“Crossing on Staten Island Ferry”

For the first Weekly Poem of the New Year I decided to post a piece by a favorite poet, & one who’s appeared several times on Robert Frost’s Banjo, Kenneth Patchen. Patchen’s humanity & lyricism , his emotional candor & his knack for the perfect, understated image are all on display in this work.

If you haven’t read much of Kenneth Patchen’s work, I’d encourage you to check out his poetry or his beautiful, poetic novel The Journal of Albion Moonlight. A search on Robert Frost’s Banjo will take you to several more poems, & there are some good dedicated Patchen poem sites online—you might try the Kenneth Patchen Home Page here, which not only has poems but also links to a number of other sites, as well as some bibliographical information & a biographical timeline.

In the meantime, hope you enjoy this poem, & hope everyone’s new year is off to a good start.

Crossing on Staten Island Ferry

I'd like to die like this...
with the dark fingers of the water
closing and unclosing over these sleepy lights
and a sad bell somewhere murmuring goodnight.

And a girl would stand beside me,
her hair lifted out like a hand against my face;
and I'd say "I'm going to die now."

And she'd answer "All the guns are still:
for men have learned to love one another."

Then a star would nose the water, like a weary gull
which had flown a long way and come at last to rest.

And, when I'd lift my face to look again on the God
I had found for myself
the girl would say "You're not going to die."

And she'd not mean me at all.

Kenneth Patchen

“The Origin of Baseball”

I’m back!—well sort of. I’ve worked things out so I’ll probably have a bit of daily computer time, & it looks like there will be posts for the next few days at the very least. I’m going to try & respond to comments as much as I can & also to read all of y’all’s wonderful blogs, but I will say that my Google Reader is teeming right now & I doubt I’ll get to do much reading before tomorrow, when I should have more more computer leisure time.

As friends & long-time readers of this blog know, I love baseball. I’ve followed the sport since I was a lad, & even played while I lived in San Francisco in a fun “beer league” called the Roberto Clemente League (you can read more about that here, in an early Robert Frost’s Banjo post). Opening day for Major League Baseball is this coming Monday (opening night is Sunday, but that's a newfangled idea), & it’s a day that always occupies a big psychic space on my internal calendar.

In honor of that, I’m posting a poem by Kenneth Patchen about baseball—or is it about baseball? As is the case with many of Patchen’s poems, it’s about a lot of things—detachment & engagement, imagination & reality, & human suffering—a lot in 22 lines. Patchen is a vastly under-rated poet in my opinion—an understatement in many ways, because he’s a virtual unknown who’s been shunned by academia & forgotten by most everyone else. In many ways the conservative streak in modernism—so clear in Eliot, Pound, Yeats, & Frost—has, I believe made academia tend to teach the poetry of the first half of the 20th century from a conservative bias (even if the teachers themselves aren’t necessarily conservative). As a result, the more radical writers such as Patchen, Mina Loy & Kenneth Fearing have gone virtually unknown. Even someone like Gertrude Stein, who simply can’t be ignored, has been forced into a somewhat subsidiary role, despite the fact that if one read, for instance, her Three Lives next to something like Hemmingway’s In Our Time, his indebtedness to her would become clear, as would the more encompassing range of her vision (in my humble opinion at least).

Any way—enough of a rant on the vicissitudes of writerly reputations; if you'd like to read more of my thoughts on Mr Patchen, check out an earlier post featuring another of his poems. I do hope you enjoy the poem—& thanks so much for the many kind wishes; I’m doing “OK.”

The Origin of Baseball


Someone had been walking in and out
Of the world without coming
To much decision about anything.
The sun seemed too hot most of the time.
There weren’t enough birds around
And the hills had a silly look
When he got on top of one.
The girls in heaven, however, thought
Nothing of asking to see his watch
Like you would want someone to tell
A joke – “Time,” they’d say, “what’s
That mean – Time?”, laughing with the edges
Of their white mouths, like a flutter of paper
In a mad house. And he’d stumble over
General Sherman or Elizabeth B.
Browning, muttering, “Can’t you keep
Your big wings out of the aisle?” But down
Again, there’d be millions of people without
Enough to eat and men with guns just
Standing there shooting each other.

So he wanted to throw something
And he picked up a baseball.

Kenneth Patchen
© Kenneth Patchen 1942

“Creation”

I’ve decided to make January’s Weekly Poem series all Kenneth Patchen, all the time—no particular meaning or reason in this other than my admiration for his poetry. Today’s offering is one of his beautiful, & beautifully transparent, love poems. There isn’t much I can add in terms of commentary, but I can tell you that there’s a recording available of Patchen reading this & 27 other poems: it’s Smithsonian Folkways’ release Kenneth Patchen Reads His Love Poems. I haven’t heard this, but I have heard recordings of Patchen reading (including a recording backed by the Charles Mingus band!) & I’m confident this would be a wonderful recording to have around—there’s really nothing like hearing a poet speak poetry in his/her own voice.

A couple of blog news items before we move on to the poem. I’ve become quite intrigued by the idea of series that appear in alternate weeks—I first started this with the Tuesday mix of my translations & B.N.’s poems. As a result, I think I’ll be doing a lot more of this in the future—I’d like to get a bit more variety in the posts, & frankly, I think in my case at least, the blog has to keep re-creating itself to remain vital. I don’t know all the details on this myself yet, so we’ll all have to stay tuned! The Weekly Poem series will continue to appear each Saturday, & I will (as you'll read in a moment) have a weekly Sunday series (or a sort); otherwise, I think I'll be going to the alternate week format as the rule rather than the exception.

The other piece of news is that Sunday will be more or less an off day here; I do intend to post a Photo of the Week (with a descriptive caption), & the Sunday post also will have a link to my poetry blog, The Days of Wine & Roses. This blog has a poem from my San Francisco days posted each Sunday—a few of these have appeared here in the past, but most of them will be new to Robert Frost’s Banjo readers. For those of you who haven’t visited there yet, The Days of Wine & Roses is the current version of a poetry manuscript I’ve been working on since around 1990; it may be a book at some point, but for now it’s a blog. Hope to see some of you there!

In the meantime, hope you enjoy the poem.

