Mercedes Benzes. A twinge of jealousy pricked me; why did they have such handsome buggys while I drove a beater? I was a practicing doctor, wasn't I? Then it occurred to me: they had worked for them, budgeted for them, else sacrificed to lease them. In a word, they had earned them. And I hadn't. I hadn't even tried.
Get real, Dr. Chaffin!
Back to poetry. In the same way I have half-heartedly sent out a few submissions now and then, completely inconsistent, the rejections either provoking me to despair at having no talent or to disdain for the editors who lacked the wisdom to perceive my gifts.
I have just completed sending out 40 submissions to paying journals both by snail and electronic mail, depending on the guidelines. To the best of my ability I seriously studied the preferences and examples of each magazine and sought to tailor my submissions to their wants.
This is so elementary that it unfailingly appears in every writer's guidebook in the very first chapters. Instead of listening, I have wasted so much time complaining about the state of poetry that I never tried to get on the bus in earnest. (This attitude did result in some good essays.)
Isn't that how most of us are? Experiencing jealousy over the possessions or accomplishments of others as if someone had waved a magic wand and dropped such things in their laps?
Get real, CE!
The Chinese pictograph for danger is also the symbol for opportunity.
It's been said that "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity."
Wish me luck. I've decided to start behaving as a grown-up when it comes to my art.
Thine in Truth and Art,
Craig Erick
Since coming out of my depression, now on firm ground for nearly a month, breaking into kilobunnies at times, clean and sober save for my prescribed medications, I have had a return of sanity to my art as well.
I have been guilty in the past of whining in a corner, decrying the state of contemporary poetry, jealous of the successful, feeling my "genius" ignored, yada yada piss bam boom.
I recall a moment of sanity I had once in Palm Springs, where in driving around I noted that over 25% of the cars on the road were Mercedes Benzes. A twinge of jealousy pricked me; why did they have such handsome buggys while I drove a beater? I was a practicing doctor, wasn't I? Then it occurred to me: they had worked for them, budgeted for them, else sacrificed to lease them. In a word, they had earned them. And I hadn't. I hadn't even tried.
Get real, Dr. Chaffin!
Back to poetry. In the same way I have half-heartedly sent out a few submissions now and then, completely inconsistent, the rejections either provoking me to despair at having no talent or to disdain for the editors who lacked the wisdom to perceive my gifts.
I have just completed sending out 40 submissions to paying journals both by snail and electronic mail, depending on the guidelines. To the best of my ability I seriously studied the preferences and examples of each magazine and sought to tailor my submissions to their wants.
This is so elementary that it unfailingly appears in every writer's guidebook in the very first chapters. Instead of listening, I have wasted so much time complaining about the state of poetry that I never tried to get on the bus in earnest. (This attitude did result in some good essays.)
Isn't that how most of us are? Experiencing jealousy over the possessions or accomplishments of others as if someone had waved a magic wand and dropped such things in their laps?
Get real, CE!
The Chinese pictograph for danger is also the symbol for opportunity.
It's been said that "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity."
Wish me luck. I've decided to start behaving as a grown-up when it comes to my art.
Thine in Truth and Art,
Craig Erick
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
How I Pissed Off Congressman Mike!
(If you just want to see the pictures, scroll to the end of the post.)
Yesterday I was awakened at 7:30 AM by a strange voice.
“Is this Craig? Craig Chaffin?”
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I said “Yes?”
“This is Mike Thompson, your U.S. Representative, and I want to know why you called me a ‘weenie!’”
“Huh? Oh, in that letter I sent at your site?” I tried to remember, as I write a lot of letters to people who don't know me.
“Do you know my Iraq voting record? Do you know anything about me? Why did you write me such an offensive message?”
Gathering my dream-spattered thoughts: “Well, I assumed I would only get a form letter from you, so I called you a ‘weenie’ about Iraq in case I might actually get a response. Look’s like I did. You know, it’s hard to get the attention of an institution without spraying some graffiti.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
“Is it true you are a doctor, a medical doctor?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe that you, an educated man, would write me this.”
“What, do you want me to apologize?”
“Do you know my record on the Iraq war? I was posterized by the Republicans for visiting Iraq before the war, looking for a non-military solution. And have you heard of the recent McGovern bill for immediate re-deployment of our troops? We only have 171 votes. So it won’t get passed. But I voted for it.”
“Is Pelosi with you on this?”
“Of course.”
“That’s good to know. But why do I hear all this noise of trying to compromise with the Republicans?”
“There is no compromise.”
(On his website he prides himself for being a moderate Democrat known for his bipartisan work.) “That’s refreshing to hear,” I say, “especially with the vetoes and Democrats talking about benchmarks and all.”
“Do you know I’m a vet and I saw my buddies blown up and that I go to Walter Reed every two weeks to visit the wounded?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well I do!”
I resisted the temptation to ask, “Are you a chaplain, too, or just a saint?” because at this point I’m wondering what he wants. A medal? An apology? Absolution? A contribution? I mean, who am I? Just some nut case from his district that occupies all of coastal Northern California.
“Uh huh.”
“And I’ve opposed the Iraq War from the beginning. I’ve always voted against funding the war.”
This I tried to check online but I couldn’t find his 2002-03 voting record.
“That’s good to know.”
“So who told you I wasn’t doing anything about Iraq?”
“Oh--when I attended the peace rallies outside your office, it was the considered opinion of all the activists that you weren’t doing enough.”
“Why don’t you tell those people to go protest at the office of someone who supports the war and leave me alone!”
“Are there any other congressman in our district?”
“Uh… no.”
“So where do you suggest we go?”
He couldn't even recommend another congressman to bother.
I suppose you could make this stuff up but I didn’t. Since he called me at 7:30 AM I assume he was in DC. For reasons I can only surmise, my e-mail must have crawled up his tightly wound ass big time. I mean, “weenie?” I’m sure he wanted to wash my mouth out with soap or rap my knuckles like a nun with a ruler, his being a Catholic and a vet and all. I’m sure in Viet Nam he never heard anything worse than, “Watch out for those darn gooks!” Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick must have lied to me.
Afterwards I did him the courtesy of researching his record online as much as I could in a few hours, and indeed, he should be proud of his stance on Iraq, the salmon fisheries, and other issues.
But why a relative flew with him on a junket to China in 2005 and who paid for it, I couldn’t find out, so I wrote him back to ask. And what a general partnership in “Travis Webb,” worth $100,000, might be I have no idea so I asked him about that as well. I hear he serves at the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue in Fort Bragg every year so I told him that I hoped to see him there and meet him in person. I was tempted to sign my new letter, “Your Employer,” but I don’t think he’s ready for that yet.
Ah, the hubris. In a country of free speech my own congressman spends half an hour on the phone with me because I dared to call him a “weenie.” As my employee, how dare he wake me up early in the morning and rant about my insulting him! I have every right to insult him!
What--after all these years dealing with the press and politicians and constituents, does he expect life to be fair? Is he losing touch? Did his wife turn him down the night before so he had to sublimate some anger at an easy target? Or is he just a stuffed shirt Boy Scout type like Shakespeare's Malvolio, wearing crossed yellow garters? Heck if I know (see how he's already helped me clean up my language?).
This kind of behavior can certainly make you doubt the sanity of a politician. He took a shotgun to an ant, a very sleepy ant at that. Luckily the ant, though mistaken about the facts of the congressman’s record, did not take the assault personally—especially since Thompson belongs to the Congressional Sportsman’s Club and I assume has guns, just as our late DA up here, Norm Vroman, was discovered to have a cache of illegal weapons and a small marijuana farm when they searched his house after he died. (Norm would have been re-elected, btw, if he hadn’t croaked. In fact, up here, if we’d contacted Jonathan Edwards we might have been able to re-elect him from the beyond. Everyone's so "spiritual" up here, though I think them more spiritualist. Did Arthur Conan Doyle really have a hand in murdering Houdini? Now there's an interesting story...)
Since marijuana is the biggest cash crop in our county, I regret I didn’t ask him what he was doing about it. I assume, like most politicians around here, he opposes legalization to keep our prices high. And since we need illegals to harvest the grapes and pears, of course he voted against the seven-hundred mile fence down south. That's too bad, because everyone knows that Mexicans steal the jobs Americans are too lazy to take.
All that said, I need to ask you this question to check my own sanity: Have you ever been awakened by a congressman early in the morning who bitterly complained about you calling him a “weenie” in an e-mail message? I submit that this may be one of the strangest occurrences in my long and interesting life. Unfortunately, now I can’t help but think of Mr. Thompson as “Weenie Mike.” I mean, who but a weenie would call up a constituent to complain about being called a weenie? Tsk, tsk.
Here's the good congressman at his wine-promoting site:
Now his face does look a little florid in this one, but I wouldn't accuse him of overindulging in wine promotion--it's probably just too much sun:
1 Kilobunny,
Craig Erick
Yesterday I was awakened at 7:30 AM by a strange voice.
“Is this Craig? Craig Chaffin?”
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I said “Yes?”
“This is Mike Thompson, your U.S. Representative, and I want to know why you called me a ‘weenie!’”
“Huh? Oh, in that letter I sent at your site?” I tried to remember, as I write a lot of letters to people who don't know me.
“Do you know my Iraq voting record? Do you know anything about me? Why did you write me such an offensive message?”
Gathering my dream-spattered thoughts: “Well, I assumed I would only get a form letter from you, so I called you a ‘weenie’ about Iraq in case I might actually get a response. Look’s like I did. You know, it’s hard to get the attention of an institution without spraying some graffiti.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
“Is it true you are a doctor, a medical doctor?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe that you, an educated man, would write me this.”
“What, do you want me to apologize?”
“Do you know my record on the Iraq war? I was posterized by the Republicans for visiting Iraq before the war, looking for a non-military solution. And have you heard of the recent McGovern bill for immediate re-deployment of our troops? We only have 171 votes. So it won’t get passed. But I voted for it.”
“Is Pelosi with you on this?”
“Of course.”
“That’s good to know. But why do I hear all this noise of trying to compromise with the Republicans?”
“There is no compromise.”
(On his website he prides himself for being a moderate Democrat known for his bipartisan work.) “That’s refreshing to hear,” I say, “especially with the vetoes and Democrats talking about benchmarks and all.”
“Do you know I’m a vet and I saw my buddies blown up and that I go to Walter Reed every two weeks to visit the wounded?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well I do!”
I resisted the temptation to ask, “Are you a chaplain, too, or just a saint?” because at this point I’m wondering what he wants. A medal? An apology? Absolution? A contribution? I mean, who am I? Just some nut case from his district that occupies all of coastal Northern California.
“Uh huh.”
“And I’ve opposed the Iraq War from the beginning. I’ve always voted against funding the war.”
This I tried to check online but I couldn’t find his 2002-03 voting record.
“That’s good to know.”
“So who told you I wasn’t doing anything about Iraq?”
“Oh--when I attended the peace rallies outside your office, it was the considered opinion of all the activists that you weren’t doing enough.”
“Why don’t you tell those people to go protest at the office of someone who supports the war and leave me alone!”
“Are there any other congressman in our district?”
“Uh… no.”
“So where do you suggest we go?”
He couldn't even recommend another congressman to bother.
I suppose you could make this stuff up but I didn’t. Since he called me at 7:30 AM I assume he was in DC. For reasons I can only surmise, my e-mail must have crawled up his tightly wound ass big time. I mean, “weenie?” I’m sure he wanted to wash my mouth out with soap or rap my knuckles like a nun with a ruler, his being a Catholic and a vet and all. I’m sure in Viet Nam he never heard anything worse than, “Watch out for those darn gooks!” Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick must have lied to me.
Afterwards I did him the courtesy of researching his record online as much as I could in a few hours, and indeed, he should be proud of his stance on Iraq, the salmon fisheries, and other issues.
