pō'ĭ-trē

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2006-05-21T20:48:00.000-07:00

To everything
There is a season
...

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Too Alone

2006-05-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

Rainer Maria Rilke

Listen (to Pavi read)

I'm too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy
I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing---
just as it is.

(this, the poem that fell out when I opened the book after getting
home. an unconscious echo of this evening's thoughts- spoken and un.
this moment is holy. we see things not as they but we are- even, and
maybe especially- ourselves. rilke's self-reflexive twist) [1]

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones---
or alone.

I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.

I would describe myself like a landscape I've studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I'm coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtimes;

like my mother's face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.

- From Rilke's Book Of Hours translated by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy

The german original,

Ich bin auf der Welt zu allein und doch nicht allein genug

Ich bin auf der Welt zu allein und doch nicht allein genug,
um jede Stunde zu weihn.
Ich bin auf der Welt zu gering und doch nicht klein genug,
um vor dir zu sein wie ein Ding,
dunkel und klug.

Ich will dich immer spiegeln in ganzer Gestalt,
und will niemals blind sein oder zu alt,
um dein schweres, schwankendes Bild zu halten.
Ich will mich entfalten.

Nirgends will ich gebogen bleiben;
denn dort bin ich gelogen, wo ich gebogen bin.
Und ich will meinen Sinn wahr vor dir ...

This comes from a deeply spiritual collection of poems by Rilke. The “Book of Hours: Love Poems to God” (– his version of love mysticism perhaps?) [2].

Rilke’s choice of themes and his precision in expressing them make themes that are often neglected in poetry (and prose) outshine more dramatic subjects and ornate writing.

“... as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. Don't write love poems; … rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. … - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not." [3]

Welcome Pavi! [4]

Notes:

[1] Anaïs Nin puts it as, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

[2] As in Sufi poetry - God becomes the beloved. And there is no Without – God cannot exist without you and you cannot without God . A snippet from another poem in the collection,

What will you do, God, when I die?
I am your pitcher (when I shatter?)
I am your drink (when I go bitter?)
I, your garment; I, your craft.
Without me what reason have you?

...What will you do, God? I am afraid.

[3] Letter 1, from Letters To A Young Poet

[4] One more added to the list of people who will kill for poetry – this month has been good - Hatshepsut, Pavi ... : ) Look forward to their contributions (and their own insightful commentary) in the future…

Pavi, my fellow Rilke-lover – in our very first conversation she enlightened me on the importance of precision in poetry. On the difficulty in choosing the right words/expressions in poetry. Many words can express the same physical object, but each of them can trigger a distinct emotion(al memory). And a poem works or fails based on its ability to awaken that precise emotion. What better way to introduce her, than with a Rilke recording :)

Dear Contributors, do keep sending in your lovely selection of recordings, we love being challenged, surprised and tickled by your contributions.

[5] The other Rilke we ran – You Who Never Arrived

Eyes and Tears

2006-05-17T19:37:00.000-07:00

Andrew Marvell

Listen

How wisely Nature did decree,
With the same Eyes to weep and see!
That, having view'd the object vain,
They might be ready to complain.

And since the Self-deluding Sight,
In a false Angle takes each hight;
These Tears which better measure all,
Like wat'ry Lines and Plummets fall.

Two Tears, which Sorrow long did weigh
Within the Scales of either Eye,
And then paid out in equal Poise,
Are the true price of all my Joyes.

What in the World most fair appears,
Yea even Laughter, turns to Tears:
And all the Jewels which we prize,
Melt in these Pendants of the Eyes.

I have through every Garden been,
Amongst the Red,the White, the Green;
And yet, from all the flow'rs I saw,
No Hony, but these Tears could draw.

So the all-seeing Sun each day
Distills the World with Chymick Ray;
But finds the Essence only Showers,
Which straight in pity back he powers.

Yet happy they whom Grief doth bless,
That weep the more, and see the less:
And, to preserve their Sight more true,
Bath still their Eyes in their own Dew.

