July 4th 2019

    Dreaded independence: Susan
    Died this day four years ago --
    Now bombs declare their dominion
    Once again.  Duffy again throbs.
    Ben leans hard against my leg.
    Jessica anxiously watches me
    Creating competing sounds.

    Duffy paws my leg
    Wanting me to make it
    Stop – this explosive
    Ritual we endure again
    ‘Til the powders gone. 
    There is nothing for it but
    That and gathering here

    Waiting while the sounds die
    Down and Duffy’s trembling
    Stops.  Ben moves away
    And Jessica closes her
    Eyes, tired of the fear
    She felt.  I lean back
    In my chair at the end

    And with my own eyes closed
    See Susan lying downstairs
    On the hospice bed sighing
    The last of her life away in the
    Silence following the sound
    Of the bombs that died
    Away with her last breath.
   

The progress of poetry

    Is it linear progress:
    Kingdoms, democracies, a
    Global identity, reactionary
    Brexits not withstanding?
    Similarly is there progress
    From Elizabethans to
    Augustans on down to

    Our Rock-Star lyrics?
    I wondered if my task
    Was to move poetry in
    Another direction.
    Chomsky told us we
    Must enter anarchy
    And I saw that we had.

    Fatigued, appalled
    I might be. It thundered,
    Impervious to change.                       
    It seemed enough here
    Watching her fade year
    By year to find the means 
    To write a new Inferno.

   

J. Alfred Prufrock explications

J. Alfred Prufrock explications
    A common explication, an explication I would call banal, sees The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock as a character depiction of a man who lacks self-confidence, who dithers, and can’t make up his mind.  As the poem proceeds Prufrock sinks lower and lower until he like a crab with ragged claws is at the bottom where he hears mermaids singing, but not singing to him.  The voices he complained about earlier in the poem then wake him, get him caught up in their concerns, and he drowns.

I see the poem differently. T. S. Eliot knew (he wrote the poem at, I think, age 27) that he had it in him to be Prufrock, and that is what he became, but not totally. He knew what it was to be inspired during his writing of his poetry – the mermaids singing. And his early successes made him an instant success with the English literati. So should he have set his social and literary successes aside and seek the mermaids?  Or should he ignore them and settle for the fame he had already achieved, something he valued greatly and wished to enhance. He compromised by devoting himself to criticism, teaching and publishing. None of which activities required his listening for mermaids.

Even though he has “heard the mermaids singing, each to each.” He does “not think that they will sing” for him. And yet he has “lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown” until “human voices” woke him [with banal responsibilities] and he drowned.

What do critics do with a poet who produced relatively few poems but is still (or they want him to be still a) major poet? Another such poet was Dylan Thomas. In his introduction to A Reader’s guide to Dylan Thomas, William York Tindall (in 1962) wrote,

“Thomas wrote sixteen great poems – give or take a couple. Few poets have written so many. If I were making an anthology of the hundred best lyrics in English, I should include two or three by Thomas along with half a dozen or more by Yeats. To those who want to know which sixteen of Thomas’ poems I have in mind I offer a list of seventeen: “I see the boys of summer,” “The force that through the green fuse,” “Especially when the October wind,” “Today, this insect,” “Hold hard, these ancient minutes,” Altarwise by owl-light,” “We lying by seasand,” “After the funeral,” “A Refusal to Mourn,” “Poem in October,” “Ceremony After a Fire Raid,” “Ballad of the Long-legged Bait,” “Fern Hill,” “In Country Sleep,” “Over Sir John’s hill,” “Lament,” “In the White Giant’s Thigh.”

Tindall goes on to justify his choice: “Value judgments of this sort, notoriously subjective, and uncertain, are not unlike the reports of a winetaster, which depend upon experience in tasting.  Saying that Thomas wrote sixteen great poems means that, having read his poems again and again and having read many others through the years, I find these sixteen agreeable. . . .”

Agreeable though they may be, my impression is that Thomas’s reputation as a poet is not faring well. He was a “rock star” in his age. That is, he had a beautiful reading voice. He did outrageous things.  He spoke his mind regardless of the cost, and was a drunkard and womanizer.   He was an interesting personality to a great number of people . But do many read his poetry today? Maybe in Wales, but they aren’t totally reconciled to his having written in English.

In T. S. Eliot’s case many still do read his poetry. I just reread The Love Song of J. Alfred Profrock” and found it . . . agreeable.

Coughing

    In the middle of night a
    Coughing loss of breath
    Woke me, chasing
    In another dream she
    Who sped ahead.
    Laden as I was
    Unable to follow though

    Once I was filled with 
    Froth. Through the
    Years she skittered past
    Leaving me racing – her
    Mind beyond – mine
    Letting her run as
    She pleased being
   
    With me through those
    Years elapsing.  This
    Hunger, this waiting,
    Filled my mind with
    Suspense, bound she
    Became to come to
    Me as I lay back down.

We who won’t be moved

    Despite proclaiming I’d never be
    Moved, my knees seem weak, my
    Feet slide, I stumble, and stagger
    Several steps toward a
    Solid-seeming stone-worked
    Arch.  I stand, shocked
    At what is before me.

    Looking into that space
    I desperately wanted to
    Go back– return to my
    Study’s safe-haven and
    See round about those I’d
    Come to depend upon for
    Stability during this holding-fast.

    I laid my hand upon the first
    Thing that came to mind
    And held it while the world spun.
    “Look you,” an old man said
    To a child as they passed by.
    “That man has hold of a
    Monstrous thought and can’t let go.

Little glimpses of time

    There is little enough
    Left here now: wood
    Chips for a fire;
    Gravel to pile upon
    The next one to die;
    Wry comments on
    The temperature

    Inside and out . . .
    We’ve paced back
    And forth as long
    As I can remember
    And know the final
    Result.  What comes
    Next requires

    Arrogance and aplomb,
    Though no one will
    Believe thinkers with
    That level of confidence.
    Appeal will be made
    To equality of thought
    And a democratic vote.

Omphaloskepsis

    He reasoned his way down
    To this time and place
    And sat legs stretched ahead
    Like Gandhi basking
    In his own wisdom.
    “It is all done,”
    He insisted.

    Everything that once
    Was has been discontinued
    And everything before
    Us has been disallowed.”
    His beatific smile
    Radiated self-
    Congratulation.

    “Worry not about
    Future Warming.
    I shall leave you ice
    And to sooth your
    Fears, each step
    From now on will
    Be someone’s last.”