But why a relative flew with him on a junket to China in 2005 and who paid for it, I couldn’t find out, so I wrote him back to ask. And what a general partnership in “Travis Webb,” worth $100,000, might be I have no idea so I asked him about that as well. I hear he serves at the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue in Fort Bragg every year so I told him that I hoped to see him there and meet him in person. I was tempted to sign my new letter, “Your Employer,” but I don’t think he’s ready for that yet.
Ah, the hubris. In a country of free speech my own congressman spends half an hour on the phone with me because I dared to call him a “weenie.” As my employee, how dare he wake me up early in the morning and rant about my insulting him! I have every right to insult him!
What--after all these years dealing with the press and politicians and constituents, does he expect life to be fair? Is he losing touch? Did his wife turn him down the night before so he had to sublimate some anger at an easy target? Or is he just a stuffed shirt Boy Scout type like Shakespeare's Malvolio, wearing crossed yellow garters? Heck if I know (see how he's already helped me clean up my language?).
This kind of behavior can certainly make you doubt the sanity of a politician. He took a shotgun to an ant, a very sleepy ant at that. Luckily the ant, though mistaken about the facts of the congressman’s record, did not take the assault personally—especially since Thompson belongs to the Congressional Sportsman’s Club and I assume has guns, just as our late DA up here, Norm Vroman, was discovered to have a cache of illegal weapons and a small marijuana farm when they searched his house after he died. (Norm would have been re-elected, btw, if he hadn’t croaked. In fact, up here, if we’d contacted Jonathan Edwards we might have been able to re-elect him from the beyond. Everyone's so "spiritual" up here, though I think them more spiritualist. Did Arthur Conan Doyle really have a hand in murdering Houdini? Now there's an interesting story...)
Since marijuana is the biggest cash crop in our county, I regret I didn’t ask him what he was doing about it. I assume, like most politicians around here, he opposes legalization to keep our prices high. And since we need illegals to harvest the grapes and pears, of course he voted against the seven-hundred mile fence down south. That's too bad, because everyone knows that Mexicans steal the jobs Americans are too lazy to take.
All that said, I need to ask you this question to check my own sanity: Have you ever been awakened by a congressman early in the morning who bitterly complained about you calling him a “weenie” in an e-mail message? I submit that this may be one of the strangest occurrences in my long and interesting life. Unfortunately, now I can’t help but think of Mr. Thompson as “Weenie Mike.” I mean, who but a weenie would call up a constituent to complain about being called a weenie? Tsk, tsk.
Here's the good congressman at his wine-promoting site:
Now his face does look a little florid in this one, but I wouldn't accuse him of overindulging in wine promotion--it's probably just too much sun:
1 Kilobunny,
Craig Erick
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Managing a Mood Upswing
At two or three kilobunnies hypomania begins to appear. I chatter; Kathleen says, “You’re moving too quickly.” I multitask, I stay up until 4 AM reading, I charm strangers (who naturally pour out their life stories to me), I think about punching out anyone who disrespects Kathleen, particularly all the idiots who have no idea of how to treat lip readers.
Money worries vanish. I exercise with gusto. My body is in less pain. I pump out submissions like a Saudi king. The world is my oyster again. (Where does that phrase come from, anyway? Oysters are rich, yes, but rather unsightly and very difficult to open, with dangerously sharp edges. Then if the world is truly your oyster you no doubt have underlings to open the oyster for you.)
*****************
One great thing about feeling good—a little above euthymia, almost hypomanic—is that one’s quandaries tend to become Seinfeld-like in their triviality.
Take yesterday. I was swimming at the gym. A Latino man entered the lane next to me and began to jog slowly up and down the pool. Each time I passed him I got a schnauze-full of treacly-sweet menthol lime deodorant. Ecch.
(Here’s today’s diversity comment: I’ve noticed an overuse of cologne in this order: Arabs, Blacks, Latinos. My worst experience was being stuck with a rich young Arab in an elevator. Afterwards I searched for turbans in the shape of an atomizer bulbs.)
Back to the gym. I remembered a notice on the locker room door pleading with clients not to use cologne or essential oils or other strong scents, as there had been complaints. So while swimming my requisite mile I was in a quandary as to whether, like a good Communist citizen, I should turn in this reeking pendejo; or whether, as a Libertarian, I should confront him directly if I was sufficiently bothered; or whether, as a Christian, I should turn the other cheek and fuhgedaboutit.
When I finished my laps and entered the locker room I re-read the notice. It only applied to the saunas, which I don’t use! I was off the hook! Oh Happy Day! I didn’t have to make a decision.
*******************
It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy on a euthymic day. I am, truly, a different person. Kathleen says: “I’m so glad to have my husband back.” My older brother repeats, “Good to have you back!” All I can say is, “Good to be back!”
But it’s not all good. In my free flowing, equal opportunity, people-bashing humor (though to be fair I am fondest of bashing myself), I’m more liable to hurt Kathleen’s feelings—though I am also quicker to apologize and make up. I’m also tempted to drink or abuse drugs, because I’m feeling so good already what possible difference could it make? It’s as if the increase in mood is so intoxicating I want to speed up the process to get maximum enjoyment out of it. Sly Stone knows I can get even higher. The world is my oyster indeed.
My point? In manic-depression intervention is needed at both arcs of the mood pendulum. Last night I finally dosed myself with antipsychotic medicine after a double dose of my sleep meds failed and I was still going strong on a Michael Crichton novel at 4 AM. Naturally I woke up this morning fuzzier than a sheep’s navel (just short of “the thorazine shuffle”).
Clearly, I don’t want to risk getting too high or I’ll eventually flame out and get too low.
I’m not saying that if you have this disorder you have to micromanage your mood, only that if it accelerates in one direction or the other, you need to pay attention, and fast.
At two kilobunnies,
CE
Money worries vanish. I exercise with gusto. My body is in less pain. I pump out submissions like a Saudi king. The world is my oyster again. (Where does that phrase come from, anyway? Oysters are rich, yes, but rather unsightly and very difficult to open, with dangerously sharp edges. Then if the world is truly your oyster you no doubt have underlings to open the oyster for you.)
*****************
One great thing about feeling good—a little above euthymia, almost hypomanic—is that one’s quandaries tend to become Seinfeld-like in their triviality.
Take yesterday. I was swimming at the gym. A Latino man entered the lane next to me and began to jog slowly up and down the pool. Each time I passed him I got a schnauze-full of treacly-sweet menthol lime deodorant. Ecch.
(Here’s today’s diversity comment: I’ve noticed an overuse of cologne in this order: Arabs, Blacks, Latinos. My worst experience was being stuck with a rich young Arab in an elevator. Afterwards I searched for turbans in the shape of an atomizer bulbs.)
Back to the gym. I remembered a notice on the locker room door pleading with clients not to use cologne or essential oils or other strong scents, as there had been complaints. So while swimming my requisite mile I was in a quandary as to whether, like a good Communist citizen, I should turn in this reeking pendejo; or whether, as a Libertarian, I should confront him directly if I was sufficiently bothered; or whether, as a Christian, I should turn the other cheek and fuhgedaboutit.
When I finished my laps and entered the locker room I re-read the notice. It only applied to the saunas, which I don’t use! I was off the hook! Oh Happy Day! I didn’t have to make a decision.
*******************
It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy on a euthymic day. I am, truly, a different person. Kathleen says: “I’m so glad to have my husband back.” My older brother repeats, “Good to have you back!” All I can say is, “Good to be back!”
But it’s not all good. In my free flowing, equal opportunity, people-bashing humor (though to be fair I am fondest of bashing myself), I’m more liable to hurt Kathleen’s feelings—though I am also quicker to apologize and make up. I’m also tempted to drink or abuse drugs, because I’m feeling so good already what possible difference could it make? It’s as if the increase in mood is so intoxicating I want to speed up the process to get maximum enjoyment out of it. Sly Stone knows I can get even higher. The world is my oyster indeed.
My point? In manic-depression intervention is needed at both arcs of the mood pendulum. Last night I finally dosed myself with antipsychotic medicine after a double dose of my sleep meds failed and I was still going strong on a Michael Crichton novel at 4 AM. Naturally I woke up this morning fuzzier than a sheep’s navel (just short of “the thorazine shuffle”).
Clearly, I don’t want to risk getting too high or I’ll eventually flame out and get too low.
I’m not saying that if you have this disorder you have to micromanage your mood, only that if it accelerates in one direction or the other, you need to pay attention, and fast.
At two kilobunnies,
CE
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Tracy McGrady and George Bush
Tracy McGrady, a seven-time NBA All Star, just experienced his fifth first-round loss in the NBA playoffs, although the Rockets took it to seven games. Before the series he said, "This is on me. It’s on me to lead my team to victory."
Overall he played well, but Utah had a better team, especially as their big men were more mobile than Yao Ming (as in Ming vase), an over-hyped player whose offensive limitations and defensive liabilities are rarely mentioned for fear of reducing the NBA's worldwide revenue.
When the series was over, wiping a tear from his eye, McGrady admitted his failure and responsibility, even though during the series he was his team’s most effective player. In his view he could have played better, thus accepted the blame for the loss. There's a manly approach to responsibility and failure, even if a bit harsh.
In The Chronicles of Narnia C. S. Lewis writes that “a king should be the first in battle and the last to retreat." We read about such men in history, like William the Conqueror and Admiral Nelson. They are hard to imagine in this day and age.
Imagine if George Bush, "The Decider," like Tracy McGrady, said: "I decided to go to war with Iraq. It was one of my early policy aims and 9/11 only steeled my resolve to do it. Yes, I had advisers who favored it, but I didn't have to take their advice. I take responsibility for our failure there, and I'm going to do everything I can to get our troops back home. We’ve lost and it’s on me. Time to move on." (Shocking, I know.)
One of the great things about sports, for all the criticism of salaries and steroids, is that athletes can tell the truth about things like responsibility and disappointment. Like McGrady, they can even speak in the first person. For Bush it’s mainly “we” when speaking about the war, and not the magisterial “we” of the Queen but the “we” that implies a country united in a dumbass war. Spin, spin, spin.
Bush rails against our enemies, the violent fanatics, but what is he? His invasion of Iraq has resulted in more violence than if we had not invaded. (Here I say “we” because Congress and the American people initially supported the war, though we now know, recently confirmed by the former head of the CIA, that intelligence was manipulated for political purposes.)
Although it is painfully obvious that the Iraqis are worse off than under Saddam, Bush remains a true believer. I don't think he's mad; I don't think he's evil; I don't think he's merely misguided; I think he actually believes in what he's doing. This qualifies him as a fanatic, because one definition of a fanatic is someone who continues to believe and act upon his beliefs when all the facts point to the contrary. How have suicide bombers in any way advanced the Palestinian cause? How has the invasion of Iraq made the world safer?
Bush still believes that democracy is the best defense against terrorism, and in this he is likely right. The problem is, you can't impose democracy on a primitive, feudal, theocratic society. Such a society must first go through a dictatorship that can guarantee order while promoting modernization before democracy can even be considered. This is what Ataturk did for Turkey and Deng Xiaoping did for China. For Bush and his advisers to be ignorant of this necessary transition seems unfathomable to me.
The recent death of David Halberstam reminds us of the irony of his book, The Best and the Brightest, which exposed a cadre of extremely intelligent, accomplished men whose hubris—a failure to grasp both history and the limits of American power— steered us into the (as yet) still greater quagmire of Viet Nam—something against which even De Gaulle, no friend of America, warned Kennedy not to stick his shoe in.
Unlike Tracy McGrady, Bush doesn’t think he’s lost the playoffs yet. As president all he has to do is use his executive powers to extend the series. Since he is convinced his principles must be right, reality can’t concern him. “Right makes might” is a silly approach to foreign policy—unless the leader of the free world tries to make a Sunday School lesson out of it. Then comedy becomes tragedy. 36,000 more troops are scheduled to be sent to Iraq. Does this mean the first troop “surge” failed? No, the series has just been extended.