Creation

Wherever the dead are there they are and
Nothing more. But you and I can expect
To see angels in the meadowgrass that look
Like cows—
And wherever we are in paradise
        in furnished room without bath and
        six flights up
Is all God! We read
To one another, loving the sound of the s’s
Slipping-up on the t’s and much is good
Enough to raise the hair on our heads, like
        Rilke and Owen.

Any person who loves another person,
Wherever in the world, is with us in this room—
        even though there are battlefields.

Kenneth Patchen

“The Orange Bears”

On the surface, Kenneth Patchen’s poetry contains seemingly contradictory elements—while he was a truly great love poet & someone who could evoke great tenderness & compassion with his words, he had a savage & brutally matter-of-fact side. Just consider some of these poem titles: “I don’t want to startle you, but they are going to kill most of us”; “Eve of St. Agony or the Middle Class was Sitting on its Fat,” “Nice Day for a Lynching” or “"May I Ask You A Question, Mr. Youngstown Sheet & Tube?" Of course, the visceral outrage expressed in these & other poems goes hand in hand with the compassion—Patchen saw a world torn apart by war & ravaged by cruelty & the worst forms of injustice. When he saw these things, he expressed his outrage, openly & directly in his poetry.

Today’s poem, “The Orange Bears,” is an example of this outrage. Patchen grew up in Niles, Ohio, & his father worked in a steel mill in nearby Youngstown. This provides the poems context. In those days, the strikes were broken up by the National Guard—now it’s all done with much less physical violence—management taking photos of the workers on the picket line (I’ve seen this myself in San Francisco when the hotel workers went on strike) so they can identify employees for reprisal, or simply having the President of the United States fire all the members of the Air Traffic Controllers Union.

I thought Dominic Rivron made an astute comment on the first Patchen poem this month, saying that Patchen walks the line of being corny, but never falls off. It’s a big artistic risk to speak plainly & emotionally. Patchen is an example to us because he didn’t shirk that.

The Orange Bears


The Orange bears with soft friendly eyes
Who played with me when I was ten,
Christ, before I'd left home they'd had
Their paws smashed in the rolls, their backs
Seared by hot slag, their soft trusting
Bellies kicked in, their tongues ripped
Out, and I went down through the woods
To the smelly crick with Whitman
In the Haldeman-Julius edition,
And I just sat there worrying my thumbnail
Into the cover—What did he know about
Orange bears with their coats all stunk up with soft coal
And the National Guard coming over
From Wheeling to stand in front of the millgates
With drawn bayonets jeering at the strikers?

I remember you would put daisies
On the windowsill at night and in
The morning they'd be so covered with soot
You couldn't tell what they were anymore.

A hell of a fat chance my orange bears had!

Kenneth Patchen

“Each Is Alone, Each Is Everything”

January is mercifully slipping into the sunset—sorry to any southern hemisphere readers—so this brings our look at poet Kenneth Patchen to a close. I’ve really enjoyed the comments this month, & I’m gratified that I’ve been able to introduce Patchen to some folks who’ll appreciate his work. He is woefully under-read, under-taught & under-rated. As I’ve discussed in the past, leftist poets have not fared well in the 20th century English language canon. I’ve also seen it speculated that Patchen’s status as a conscientious objector during World War II harmed his reputation.

The poem “Each is Alone, Each is Everything” is from Patchen’s 1946 collection, Panels for the Walls of Heaven. With surreal eloquence, Patchen examines I/Thou, time & eternity, & the “big questions”—it’s a beautiful poem, & a tour de force.

Hope you enjoy it!

Each Is Alone, Each Is Everything

O ghost in the bluehearing grove
More tongueless than pity.
Quiet as a breast. Alive above the noisy killing of men. A red red rose and the patient hands of the snow. O tranquil forest under the darkening sky.
Half-lived and unintent the poor lives of men.
The listening souls of twigs.
O starry weather lofts a bird and in that profound cave our father sleeps. Hey creatures! forgive us!

Conditions are Queen. Fullswirl care in the gadgets of being.
Flesh cottages.
Crowing pigflowers spray at the castle wall.
Rundown it’s five o’clod. The more ways the samer way.
Eternity is kinder
Than any clock.

Harmony always rejects power.
Each cottage holds the world.

Horizons always end somewhere too. Vice in art, as in life, is not looking at what cannot be seen. The beautiful brutal hours fondle alike the thoughts of snakes and the lusts of angels. The garments of Shakespeare hang in the closet beside the fool’s—each with the marks of the loom upon it, neither altering the set of the shuttle in any fashion whatever. O ghost in the heartseeing grove tell me are there any coats at all that will fit the life of a man in this world?

As meaningful as love!
Peaceful as a breast. Alive above the terrible agony of men. No really I’d prefer not to. Have more of it, that is. Feeling, caring… My own bit of cottage. Why should I always return to where I haven’t been! Let you now—I am speaking to myself—come a little nearer to where I am. It may be true that that is a better place to be. Wonder, anyway, is nicer than any name.
I’m all sold on the Beautiful.
I hate with all my guts this bloody crawling cell they’ve turned the world into. I can’t get any of these damn coats to fit any part of my life.

Kenneth Patchen

Do the Dead Know What Time It Is?

Today’s offering is a poem, & quite a departure from the first one we posted (by Frost, of course). This one’s by a poet I’ve long admired, Kenneth Patchen. For those of you who don’t know—& Patchen is woefully under-taught, under-read, & as a result, under-rated among American poets— Patchen wrote from the mid 1930’s to the very early 70’s (he died in 1972—was born in 1911). Patchen has been described as a surrealist, a marxist, a proto-beat poet, a jazz poet (he did readings with Charles Mingus’ combo in the 50’s), & also experimented with “picture” poems. All of these characterizations sum up a part of his work, but what strikes me always about Patchen is how directly emotional his poems are, even right off the page—something that’s a lot easier to convey in singing a song than in the printed word. The poem, “Do the Dead Know What Time It Is?” was published in his First Will & Testament (1939). Enjoy!

Do the Dead Know what Time It Is?

The old guy put down his beer.
Son, he said,
          (and a girl came over to the table where we were:
          asked us by Jack Christ to buy her a drink.)
Son, I am going to tell you something
The like of which nobody was ever told.
          (and the girl said, I've got nothing on tonight;
          how about you and me going to your place?)
I am going to tell you the story of my mother's
Meeting with God.
          (and I whispered to the girl: I don't have a room,
          but maybe...)
She walked up to where the top of the world is
And He came right up to her and said
So at last you've come home.
          (but maybe what?
          I thought I'd like to stay here and talk to you.)
My mother started to cry and God
Put His arms around her.
          (about what?
          Oh, just talk...we'll find something.)
She said it was like a fog coming over her face
And light was everywhere and a soft voice saying
You can stop crying now.
          (what can we talk about that will take all night?
          and I said that I didn't know.)
You can stop crying now.