So Magdalen, in Tears more wise
Dissolv'd those captivating Eyes,
Whose liquid Chains could flowing meet
To fetter her Redeemers feet.

Not full sailes hasting loaden home,
Nor the chast Ladies pregnant Womb,
Nor Cynthia Teeming show's so fair,
As two Eyes swoln with weeping are.

The sparkling Glance that shoots Desire,
Drench'd in these Waves, does lose it fire.
Yea oft the Thund'rer pitty takes
And here the hissing Lightning slakes.

The Incense was to Heaven dear,
Not as a Perfume, but a Tear.
And Stars shew lovely in the Night,
But as they seem the Tears of Light.

Ope then mine Eyes your double Sluice,
And practise so your noblest Use.
For others too can see, or sleep;
But only humane Eyes can weep.

Now like two Clouds dissolving, drop,
And at each Tear in distance stop:
Now like two Fountains trickle down:
Now like two floods o'return and drown.

Thus let your Streams o'reflow your Springs,
Till Eyes and Tears be the same things:
And each the other's difference bears;
These weeping Eyes, those seeing Tears.

After that stinging rejoinder to his last poem, I figured Marvell would want a good cry.

This is Marvell at his baroque best, each quatrain an intricate and polished gem - a new image or metaphor introduced, expanded and then beautifully closed out, and through it all the constant counterpoint of eyes and tears, ending with that glorious final line. This isn't, to me, a particularly moving poem in an emotional sense - I'm more apt to laugh out loud at the cleverness of the verses than to feel any real empathy for Marvell - but it's a sparklingly brilliant one.

His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell

2006-05-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

A.D. Hope

Listen(to Hatshepsut read)

Since you have world enough and time
Sir, to admonish me in rhyme,
Pray Mr Marvell, can it be
You think to have persuaded me?
Then let me say: you want the art
To woo, much less to win my heart.
The verse was splendid, all admit,
And, sir, you have a pretty wit.
All that indeed your poem lacked
Was logic, modesty, and tact,
Slight faults and ones to which I own,
Your sex is generally prone;
But though you lose your labour, I
Shall not refuse you a reply:

First, for the language you employ:
A term I deprecate is "coy";
The ill-bred miss, the bird-brained Jill,
May simper and be coy at will;
A lady, sir, as you will find,
Keeps counsel, or she speaks her mind,
Means what she says and scorns to fence
And palter with feigned innocence.

The ambiguous "mistress" next you set
Beside this graceless epithet.
"Coy mistress", sir? Who gave you leave
To wear my heart upon your sleeve?
Or to imply, as sure you do,
I had no other choice than you
And must remain upon the shelf
Unless I should bestir myself?
Shall I be moved to love you, pray,
By hints that I must soon decay?
No woman's won by being told
How quickly she is growing old;
Nor will such ploys, when all is said,
Serve to stampede us into bed.

When from pure blackmail, next you move
To bribe or lure me into love,
No less inept, my rhyming friend,
Snared by the means, you miss your end.
"Times winged chariot", and the rest
As poetry may pass the test;
Readers will quote those lines, I trust,
Till you and I and they are dust;
But I, your destined prey, must look
Less at the bait than at the hook,
Nor, when I do, can fail to see
Just what it is you offer me:
Love on the run, a rough embrace
Snatched in the fury of the chase,
The grave before us and the wheels
Of Time's grim chariot at our heels,
While we, like "am'rous birds of prey",
Tear at each other by the way.

To say the least, the scene you paint
Is, what you call my honour, quaint!
And on this point what prompted you
So crudely, and in public too,
To canvass and , indeed, make free
With my entire anatomy?
Poets have licence, I confess,
To speak of ladies in undress;
Thighs, hearts, brows, breasts are well enough,
In verses this is common stuff;
But -- well I ask: to draw attention
To worms in -- what I blush to mention,
And prate of dust upon it too!
Sir, was this any way to woo?