Monday, May 07, 2007
My Baby Goes to Her Senior Prom
Yes, that's my baby, Sarah, gussied up for her senior prom. She was actually born after my first wife and I separated, but she spent nearly every weekend of her life with me until I moved to Mexico, when she was already a teenager and not much interested in wasting her weekend with Papa. She's the only daughter I didn't obtain custody of; my other daughters, Rachel and Keturah, are 29 and 27, respectively.
When a father says his daughters are beautiful he is of course suspect. But I've never had to say of any of them, "she has a good personality." Or, "she has a sweet face." That day may come, but I doubt it. They are a handsome lot and will always be beautiful to me. But unlike some, I have objective proof as well!
Because Sarah is seriously interested in pursuing an acting career, she is committed to staying in the LA area for the foreseeable future. She's the only daughter who hasn't yet been up here to visit me in the redwoods. But I'll be down there for her graduation in June. Meanwhile I haven't heard if she was prom queen; she was nominated. All our lives she and I have had this routine: "Who do you think you are, Queen of the Prom?" To which she responds, "And you're chopped liver!" I think I actually got to show her chopped liver at a deli once. She was thoroughly disgusted, although gastronomically she is the least challenged of my picky-eating progeny.
What I'm most proud of is not Sarah's looks but her humility. Despite her getting nearly all the starring roles she's ever auditioned for in community theater and high school, both musicals and dramas, she doesn't act like a diva. She is truly concerned about others and has a natural compassion. She is also charismatic and always draws a circle of friends around her. And, thanks be to God, she's my one daughter who seems to have been spared any trace of the bipolar gene.
I've written three poems about her but I won't upstage her today by posting one. And, of course, as she was the baby we have the fewest baby pictures of her--about which she has naturally complained.
She's pretty grown-up for 18 and will be seeking her own apartment after graduation. She already has a job.
Here's to you, baby!
Love, Papa (chopped liver)
Saturday, May 05, 2007
1 Kilobunny: Flowers, Dogs, Bloggers and Daughters
It's a beautiful sunny day in the coastal redwoods and while walking Kenyon this morning I noted a new flower: Pacific starflower.
Kenyon, by the way, seems to be doing much better. He is playing with his sock, wagging his tail, and on our morning constitutional together he wants to explore the forest. Nevertheless, while walking back home along the side of the road today, due to his poor vision, he ran into a young redwood shrub and turned around and began walking in the wrong direction. He's so hard of hearing now he couldn't hear my voice, but clapping awoke him to his mistake. Still, on the rest of the journey, he had to nose into everything, even venturing into the forest by himself--something he hasn't done in a long time.
He was improving for reasons unknown prior to this new (old) behavior, but his improvement seems much accelerated since we once more obtained a COX-2 inhibitor for dogs, Previcox. It works like Vioxx and Celebrex in humans. If some do not believe animals experience pain, why is Kenyon so much friskier on a pain medication?
Kathleen and I take Celebrex, though in dog years we're not nearly as old (Kenyon would be 84). Besides, I'm the only dog in the duo, since you all must know by now how beautiful Kathleen is.
In reading Ellen Goodman's column today I was briefly miffed that she quotes a blogger at length with no attribution. Would she do that to the Associated Press? To Robert Novak? I think not. The supercilious treatment by newspaper journalists of bloggers is shocking. We are some generic phenomenon to be sampled like water; dip in and see what you get, even quote us, it's only water.
My blog, of course, is more personal than political. Sometimes I feel like Ted Koppel; I started it because we were being held hostage in Mexico by thieves for six months, just as Ted started "Nightline: America Held Hostage" because of the Iranians seizing our embassy. After that crisis was over, however, Howdy-Doody (doesn't he look like him?) found enough crises to go on for another decade. And here I am, nearly two years later, sometimes writing, as in the Seinfeld show, about nothing. Speaking of which I have two musical gigs coming up. No auditions were necessary, I just sent the venues a CD. As for Michael Richards(on)?, where did he get that kinky hair?
I'm becoming more circumspect in my poetry submissions, finally doing what all the books tell you to do: study your market. In the case of poets that means studying the vagaries of the poetry editor. Before submitting to another paying magazine the other day, I actually researched the poetry editor, even found an audio interview where he stated that he did not like "nature poetry"--which is what he mainly publishes in his eco-journal. More tellingly, besides Mary Oliver, the poet he is most fond of publishing is his wife. She has good credits, but I find such literary nepotism distasteful, as at Melic I wouldn't even first-publish staff; family would have been beyond question. I guess some editors are just so objective that they don't need to adhere to the appearance of objectivity, (he said snarkily).
I continue to read Jane Hirschfield in the hopes of meeting her. One technique she uses unabashedly, as old as Homer and as young as Disney, is to personify nearly everything, ascribing sentience to pots and pans and rocks and trees, whatever is in her immediate environment, which lends a magical background to much of what she writes. Another major distinction is the absence of romantic love; so far no important love interest, man or woman, has appeared directly in her work (that I can tell). From her poems I assume she's single, but one is often mistaken when trying to deduce a poet's personal life from her art.
Then Picasso painted his lovers.
(I wish I had the talent to paint Kathleen.)
Oh, and one thing more. My oldest daughter called last night, which she often does when she is "in crisis," like Ted Koppel--but she's one of those people who seems to live their life from crisis to crisis. I said something wise to her I wish I could better exemplify: "Life is not a crisis but a process." She was blaming herself for not folding the wash yet. "Either fold the wash or don't," I said, "but don't castigate yourself for not folding it."
Guilt is mainly a waste of time. It is only valuable if it provokes a change in behavior; if that change is not realistic or wanted, best not to condemn yourself for continuing a behavior; better to accept it.
Accept yourself to change. Don't change to accept yourself!
Must be at 1 Kilobunny,
CE
Kenyon, by the way, seems to be doing much better. He is playing with his sock, wagging his tail, and on our morning constitutional together he wants to explore the forest. Nevertheless, while walking back home along the side of the road today, due to his poor vision, he ran into a young redwood shrub and turned around and began walking in the wrong direction. He's so hard of hearing now he couldn't hear my voice, but clapping awoke him to his mistake. Still, on the rest of the journey, he had to nose into everything, even venturing into the forest by himself--something he hasn't done in a long time.He was improving for reasons unknown prior to this new (old) behavior, but his improvement seems much accelerated since we once more obtained a COX-2 inhibitor for dogs, Previcox. It works like Vioxx and Celebrex in humans. If some do not believe animals experience pain, why is Kenyon so much friskier on a pain medication?
Kathleen and I take Celebrex, though in dog years we're not nearly as old (Kenyon would be 84). Besides, I'm the only dog in the duo, since you all must know by now how beautiful Kathleen is.
In reading Ellen Goodman's column today I was briefly miffed that she quotes a blogger at length with no attribution. Would she do that to the Associated Press? To Robert Novak? I think not. The supercilious treatment by newspaper journalists of bloggers is shocking. We are some generic phenomenon to be sampled like water; dip in and see what you get, even quote us, it's only water.
My blog, of course, is more personal than political. Sometimes I feel like Ted Koppel; I started it because we were being held hostage in Mexico by thieves for six months, just as Ted started "Nightline: America Held Hostage" because of the Iranians seizing our embassy. After that crisis was over, however, Howdy-Doody (doesn't he look like him?) found enough crises to go on for another decade. And here I am, nearly two years later, sometimes writing, as in the Seinfeld show, about nothing. Speaking of which I have two musical gigs coming up. No auditions were necessary, I just sent the venues a CD. As for Michael Richards(on)?, where did he get that kinky hair?
I'm becoming more circumspect in my poetry submissions, finally doing what all the books tell you to do: study your market. In the case of poets that means studying the vagaries of the poetry editor. Before submitting to another paying magazine the other day, I actually researched the poetry editor, even found an audio interview where he stated that he did not like "nature poetry"--which is what he mainly publishes in his eco-journal. More tellingly, besides Mary Oliver, the poet he is most fond of publishing is his wife. She has good credits, but I find such literary nepotism distasteful, as at Melic I wouldn't even first-publish staff; family would have been beyond question. I guess some editors are just so objective that they don't need to adhere to the appearance of objectivity, (he said snarkily).
I continue to read Jane Hirschfield in the hopes of meeting her. One technique she uses unabashedly, as old as Homer and as young as Disney, is to personify nearly everything, ascribing sentience to pots and pans and rocks and trees, whatever is in her immediate environment, which lends a magical background to much of what she writes. Another major distinction is the absence of romantic love; so far no important love interest, man or woman, has appeared directly in her work (that I can tell). From her poems I assume she's single, but one is often mistaken when trying to deduce a poet's personal life from her art.
Then Picasso painted his lovers.
(I wish I had the talent to paint Kathleen.)
Oh, and one thing more. My oldest daughter called last night, which she often does when she is "in crisis," like Ted Koppel--but she's one of those people who seems to live their life from crisis to crisis. I said something wise to her I wish I could better exemplify: "Life is not a crisis but a process." She was blaming herself for not folding the wash yet. "Either fold the wash or don't," I said, "but don't castigate yourself for not folding it."
Guilt is mainly a waste of time. It is only valuable if it provokes a change in behavior; if that change is not realistic or wanted, best not to condemn yourself for continuing a behavior; better to accept it.
Accept yourself to change. Don't change to accept yourself!
Must be at 1 Kilobunny,
CE
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Finally, an acceptance; David Schubert, neglected poet?--toxic narcissist
I am happy to announce that my long string of rejections has been broken by a paying magazine, Byline.
It should be out in July. I first sent five poems which the editor found "too edgy," but she took the time to say some nice things, even suggesting another venue (that's the kind of editor I sought to be at Melic). So I immediately re-read the guidelines and examples from the magazine, tuned my voice down to some milder pieces, and she took one.
In other words, if you get your foot in the door, try to keep it propped open.
Does this give me hope? Enough to go on for now.
The other day I bought an old issue of QLR devoted to David Schubert, a man who did little but write poetry, succumbing to insanity and institutionalization by age 30, and subsequently dying of TB at 32. What's interesting about the issue is how many prominent literary lights praise him, and how many personal reminiscences paint him as an extreme narcissist. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, I suspect he was rather bipolar, but he also may have had a narcissistic personality order. BTW, his later poetry ain't bad. Here's a sample, the opening stanza from "Predicament":
"Their love is exhausted in
Family," you told me. It is true
to my experience; what can one do?
To be left with the cinders of recrimination
For what cannot be returned. No,
To live without expectation of
Love. That is like a toothache,
Chronic and infectious. To mock
Your feelings, as someone I know,
Laughing at us all as sexual
Maniacs, is but self-mockery.
In googling "David Schubert" + poetry I found no less than 817 references listed, which surprised me.
Here's a comment from John Ashbery: "I don't think it's demeaning to call Schubert a "poet's poet"--a poet whom poets in particular treasure for the knowledge of the craft of poetry he can give to a practitioner of it, but also one whose work is open and available to everyone."
David Ignatow strongly identified with him. James Wright called him "A Master of Silence" and "inadvertently neglected." Schubert's one slim volume of poems was published in 1960, 15 years after his death. As a transitional poet between the suprarationalism of Eliot and the rationalism of Auden to the stark confessionalism of the 60s, he is an interesting writer, but one I consider more a historical footnote than a major voice. What's interesting about him is his inability to express what he wants to express, how he elliptically misses it and acknowledges the frustration in the same way. His later poems are more direct. His most ambitious, and one of his most successful poems, is "The Voyage."
Many influential literary friends strove to have his only volume, Initial A, published during his lifetime, but failed. Some of them sought this purely out of friendship and pity, truly--which gives us an insight into what may go on at the top tier of editorial discussion. Remember Eliot went to great lengths to have his mother's undeserving poems published and succeeded. (Don't forget Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Stewart, Hugh Prather, Jewel, and Leonard Nimoy.)