Kenneth Patchen (1939)

“As She Was Thus Alone in the Clear Moonlight”

Some months the Weekly Poem is programmatic; this month they’ve been a hodge-podge. In fact, this poem by one of my most favorite poets, Kenneth Patchen, was really a last moment whim. The poem this week was supposed to be “The Desolate Field” by William Carlos Williams—oddly, this would have been the good doctor’s first appearance in the Robert Frost’s Banjo Weekly Poem (not that his reputation is suffering from that). I’m sure Dr Williams will appear in this space somewhere down the line. In the meantime, please enjoy this lovely poem by Kenneth Patchen.

AS SHE WAS THUS ALONE IN THE CLEAR MOONLIGHT, standing between rock and sky, and scarcely seeming to touch the earth, her dark locks and loose garments scattered by the wind, she looked like some giant spirit of the older time, preparing to ascend into the mighty cloud which singly hung from this poor heaven

so when she lay beside me
sleep’s town went round her
and wondering children pressed against the high windows
of the room where we had been

so when she lay beside me
a voice, reminded of an old fashion:
“What are they saying?
of the planets and the turtles?
of the woodsman and the bee?”
but we were too proud to answer, too tired to care about designs
“of tents and books and swords and birds”

thus does the circle pull upon itself
and all the gadding angels draw us in

until I can join her in that soft town where the bells
split apples on their tongues
and bring sleep down like a fish’s shadow

Kenneth Patchen

“And What with the Blunders”

The poem that follows is quite simply one of my favorite poems. It’s by Kenneth Patchen (also one of my very favorite poets), & it has long struck me as something perfect of its kind. I could point to this line or that; I could discuss the shifts in voice (often found in Patchen) or the plain language occasionally elevated (also a Patchen mainstay), but other than mentioning them, I’ll let the poem speak for itself.

Have a lovely Saturday wherever you are, friends.


AND WHAT WITH THE BLUNDERS, what with the real humor of the address, the end is sure to be attained, that of roarous fun in the roused hamlet or mountain village which pours forth its whole population in a swarm round the amorous orator, down to the baby that can but just toddle and the curs that join in the clamor, mad with ecstasy at the novelty of some noise besides that of trees and the horrible clamor of the grass


We talked of things but all the time we wanted each other
and finally we were silent and I knelt above your body

a closing of eyes
and falling unfalteringly
over a warm pure country and something crying

when I was a child things being hurt made me sorry
for them but it seemed the way men and women did
and we had not made the world

coming into it crying
(I wanted so not to hurt you)
and going out of it like a sudden pouring of salt

later, being tired and overflowing with tenderness
girl’s body to boy’s body lying there and wondering what it had been
we got to our feet very quietly so that they would not waken
but we felt their shy sorrowful look on us as we left them alone there


* * * * * *

All things are one to the earth
rayless as a blind leper Blake lies with everyman
and the fat lord sleeps beside his bastard at last
and it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t mean what we think it does
for we two will never lie there
we shall not be there when death reaches out his sparkling hands

there are so many little dyings that it doesn’t matter which of them is death

Kenneth Patchen

“Evening Song”

I know I’m not the first one to say this, but if you look at the canonical English language poets from the modernist period you’ll notice one glaring absence: leftist writers. This is especially remarkable because so many big name Continental European & South American poets from this time period were leftists who saw their poetry as linked with their politics—Vallejo, Breton, Lorca, Neruda, Rítsos, Brecht, just to repeat a handful of “names.” But who are the very well known English language modernist poets? Pound, Eliot & Yeats, all political conservatives, Pound quite extremely so; even Auden, who had a leftist start, came back toward the center. Meanwhile, other canonized modernist poets such as William Carlos Williams & Wallace Stevens tended to place their poetry into formal or aesthetic contexts more than cultural or political ones.

The reasons for this are no doubt complicated, & involve a number of factors—e.g., the reign of the New Criticism from the 1950s & well beyond; this school preached a doctrine of reading that was fixed on formal considerations, & tried very hard to divorce literary works from cultural context. In fact, it could be said that the Structuralist & Post-Structuralist approaches that superceded the New Criticism continued to focus on form, & that only the advent of the Feminist & Historicism have lit crit types again put a value on reading works within a larger context. In addition, there was a severe post World War II backlash against leftists in the U.S. Eberle & I discussed this question yesterday, & she postulated there’s also a link between a nation’s superpower status & an innate conservatism, & I believe there may be more than a little truth to this. So poets such as Kenneth Patchen & today’s poet, Kenneth Fearing, tend to be very much neglected in any official canon of essential U.S. poetry; & that’s more than a shame. The fact that they also tend to be overlooked by the poebiz community—which has its own formal obsessions & sometimes still seems to be fighting W.C. Williams’ battles—is really rather appalling.

Fearing has a lot to teach us as poets—even in terms of form, not to mention the way he’s able to bring popular culture, slang & idiom & a distinctly “anti-poetic” sensibility to the uses of poetry. In addition to writing poetry, Fearing was also a journalist, a novelist (including several forays into hard-boiled detective fiction). His novel The Big Clock was made into an excellent film of the same name starring Ray Milland.

Fearing’s poetry has certainly influenced my own work, especially the poetry I wrote in San Francisco, & “Evening Song” is among my favorites. Hope you enjoy it too.


Evening Song


Sleep, McKade.
    Fold up the day. It was a bright scarf.
    Put it away.
    Take yourself to pieces like a house of cards.

It is time to be a grey mouse under a tall building.
    Go there. Go there now.
    Look at the huge nails. Run behind the pipes.
    Scamper in the walls.
    Crawl towards the beckoning girl, her breasts are warm.
    But here is a dead man. A murderer?
    Kill him with your pistol. Creep past him to the girl.

Sleep, McKade.
    Throw one arm across the bed. Wind your watch.
    You are a gentleman, and important.
    Yawn. Go to sleep.

