Monday’s Verse 6-2-08

Readers,

I am late not because of pressing time demands, but because yesterday I was so hungover that I had not the energy to lift my fingers, never mind exert enough pressure with them to actually turn my computer on. So perhaps it’s small coincidence that today’s poet has a name that anagrammizes to “Dr. Ten Lagers,” and that I’m headed to Pittsburgh, the city of his birth, in 2 days.

But this poem has a staccato strangeness is not because of shaky, faulty typing, but because Gerald Stern is just a random, old man. How wonderful.

Have a good week,

Dr. Ten Lagers

SPRING

The road the road just south of Frenchtown the poem
the one by Mordecai the river the river the
one on my left if I am travelling north the
car a box with wires loose on top of my
left leg the radio fine the light behind
behind the clock not working the rose so dead
I am ashamed the crows too shiny their feathers
too wet the cliff on my right too red the blood
the blood of an animal, a skunk, they bleed
and stink, they stink and bleed, the monkey on top
of me, a New World monkey, not a howler,
an organ-grinder monkey, a capuchin,
his small red hat is on my head and he’s
on my back, he’s dropping orange peels down my neck
March 22nd on the Delaware River.

-2008

Monday’s Verse, Apr. 7, 2008

Dear Friends,

because of its surpassing beauty, this poem asks for no introduction.
Today I want to dedicate it to my dad, who turns 71, and to my friend
whose grandmother is sick. Enjoy, and don’t forget to tell your
friends you love them. ~mjl

WAIT

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

-Galway Kinnell

Monday’s Verse, Apr. 1, 2008

his is not a joke. Today I’m plugging a good cause, and reprinting a
message sent to me last month by intrepid reader Jonelle Lonergan of
Cambridge, MA:

***
Hi all,

As many of you know (because I can’t stop talking about it) I’m
training for the 2008 Boston Marathon with the Dana-Farber Marathon
Challenge, raising money to fund cancer research. If history is any
indication, it’s gonna be a good time.

This is my fourth little trek from Hopkinton to Boston and once again,
I’m running in honor of my mom, Barbara. Many of you have met Barbara,
often in the context of chicken cutlets and/or eggplant parmesan.
Besides being an Italian culinary force and an all-around spectacular
mom, she’s also a breast cancer survivor — four years cancer-free.
Pretty awesome.

I’ve raised almost $15,000 for Dana-Farber over the last few years,
and I’m aiming for another $6,000 this spring. If you’re inclined to
help, e-mail me for more info, or check out
http://www.runjonellerun.com to make a donation online.

And for those of you who already kicked me a donation, thanks thanks
thanks! Barbara promises to make you cutlets.

–Jonelle
***

Jonelle is very close to her goal and the race is April 21, so if
anyone out there would like to donate there’s still time. Meanwhile,
enjoy the following tight sonnet by Timothy Murphy, in honor of all
those who take on, if not more, then as much as they can possibly
chew. I know, the poem makes no sense in this context but that’s OK.
Remember Michael O’Brien, “everything is not something else”? ~mjl

THE CHALLENGE

What polished flattery or slippery truth
tempted your marble athlete from his plinth?
Now that you’ve won so statuesque a youth,
what brazen gates safeguard this Hyacinth?
You keep no sentries posted at your doors,
no trusted eunuchs to massage your prize,
nor spies to poison your competitors
who pace the racetrack with appraising eyes.
What powder or potion, what force of arms
mustered at midnight will forestall your boy
from yielding to a younger rival’s charms?
What Troy or Partha can you destroy
make yourself his hero? And what less
would make you worthy of his loveliness?

-1998

Monday’s Verse, Mar. 24, 2008

Well, apparently it’s spring. But I live on the East Coast so I’m only going on rumor and innuendo here. I think our spring is tentatively scheduled for the early afternoon of Wednesday, May 7th.

Anyway.

So it’s the Monday morning after my spring break, and since I’ve been totally crapping up the joint at law school thus far this semester, I’ve decided to start this week with a CLEAN SLATE. And with that vain hope I offer you this poem which is as optimistic about change as I hope to be one day.