As for his private life, Schubert had a bizarre marriage in which he was supported by his wife and which included physical and verbal abuse on his part, though his wife remained inexplicably devoted to him.
Most telling of Schubert's inner life is a quote by his good friend, Theodore Weiss, in a letter to Renee Karol dated April 29, 1941: "It's amazing, the proportions of David's ego. Sitting alone with him, he busy carrying the burden of his 'greatness,' I realise how terribly much the image of his 'genius' has taken hold of him. Thus he's walking me to the subway and suddenly asks me, 'How is it Ted, I feel, I am! such a genius?'"
In reading the verse and life of this relatively (and deservedly so) obscure poet, there is perhaps hope for all poets striving for some sort of recognition in their lifetimes. More important is that we not be deceived or swallowed up by our own narcissism at the cost of reality. It is a good thing this man never became a father, for instance. Then serious poets rarely make good fathers; their egos leave little development for the individuation of their children, unless an understanding spouse ameliorates their toxic self-absorption. (I realize this claim is an exaggeration, but I could cite many examples, such as Stevens and Frost.)
Enough for today. To the tomb of the the unknown poet!
CE
It should be out in July. I first sent five poems which the editor found "too edgy," but she took the time to say some nice things, even suggesting another venue (that's the kind of editor I sought to be at Melic). So I immediately re-read the guidelines and examples from the magazine, tuned my voice down to some milder pieces, and she took one.
In other words, if you get your foot in the door, try to keep it propped open.
Does this give me hope? Enough to go on for now.
The other day I bought an old issue of QLR devoted to David Schubert, a man who did little but write poetry, succumbing to insanity and institutionalization by age 30, and subsequently dying of TB at 32. What's interesting about the issue is how many prominent literary lights praise him, and how many personal reminiscences paint him as an extreme narcissist. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, I suspect he was rather bipolar, but he also may have had a narcissistic personality order. BTW, his later poetry ain't bad. Here's a sample, the opening stanza from "Predicament":
"Their love is exhausted in
Family," you told me. It is true
to my experience; what can one do?
To be left with the cinders of recrimination
For what cannot be returned. No,
To live without expectation of
Love. That is like a toothache,
Chronic and infectious. To mock
Your feelings, as someone I know,
Laughing at us all as sexual
Maniacs, is but self-mockery.
In googling "David Schubert" + poetry I found no less than 817 references listed, which surprised me.
Here's a comment from John Ashbery: "I don't think it's demeaning to call Schubert a "poet's poet"--a poet whom poets in particular treasure for the knowledge of the craft of poetry he can give to a practitioner of it, but also one whose work is open and available to everyone."
David Ignatow strongly identified with him. James Wright called him "A Master of Silence" and "inadvertently neglected." Schubert's one slim volume of poems was published in 1960, 15 years after his death. As a transitional poet between the suprarationalism of Eliot and the rationalism of Auden to the stark confessionalism of the 60s, he is an interesting writer, but one I consider more a historical footnote than a major voice. What's interesting about him is his inability to express what he wants to express, how he elliptically misses it and acknowledges the frustration in the same way. His later poems are more direct. His most ambitious, and one of his most successful poems, is "The Voyage."
Many influential literary friends strove to have his only volume, Initial A, published during his lifetime, but failed. Some of them sought this purely out of friendship and pity, truly--which gives us an insight into what may go on at the top tier of editorial discussion. Remember Eliot went to great lengths to have his mother's undeserving poems published and succeeded. (Don't forget Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Stewart, Hugh Prather, Jewel, and Leonard Nimoy.)
As for his private life, Schubert had a bizarre marriage in which he was supported by his wife and which included physical and verbal abuse on his part, though his wife remained inexplicably devoted to him.
Most telling of Schubert's inner life is a quote by his good friend, Theodore Weiss, in a letter to Renee Karol dated April 29, 1941: "It's amazing, the proportions of David's ego. Sitting alone with him, he busy carrying the burden of his 'greatness,' I realise how terribly much the image of his 'genius' has taken hold of him. Thus he's walking me to the subway and suddenly asks me, 'How is it Ted, I feel, I am! such a genius?'"
In reading the verse and life of this relatively (and deservedly so) obscure poet, there is perhaps hope for all poets striving for some sort of recognition in their lifetimes. More important is that we not be deceived or swallowed up by our own narcissism at the cost of reality. It is a good thing this man never became a father, for instance. Then serious poets rarely make good fathers; their egos leave little development for the individuation of their children, unless an understanding spouse ameliorates their toxic self-absorption. (I realize this claim is an exaggeration, but I could cite many examples, such as Stevens and Frost.)
Enough for today. To the tomb of the the unknown poet!
CE
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Spring Bloom and Kenyon's Deterioration
Seaside Daisy
My mind is surprisingly blank this morning. It's another beautiful day; the weather of late has been sunny and cool, what we expect of the coast. The wildflowers have not yet peaked but cow parsnip is already blooming in its delicate parasols wide as a hand. Scotch broom lines the roadsides; the daffodils are over but wild irises still bloom, along with calla lilies. The wild rhododendron, rhododendron macrophyllum, is blooming beneath the redwoods as well. There are over 10,000 cultivars or subspecies of rhododendron, but this variety is our natural one. Thrift and ice plant color the headlands, with blue-eyed grass and seaside daisies. The yellow mats of first-steps-to-spring have faded. Golden poppies are everywhere. Blue blossom bushes have peaked but it seems the gorse never stops blooming. I could go on and on, just as the wildflowers do here, as our spring color has yet to crescendo.
Kathleen cries about our old dog, Kenyon, nearly every day. Last night she wept about him. "It's not long," she said. He shows symptoms of diabetes now, has cataracts and can barely hear. A neighbor joked with Kathleen: "Now Kenyon needs a hearing-ear dog." What's amazing is that when we take him to Big River Beach, he can still see the plastic bottle thrown on the water and swims like a champion to fetch it. It's in swimming he looks most like himself. When he comes home, however, he lies immobile for hours. He no longer makes it up the stairs at night to sleep near Kathleen. Sometimes when she comes home he doesn't even get up. He has good and bad days. I don't think he's suffering much; his hips hurt when he rises, and his left front leg has bothered him for over a year; he's licked it until the fur has turned from gold to red. His appetite is still good, although one expects that in diabetes. Given his overall condition, we don't think it's important to undertake the treatment of his presumed diabetes as long as he can eat and drink and eliminate and exercise.
The grief Kathleen feels at Kenyon's slow demise is like any grief at the deterioration of a loved one. What she sees and what she remembers of him are disparate, making the grief palpable while he is still with us. I feel a similar phenomenon, though by no means tragic, when I look at my grown children and think of them as little girls, mourning the children I lost. But they are not deteriorating before my eyes as Kenyon is.
I said to Kathleen: "Why must the ones we love linger? Why can't they all simply die in the prime of life?" Alas, nature is not that efficient. Yet our capacity to remember those we love as they were helps sustain us when they no longer resemble themselves except in outward form.
As for poetry, I have none. I feel there is none in me. I also feel there is a glass ceiling I will never break through; I won't break into Poetry or The Paris Review or The Kenyon Review or The We Look Down Our Nose at You, You Poor Slob! Review. I think I need to take up something else in earnest.
I performed music at a wine-tasting party the other night and was well received. I enjoy prose and would like to write more fiction. The best fiction can be as magical as poetry.
What fascinates me about poetry is its magic, and I feel no magic--indeed, in reading others see little magic as well. It seems the entire literary world is being swallowed up by "creative non-fiction." Since life is a fiction, this seems silly to me. It is a specious division at best. Fiction better represents our spiritual and emotional lives, I think, than fact. Now they are becoming so intermixed is seems not to matter.
I'll save my wandering through a herd of wild Roosevelt Elk on the Lost Coast for another post.
Elegiacally,
CE
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Plantwatching vs. Birdwatching and Jane Hirschfield's "After"
I'm sitting here after a day of my brother-in-law's birdwatching while I plantwatched. He saw a Hutton's Vireo today. I saw Thrift and Blue-eyed Grass. In our parallel pursuits I praised him for his level of difficulty. Birds move but plant's don't. Richard has to wait on birds but plants wait on me.
I have often thought I may like plants better than animals or humans. (I suppose man's inplantimity to man has spurred me to it.) And animals you can groom, but you just can't prune. You can have a bigger impact on a plant's life than anything else I know. Feed it, prune it, shape it, make a topiary of it, hybridize, create a new cultivar with your name on a subspecies's tag--I mean, it would take much longer for me to breed a "Craig's Hound" than graft a fruting branch on a rootstock. And thinking of my doctoring years, I can't tell you how much easier plants are than patients. Plants can't disobey your orders.
I've been reading through Jane Hirschfield's After, a lovely book in which her diction becomes simpler with no loss of substance. I highly recommend it. Her "Assays" poems are particularly good, like "Envy: An Assay," "Termites: An Assay," and especially "Ah: An Assay."
Ah: An Assay
When the Greek gods would dip into the clothing and bodies of humans, it was not always as it appeared--not always, that is, for seduction, nor to test the warmth of welcome given to strangers. The sex--like the sudden unveiling and recognition--was not without pleasure. But later, they would remember: "The barley soup offered one night in the village of _____, its wild marjoram, scent of scorched iron, and carrots." "Ah!, and the ones who turned away from us, how their eyes would narrow and wrinkle the tops of their noses." "The barnyard odors." "And afterward, sleep in that salt-scent, close by their manure hoards and feathers." "Sleep itself!" "Ah!"
For this soft "ah!", immortals entered the world of bodies.
Such a great idea, walking in the shoes of gods. I'm not a fan of prose poems but I'm slowly being won over--about two decades after they became permanently accepted as a genre.
For those of you who think I'm just spinning my wheels, I presently have twenty poetry submissions pending to magazines that pay something. Some are big names (beyond my wildest dreams) but hey, just mail the stuff. Persistence is more important than talent. No one will discover you if you don't promote yourself. The world is not a merit system; it's connections, promotion, persistence, and a little talent that counts--not a lot. Just think Robert Creeley and Britney Spears. (I can't decide who of the two is less talented.)
I'm happy the NBA playoffs have begun, especially watching our local Warriors beat the number one team, Dallas, in their first game. For Christmas I got a subscription to NBA TV, so I don't have to miss anything. Tonight its the Lakers vs. the Suns and the Warriors vs. the Mavs. And don't miss Charles Barkley on TNT, truly the funniest Hall-of-Famer in the history of basketball, a gifted clown who can laugh at himself as much as he criticizes others. A national treasure (despite his ascending the stands in his playing days to spit on a fan, or his numerous bar brawls which he invariably won). He has displaced Ted Turner as "The Mouth of the South."
I will leave you here. Do stay in touch.
Thine in Truth and Art,
CE
unrated
I have often thought I may like plants better than animals or humans. (I suppose man's inplantimity to man has spurred me to it.) And animals you can groom, but you just can't prune. You can have a bigger impact on a plant's life than anything else I know. Feed it, prune it, shape it, make a topiary of it, hybridize, create a new cultivar with your name on a subspecies's tag--I mean, it would take much longer for me to breed a "Craig's Hound" than graft a fruting branch on a rootstock. And thinking of my doctoring years, I can't tell you how much easier plants are than patients. Plants can't disobey your orders.
I've been reading through Jane Hirschfield's After, a lovely book in which her diction becomes simpler with no loss of substance. I highly recommend it. Her "Assays" poems are particularly good, like "Envy: An Assay," "Termites: An Assay," and especially "Ah: An Assay."
Ah: An Assay
When the Greek gods would dip into the clothing and bodies of humans, it was not always as it appeared--not always, that is, for seduction, nor to test the warmth of welcome given to strangers. The sex--like the sudden unveiling and recognition--was not without pleasure. But later, they would remember: "The barley soup offered one night in the village of _____, its wild marjoram, scent of scorched iron, and carrots." "Ah!, and the ones who turned away from us, how their eyes would narrow and wrinkle the tops of their noses." "The barnyard odors." "And afterward, sleep in that salt-scent, close by their manure hoards and feathers." "Sleep itself!" "Ah!"