The continent turning from the sun is quiet.
    Your ticker waits for tomorrow morning
    And you are alive now.
    It will be a long time before they put McKade under the sod.
    Sometime, but not now.
    Sometime, though. Sometime, for certain.

Take apart your brain,
    Close the mouths in it that have been hungry,
    They are fed for a while.
    Go to sleep, you are a gentleman. McKade, alive and sane.
    A gentleman of position.

Tip your hat to the lady.
    Speak to the mayor.
    You are a personal friend of the mayor's, are you not?
    True. A friend of the mayor's.
    And you met the Queen of Roumania. True.

Then go to sleep.
    Be a dog sleeping in the old sun.
    Be a poodle drowsing in the old sun, by the Appian Way.
    Be a dog lying the meadow watching soldiers pass on the road.
    Chase after the woman who beckons.
    Run from the policeman with the dagger. It will split your bones.
    Be terrified.
    Curl up and drowse on the pavement of Fifth Avenue in the old sun.
    Sleep, McKade.
    Yawn.
    Go to sleep.

Kenneth Fearing

Lunar Baedeker

I’ve made no secret on Robert Frost’s Banjo that I have tremendous admiration for Mina Loy’s poems; & since I decided after posting Patchen’s And What With the Blunders last week, that I’d devote the September Weekly Poems to some real personal favorites—with a great deal of weight to both “personal” & “favorite.” I’m not here to debate whether Kenneth Patchen & Mina Loy are “great poets,” whatever that term may actually signify. I do know that as someone who’s spent a fair amount of time writing poetry & a fair number of years living & thinking about & feeling things, their poetry is “significant,” both in the common use of the term & in the deeper, etymological sense of being charged with meaning.

Loy’s poetry is dense—Lunar Baedeker is actually one of her “easier” poems (also—in a very relative sense—better known than most), as it presents a relatively recognizable landscape, tho her language is unapologetically ornate & baroque.

Hope you enjoy it, too!

Lunar Baedeker

A silver Lucifer
serves
cocaine in cornucopia

To some somnambulists
of adolescent thighs
draped
in satirical draperies

Peris is livery
prepare
Lethe
for posthumous parvenues

Delirious Avenues
lit
with the chandelier souls
of infusoria
from Pharoah's tombstones

lead
to mercurial doomsdays
Odious oasis
in furrowed phosphorous

the eye-white sky-light
white-light district
of lunar lusts

Stellectric signs

WING SHOWS ON STARWAY
ZODIAC CAROUSEL

Cyclones
of ecstatic dust
and ashes whirl
crusaders
from hallucinatory citadels
of shattered glass
into evacuate craters

A flock of dreams
browse on Necropolis

From the shores
of oval oceans
in the oxidized Orient

Onyx-eyed Odalisques
and ornithologists
observe the flight
of Eros obsolete

And "Immortality"
mildews
in the museums of the moon

NOCTURNAL CYCLOPS
CRYSTAL CONCUBINE

Pocked with personification
the fossil virgin of the skies
waxes and wanes

Mina Loy

Three Poem Paintings

Some of you may not know than in addition to conventional poetry (in whatever sense his work may be considered “conventional”), Kenneth Patchen also produced a number of “poem paintings,” which you can find in such collections as In Quest of Candlelighters & Hallelujah Anyway (now that’s a title for a poetry book!) Since I’m doing a bit of Patchen overview in January, I felt I’d be remiss not to post a few of these. Hope you enjoy them—I find them beautiful & moving!

Have a happy Saturday!

Virtual Reading #1

Happy Friday to you all!  Today is the day we bid 2010 a fond(?) farewell.  As my own personal ave atque vale to this year, I’m offering a virtual reading of two poems from my collection The Spring Ghazals.

Both of these poems found their titles in the works of others—“don’t think twice” obviously coming from the old Bob Dylan tune & “what can we talk about that will take all night?” coming from a powerful Kenneth Patchen poem titled “Do the Dead Know What Time It Is?”  Patchen is a personal favorite. The poem “don’t think twice” falls in the middle third of the ghazal sequence, while “what can we talk about that will take all night” falls in the final third.

As a reminder: you can purchase The Spring Ghazals at the following online outlets (links go directly to the book):

Lulu
Amazon
Barnes & Noble (new—& a bargain at $11.04 US!)
Amazon UK (£7.94)

Both Amazon & Lulu have the book for $12 US. 

Hope you enjoy the poems!




Pic shows roses on the pergola at Swannanoa, Virginia-detail from a larger photo

Who Is This Guy?

Someone recently asked me if I’d introduced myself in the first blog post, & I had to admit that no, I didn’t—I pretty much came in in medias res. Of course, that’s good writing technique (so they say), but not always polite conversation.

So who am I? There are always the facts: Born in Bellows Falls, VT, September 1956; one sister (Naomi) a bit older; mother & father ultimately were married from 1941 to 2005 when my father, (also John) passed away; mother (Bette) now lives in Massachusetts near my sister. Educated in small rural VT town, then as a day student at VT prep school, then UVM—checkered college career due to problems with booze & etc., but finally graduated 84; MFA from University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 86 in poetry; hung around with odd jobs, moved to San Francisco in 89, worked in “consumer service” for a “major US manufacturer” from 89 to present (with lots of twists & turns & a couple of hiatuses— & now ultimately as a telecommuter); wrote poetry for many years; took piano as a kid, gave it up; took up guitar in early middle age, played music in lieu of writing poetry; moved to Idaho to be with my lovely companion & now dear wife, Eberle, in 98; play guitar & other stringed instruments; teach guitar etc.; write blog—may or may not write poetry again. Some significant health problems, not in a desirable income bracket, but overall have been fortunate in life.

So that’s the quick story—& all those “facts” are true. Is that “me?” Lately I’ve thought a lot about the past—a lot about the choices I made & the ones I didn’t make; a lot about the many people I’ve left behind. I didn’t stay in one place, like many of my peers in the small farming community of Westminster, VT; people I was once close to have moved on in their lives, as I’ve moved on in mine. For a long time, I didn’t think about this as it happened; lately, I do….