CLEAN SLATE

Each morning I worked up spit

Aimed at my slate and wiped

Shirttail from corner to corner

Each day was a clean start

Born again and born big-so

As grown-ups loved to say

The day before disappeared
Somewhere between
My saliva and Terylene shirt

The new day promised
Something hitherto not
Seen or guessed about

A cobweb not there
The previous twenty-four hours
That overnight dew reveals

“A” for aubergine
Known to us as balanjay
“B” for bat for playing cricket

Until I filled the slate
With slant text my left hand
Told my right-side brain was new

Coins on the sea pressed by light
This morning sky wiped of stars
Chalk off my shirt climbing sun

Fred D’Aguiar - 2008

Monday’s Verse, Mar. 10, 2008

Dear Readers,

I’ve been a fan of Wallace Stevens since 1988. And I’ve been a law student for 18 months. But I did not know until this week-end that he was a lawyer. A lawyer! He got his degree from New York Law School in the early 20th Century, practiced corporate law in the city for a couple years, and, as we all know, eventually got into the insurance game, spending the bulk of his professional career as a vice president with the Hartford Company. Was he, then, a man disposed to know that we are not only conditioned and limited by words, but made out of words? But the statements in this poem go even further, delving into fate, fantasy, and the subconscious–the use of repetition nails down his various foci. One never really understands Stevens, I often conclude. But whatever would limit the forms and aims of art, that is what he fought against. -ed.

MEN MADE OUT OF WORDS

What should we be without the sexual myth,

The human reverie or poem of death?

Castratos of moon-mash–Life consists

Of propositions about life. The human

Revery is a solitude in which

We compose these propositions, torn by dreams,

By the terrible incantations of defeats

And by the fear that defeats and dreams are one.

The whole race is a poet that writes down

The eccentric propositions of its fate.

Monday’s Verse 3-4-08

OK, honest question, show of hands. No lying. We all love Pablo Neruda’s love poems, but how many people knew he was a dedicated civil servant for the Chilean government? Really? Oh Scott, put your hand down, you GD socialist. Well I’m here to tell you that he served as the Chilean consul in Java, in Burma, and in Barcelona prior to and during WWII. From 1970-73, he was Allende’s ambassador to Paris.

None of which, exactly, confronts my understanding of the poem below, but I’m no expert. *Sigh*, if only we had some comparative lit experts, fluent in Spanish, who possess some understanding of 20th-century history and South American politics and lyric poetry! Then I could retire. In any case, I don’t have a copy of the original, but what do you make of the translation job? How about the ending? Have a good week. Don’t forget to laugh. -ed.

YOUR LAUGHTER

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,

but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Monday’s Verse 2-25-08

Literati,

Billy Collins has been called many things. Easy. Pretty. Playful. Glib. Sensitive. Funny but cloying. But you know my first wife was called all those things, too, and we got on pretty well. So I give the former Poet Laureate the benefit of the doubt. And it should be said–I’ve taught the man, and seen the man talk, and he speaks well to beginning poetry students. Not an insignificant thing.

Recently though I came across this new one that struck me as one of his most accomplished pieces. Collins is perfect for our forum because he does lyric poetry and very little else. He tends to talk about the real world but not in that nature poet kind of way. He eschews big moments, big technique, and big words. There’s a lot of “peace” in his poems, providing for many people what they actually seek from poetry. And every once in a while there’s a koan-esque element to a poem that provides a neat wrapping for his theme, without robbing it of its mystery. Never has he accomplished that feat as gracefully as he does here, I submit. Underneath all this IS a big idea about history and time, and Collins craftily does use traditional techniques to push his ideas forward. Examples? -ed.

THE FUTURE

When I finally arrive there—
and it will take many days and nights—
I would like to believe others will be waiting
and might even want to know how it was.

So I will reminisce about a particular sky
or a woman in a white bathrobe
or the time I visited a narrow strait
where a famous naval battle had taken place.

Then I will spread out on a table
a large map of my world
and explain to the people of the future
in their pale garments what it was like—

how mountains rose between the valleys
and this was called geography,
how boats loaded with cargo plied the rivers
and this was known as commerce,

how the people from this pink area
crossed over into this light-green area
and set fires and killed whoever they found
and this was called history—

and they will listen, mild-eyed and silent,
as more of them arrive to join the circle
like ripples moving toward,
not away from, a stone tossed into a pond.

-2008

Monday’s Verse 2-18-08

Dear readers,

 

OK some people felt kicked in the heart last week by Ms. Wakoski, but then some felt their hearts kick-started. In any case, today we’re getting in the way-back machine and reading some traditional love poetry. Real traditional. 