For this soft "ah!", immortals entered the world of bodies.
Such a great idea, walking in the shoes of gods. I'm not a fan of prose poems but I'm slowly being won over--about two decades after they became permanently accepted as a genre.
For those of you who think I'm just spinning my wheels, I presently have twenty poetry submissions pending to magazines that pay something. Some are big names (beyond my wildest dreams) but hey, just mail the stuff. Persistence is more important than talent. No one will discover you if you don't promote yourself. The world is not a merit system; it's connections, promotion, persistence, and a little talent that counts--not a lot. Just think Robert Creeley and Britney Spears. (I can't decide who of the two is less talented.)
I'm happy the NBA playoffs have begun, especially watching our local Warriors beat the number one team, Dallas, in their first game. For Christmas I got a subscription to NBA TV, so I don't have to miss anything. Tonight its the Lakers vs. the Suns and the Warriors vs. the Mavs. And don't miss Charles Barkley on TNT, truly the funniest Hall-of-Famer in the history of basketball, a gifted clown who can laugh at himself as much as he criticizes others. A national treasure (despite his ascending the stands in his playing days to spit on a fan, or his numerous bar brawls which he invariably won). He has displaced Ted Turner as "The Mouth of the South."
I will leave you here. Do stay in touch.
Thine in Truth and Art,
CE
unrated
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Surviving the Abalone Hunt, or It Takes Spine to Hunt the Spineless
After three days of vowing to get up early in search of abalone, I finally succeeded today, probably because the height of the minus tide (forgive the oxymoron) occurred at 9:30 AM, a more civilized hour for a nocturnally tippling artist.
Unlike the other abalone pickers and divers, sheathed in wet suits, I went in some tropical L. L. Bean pants and old tennis shoes, a short-sleeved shirt and nylon shell. I had to walk to the cliffs them scramble down to a cove at Glass Beach, my chosen hunting ground.
Glass Beach used to be a dump but was washed clean by the waves. One unexpected effect of this process is that the beach gravel, in some places, is nearly fifty percent polished beach glass. I've blogged about my history of collecting beach glass and how discovering the riches at Glass Beach cheapened my hard-won collection from down south. (See "Beach Glass and Glass Beach" in the archives for March 2006.)
On to the story...
After passing the glittering gravel of the cove, I scrambled over rocks and slippery seaweed, and through pools as deep as my thighs in search of the elusive red abalone. Right away I slipped and fell twice on some particularly slimy rocks, wetting my ass in the process. Given the condition of my back, this was hardly propitious, but I knew the pain wouldn't hit me massively until later, so I continued on without falling another time, keeping my feet in the pools and channels rather than risking the rocks. If the rocks had to be negotiated I found the sea grass offered the best footing.
I found four abalone in hidden clefts, often shared by a large invertebrate with a leathery orange hide, rectangular, maybe three by eight inches. I don't know what it was, but it seemed a marker for abalone.
Unfortunately, none of the abalone I found were a legal seven inches; the closest was six-and-a-half. But unlike my last depressive scramble through the scrotum-shrinking water and fatal slime, this was a definite moral victory, if not one for the dinner table. I found abalone and from now on I know what to look for!
What most amazed me in this whole process was how time warped. The intensity of concentration required to keep my balance in my old Nikes through and over the rough, slick terrain, compressed time, for when I returned to the car, I thought two hours must have passed; instead, less than an hour had. I couldn't believe it; I thought I'd bumped my watch on the rocks somehow, but the car clock confirmed it. I conclude that extreme concentration a survival situation requires tends to lengthen time, just as in a car accident when time seems suspended.
When I returned to Kathleen like a wharf rat washed up on a piling, I brought her a copy of today's paper, whose front page story detailed the deaths of three abalone hunters on our local coast in the last week. "I'm glad I read this after you returned," she said. Per usual, given my reckless history, I violated the very first safety rule for abalone hunting: never go alone. Obviously I need more invertebrate-seeking friends. But where shall I find them? It takes spine to hunt the spineless.
My string of poetry rejections continues; I recently heard from Ploughshares that I didn't make the grade. They've rejected me before. There must be a better verb than "reject." To pass over? Not to include? Regretfully return? (Actually I prefer "rejection." Why sugar-coat failure?)
Meanwhile I am happy to report than another former student of mine, Teresa White, has a new book of poems out, with an endorsement from no less than Billy Collins. I just got my copy today, Gardenias for a Beast. The link above lists the book.
This is the fourth student of mine who's published a book after taking my poetry course, though Teresa was the only one to have published a book before the course as well.
Perhaps I am a better teacher than a poet. Still, with regard to my present shunning by poetry editors, I really think it is more a matter of style. I don't write many open inductive poems. (See "Inductive, Deductive, Open and Closed Poetics" in the March 2007 archives.) My poems, however concrete, tend ultimately toward the philosophical, a not very popular direction in these times. I nevertheless continue to send out submissions. Poetry may give up on me but I can't give up on poetry.
As for my mood, I continue to have a low-level depression beneath my facade of activity and participation in life. Thus in current clinical parlance, my depression is not in remission but only partially treated. Still that's a hell of a lot better than being seriously depressed.
Thine at 1 Kilorat,
CE
Unlike the other abalone pickers and divers, sheathed in wet suits, I went in some tropical L. L. Bean pants and old tennis shoes, a short-sleeved shirt and nylon shell. I had to walk to the cliffs them scramble down to a cove at Glass Beach, my chosen hunting ground.
Glass Beach used to be a dump but was washed clean by the waves. One unexpected effect of this process is that the beach gravel, in some places, is nearly fifty percent polished beach glass. I've blogged about my history of collecting beach glass and how discovering the riches at Glass Beach cheapened my hard-won collection from down south. (See "Beach Glass and Glass Beach" in the archives for March 2006.)
On to the story...
After passing the glittering gravel of the cove, I scrambled over rocks and slippery seaweed, and through pools as deep as my thighs in search of the elusive red abalone. Right away I slipped and fell twice on some particularly slimy rocks, wetting my ass in the process. Given the condition of my back, this was hardly propitious, but I knew the pain wouldn't hit me massively until later, so I continued on without falling another time, keeping my feet in the pools and channels rather than risking the rocks. If the rocks had to be negotiated I found the sea grass offered the best footing.
I found four abalone in hidden clefts, often shared by a large invertebrate with a leathery orange hide, rectangular, maybe three by eight inches. I don't know what it was, but it seemed a marker for abalone.
Unfortunately, none of the abalone I found were a legal seven inches; the closest was six-and-a-half. But unlike my last depressive scramble through the scrotum-shrinking water and fatal slime, this was a definite moral victory, if not one for the dinner table. I found abalone and from now on I know what to look for!
What most amazed me in this whole process was how time warped. The intensity of concentration required to keep my balance in my old Nikes through and over the rough, slick terrain, compressed time, for when I returned to the car, I thought two hours must have passed; instead, less than an hour had. I couldn't believe it; I thought I'd bumped my watch on the rocks somehow, but the car clock confirmed it. I conclude that extreme concentration a survival situation requires tends to lengthen time, just as in a car accident when time seems suspended.
When I returned to Kathleen like a wharf rat washed up on a piling, I brought her a copy of today's paper, whose front page story detailed the deaths of three abalone hunters on our local coast in the last week. "I'm glad I read this after you returned," she said. Per usual, given my reckless history, I violated the very first safety rule for abalone hunting: never go alone. Obviously I need more invertebrate-seeking friends. But where shall I find them? It takes spine to hunt the spineless.
My string of poetry rejections continues; I recently heard from Ploughshares that I didn't make the grade. They've rejected me before. There must be a better verb than "reject." To pass over? Not to include? Regretfully return? (Actually I prefer "rejection." Why sugar-coat failure?)
Meanwhile I am happy to report than another former student of mine, Teresa White, has a new book of poems out, with an endorsement from no less than Billy Collins. I just got my copy today, Gardenias for a Beast. The link above lists the book.
This is the fourth student of mine who's published a book after taking my poetry course, though Teresa was the only one to have published a book before the course as well.
Perhaps I am a better teacher than a poet. Still, with regard to my present shunning by poetry editors, I really think it is more a matter of style. I don't write many open inductive poems. (See "Inductive, Deductive, Open and Closed Poetics" in the March 2007 archives.) My poems, however concrete, tend ultimately toward the philosophical, a not very popular direction in these times. I nevertheless continue to send out submissions. Poetry may give up on me but I can't give up on poetry.
As for my mood, I continue to have a low-level depression beneath my facade of activity and participation in life. Thus in current clinical parlance, my depression is not in remission but only partially treated. Still that's a hell of a lot better than being seriously depressed.
Thine at 1 Kilorat,
CE
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Pollywogs and Proust
Sam Rasnake tagged me to list five poetry collections off the beaten path that ought to be read, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, I only take time to read established poets, eschewing current minor ones, unless I have a book review to do, as in the most recent book by Leonard Gontarek, a little-known poet from Philadelphia, Deja Vu Diner.
I can mention some poets I think presently neglected: Richard Wilbur, Philip Larkin, Howard Moss and Randall Jarrell (sp. suspect on two of these). Many of their lesser contemporaries get more attention, IMHO.
Today I went birding with my brother-in-law, Richard, who's visiting from NY. In exchange I bored him with native botany, at which I am becoming more proficient. He saw a pair of Bushtits, which he had only seen once before on the East Coast, whereupon I said: "Make up your mind. Did you see bush or tits?" Apparently it was both, but that, in my experience, requires a wide angle lens.
Cheap puns keep me going.
I was able to show Richard the Bush Monkey Flower, the Bull Thistle and the Scotch Broom, so I got my own Freudian revenge on his brag through the plant world.
I, too, am sad that Kurt Vonnegut died. He meant much to me and my middle daughter. (Nice to chain-smoke and survive until 80; longevity has much more to do with attitude, I think, than health habits, judging from my patients and anecdotal evidence. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics.")
Richard woke me at 8 AM this morning, apparently not knowing that most poets are not morning people, also interrupting my dream of a gourmet dinner where Kathleen had just passed me a taste of her fish to accompany my exotic soup--but Richard woke me before I could taste either.
Last night a friend gave me "liver tea" and I became very tired and Kathleen said my breath smelled of ketones. I'm wondering now whether that strange potion began a detox in me, given that I drink, I like to drink, and I likely drink more than I "should" (see Vonnegut, above). In Mendocino you never know what eye of newt and wing of bat the warlocks may be grinding into your tea. I'll have to ask my friend what the hell that was. The tea even tasted like liver.
While Richard was birding on our walk today I spent a long time staring into a stagnant pool covered with pond scum--or glisteningly beautiful green algae, if you prefer--watching pollywogs cavort. Some had grown hind legs already, assuming a square morphology near frog-like. Others were still tiny and looked like motile black sperm. I also saw a small brown spider skittering over the drier algae and a strange fly pursuing it. There were short-legged water striders as well. With the birding the binoculars Richard lent me it was amazing what I could see in the pond, though I'm sure stagnant pond gazing must be considered slumming by birders, especially since birding is the new yuppie craze out here.
Ah, all this trivia in so short a missive.
I'm almost halfway through Madam Bovary, and Flaubert is a poet. Unfortunately, he is not the best author of character, as Madame Bovary, so far, has developed little, and there are many stock characters. The best-develped so far is the druggist, Monsieur Ome'. I think Flaubert's prose presages Proust. Which reminds me of that great movie I highly recommend, "Little Miss Sunshine."
My back hurts too much to continue writing, even leaning far back with the laptop on my lap.
(Anon's comment from yesterday was sure an ego boost; thanks for that.)
Thine in Pond Slime,
CE
Unfortunately, I only take time to read established poets, eschewing current minor ones, unless I have a book review to do, as in the most recent book by Leonard Gontarek, a little-known poet from Philadelphia, Deja Vu Diner.