Off & on all summer I’ve been scanning old photos, some going back well over 20 to 25 years. Sometimes I’m looking for something in the people & places I see—what? Is it the Alice’s Looking Glass I wrote about a few days ago? Is it looking for a doorway to some reality that’s now many many miles behind as time’s freight train highballs ahead? Sometimes I’m reminded of what happened in a given year & marvel that two events—so far apart in my memory—happened in the same calendar year. Of course, time was so much slower—we all know that; time accelerates like the freight train in all those old folk songs going down “a line on a three-mile grade;” eventually with the same result….

& I think about the lives these people may be living now, & hoping that they’ve had some fortune along the way, & knowing I’ll never know. Don’t misunderstand me—I’m very grateful for the friends I have, some of whom probably will read this—they’re (you’re) the biggest reason I can say I’ve been fortunate. But at a certain point one remembers that there was a past, that “I” existed in it not entirely as the “I” I am today, but as a “being” that has moved through some continuum.

I think this is an inkling of the hell so many older people go through as they lose friends & loved ones. Ted Berrigan, who had more than his share of experience with death in a relatively short life, wrote:

“The heart stops briefly when someone dies,
a quick pain as you hear the news, & someone passes
from your outside life to inside. Slowly the heart adjusts
to its new weight, & slowly everything continues, sanely.”
From Things to Do in Providence

Death is the final & irrevocable loss, but there are other losses nearly as final—Kenneth Patchen wrote, “there are so many little dyings that it doesn’t matter which of them is death.” Yes, knowing that someone does, or even may, exist in the world is an enormous difference—but when the people from our past are inaccessible, then they’ve moved—for us—into a certain type of underworld—memory, which is always removed from our physical & diurnal existence.

But Berrigan says they pass “from your outside life to inside.” Is he only talking about the move to memory? I won’t try to read his mind; but as I’ve looked at these old photos & thought of these old friends & lovers & even acquaintances I might have known better given another chance, I’ve realized something. What “I” am today is the result of interacting with everyone I’ve known. Some people have added more to my life, some have added less. Some that I knew for relatively short periods of time added disproportionately large shares; & in turn, wherever they are & whatever they’re doing this fine September day, at daybreak, at whatever hour it may be in their own time zones, something about me has contributed more or less to the “I” they are now.

Yes, there’s loss, & loneliness & the bittersweetness of memory—but for all the pain memory can bring, it also brings joy, & it’s a faculty I couldn’t live without. But from this perspective, I remember the past’s not lost—it’s contained in the “I” I am today….


Pic by Eberle Umbach

Two More Ghazals

Here are two more ghazals written a few days back; sorry there’s no audio this time around. As I mentioned yesterday, this week has been kinda unbelievably busy, with a string of appointments & tasks.

In addition, I’d like to thank Cheryl of the wonderful Lizzy Frizzfrock blog for her kindness in awarding me the Palabras Como Rosas. According the Cheryl’s post, “The award is for words that like roses, leave a wonderful perfume, lingering for a while.” That’s a lovely thought, & I’m very flattered that Robert Frost’s Banjo was chosen to receive this. I will be passing the award along, but it may be a day or two on that—so many deserving blogs to choose from!

In the meantime, hope you enjoy these.


“what can we talk about that will take all night?”

footsteps descending a staircase a cello played pizzicato
a sense of anticipation within the ribs the

blue haze this morning the redwinged blackbirds’
chirp amongst the cherry blossoms an unsettling

silence in an amber apartment a skybluepink porcelain
Blessed Virgin on a knickknack shelf

there was always something left unsaid—
10 years prior footsteps coming down stairs in a blue

Vermont summer evening the damp air off the big lake the
Virginia air spring 1987 was a red rose blossom on a white

pergola an unsettling silence pulsing pizzicato around an em-
brace beside a staircase the unsettling skybluepink

laughter around an embrace the “thin whistled
notes” of white-crowned sparrows’ song within a cottonwood’s

boughs—columbine about to bloom—a room trembling with
anticipation within the ribs—a

sob in the hedge a laugh in the green green streetlamp’s light—
a sigh inside the ribs a mahogany mandocello’s low

C-string tremolo the continual thrill of birdsong in the
cottonwood this morning the echo of unsaid words


(quote from Kenneth Patchen’s Do The Dead Know What Time It Is?)


Ghazal 5/11


the difference between frail pink quince petals & delicate yellow
pistil & an inability on the part of two young people to

speak their hearts’ desire is a breeze shifting the willow ‘s
delicate boughs on a spring morning when I’m 52 already my

beard streaked gray like a white-crowned sparrow—the
difference between rollicking whitecaps across Lake Champlain past

the causeway toward South Hero & the words in a young
heart saying “there will always be a time” is a yellow headed blackbird’s

harsh trill in cattails surrounding a pond refelcting an un-
clouded sky—the difference between grape vines embracing the cedar

posts in contorted gestures & two chairs in an apartment in a white
building beyond a red door in Burlington, VT is a

young peach tree’s pink blossoms beside a wrought-iron
glass-topped table reflecting blue haze—the difference be-

tween an inability for young quince petal lips to tell the entire story &
the call of sandhill cranes circling becomes a May forenoon scribbled
        with poems


John Hayes
© 2009

Writers Talk with Jack Varnell

It’s Thursday, & time for Writers Talk!  I’m most gratified that we can include Jack Varnell, AKA The Emotional Orphan, in this series.  His poems are memorable: flashes of emotion & image, & are very direct, a characteristic he shares with one of my own favorite poets, Kenneth Patchen.  Here’s a brief writerly bio:

Jack Varnell is a contemporary prose poet & writer living in the suburbs of Atlanta, Ga. USA

Usually writing under the pseudonym "The Emotional Orphan", & predominantly an online writer, he has been published at Culture Sandwich, The Literary Burlesque, Verses In Motion, Undead Poets Society, Sick Of 'Em, Pigeonbike Poetry, & Red Fez. 

Print Selections include Guerilla Pamphlets 7, & due this spring from Popshot Magazine, & All The King's Horses-Volume 3 in the 'Expression of Depression' anthology series from LittleEpisodes/Little Brown Book Group in the UK

Jack's blog is Emotional Orphan.
His RedRoom author page is at this link.

Please be sure to check out Jack Varnell’s poem “Wolves at Bay” over at the Writers Talk blog—& now, on to the interview!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?
I began writing at a very young age. I wrote a short story called “Freddy the Rat” at around age six. It was around the same time my mother held a figurative gun to my head in order to encourage me to play the piano rather than concern myself with silly games like baseball. I had seen “Ben” with Michael Jackson, and “Willard” - those cheesy 70’s movies about the rats, and decided the theme from Ben needed to be the song I did in my recital. “Freddy the Rat” was homage to him. Ben. Not Michael.