 

Because I am a nerd, I came across an article on the semicolon in a current subway placard and was utterly fascinated. The lifelong civil servant who wrote the compound sentence–like me a literary M.A. and dilettante–is getting mad props for throwing down such august punctuation in an informational spot for train schedules. Now we all know that the semicolon’s chief use is to connect two independent clauses that have no conjunction between them; in poetry there are additional purposes such as rhythm and emphatic end-rhyme. Apparently Ben Jonson was an early popularizer of this elegant device in the English language. So I ask you, what’s he doing with it here? Two additional notes: this poem is old as heck, so reading 2 or 3 times just for meaning may be necessary. But it’s short, and sweet. Also, I’ve appended a brief bio of the man since we haven’t studied him much in this forum.

 

Happy president’s day and second half of the worst month ever,

 

-ed.

 

PS: “The Alchemist” is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on stage.

 

 

BENJAMIN JONSON: (born June 11?, 1572, London, Eng. — died Aug. 6, 1637, London) British playwright, poet, and critic. After learning stagecraft as a strolling player, he wrote plays for Philip Henslowe’s theatres. In 1598 his comedy Every Man in His Humour established his reputation. He wrote several masques for the court of James I and created the “antimasque” to precede the masque proper. His classic plays Volpone (1605 – 06), The Alchemist (1610), and Bartholomew Fair (1614) use satire to expose the follies and vices of his age, attacking greed, charlatanism, and religious hypocrisy as well as mocking the fools who fall victim to them. Regarded as the era’s leading dramatist after William Shakespeare, Jonson influenced later playwrights, notably in the dramatic characterization of Restoration comedies. He was also a lyric poet whose works include two famous elegies for his son and daughter.

 

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

HIS EXCUSE FOR LOVING

 

 

 

Let it not your wonder move, 

Less your laughter, that I love.

Though I now write fifty years,

I have had, and have, my peers.

Poets, though divine, are men;

Some have loved as old again.

And it is not always face, 

Clothes, or fortune gives the grace,

Or the feature, or the youth;

But the language and the truth, 

With the ardor and the passion, 

Gives the lover weight and fashion.

If you then would hear the story,

First, prepare you to be sorry 

That you never knew till now

Either whom to love or how;

But be glad as soon with me

When you hear that this is she

Of whose beauty it was sung,

She shall make the old man young,

Keep the middle age at stay,

And let nothing hide decay,

Till she be the reason why

All the world for love may die.

Monday’s Verse 2-11-08

Greetings, earthlings.

Diane Wakoski. Who is she? All I know is that, like my dad, she was born in 1937. And like my dad, has had a terrific impact on my life. But unlike my dad, solely through my experience with a singe poem of hers, a poem we’ve been running to celebrate Valentine’s Day in this forum since at least 2001, a poem I’ve called among the best I’ve ever read. It’s a Monday morning and this shit is heavy, so sit back, finish your sudoku, get that 2nd cup of coffee and a handful of Kleenex, and let’s go to town. In years past I’ve said a thing or two about how/why this poem works on me (and recommended reading it aloud), but for now I think I’ll demur and let the tyros have their hearts broken alla prima, and perhaps let the veterans say their piece. Peace? Happy Valentine’s Day. ~mjl

BLUE MONDAY

Blue and the heaps of beads poured into her breasts
and clacking together in her elbows;
blue of the silk
that covers lily-town at night;
blue of her teeth
that bite cold toast
and shatter on the streets;
blue of the dyed flower petals with gold stamens
hanging like tongues
over the fence of her dress
at the opera/opals clasped under her lips
and the moon breaking over her head a
gush of blood-red lizards.

Blue Monday. Monday at 3:00 and
Monday at 5. Monday at 7:30 and
Monday at 10:00. Monday passed under the rippling
California fountain. Monday alone
a shark in the cold blue waters.

                You are dead: wound round like a paisley shawl.
                I cannot shake you out of the sheets. Your name
                is still wedged in every corner of the sofa.

                Monday is the first of the week,
                and I think of you all week.
                I beg Monday not to come
                so that I will not think of you
                all week.

You paint my body blue. On the balcony
in the soft muddy night, you paint me
with bat wings and the crystal
the crystal
the crystal
the crystal in your arm cuts away
the night, folds back ebony whale skin
and my face, the blue of new rifles,
and my neck, the blue of Egypt,
and my breasts, the blue of sand,
and my arms, bass-blue,
and my stomach, arsenic;

there is electricity dripping from me like cream;
there is love dripping from me I cannot use--like acacia or
jacaranda--fallen blue and gold flowers, crushed into the street.