Now therefore, while male self-regard
Sits on your cheek, my hopeful bard,
May I suggest, before we part,
The best way to a woman's heart
Is to be modest, candid, true;
Tell her you love and show you do;
Neither cajole nor condescend
And base the lover on the friend;
Don't bustle her or fuss or snatch:
A suitor looking at his watch
Is not a posture that persuades
Willing, much less reluctant maids.

Remember that she will be stirred
More by the spirit than the word;
For truth and tenderness do more
Than coruscating metaphor.
Had you addressed me in such terms
And prattled less of graves and worms,
I might, who knows, have warmed to you;
But, as things stand, must bid adieu
(Though I am grateful for the rhyme)
And wish you better luck next time.

No she doesn't stop with a passing comment on the previous post [1]. Hatshepsut, welcome!

[1] This poem needs no introduction. To ensure the best experience, dear listener, here is a link To his coy mistress. :)

[2] commentary by the minstrels.

To his coy mistress

2006-05-13T15:24:00.000-07:00

Andrew Marvell

Listen

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood:
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.
Two hundred to adore each breast:
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart:
For, Lady, you deserve this state;
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's wing'ed chariot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity:
And your quaint honour turn to dust;
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now, therefore, while the youthful glue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball:
And tear our pleasures with rough strife,
Thorough the iron grates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Few poems in the English language are as influential [1] or as well-beloved as this one. And justly so. It's a particularly deceptive poem, one that opens on comic, mocking note and can be read, in its entirety, as a rather frustrated gentleman's desperate and hyperbolic attempt to get his lady into bed [2]. And yet somewhere in the middle of the poem, the silliness gives way to a darker sensibility and the poem gets down to business (a change in tone marvellously consonant with the change in meaning, vividly highlighting the two different arguments). What follows is arguably the most eloquent statement of the dictum 'carpe diem' ever put down in rhyme.

What woman, one wonders, could resist?

For more commentary, see Minstrels

[1] Eliot devotees will notice the "At my back I always hear / Time's Wing'ed Chariot hurrying near" that Eliot parodies in the Waste Land.

[2] Some things, apparently, do not change

P.S. The text for this version comes from the Complete Poems published by Penguin Classics and edited by Elizabeth Story Donno. There are several discrepancies between this and other texts - most notably the use of glue rather than hue / hew in line 33. Donno argues that glue is what appears in the Folio, and is therefore the correct reading.

Epilogue from Midsummer Night's Dream

2006-05-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

When I was first casting around for a blog name, my final list of candidates came down to Falstaff and Robin Goodfellow. I picked Falstaff because it was less of a mouthful and because on the whole I like Plump Jack more, but as favourite Shakespeare characters go, Puck comes in a close second. There's something so soaring and weightless about Puck, something playful and leaping and entirely magical.

Of all the epilogues Shakespeare ever wrote, this one is probably my favourite. So it's fitting that two weeks of Shakespeare posts should be brought to a close with Puck's words. Other Shakespeare pieces will follow, no doubt (some have already been promised) but the exclusive focus on Shakespeare, this 'weak and idle theme' ends here.

Falstaff's 'Honour' Speech

2006-05-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen

(Henry IV Part 1 Act V Scene 1)

PRINCE HENRY
Why, thou owest God a death.

Exit PRINCE HENRY

FALSTAFF
'Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before
his day. What need I be so forward with him that
calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks
me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I
come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or
an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no.
Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is
honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what
is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it?
he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no.
Doth he hear it? no. 'Tis insensible, then. Yea,
to the dead. But will it not live with the living?
no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore
I'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon: and so
ends my catechism.

I couldn't resist this one. This is an amazing speech - a direct and mocking attack of everything that could be considered heroic or honourable, a speech against every war-monger, terrorist and martyr, against anyone who would kill and die for honour.

Hath not a Jew eyes?