Since I never really attended school successfully, I really didn’t write too much in my teens and early twenties. My imagination was always on spin cycle, and I was more concerned with living the stories that eventually become poems. I read all the time, and developed a keen taste for some of the masters like Hermann Hesse, Sartre, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche and the likes, but missed a bunch of the more familiar contemporary authors, and studied few contemporary poets. I tended to lean more towards a spiritual, philosophical, or even utopian or dystopian type of write, so when I did pick up a pen it was usually something flavored by those writers. My writing output was limited, with the exception of sappy, silly love letters, legal briefs, letters to the Parole Board asking for leniency, and Writs of Habeas Corpus for my hoodlum buddies.

I am a recovering addict, clean for seventeen years now. In rehab I was told I was told I was an “emotional orphan”, and that I needed to learn how to get in touch with my feelings at a deeper level. Journaling on a daily basis was the tool they used to have me learn that, and I discovered that it worked, and more importantly offered a way to express myself in a truthful and creative manner. I rarely do fiction, and have been writing essays, stories, shorts and poetry since then. Much of my work is under the pseudonym “The Emotional Orphan” for that very reason.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.
Most all of my poetry follows a similar pattern, and it is a little different than most poets I have known or read about. I generally am focused on the actual who, what, where, when, and why of my own life experiences. I don’t usually shy away from topics that are not that easy to swallow because that is how a lot of my life has been. I have had a colorful and exciting life with exposure to things most have only seen on television or read in books. Anything I may be exposed to may end up on the page at some point. Some have notebooks of stories, poems, etcetera. I have phrases, anecdotes, half finished pieces, observations and random thoughts.

My writing usually includes two important factors. The first is honesty. I cannot succeed if I am afraid of telling the truth, or with too much concern of how it will be interpreted. Secondly, my experiences are the key piece of evidence in my crimes against poetry or literature.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)
At this point, my relationship with the publishing process is a bit like two teenagers at a school dance. She is the homecoming queen, cheerleader - too pure for any car backseat. I am the acne scarred guy, leaning against the wall staring lustfully at her from across the room. The secret weapon is poetry, not beer. 

I have been writing, and refraining from doing submissions for about two years, and simply focusing on the art, and the mechanics involved. I also want my voice to be heard so I read any and all journals, lit mags, and different publishers with the intent of learning where that voice might get heard. I did a little self publishing test online to evaluate the potential, and timing for a chapbook or larger collection.

I’ve been experimenting with Broadsides, and simply writing to build an arsenal of poems ready to be …somewhere.

Having a sales and marketing background, I have also been somewhat a student of the changes in the publishing world and who is responsible for the success of a writer. The reality is that ultimately the writer controls his own fate. Branding has been important to me with the Emotional Orphan Blog, and  twitter, tumblr, posterous, and many other social media outlets, blogs, and writing / arts communities.  So, if you look at your business card and the words Penguin, Copper Canyon, or something similar is attached to the company you work for, I have done half the work already.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

Although writing is a solitary exercise, I have been given so much from the writing community from across all genres, and forms. My real world relationships may have been minimized a bit.They have been replaced by a strong core group of creative and talented friends who support each other and offer critique and feedback, from an honest perspective with the intention of perfecting their craft. Writers like Caroline Hagood, Laura Mercurio Ebohon, Fran Lock, and Jodi MacArthur, whose writing styles are completely different, have been particularly gracious and instrumental in sharing words of wisdom and making sure to pay attention to my work that gets “out there”        

Besides them, there are possibly hundreds of writers online that I read as often as I can, and many others who lend support through Facebook and other social media outlets. Daily, I am embarrassed by running across someone that I meant to keep up with that I have neglected to read.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any?  This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

I have some long time friends and writers who I try to interact with regularly. I also float in and out of various groups designed to support, enlighten and critique each others work. The HIGHdra Syndicate is an outstanding group of young writers and poets who study at the feet of the masters from the Outlaw Poetry Movement. We are pretty headstrong about making some noise, and a difference in the publishing world, and the reception and recognition of poetry at large. Outlaw poetry, as described by the incomparable S.A Griffin just last night, is not picking up guns, robbing banks and going on the lam, it is about having a finger on the pulse of society and having the courage to shake things up a little in order to wake up the masses. Poets like S.A., A.Razor, Rafael F.J.Fajardo, Scott Wannberg, John Dorsey, and infinite others have been doing it for a long time. There are many others like Frankie Metropolis, Edaurdo Jones, Diana Rose, Murphy Clamrod, Jason Hardung, High Jack Flash, Jack Shaw, Christian Alvarez, Yossarian Hunter,  Newamba Flamingo, Sean Hogan, and a host of others are making some noise. Publishers like Epic Rites Press, and Wolfgang Carstens are giving an outlet for the voices of writers like Rob Plath, John Yamrus, Jack Henry, and Karl Koweski, while keeping alive the words of Todd Moore, one of the original Outlaws and a master no longer with us …in the physical. We believe pretty strongly in the power of both the spoken and written word and make use of any and all tools available to connect with the masses. These tools include everything from banged up antique typewriters, to iPhones, and our internet radio channel on BlogTalk Radio.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the community of artists and writers at Little Episodes. Primarily based in the UK, LE has a stated mission of “Dispelling the notion that art is a corporate commodity-Giving the artistic industries back to the artist- Promoting the arts as a platform to incite empathy and understanding.“  It is an incredible community of support, and talent that has proven to be an indispensible place to give and take in order to grow as an artist.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

For now, my intention is to keep writing, and submitting. I have had some success, but I don’t necessarily measure that in number of books or poems published. It is more about gleaning all I can from those more educated, and experienced, and following the proven method of getting the words out there. I tend to be a little analytical about it all. The words of my fellow writers are more powerful to me than how often I have been published, the rejections with critique more valuable than the acceptance letters.

I think finding a cure for my aversion to apostrophes and extreme addiction to ellipses may be equally as important, and I do have a secret desire to actually finish an English class one day. Hopefully royalties from my first book may provide the means to actually go to college. For a while, at least.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

Let me clarify, would a machete be considered a musical instrument?