I can mention some poets I think presently neglected: Richard Wilbur, Philip Larkin, Howard Moss and Randall Jarrell (sp. suspect on two of these). Many of their lesser contemporaries get more attention, IMHO.
Today I went birding with my brother-in-law, Richard, who's visiting from NY. In exchange I bored him with native botany, at which I am becoming more proficient. He saw a pair of Bushtits, which he had only seen once before on the East Coast, whereupon I said: "Make up your mind. Did you see bush or tits?" Apparently it was both, but that, in my experience, requires a wide angle lens.
Cheap puns keep me going.
I was able to show Richard the Bush Monkey Flower, the Bull Thistle and the Scotch Broom, so I got my own Freudian revenge on his brag through the plant world.
I, too, am sad that Kurt Vonnegut died. He meant much to me and my middle daughter. (Nice to chain-smoke and survive until 80; longevity has much more to do with attitude, I think, than health habits, judging from my patients and anecdotal evidence. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics.")
Richard woke me at 8 AM this morning, apparently not knowing that most poets are not morning people, also interrupting my dream of a gourmet dinner where Kathleen had just passed me a taste of her fish to accompany my exotic soup--but Richard woke me before I could taste either.
Last night a friend gave me "liver tea" and I became very tired and Kathleen said my breath smelled of ketones. I'm wondering now whether that strange potion began a detox in me, given that I drink, I like to drink, and I likely drink more than I "should" (see Vonnegut, above). In Mendocino you never know what eye of newt and wing of bat the warlocks may be grinding into your tea. I'll have to ask my friend what the hell that was. The tea even tasted like liver.
While Richard was birding on our walk today I spent a long time staring into a stagnant pool covered with pond scum--or glisteningly beautiful green algae, if you prefer--watching pollywogs cavort. Some had grown hind legs already, assuming a square morphology near frog-like. Others were still tiny and looked like motile black sperm. I also saw a small brown spider skittering over the drier algae and a strange fly pursuing it. There were short-legged water striders as well. With the birding the binoculars Richard lent me it was amazing what I could see in the pond, though I'm sure stagnant pond gazing must be considered slumming by birders, especially since birding is the new yuppie craze out here.
Ah, all this trivia in so short a missive.
I'm almost halfway through Madam Bovary, and Flaubert is a poet. Unfortunately, he is not the best author of character, as Madame Bovary, so far, has developed little, and there are many stock characters. The best-develped so far is the druggist, Monsieur Ome'. I think Flaubert's prose presages Proust. Which reminds me of that great movie I highly recommend, "Little Miss Sunshine."
My back hurts too much to continue writing, even leaning far back with the laptop on my lap.
(Anon's comment from yesterday was sure an ego boost; thanks for that.)
Thine in Pond Slime,
CE
Monday, April 16, 2007
Ducks, Submissions and Heaney
My neighbor discovered one duck on his roof between the TV and wireless satellites. I don't know if the duck had a Blackberry and was wired in, but he soon disappeared from that roost as well. The bowl of feed and hard-boiled egg the duck lady assured me he loved to eat went untouched. The duck has not returned; his brother never did.
Live and learn, but I won't be raising ducks anytime soon again here.
The story of the Good Friday Elephant that LKD posted in yesterday's comments was much worse.
I've noticed that since my depression improved, fewer and fewer folks seem to be coming to the site. Mental illness is much more interesting than poetry, I suppose, though often the two are not very far apart. Or maybe there are people out there who actually care about me, so when I'm doing well they are less likely to stop by.
Right now I'm in a holding pattern emotionally. I almost cried yesterday afternoon while fishing, but I think there was a reason--Kathleen was sad over her son's birthday, he being in Mexico; I was sad at being rejected by Pedestal Magazine (again), though they have published me in the past, and I was also sad that my youngest daughter (18) doesn't communicate with me, despite the fact I opened up a My Space site just to message her (she doesn't return my calls.) Teenagers. Kathleen says I should be angry about it but I can't be angry with my baby. Just sad she doesn't call.
But on another day when my mood was more upbeat these things would not have brought me near tears. It's the soil, not the seeds.
Today I may have to testify against our former neighbors about their thievery, as I saw the stolen items in their house and told a detective about it when questioned. It's a long drive on treacherous roads to the county courthouse, but I'll do my duty if they call me. I'm on hold. They hoped to choose a jury this morning and begin with testimony this afternoon. Fat chance, I say. Then I'm from LA. Maybe small towns get it done more quickly?
I really have not have good luck with my poetry submissions of late. In fact, I've never had worse luck. I think the main issue is style, not skill. Editors seem to favor open, inductive poems, and I write more deductive poems, some of them closed. To increase my publication rate, which used to be quite high, I think I'm going to have to change my style to suit the times: regurgitate an actual experience with as many particulars as possible in as short a space as possible, cut it into lines, and add a feeling or two for spice and authenticity.
I can't do it. I mean, I can do it, I find it rather easy--but it is not my idea of what is best. I've been reading Seamus Heaney, and although he is not my favorite poet, I admire his skill, and he writes many deductive poems and his intellectual content is usually satisfying. He is not dominated by recounting unfettered experience. I don't know how he'd ever get into the New Yorker if he weren't a Nobel Laureate. His style is all wrong for them. But everyone knows the NY is a "label whore."
I wanted to post another poem on ordinariness today, but I have so few and could not find another that qualified--I mean, in poetry, we usually seek the exceptional. Even if the experience seems ordinary, we tend to focus on the exceptional part. Instead I offer an apostrophe to editors who pass over my poetry. The poets who browse these pages should readily identify.
To the Giants
I see you in the exalted journals,
astonished by your concrete subjects,
startling imagery and veiled conclusions.
Only you can do this. Others try
to cage what has to soar. You tie
one-pound-test to it and set it free
When the line breaks you have a poem.
I’ve seen you write four hundred lines
on roasted meat, a hundred on zucchinis.
You can make poetry out of a dishcloth.
I sent my work to one of you once.
Your secretary wrote me: "Mr. S-
no longer comments on others' work
because of his busy schedule."
I thought your next book sucked.
I swear the two events were not related.
Maybe you remember
how it was before you "made it?"
I thought if I could slide one poem
beneath your discriminating nose
I'd have a chance. Instead I drop
rectangular white prayers in mailboxes
and change commemoratives for luck.
When the rejection slips arrive
I file them under "What the editors missed."
They read the same. say, invariably:
"We regret your work does not suit
our publication’s needs at this time."
As if! As if they had needs!
As if it were a matter of timing!
I dream of an editor
in a blue paisley suit who likes martinis
rummaging through the slush pile.
She finds my poem about the possum.
Her cat-eye glasses slip her bridge,
eyes squint like commas. Another martini
and she thinks "Why not?" until the Glucks,
Merwins and Ashberys start levitating
from her in-box to divide
the sorcerers from the apprentices.
"I have so little time," she thinks,
"and this is not the time for risks—
subscriptions are static, the board is short
of funds, besides, even angstrom-thin pages
could not accommodate all the deserving.
Prides already war over my bleached savannas.
If another craves entrance, let him
bring rains like Elijah, make the ink run."
(Published in Afternoon, Tintern Abbey, and Poetry Superhighway)
At Two Kilobats,
CE
Live and learn, but I won't be raising ducks anytime soon again here.
The story of the Good Friday Elephant that LKD posted in yesterday's comments was much worse.
I've noticed that since my depression improved, fewer and fewer folks seem to be coming to the site. Mental illness is much more interesting than poetry, I suppose, though often the two are not very far apart. Or maybe there are people out there who actually care about me, so when I'm doing well they are less likely to stop by.
Right now I'm in a holding pattern emotionally. I almost cried yesterday afternoon while fishing, but I think there was a reason--Kathleen was sad over her son's birthday, he being in Mexico; I was sad at being rejected by Pedestal Magazine (again), though they have published me in the past, and I was also sad that my youngest daughter (18) doesn't communicate with me, despite the fact I opened up a My Space site just to message her (she doesn't return my calls.) Teenagers. Kathleen says I should be angry about it but I can't be angry with my baby. Just sad she doesn't call.
But on another day when my mood was more upbeat these things would not have brought me near tears. It's the soil, not the seeds.
Today I may have to testify against our former neighbors about their thievery, as I saw the stolen items in their house and told a detective about it when questioned. It's a long drive on treacherous roads to the county courthouse, but I'll do my duty if they call me. I'm on hold. They hoped to choose a jury this morning and begin with testimony this afternoon. Fat chance, I say. Then I'm from LA. Maybe small towns get it done more quickly?
I really have not have good luck with my poetry submissions of late. In fact, I've never had worse luck. I think the main issue is style, not skill. Editors seem to favor open, inductive poems, and I write more deductive poems, some of them closed. To increase my publication rate, which used to be quite high, I think I'm going to have to change my style to suit the times: regurgitate an actual experience with as many particulars as possible in as short a space as possible, cut it into lines, and add a feeling or two for spice and authenticity.
I can't do it. I mean, I can do it, I find it rather easy--but it is not my idea of what is best. I've been reading Seamus Heaney, and although he is not my favorite poet, I admire his skill, and he writes many deductive poems and his intellectual content is usually satisfying. He is not dominated by recounting unfettered experience. I don't know how he'd ever get into the New Yorker if he weren't a Nobel Laureate. His style is all wrong for them. But everyone knows the NY is a "label whore."
I wanted to post another poem on ordinariness today, but I have so few and could not find another that qualified--I mean, in poetry, we usually seek the exceptional. Even if the experience seems ordinary, we tend to focus on the exceptional part. Instead I offer an apostrophe to editors who pass over my poetry. The poets who browse these pages should readily identify.
To the Giants
I see you in the exalted journals,
astonished by your concrete subjects,
startling imagery and veiled conclusions.
Only you can do this. Others try
to cage what has to soar. You tie
one-pound-test to it and set it free
When the line breaks you have a poem.
I’ve seen you write four hundred lines
on roasted meat, a hundred on zucchinis.
You can make poetry out of a dishcloth.
I sent my work to one of you once.
Your secretary wrote me: "Mr. S-
no longer comments on others' work
because of his busy schedule."
I thought your next book sucked.
I swear the two events were not related.
Maybe you remember
how it was before you "made it?"
I thought if I could slide one poem
beneath your discriminating nose
I'd have a chance. Instead I drop
rectangular white prayers in mailboxes
and change commemoratives for luck.
When the rejection slips arrive
I file them under "What the editors missed."
They read the same. say, invariably:
"We regret your work does not suit
our publication’s needs at this time."
As if! As if they had needs!
As if it were a matter of timing!
I dream of an editor
in a blue paisley suit who likes martinis
rummaging through the slush pile.
She finds my poem about the possum.
Her cat-eye glasses slip her bridge,
eyes squint like commas. Another martini
and she thinks "Why not?" until the Glucks,
Merwins and Ashberys start levitating
from her in-box to divide
the sorcerers from the apprentices.
"I have so little time," she thinks,
"and this is not the time for risks—
subscriptions are static, the board is short
of funds, besides, even angstrom-thin pages
could not accommodate all the deserving.
Prides already war over my bleached savannas.
If another craves entrance, let him
bring rains like Elijah, make the ink run."
(Published in Afternoon, Tintern Abbey, and Poetry Superhighway)
At Two Kilobats,
CE
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Ducks and Slugs
Kathleen discovered a woman who was giving away eight-week-old ducks, and having a garden enclosed by a deer fence, I thought I could keep them to control pests. So I took two. The duck lady delivered them, gave me a book on raising ducks and some feed. I released them in the garden. Within a minute they had waddled down the slope and out through the squares in the deer fence, which I thought would be too narrow for them to escape through. Not. I heard them in the bushes but they wouldn't come out.