2006-05-09T11:31:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen (to the Mystery Cat read)

To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.

A guest post from Mystery Cat. He writes, "Portia's speech got me thinking about Merchant of Venice. In spite of fond memories of elocution contests in school, it's not a play I was never very fond of. I never bought into the anit-Semitic theory butI found Shylock to be an unreasonably vindictive villain, something of a caricature. So it's kind of sad that his mildly incoherent defence of vengeance doesn't seem terribly unfamiliar today."

The Quality of Mercy is not Strain'd

2006-05-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

The Merchant of Venice, (and so, Portia's Quality of Mercy). And commentary from the minstrels.

Plump Jack

2006-05-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen

(Henry IV Act II Scene 4)

Henry V
Well, here I am set.

Falstaff
And here I stand: judge, my masters.

Henry V
Now, Harry, whence come you?

Falstaff
My noble lord, from Eastcheap.

Henry V
The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.

Falstaff
'Sblood, my lord, they are false: nay, I'll tickle
ye for a young prince, i' faith.

Henry V
Swearest thou, ungracious boy? henceforth ne'er look
on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace:
there is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an
old fat man; a tun of man is thy companion. Why
dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that
bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel
of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed
cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with
the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that
grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in
years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and
drink it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a
capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in craft?
wherein crafty, but in villany? wherein villanous,
but in all things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?

Falstaff
I would your grace would take me with you: whom
means your grace?

Henry V
That villanous abominable misleader of youth,
Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan.

Falstaff
My lord, the man I know.

Henry V
I know thou dost.

Falstaff
But to say I know more harm in him than in myself,
were to say more than I know. That he is old, the
more the pity, his white hairs do witness it; but
that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster,
that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault,
God help the wicked! if to be old and merry be a
sin, then many an old host that I know is damned: if
to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine
are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto,
banish Bardolph, banish Poins: but for sweet Jack
Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff,
valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant,
being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him
thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's
company: banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.

You knew this was coming didn't you? You didn't seriously think I was going to do a whole week of Shakespeare without getting in at least a few plugs for that greatest of all Shakespeare's characters - my namesake, Falstaff.

This dialogue is as good an illustration as any of just why Falstaff is such a favourite of mine - it's a delightful exchange, featuring the Bard at his most playful. Prince Hal has been summoned to the court of his father, and Falstaff and Hal are acting out, in jest, the scene that shall ensue when Hal appears before his father and is roundly scolded. At first Falstaff plays the King, while Hal plays himself, and Falstaff proceeds to admonish Hal for keeping company with a bunch of villians and thieves (they have just, as a trick stolen money from Falstaff), condemning all of Hal's companions save one, one only, a man of cheerful look, pleasing eye and most noble carriage, one Falstaff, who alone among Hal's friends bears the mark of true virtue. At this point Hal, accusing Falstaff of not being royal enough, takes over the role of his father and makes Falstaff stand in for himself, after which the scene above is played out.

It's a glorious, glorious scene, full of bombast and wit, mined with clever little asides that are guaranteed to make the audience laugh as much as the two characters playing out the scene, but the ultimate effect is as tender as it is hilarious - you can feel the warmth between these two people, the easy-going nature of the friendship between this fat, aging knight, and this prince of the realm.

Taken outside the context of the play though, the speech says much more (isn't it amazing how Shakespeare can do this - even the silliest speeches he writes turn out to have such a wealth of meaning and beauty). Falstaff is craven and ridiculous, he is a person who cannot be taken seriously, he is a man to be laughed at, to be scorned, a man with little merit save the fact that he is mostly harmless. And yet without Falstaff, without the spirit of folly and jest that he represents, this would be a poorer play. Without Falstaff the world would be unbearably dry, suffocatingly serious. Without Falstaff, we would have no one to laugh at, and reality would overwhelm us.