Seriously, I think my Mother’s statement many years ago about how I would one day regret that I didn’t pursue the piano with a little more dedication holds true. I believe a piano would accomplish what I would like to with my writing. It has the potential to offer intense and powerful music, while also having the ability to calmly tickle the imagination and take it to places unseen. There is a journey to be enjoyed, and if you just close your eyes it can take you almost anywhere through the good, the bad and the ugly. For the bad and ugly, it offers a solution and some peace. You can find a home there.

"Do the Dead Know What Time It Is?"

Do the Dead Know what Time It Is?

The old guy put down his beer.
Son, he said,
          (and a girl came over to the table where we were:
          asked us by Jack Christ to buy her a drink.)
Son, I am going to tell you something
The like of which nobody was ever told.
          (and the girl said, I've got nothing on tonight;
          how about you and me going to your place?)
I am going to tell you the story of my mother's
Meeting with God.
          (and I whispered to the girl: I don't have a room,
          but maybe...)
She walked up to where the top of the world is
And He came right up to her and said
So at last you've come home.
          (but maybe what?
          I thought I'd like to stay here and talk to you.)
My mother started to cry and God
Put His arms around her.
          (about what?
          Oh, just talk...we'll find something.)
She said it was like a fog coming over her face
And light was everywhere and a soft voice saying
You can stop crying now.
          (what can we talk about that will take all night?
          and I said that I didn't know.)
You can stop crying now.


Kenneth Patchen (1939) 

This was posted on Robert Frost's Banjo within the first couple of week's of the blog's existence in the summer of '08.  Since only a few friends read Robert Frost's Banjo back then, it won't be redundant for most.  It is one of my favorite poems by one of my very favorite poets.  Hope you all are having a nice day!

Banjo Hitter #2 – The Boys of Summer

Sunday July 20th, Erv Lind Field, Portland: One thing I’m particular about—I have to get there early. Our game—the second of the usual Boomer PDX League Sunday doubleheader—doesn’t start until 1:45, but I’m already taking a seat in the stands by the first pitch of game one. & there’s already a rhubarb about line-ups before the first pitch is thrown, but then order is restored & the first pitch makes its way toward home, only to be greeted squarely by a bat & lined into left field. I remember one of the umpires remarking last season about how the players were all over 50, but they argued as much as little leaguers. The boys of summer.

It’s crucial to relax in the surroundings—to get into that timeless feel that playing either baseball or softball can impart. Not so much as a spectator, though even then time is altered. But once the first game ends & ours is underway, time really becomes altered. It’s not even a question of minutes or the time of day—it’s easy to lose track of innings or the exact score—the focus is on how many outs & where the base runners are & where are we in the batting order.

A cool day for July—overcast, a bit muggy. We take the field first, give up three runs, take our turn at bat & fail to answer. Back to our positions, & they are back to hitting the ball hard to the outfield. Those long innings in the field, a combination of miscues & base hits, bring time back into the game. The sun comes out—then back behind a cloud. Focus. Am I too close to the line? I need to go to second if the ball is hit to me…

Of course, viewed objectively we are a ragtag lot. Some of us were good players when younger, though I can’t count myself among those. There are men who played college baseball some 35 or more years ago, & you can tell the athletes, even at this age. There’s an 80-year-old man on the opposing team who was a college ballplayer once. His first at bat he lines a base hit to left; his final at bat he lines a ball right at me, but low, & I have to drop to my knees to make the catch on the fly.

A friend tells me that her father, a Scotsman who immigrated to Canada’s maritime provinces, believes baseball is a children’s game—football (in the world sense, not the U.S. sense) is the only real sport. I wonder what he would make of slow-pitch softball, baseball’s congenial & easygoing sibling, especially when played by such grandfatherly or at the very least, avuncular types as present company.

In truth, it’s not a good game for my team—the final score is 19 to 6, & that included 3 runs we scored in the final inning. We fell behind early, a combination of our opponents’ solid hitting (including back-to-back homers over the left field fence in the middle innings, some misplays in the field & our own weak, over-anxious hitting. In terms of personal performance, I’m satisfied: two singles & a walk in four plate appearances. But I can see the pitch in that fourth time up coming in, probably a bit outside, the thoughts of hitting to right field & at the last micro-second realizing I was swinging under it. A weak pop fly to first base.

It’s taken me 50 years, but at last I feel comfortable with myself playing, at least more often than not. I play third base in this league, & enjoy it. The first ball hit to me—to my left, the glove side, & well struck, hugging the ground. I pick it & throw to second for the force. The second ball very like the first until at the last second it hits something on its track toward my glove & shoots upward, glancing off my left shoulder & somehow landing on my right. By the time I get a handle on the ball, there’s no play.

For years, sports were a locus of frustration for me. I was never especially athletic—much to my chagrin. More specifically in baseball & softball, a weakly hit ball, an error in the field became a stinging & bitter distillation of failure—of all failures, real & perceived. Failure was a companion I always had beside me, ready to assert itself—ready to remind me. But coming back to the game I loved in my late 50s, something seems to have happened. What is it?

The boys of summer. How much have any of us really changed in the 50 or 60 or 70 years since we first took up playing ball? How many times have we failed in the interim? At work, in relationships, undergoing all manner of disappointment & cognitive dissonance. What I seem to remember more often now: we all fail; we all take it to heart—& we are the boys of summer only in our imaginations, not in our bodies. We exist with memory & expectation & the realities of slower reflexes & bifocals.

But enough about failure & aging. Because even softball can be timeless on the field. Kenneth Patchen has a picture poem that states, “All at once is what eternity is.” The boyhood of summer isn’t about re-capturing a mythical moment in the past—it’s not about time travel—because, at least for me, that never happened. It’s all about now—the gratitude & exuberance of being in this moment, on this softball diamond, win or lose, succeed or fail. Perhaps I really do belong in this eternity.

For the Record (or Writers I Have Known)

Good blog pal Kat over at the delightful Poetikat’s Invisible Keepsakes asked me to chime in on the 25 writers who have most influenced me, which I believe is a twist on a more general meme about 25 heroes. I usually don’t tend toward memes—some sort of Yankee independent streak no doubt—but I don’t have any hard & fast rule about them: for instance, I did participate in the Omnivores 100 back last fall (as a two-parter, here & here).