Later they came up the stairs on the side of the garden, and I tried to herd them back into their proper digs. This scared them and they fled down and away into the bushes again. I fear they have become raccoon bait. Clearly I must wrap chicken wire around the deer fence should I wish to entertain quackers again. Call me "a duck farmer for a day."
As for pests in the redwoods, you haven't lived until you've seen a banana slug.
I once picked one up with my bare hand. It took six washings to begin to get the feeling of slime off my fingers. The Pacific Giant Salamander eats them. I have a friend who saw a salamander actually stalking a slug. It was just like a cheetah on a zebra, or so it seems to us redwood dwellers who are used to watching trees grow.
But we do have bears, bobcats, mountain lions, weasels, foxes, raccoons, and no poisonous snakes. And you say, "You live in California?" Yes. Just don't tell anyone.
Ducks and slugs certainly qualify as ordinary. Let's see if I can find another ordinary poem:
Nothing to Say
I have nothing needful to say,
no comment on the glittering bay
or the dark, snow-topped wall
of the San Gabriels.
Things used to be pulled from me,
uprooted like weeds from a garden.
I let the weeds bloom now.
The red-throated bird
that lives in my chipped balcony light
sings for a mate I have never seen.
I let my words run like watercolors.
Time runs only forward.
Why should art be different?
Here is the last line.
--CE
Later they came up the stairs on the side of the garden, and I tried to herd them back into their proper digs. This scared them and they fled down and away into the bushes again. I fear they have become raccoon bait. Clearly I must wrap chicken wire around the deer fence should I wish to entertain quackers again. Call me "a duck farmer for a day."
As for pests in the redwoods, you haven't lived until you've seen a banana slug.
I once picked one up with my bare hand. It took six washings to begin to get the feeling of slime off my fingers. The Pacific Giant Salamander eats them. I have a friend who saw a salamander actually stalking a slug. It was just like a cheetah on a zebra, or so it seems to us redwood dwellers who are used to watching trees grow.
But we do have bears, bobcats, mountain lions, weasels, foxes, raccoons, and no poisonous snakes. And you say, "You live in California?" Yes. Just don't tell anyone.
Ducks and slugs certainly qualify as ordinary. Let's see if I can find another ordinary poem:
Nothing to Say
I have nothing needful to say,
no comment on the glittering bay
or the dark, snow-topped wall
of the San Gabriels.
Things used to be pulled from me,
uprooted like weeds from a garden.
I let the weeds bloom now.
The red-throated bird
that lives in my chipped balcony light
sings for a mate I have never seen.
I let my words run like watercolors.
Time runs only forward.
Why should art be different?
Here is the last line.
--CE
Friday, April 13, 2007
More on Ordinary
Yesterday I happened upon a theme, the ordinary. Here's another poem on that theme, published in 2 River View as "They Were Enough":
The Anonymous
I slept with the anonymous dead
in mass graves,
quick-lime for blankets,
loose earth above,
and drilled a hole up
so light could tickle their bones,
but they didn't care.
So I sat with them,
those who never held a microphone
or received a medal,
whose chief recognition
was a birthday,
until I learned their secret:
They were enough,
in themselves, to matter.
Thine in Ordinariness,
CE
The Anonymous
I slept with the anonymous dead
in mass graves,
quick-lime for blankets,
loose earth above,
and drilled a hole up
so light could tickle their bones,
but they didn't care.
So I sat with them,
those who never held a microphone
or received a medal,
whose chief recognition
was a birthday,
until I learned their secret:
They were enough,
in themselves, to matter.
Thine in Ordinariness,
CE
Ordinary
I think today's poem was inspired by yesterday's blog about Richard Ford's "Existence Period."
Ordinary
I never thought I’d be so ordinary--
another acorn or a worker ant,
another paper thrown onto the driveway
with the same weak, pink rubber band.
Are you ordinary, too?
Without a medal or a Guinness record,
unable to juggle more
than two balls at a time?
I make good omelets.
My secret is the microwave.
I cast lures well using a spinning reel
but have never learned to fly fish.
(That's what high class fishermen do.)
I glory in the ordinary! And why not?
What pumps up most of us beyond our fellows
is just the stuffing of tires with excess air.
It is enough for me to sweep the porch,
answer my e-mails, sometimes get drunk.
(OK—-get drunk more than that.)
Thine as ever,
CE
Ordinary
I never thought I’d be so ordinary--
another acorn or a worker ant,
another paper thrown onto the driveway
with the same weak, pink rubber band.
Are you ordinary, too?
Without a medal or a Guinness record,
unable to juggle more
than two balls at a time?
I make good omelets.
My secret is the microwave.
I cast lures well using a spinning reel
but have never learned to fly fish.
(That's what high class fishermen do.)
I glory in the ordinary! And why not?
What pumps up most of us beyond our fellows
is just the stuffing of tires with excess air.
It is enough for me to sweep the porch,
answer my e-mails, sometimes get drunk.
(OK—-get drunk more than that.)
Thine as ever,
CE
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Richard Ford's "Existence Period"
After the slew of comments provoked by my last post, I am once again free of public opinion. My private opinion of myself, it goes without saying, is too private to publicize. Suffice it to say that the less I think about myself the better I feel. Thus to have an opinion of myself is dangerous and can be a symptom of depression.
Speaking of mental illness, I was happy to read that 39% of Americans admit to hearing voices--mainly inside their heads, I assume, the article wasn't clear--it brings my past psychoses and present mind closer to the middle of the Bell curve.
I just read Richard Ford's "Independence Day" for the first time and admired his concept of "The Existence Period," though I was thoroughly underwhelmed by the book, both its substance and style, just as I was by the culture and credo of the mid-nineties when it was published, when we became preoccupied as a nation with a stain on a blue dress. I remember a quote from one of Clinton's staffers back then: "Did she have big hair? Big tits? Oh no!" The whole country seemed a part of the Seinfeld Show back then.
As for Don Imus and his "nappy-headed hos," The real obscenity is our Captain Ahab's belief in pursuing the white whale of a feudal society with high tech weapons. It would take half a million troops to govern Iraq, and that would be an uneasy peace at best. Bosnia may be the only example of a war mainly quelled by air power. Ground troops are what are always needed. What I find hard to believe is that with our volunteer army we can't even deploy 500,000 troops--roughly the number of Americans who died in WW II. In any case, a "surge" is a ridiculous obscenity. Forget Imus. The real obscenities come from the administration's mouth. What I can't fathom is how John McCain can be so craven now, torpedoing any chance of a nomination, hoping for the Bush core support. "Toadies for president"--kiss up to the money. Obama raised 25 million by not kissing up, though he is extremely gracious. But I digress--what a blog is for, of course.
I find myself sometimes going to other literary blogs and bagging on poems by the famous, getting angry about nothing, as in the case of Adrienne Rich at Sam Rasnake's blog. Afterwards I have regrets, but I'm too ashamed to return to my post and try to erase it, especially if the blogger has already commented on it. Mea culpa. I know better than to go with my first gut response, but sometimes I lose that caution and wade in with mortars. I attack before I bethink. I want to be more reasonable and circumspect, but I fear it is my nature to jump on the horse before offering it an apple.
One line repeated twice in "Independence Day": "It was like a metaphor that stood for something else."
Back to that book. Having recently been reading Chekhov and Bellow and O'Connor, the superficial, Seinfeld-like self involvement of Frank Bascombe is so hard to imagine deserving of 400+ pages when compared to things that really matter. Sure, there is the dark background of a son who died and a painful divorce, but the real answer for Frank is not in these things but in the mild discipline of real estate. He is not lost; he is satisfied to tread water. The birth of new passion implied at the book's ending is not sufficient to overcome the ennui of the first 400 pages. But this is what passes for importance nowadays, for realism, for relevance. And I found his prose style at times sloppy and certainly choppy.
One of those books I got through because it was considered important, when in fact its importance is that it glorifies what is not important.
Here's to poor Frank Bascombe; I'm glad there's passion in my life, of which my disdain for the Bush administration is but a part.
As to mood, I'm still fragile, but not fragile enough to belabor it. Still, struggling with depression is not an "Existence Period;" it is a life-and-death battle, trying to come out of what Coleridge called "life-in-death and death-in-life." No one wants to be a ghost suspended between pole and tropic.
Thine,
CE
Speaking of mental illness, I was happy to read that 39% of Americans admit to hearing voices--mainly inside their heads, I assume, the article wasn't clear--it brings my past psychoses and present mind closer to the middle of the Bell curve.
I just read Richard Ford's "Independence Day" for the first time and admired his concept of "The Existence Period," though I was thoroughly underwhelmed by the book, both its substance and style, just as I was by the culture and credo of the mid-nineties when it was published, when we became preoccupied as a nation with a stain on a blue dress. I remember a quote from one of Clinton's staffers back then: "Did she have big hair? Big tits? Oh no!" The whole country seemed a part of the Seinfeld Show back then.
As for Don Imus and his "nappy-headed hos," The real obscenity is our Captain Ahab's belief in pursuing the white whale of a feudal society with high tech weapons. It would take half a million troops to govern Iraq, and that would be an uneasy peace at best. Bosnia may be the only example of a war mainly quelled by air power. Ground troops are what are always needed. What I find hard to believe is that with our volunteer army we can't even deploy 500,000 troops--roughly the number of Americans who died in WW II. In any case, a "surge" is a ridiculous obscenity. Forget Imus. The real obscenities come from the administration's mouth. What I can't fathom is how John McCain can be so craven now, torpedoing any chance of a nomination, hoping for the Bush core support. "Toadies for president"--kiss up to the money. Obama raised 25 million by not kissing up, though he is extremely gracious. But I digress--what a blog is for, of course.
I find myself sometimes going to other literary blogs and bagging on poems by the famous, getting angry about nothing, as in the case of Adrienne Rich at Sam Rasnake's blog. Afterwards I have regrets, but I'm too ashamed to return to my post and try to erase it, especially if the blogger has already commented on it. Mea culpa. I know better than to go with my first gut response, but sometimes I lose that caution and wade in with mortars. I attack before I bethink. I want to be more reasonable and circumspect, but I fear it is my nature to jump on the horse before offering it an apple.
One line repeated twice in "Independence Day": "It was like a metaphor that stood for something else."
Back to that book. Having recently been reading Chekhov and Bellow and O'Connor, the superficial, Seinfeld-like self involvement of Frank Bascombe is so hard to imagine deserving of 400+ pages when compared to things that really matter. Sure, there is the dark background of a son who died and a painful divorce, but the real answer for Frank is not in these things but in the mild discipline of real estate. He is not lost; he is satisfied to tread water. The birth of new passion implied at the book's ending is not sufficient to overcome the ennui of the first 400 pages. But this is what passes for importance nowadays, for realism, for relevance. And I found his prose style at times sloppy and certainly choppy.
One of those books I got through because it was considered important, when in fact its importance is that it glorifies what is not important.
Here's to poor Frank Bascombe; I'm glad there's passion in my life, of which my disdain for the Bush administration is but a part.
As to mood, I'm still fragile, but not fragile enough to belabor it. Still, struggling with depression is not an "Existence Period;" it is a life-and-death battle, trying to come out of what Coleridge called "life-in-death and death-in-life." No one wants to be a ghost suspended between pole and tropic.
Thine,
CE
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Easter 2000
I'm not at home, but I found this on the web for an Easter poem. Admittedly it isn't a very happy poem, but it is an honest poem about too early a conversion and the psychological damage that ensued from that adoption of absolutes while still a teen. Published in Poets' Canvas.
Easter 2000
In Hyperion Dan Simmons invents the Shrike,
a monster of blades and rays outside of time.
All that approach are slain, yet I find him
less fearful than Jehovah, and as for Christ,
I am ashamed. What should I say?
"Forgive, O Lord the way I wound my fellows,
calling my black humor a rubber knife?"
"Forgive my jealousy of you
who renders me forever second-born?"
At sixteen, head emptied by acid,
I didn't feel joy but dread
electrify my sternum when converted.