Falstaff is more than just a brilliant character in a memorable play. Falstaff is a reminder to all of us that we must not take ourselves too seriously, that we must remember to laugh, must be prepared to make ourselves ridiculous. Falstaff speaks for the fool in all of us, and his is a merry yet human voice.

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves

2006-05-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen

(The Tempest, Act V)

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.

I've already blogged about The Tempest elsewhere, so I won't bother to go over it again. Suffice it to say that I love how much distance this speech covers - going from the gently wondering, to the roaringly proud, to the surrender of the self. Absolute power corrupts, we are told, and certainly in many ways Prospero is a true tyrant. Yet here he is abjuring the very power he has spent so long attaining. And for that alone it is impossible not to be in awe of him.

Come Away, Come Away, Death

2006-05-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen

(Twelfth Night Act II Scene 4)

Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it;
My part of death no one so true
Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown:
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there.

Twelfth Night was the first Shakespeare play I ever read. I was 14 and very bored and Twelfth Night was all I could get my hands on. How bad could it be, I figured, and settled in to read.

It was the start of a beautiful friendship.

There's something very special about your first Shakespeare. No matter what follows, or how many 'better' plays you read, you always keep a soft corner in your heart for the play that started it all [1]. So perhaps it's only that which makes Viola one of my favourites among Shakespeare's heroines, and makes me think that Twelfth Night is a play especially rich in secondary characters. It really is an ensemble play - Orsino, Olivia, Malvolio, Feste, Sir Toby, Andrew Aguecheek. Such a truly delightful cast, that.

Today's poem is the one piece in the series that has almost nothing to do with the actual action of the play it is taken from. It is a stand alone poem, a song that the Clown sings at Orsino's bidding, a set piece. Yet it is a beautiful lyric for all that, yearning and sorrowful, it's music evident even when it is simply spoken aloud.

Orsino, asking for the song to be played, describes it as:

"that piece of song,
That old and antique song we heard last night:
Methought it did relieve my passion much,
More than light airs and recollected terms
Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times"

But for me the truer description is on page 1 of the play: "that strain again! it had a dying fall".

[1] At least so I've found and so some of my friends have told me. What happens if the first Shakespeare play you read is Merry Wives of Windsor I can't say.

Brutus's speech to the people

2006-05-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen

Julius Caesar Act III Scene 2

Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my
cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me
for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that
you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and
awake your senses, that you may the better judge.
If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of
Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar
was no less than his. If then that friend demand
why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer:--
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved
Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and
die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live
all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him;
as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was
valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I
slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his
fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his
ambition. Who is here so base that would be a
bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If
any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so
vile that will not love his country? If any, speak;
for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.

For sheer eloquence, for oratory on the grandest scale, Act III of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is hard to match. This particular speech comes sandwiched between Antony's 'bleeding piece of earth' speech and the magnificient "Friends, Romans, Countrymen' oration. But there are other fine speeches here - in fact the entire act has this declamatory quality, as though the speakers, being greater than mortal men, spoke a language higher than that of the common tongue.

Because it is so swiftly outdone by Antony's, Brutus's speech at Caesar's funeral is, I feel, somewhat underrated. It is a marvellous speech, starting off with an appeal to reason and order, but ending on an exhortative, almost indignant note, and playing on the Roman people's regard for their civic freedoms. The only flaw in it, is that Brutus simply asserts that Caesar was ambitious without ever offering any evidence of this, and it is this weakness that Antony exploits to full advantage in his oration.

That said, a large part of the glory of Antony's speech comes from the fact that it must successfully follow this one. Brutus is more than a worthy opponent for Antony to be taking on, and Antony has the incredibly difficult task of changing the mind of a crowd that has been soundly convinced by Brutus's speech before him. Watching him pull that off is like watching a great tennis player come back with a stunning response to an almost impossible smash.

As someone who's always loved debating, and who spent long years in college on the debating circuit, I've always loved this interplay of arguments - it's always represented to me a magnificent and sublime ideal of what a great debate should be like. This speech, and the one that follows it, is part of the reason I became a debater.