So compiling this list has been fun, but I added a couple of wrinkles. The most important of these wrinkles (to me at least) has to do with this: I’d have to say overall that the people who influenced me most as a writer were writer friends; & because they’ve been more important to me in the big picture than any number of more well-known & canonical writers, I’d like to acknowledge them up front.

First: my dear wife Eberle Umbach, who I’ve known (& known as a writer) since the 80s, & who still amazes me with her insights on the creative process, & whose writing (as Robert Frost’s Banjo readers know) is marvelous—sensitive, observant & dazzling. In addition to her, I’d also name the following in alphabetical order: Carrie Bradley, Meghan Gehman, Eddie Gehman-Kohan, Mari Hata, Dani (L.E.) Leone, Brittany Newmark, Christopher Schreiner, Keith Smith, Priscilla Sneff, Molly Turner, & Jonah Winter; & I’d also name my four teachers: T.Alan Broughton & David Huddle at the University of Vermont (undergrad) & Greg Orr & Charles Wright at the University of Virginia (MFA). While the reading I’ve done has certainly given me ideas & techniques to work with & dialogues to enter into, I wouldn’t have been the self that created any of my work, nor would that work be what it is, without these friends & comrades. This may not be true for everyone, but for me, inspiration has always come from some form of interaction, & the very best interactions are with people & not with the page.

As far as the “name” folks go, I didn’t include any writers I’ve read only in translation, tho some of this work certainly has had an impact on me—for instance, Mayakovsky & Vallejo & Ingeborg Bachmann, to name a few. There are also writers I admire tremendously—Emily Dickinson springs to mind—whose work seems to inhabit such a different creative space than my own that there doesn’t seem to be as much “dialogue” as with writers who share more similarities in thought or technique—certainly not to put myself on a par with any of these folks, but just to say we’re interested in some of the same things linguistically & conceptually.

Finally, my other added wrinkle is a snippet from each author. In the cases of French & Middle English, I provide translations at the end of the post. For expediency's sake, all the links are from Wikipedia; they should at least provide a starting point. Oh, & it seems I feel kinship with a lot of writers whose last name begins with a B….

Apollinaire: Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure/Les jours s’en vont je demeure - Samuel Beckett: why not merely the despaired of/occasion of/wordshed//is it not better abort than be barren - Ted Berrgian: Alone & crowded, unhappy fate, nevertheless/I slip softly into the air/The world’s furious song flows through my costume - John Berryman: The weather fleured. They weakend all his eyes,/and burning thumbs into his ears, and shook/his hand like a notch. Elizabeth Bishop: The moon in the bureau mirror/looks out a million miles/(and perhaps with pride, at herself,/but she never, never smiles)/far and away beyond sleep, or/perhaps she's a daytime sleeper. William Blake: In every cry of every Man/In every Infants cry of fear,/In every voice: in every ban,/The mind-forg’d manacles I hear - Charles Bukowski: some people never go crazy./me, sometimes I’ll lie down behind the couch/for 3 or 4 days. William S. Burroughs: Stay away from Queens Plaza, son…Evil spot haunted by dicks scream for dope fiend lover…Too many levels…Heat flares out from the broom closet high on ammonia…Raymond Chandler: On the way downtown I stopped at a bar and had a couple of Scotches. They didn’t do me any good. All they did was make me think of Silver-Wig, and I never saw her again. Geoffery Chaucer: For al be that I knowe nat Love in dede,/Ne wot how that he quiteth folk here hyre/Yit happeth me ful ofte in bokes rede/Of his myracles and his crewel yre. Robert Creeley: There are very huge stars, man, in the sky,/and from somewhere very far off someone hands me a slice of apple pie,/with a gob of white, white ice cream on top of it,/and I eat it— Robert Frost: Were he not gone/The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his/Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,/Or just some human sleep. Mina Loy: We might have given birth to a butterfly/With the daily news/Printed in blood on its wings - Henri Michaux: C’est le Temps, bien sûr. (Est-il pareil chez vous?) Il faudrait arriver plus tôt que lui; vous voyez ce que je veux dire, rien qu’un tout petit peu avant. Frank O’Hara: How funny you are today New York/like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime/and St. Bridget’s steeple leaning a little to the left - Kenneth Patchen: Come back when fog drifts out over the city/And sleep puts her kind hands on all these poor devils - Benjamin Péret: Sors de l'urne/dit l'hortensia à son complice/Et toi de ton Hortense lui répond la/mandoline qui n'était mandoline qu'à la faveur d'un rayon de soleil - Arthur Rimbaud: Ont-elles pris les crèmes brunes/Sur les mares des voluptés?/Ont-elles trempé dans des Lunes/Aux étangs de sérénités? Patti Smith: I am helium raven and this movie is mine,/So he cried out as he stretched the sky,/Pushing it all out like latex cartoon, am I all alone in this generation? Gertrude Stein: A pot. A pot is a beginning of a rare bit of trees. Trees tremble, the old vats are in bobbles, bobbles which shade and shove and render clean, render clean must. Wallace Stevens: In that November off Tehuantepec,/The slopping of the sea grew still one night/And in the morning summer hued the deck//And made one think of rosy chocolate/And gilt umbrellas. Paradisal green/Gave suavity to the perplexed machine//Of ocean, which like limpid water lay. Tom Waits: The smart money’s on Harlow, & the moon is in the street/& the shadow boys are breaking all the laws. Hank Williams: Hear that lonesome whippoorwill/He sounds too blue to fly. Sir Thomas Wyatt: Drowned is reason that should me comfort/And I remain despairing of the port. W.B. Yeats: ‘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.’

Translations:
Apollinaire: Let night come toll the hour/Days move on I remain – Chaucer: Although I don’t know love from experience/& I don’t know how he requites [or pays] people [their wages], Still I’ve often read in books/About his miracles & his cruel anger. Michaux: It’s Time, of course. (Is it the same where you are?) One has to get there sooner than it does; you see what I mean to say, no more than just a little bit beforehand. Benjamin Péret: Get out of the urn/the hortensia said to his accomplice/And you ditto Hortense answered the mandolin/which wasn't a mandolin except under the cover of sunlight - Arthur Rimbaud: Have they taken their dusky cream/From voluptuary pools?/Have they soaked in moons/With serene ponds?

Pic is of yours truly holding a bilingual complete Rimbaud at the University of Virginia in 1984; taken by Christopher Schreiner