The pimpled corpse God claimed
inside that yearbook picture
would never rise. A virgin until married,
I gave triple tithes while a poor student—
what does a child know?
Your unimaginable grace was just that.
I labored not in faith but out of fear,
fear of missing your voice—
for which I paid in voices multiplied,
none of them yours.
I expect no better of the dead—
and so you say we are born—
but when my world was young
you made me old, a dwarf oak
riddled with scars and squirrel holes.
This is no brag but what the Pentecostal
whirlwind reaped of me, and little enough it is.
Mercy is beyond me. Lent may take
cigarettes or chocolate but not my blood—
besides, mine isn't magic.
Have a joyous Easter in any case. When it comes to an example of a happy faith, I'm not much better than Kierkegaard.
CE
Easter 2000
In Hyperion Dan Simmons invents the Shrike,
a monster of blades and rays outside of time.
All that approach are slain, yet I find him
less fearful than Jehovah, and as for Christ,
I am ashamed. What should I say?
"Forgive, O Lord the way I wound my fellows,
calling my black humor a rubber knife?"
"Forgive my jealousy of you
who renders me forever second-born?"
At sixteen, head emptied by acid,
I didn't feel joy but dread
electrify my sternum when converted.
The pimpled corpse God claimed
inside that yearbook picture
would never rise. A virgin until married,
I gave triple tithes while a poor student—
what does a child know?
Your unimaginable grace was just that.
I labored not in faith but out of fear,
fear of missing your voice—
for which I paid in voices multiplied,
none of them yours.
I expect no better of the dead—
and so you say we are born—
but when my world was young
you made me old, a dwarf oak
riddled with scars and squirrel holes.
This is no brag but what the Pentecostal
whirlwind reaped of me, and little enough it is.
Mercy is beyond me. Lent may take
cigarettes or chocolate but not my blood—
besides, mine isn't magic.
Have a joyous Easter in any case. When it comes to an example of a happy faith, I'm not much better than Kierkegaard.
CE
Friday, April 06, 2007
Poetic Archaeology; Kilobats
God, what a nuisance! I've been trying to sort my publications, some indexed by the names of journals, some by the titles of individual pieces, and some by other titles for the same pieces. Using Google and other sources, I have managed to discover, so far, the following journals either without a website or without archives:
Apples and Oranges
A Writer’s Choice
Adirondack Review
Artemis
Avalon
Beauty for Ashes
Blue Moon Review
Brownflower
Burn
Conspire
Disclosures
Dust on My Palms
EZ Books
Free Cuisenart
Gravity
Horsethief’s Journal
Lid
Mefisto
Muse Apprentice Guild
Olympus
Poetry Cafe
Poetry Magazine (online journal, not the big one)
Poetry Now
Poetry Tonight
Recursive Angel
Samsara
Savoy
Serpentine
Shallow End
Slumgullion
Spoken Word
Susquehanna Review
Tintern Abbey
Wired Heart
World Poetry
Writer’s Hood
Ze Books
Zuzu’s Petals
If I am in error about any of these, I would appreciate a note from readers or their scattered connections on the literary Internet.
There are also those journals who list me in their archives as a contributor, but strangely, have no record of or links to my poems--often right next to another poet whose links are still good. I assume this is random and not personal, though I have made some enemies in my faux career.
Anyway, my back hurts terribly from sitting despite the new pain medication, even though I did go easy at the gym yesterday. Since my recent cold I've put at least ten pounds back on from not exercising regularly, then Kathleen and I also became derelict re: our low carb high protein diet.
Three steps forward and four steps back.
Is it discouraging to find so much of your work erased from the net forever? Here's an advantage: when there is no record of a work I consider it unpublished and open for submission again, a liberty I don't take with print--which may appear inconsistent until you realize that with print publications I can still hold the evidence in my greedy little narcissistic hand. Where all evidence is erased, can anything have happened?
Speaking of narcissism, Kathleen and I watched the original "Sunset Boulevard" last night, and Kathleen threatened to fall asleep before the end, whereupon I threatened her with this: "You can never call me narcissistic again if you don't finish this movie." I mean, c'mon--compared to Norma Desmond even poets are normal. (Such a comparison does stretch the (Marvin) Bell curve.)
Ah, so little to say, so much to write. We'll be house sitting for my sister this weekend in the lovely SF suburb of Burlingame, while she goes south to check out the alma mater of my middle daughter and myself, UCLA. My sister's only daughter is making the college tour now, and from what I understand, likely has her choice of most, and money is no object thanks to the prudent planning of her parents. I had to put myself through college and medical school, which includes loans, of course. And I couldn't help my one college graduate daughter much monetarily, though some; mostly I provided emotional support and medical expertise--I'm still very proud that she, a bipolar I, got through UCLA in four years--a miracle. She has guts and determination, which can sometimes appear as an extreme and brittle stubbornness.
Enough about family. Like photos from a wallet, all that patter is a bore, isn't it? Here's a photo of my grandson:
I'm in a mixed state--fragile and sort of +2 and -2 at the same time--cried on the treadmill yesterday, have been anxious--but while I'm working I naturally feel better as I am not thinking about myself even if I'm writing about myself, which writers understand.
What's a kilorat and a kilobunny at the same time?
Put me at two kilobats.
Thine,
CE
Apples and Oranges
A Writer’s Choice
Adirondack Review
Artemis
Avalon
Beauty for Ashes
Blue Moon Review
Brownflower
Burn
Conspire
Disclosures
Dust on My Palms
EZ Books
Free Cuisenart
Gravity
Horsethief’s Journal
Lid
Mefisto
Muse Apprentice Guild
Olympus
Poetry Cafe
Poetry Magazine (online journal, not the big one)
Poetry Now
Poetry Tonight
Recursive Angel
Samsara
Savoy
Serpentine
Shallow End
Slumgullion
Spoken Word
Susquehanna Review
Tintern Abbey
Wired Heart
World Poetry
Writer’s Hood
Ze Books
Zuzu’s Petals
If I am in error about any of these, I would appreciate a note from readers or their scattered connections on the literary Internet.
There are also those journals who list me in their archives as a contributor, but strangely, have no record of or links to my poems--often right next to another poet whose links are still good. I assume this is random and not personal, though I have made some enemies in my faux career.
Anyway, my back hurts terribly from sitting despite the new pain medication, even though I did go easy at the gym yesterday. Since my recent cold I've put at least ten pounds back on from not exercising regularly, then Kathleen and I also became derelict re: our low carb high protein diet.
Three steps forward and four steps back.
Is it discouraging to find so much of your work erased from the net forever? Here's an advantage: when there is no record of a work I consider it unpublished and open for submission again, a liberty I don't take with print--which may appear inconsistent until you realize that with print publications I can still hold the evidence in my greedy little narcissistic hand. Where all evidence is erased, can anything have happened?
Speaking of narcissism, Kathleen and I watched the original "Sunset Boulevard" last night, and Kathleen threatened to fall asleep before the end, whereupon I threatened her with this: "You can never call me narcissistic again if you don't finish this movie." I mean, c'mon--compared to Norma Desmond even poets are normal. (Such a comparison does stretch the (Marvin) Bell curve.)
Ah, so little to say, so much to write. We'll be house sitting for my sister this weekend in the lovely SF suburb of Burlingame, while she goes south to check out the alma mater of my middle daughter and myself, UCLA. My sister's only daughter is making the college tour now, and from what I understand, likely has her choice of most, and money is no object thanks to the prudent planning of her parents. I had to put myself through college and medical school, which includes loans, of course. And I couldn't help my one college graduate daughter much monetarily, though some; mostly I provided emotional support and medical expertise--I'm still very proud that she, a bipolar I, got through UCLA in four years--a miracle. She has guts and determination, which can sometimes appear as an extreme and brittle stubbornness.
Enough about family. Like photos from a wallet, all that patter is a bore, isn't it? Here's a photo of my grandson:
I'm in a mixed state--fragile and sort of +2 and -2 at the same time--cried on the treadmill yesterday, have been anxious--but while I'm working I naturally feel better as I am not thinking about myself even if I'm writing about myself, which writers understand.
What's a kilorat and a kilobunny at the same time?
Put me at two kilobats.
Thine,
CE
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Love Poem; Note on Depression
I have found that more traditional love poems are frowned upon by most editors, that anti-love poems are preferred nowadays. When I say "traditional," I do not mean maudlin or derivative, rather something from the heart that respects line breaks and rhythm. I think rhythm very important in a love poem, for obvious reasons, and I don't mean that as a Freudian aside.
It seems that when I'm not depressed, I blog about literature or post poetry, and when depressed, I write about myself. Likely whatever readership I have alternates between those who come here to read about mood disorders and those who come for poetry. When I am not depressed, my concerns involve others and the world. When depressed, I am absolutely cut off from the world and exiled to the bell jar of which Sylvia Plath wrote so eloquently, when this blog becomes a method for survival.
In general, however, depression is an aberrant state for me, so the necessity for posting about it, I hope, will not return for many years after this last tortuous year, except in brief dips. But with this unpredictable disease, one never knows. I'm still feeling fragile. Kathleen is my steadying force.
Should I turn manic, however, I usually end up in jail, so I would have to blog about that after the fact. ;-)
I disobey my own rule in posting this love poem the same day I wrote it. I asked Kathleen if I should, and she said, "Go ahead. Make the other women jealous." In as it's addressed to her, she is the last one to be relied upon as a critic. But not to follow her advice is a risk I'm unwilling to take at this point in my recovery.
Have a wonderful day,
CE.
Aubade II
We wake to the alarm, I turn
and palm your breasts, softer than tulip petals,
and feel your nipples straighten in response
before your breathing heaves you back to sleep
like cargo meant for heaven. I stay awake, gently
compress your breasts each time you must inhale.
Your moon fits in the hollow of my groin,
your thighs repeat my thighs, my knees
fit in the hollows of your knees.
I would envelop you like a shell around a seed
and let my body break to further yours:
Scatter me beneath the walnut tree.
I watch the sunlight shafting through the firs,
I hear our old dog rearrange himself
on his brown blanket and green pillow.
He will not rise until you rise,
I will not leave your body until you wake.
We are both prisoners of our adoration;
we cannot move until you speak.
.
It seems that when I'm not depressed, I blog about literature or post poetry, and when depressed, I write about myself. Likely whatever readership I have alternates between those who come here to read about mood disorders and those who come for poetry. When I am not depressed, my concerns involve others and the world. When depressed, I am absolutely cut off from the world and exiled to the bell jar of which Sylvia Plath wrote so eloquently, when this blog becomes a method for survival.
In general, however, depression is an aberrant state for me, so the necessity for posting about it, I hope, will not return for many years after this last tortuous year, except in brief dips. But with this unpredictable disease, one never knows. I'm still feeling fragile. Kathleen is my steadying force.
Should I turn manic, however, I usually end up in jail, so I would have to blog about that after the fact. ;-)
I disobey my own rule in posting this love poem the same day I wrote it. I asked Kathleen if I should, and she said, "Go ahead. Make the other women jealous." In as it's addressed to her, she is the last one to be relied upon as a critic. But not to follow her advice is a risk I'm unwilling to take at this point in my recovery.
Have a wonderful day,
CE.
Aubade II
We wake to the alarm, I turn
and palm your breasts, softer than tulip petals,
and feel your nipples straighten in response
before your breathing heaves you back to sleep
like cargo meant for heaven. I stay awake, gently
compress your breasts each time you must inhale.
Your moon fits in the hollow of my groin,
your thighs repeat my thighs, my knees
fit in the hollows of your knees.
I would envelop you like a shell around a seed
and let my body break to further yours:
Scatter me beneath the walnut tree.
I watch the sunlight shafting through the firs,
I hear our old dog rearrange himself
on his brown blanket and green pillow.
He will not rise until you rise,
I will not leave your body until you wake.
We are both prisoners of our adoration;
we cannot move until you speak.
.
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