Queen Mab

2006-05-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen

(Romeo and Juliet Act I Scene 4)

ROMEO
I dream'd a dream to-night.

MERCUTIO
And so did I.

ROMEO
Well, what was yours?

MERCUTIO
That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO
In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

MERCUTIO
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams, he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she–

ROMEO
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace! Thou talk'st of nothing.

MERCUTIO
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

Remember Holden Caulfield's line about how Mercutio was the only decent character in Romeo & Juliet? Here is the man at his most whimsical, jesting mightily at his friend Romeo's sighs, which are "as thin of substance as the air / and more inconstant than the wind" (remember, at this stage of the play Romeo is yet to meet Juliet, so his dreams are all of Rosaline, however much he might foreswear them in the next scene). It's a hilarious speech, and it's typical of Shakespeare that even a throwaway jest of his gives us so entertaining, so magical a character.

You've heard the expression tripping the light fantastic? This is how it's done.

All the world's a stage

2006-05-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

I have very fond memories of this speech. The first time I ever performed it in public, I was ten, firmly in the middle of my second age. The occassion was the Primary School English Recitation Contest at my school, and I still remember the shocked look on the faces of the judges when, having been subjected to almost an hour of "Once there was a little boy" and "Farmer Brown went to town" they suddenly got hit with Shakespeare. I'm not going to pretend I read it remotely well, or that I even understood all of it, but it certainly made an impression.

It's not just that it's such a gloriously theatrical speech - though it is, of course, it's the Shakespeare equivalent of a Verdi aria - it's also Shakespeare's most cogent statement of a theme he returns to again and again in his plays [1] - the idea of the play as a metaphor for life.

[1] Including the line in Merchant of Venice that goes: "I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano - / A stage, where every man must play a part" - a line whose discovery I owe to my friend M. I would have been truly awed by her knowledge of Shakespeare's texts if she had not then gone and spoilt it by confessing that she'd always thought that was the "All the world's a stage" speech. Sigh.

Bottom's Dream

2006-04-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen

Bottom
[Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will
answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!
Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,
the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen
hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there
is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and
methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if
he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue
to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of
this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,
because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the
latter end of a play, before the duke:
peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
sing it at her death.

- Midsummer Night's Dream Act IV Scene 1

A personal favourite.

Which of us has not experienced this? Which of us has not had a vision or an idea fill our heads with wonder, and then fade into the ordinary when we have tried to describe it? Every authentic act of prose or poetry is an attempt to overcome precisely this tongue-tiedness, to reach past the heaviness of language to the transcendent imagination, to the splendour of our dreams.

There's something very touching about this speech. It is a speech that captures perfectly that sense of transitory wakefulness, that moment when you are both wide awake and still dreaming, that instant before you fade back into the everyday. It is a speech that manages to be both deliciously funny and gently sympathetic, that combines the tender with the ridiculous in a way that is the essence of good comedy.

But most of all, it is, somehow, a very vulnerable speech. There are many, many instances in Shakespeare where he writes of dreams and visions with great skill. Here he resists that temptation, and chooses, instead to be simpler, more artless, even foolish. And it is precisely this vulnerability, this helplessness in the face of great beauty, that makes Bottom's Dream ring so true.

Macbeth Act IV Scene 1

2006-04-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

William Shakespeare

Listen (Part 1)

Listen (Part 2)

First Witch
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

Second Witch
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Witch
Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.

First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Third Witch
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Enter HECATE

Hecate
O well done! I commend your pains;
And every one shall share i' the gains;
And now about the cauldron sing,
Live elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.

HECATE retires

Second Witch
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!

Enter MACBETH

Macbeth
How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
What is't you do?

ALL
A deed without a name.

Macbeth
I conjure you, by that which you profess,
Howe'er you come to know it, answer me:
Though you untie the winds and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;
Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their warders' heads;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature's germens tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken; answer me
To what I ask you.