                Love passed me in a business suit
                and fedora.
                His glass cane, hollow and filled with
                sharks and whales. . .
                He wore black
                patent leather shoes
                and had a mustache. His hair was so black
                it was almost blue.

                "Love," I said.
                "I beg your pardon," he said.
                "Mr. Love," I said.
                "I beg your pardon," he said.

                So I saw there was no use bothering him on the street.

                Love passed me on the street in a blue
                business suit. He was a banker
                I could tell.

So blue trains rush by in my sleep.
Blue herons fly overhead.
Blue paints cracks in my
arteries and sends titanium
floating into my bones.
Blue liquid pours down
my poisoned throat and blue veins
rip open my breast. Blue daggers tip
and are juggled on my palms.
Blue death lives in my fingernails.

If I could sing one last song
with water bubbling through my lips
I would sing with my throat torn open,
the blue jugular spouting that black shadow pulse,
and on my lips
I would balance volcanic rock
emptied out of my veins. At last
my children strained out
of my body. At last my blood
solidified and tumbling into the ocean.
It is blue.
It is blue.
It is blue.

-1968

Monday’s Verse 2-4-08

Well my hat’s off to the New York Giant. Seriously, there hasn’t been as exciting a super bowl since Patriots-Rams, right? I tried to find something good to commemorate, and of course could not. What I did discover is that Hunter college, instead of watching the super bowl, hosted a poetry marathon featuring a bunch of local latino poets. Fish Vargas is one such poet. He’s kind of a slam guy, which means that this piece will probably lose something on the page. Here’s a video link:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/slam-poet-fish-vargas-poem-and-interview/1747690661

I didn’t watch it yet, so don’t give me a hard time. Anyway, Fish was born in the Bronx, teaches middle school creative arts, and runs poetry workshops on Riker’s Island. The subject here makes up for the fact that we didn’t celebrate MLK in any meaningful way a couple Monday’s ago. Spoiler alert: enjambment everywhere. -ed.

The L.I.F.E Foundation of Emmett Till

(1)

about to teach in a circle, talk from the middle
young minds molded by yesterdays hate
waiting for tomorrows let down, They reluctantly oblige
Three days before we celebrate Kings legacy,

I question my students, Who is Emmett Till ?
Thirty three students and only one hand raises,
The enthusiastic answer, Till was killed for whistling
at a white women down south. Kanye West talked
about it in his song.

(II)

the voice in the middle speaks, become Emmett,
his age, life in front of you, segregated or otherwise
it is still your life, in your bed, your room, the back door
to your home is smashed under the cover of darkness
you are snatched. giggles stop. eyes close tighter

You were out in your town with friends. a compliment
in the form of a whistle was to blame. one, two, twelve men;
it doesn’t matter. they dragged you to the riverbank
beat you with sticks, kicked your face, what did you hear?
Your bones crushing beneath your skin? who did you see?
Ignorance fed violence, no laughter, my students become
Emmett’s neck wrapped in barbed wire. he wasn’t dead

thrown in the river. the bullet entering his face, didn’t kill him.
he lives today. an open casket and a face untouched. He is
your Diallo, your Bumpers and every facet of prejudice you face.
Your 86 lynchings called Suicide. James byrd was Emmett Till.
He was the 1981 Atlanta child murders. The rifle that killed
Medgar Evers. The reason you are here where you can write,
you can learn. Tell me who was Emmett Till?

Silence broken, like tills screams by the Tallahatchie river, breaking bones grinding
gurgling blood, snapping skin
Voices shoot across the room, He should be the reason
why we fight. That’s not right. I hope they caught them
and the killers get the same. I stop the class. The killers
were caught, aquitted by a jury 3 times.

I bet you they were all white,
this young man has fire on his back. anger,
a dark history running down his spine
Like an adamant sermon I scream at the top of my lungs, Who
was Emmett Till? The students, our future, the ones priority
doesn’t embrace, Emmett Till was my man Buggy who got lit,
Emmett Till was LaKeisha who got raped by her ex boyfriend,
Emmett Till are the metal detectors in our school, Emmett
Till was the black guy that was killed running from the white guys
in Bensonhurst, . Yusef Hawkins I say .

and from behind me, Emmett Till could have been
Martin Luther King. I am met by a face stretched with sadness,
eyes lost, he cries for a person he never met. I whisper,
Correct. we all fought the same fight and we will fight
for everything just, write it down.
Who was Emmett Till ?