If every new endeavour should have an auspicious beginning, what better way to start off a series of Shakespeare posts than with this powerful and incantatory scene? It's always good to keep the forces of darkness appeased, after all.

Over the next week or so, Poi-tre will be featuring excerpts from the Bard's plays (think of it as our own personal Highlights from Hamlet!). I apologise in advance for the ineptitude of some of the recordings (trust me, this stuff sounded SO much better in my head), but hopefully nothing can entirely blight the genius of Shakespeare's work.

Bivouacked and Garrisoned Capitol

2006-04-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

Dean Young

Listen

Be assured.
April snow vanishes
like footprints of the immaculate
crushing the daffodils.
Be assured.
The advisors come out arm in arm
to declare their resolve into the flashbulbs,
the x-rays are put up on the screen,
the boxes are tied down in the back of the truck.
Because of the ash from the fires last year,
good zinfandels in the valley. Be assured.
The strategy of the moon is to match
its period of rotation to revolution
and thus preserve its dark side
which is strategy of many beautiful
and terrible things. The dream
confabulates, triangulates
our fears and desires until
the flood comes loose
in the baby-crying room, your fault
your fault, key to the lighthouse lost,
ten-foot gap. How can love survive?
Stifled laughter of waiters,
clutter of cloud, vast something
in the vaster nothing.
It is the strategy of life to provide
waking until death which generally
it hides until the last when interposes
a fly. Be assured, a brush is always poised
with its dab of scarlet. A pulse
at the fontanel, a fumarole, a veronica.
Agate, coral, grenadine,
alleys leading to the sea, a letter
read in a grove of apricot trees,
the woman nearly falls to her knees.
A man sews a button onto a shirt,
the sky kicks over its bucket of stars.
Be assured,
the crows are never out of focus,
the ice breaks into pills the river swallows.

One last Dean Young to end the contemporary poetry series with. This one is somewhat less accomplished, somewhat more uneven (much of his work is) but it still contains some beautiful lines.

Oh, in case you're wondering Zinfandel is a Californian grape from which wine is made (I did not know that)

Starting tomorrow: Shakespeare.

Bathed in Dust and Ash

2006-04-27T19:19:00.000-07:00

Dean Young

Listen

Maybe Heraclitus was right, maybe
everything is fire. The lovers,
exhausted, unknot like slick ribbons,
the sirens fade to silver ash. Knock
at the door, no one there, voices

coming through the floor, spring
all morning, winter by afternoon,
dense rhymes of foliate argument,
laughter from passing cars. Fire
swallowed and regurgitated from which

all life comes, bees returning
to their hives to dance, hawks feeding
their gaping chicks, variables
in alternate currents you almost
lived, if you had married him,

if you had stayed, a future begun
as marks on a nearly transparent page.
So the shadows vanish and return
carrying their young in their jaws,
and the man who still thinks he's a man

and not a column of smoke, sits
in his idling car, and the woman
who still thinks she's a woman and not
climbing a staircase in flames,
bites her lips before she speaks.

The poet I think should have won the Pulitzer this year was Dean Young. I first came across Young's poetry three months ago, when a poem of his called 'Static City' showed up on the back cover of the American Poetry Review. The only other thing by him I've read is the collection that was shortlisted for the Pulitzer - elegy on toy piano - and it's a truly delightful book. Young is the true heir of Corso, a sort of erudite beat poet, Bukowski with a PhD. His poems are whimsical and intense and witty and irreverent and endlessly experimental and laced every now and then with some searing image or heartbreaking line, like the biting taste of neat vodka in a strawberry daiquiri. The poems I've picked to post here (there's another one coming up tomorrow) are the more serious ones (I don't trust myself to do justice to the humour in his more playful work) but this is a collection of poems you want to get your hands on.

I really like this poem because of the way it develops that first opening statement, the skill with which that first paragraph is pulled off, the thrill of lines like "the shadows vanish and return / carrying their young in their jaws" and that lovely final stanza, that brings us so neatly back to the central conceit of the poem, and creates so indelible an image in my head.

Hazard Response

2006-04-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

Tom Clark

Listen

As in that grey exurban wasteland in Gatsby
When the white sky darkens over the city
Of ashes, far from the once happy valley,
This daze spreads across the blank faces
Of the inhabitants, suddenly deprived
Of the kingdom’s original promised gift.
Did I say kingdom when I meant place
Of worship? Original when I meant
Damaged in handling? Promised when
I meant stolen? Gift when I meant
Trick? Inhabitants when I meant slaves?
Slaves when I meant clowns
Who have wandered into test sites? Test
Sites when I meant contagious hospitals?
Contagious hospitals when I meant clouds
Of laughing gas? Laughing gas
When I meant tears? No, it’s true,
No one should be writing poetry
In times like these, Dear Reader,
I don’t have to tell you of all people why.
It’s as apparent as an attempted
Punch in the eye that actually
Catches only empty air—which is
The inside of your head, where
The green ritual sanction
Of the poem has been cancelled.

from Light and Shade: New and Selected Poems, © 2006 by Tom Clark

I like the call and response style the poem uses right after it sets up the contrasting opening lines, "grey exurban wasteland" and "once happy valley". The poem goes well with the title of this book - Light and Shade (which in turn evokes Keats).

Here is a bit from a conversation featured in the Jacket's April '06 issue, where Clark talks about this poem,

"I had that passage[from The Great Gatsby] in mind when I started the poem: ....

With “happy valley,” I was thinking, perhaps, of the America of Johnny Appleseed, in the Disney version, bright and abundant fields and orchards, that cartoon dream of an American past supplanting the endarkened vision of the present and future which Fitzgerald saw, or vice versa, ...
The poem was written in that interesting early Fall of 2001, just after 9/ 11 and during the subsequent anthrax terror scare. One gaped with wonder at one’s TV while white-lipped network newscasters grimly presented footage of Hazmat teams in yellow plastic suits swarming pointlessly around outside suspected toxic terror sites...

Meanwhile crowds of evacuated workplace normals could be seen apprehensively looking on, too sheepish to acknowledge the real terrorists might be those they’d chosen to govern them. That image of the doubled wastelands, the wasteland in Gatsby, the wasteland in the suburban office building parking lot was indeed, as you’ve said, the switch that opened the floodgates of the “call and response” structure that holds the poem together, even as it tries to fall apart."

The Landscape

2006-04-25T04:01:00.000-07:00

Robert Desnos

Listen

I dreamt of loving. The dream remains, but love
is no longer those lilacs and roses whose breath
filled the broad woods, where the sail of a flame
lay at the end of each arrow-straight path.

I dreamt of loving. The dream remains, but love
is no longer that storm whose white nerve sparked
the castle towers, or left the mind unrhymed,
or flared an instant, just where the road forked.

It is the star struck under my heel in the night.
It is the word no book on earth defines.
It is the foam on the wave, the cloud in the sky.

As they age, all things grow rigid and bright.
The streets fall nameless, and the knots untie.
Now, with this landscape, I fix; I shine.

(Translated from the French by Don Paterson)

Given that it's been over 60 years since Desnos died, this poem doesn't strictly qualify as contemporary poetry, but I include it here because it appeared in this week's issue of Poetry (which I've blogged about here) and because, well, I like it.

Paterson, writing about the poem in his translator's note, describes it as "one of those poems so deeply folded in its own music, it almost defines the 'problem of translation'". I can't speak to the quality of the translation here, not having read, or being capable of reading the poem in its original [1], but I think that music is very much in evidence here. Each individual line of this poem, when you sit down to dissect it, is not particularly impressive, and if the overall effect is powerful, it can only be because of the graceful rhythm of the whole. And isn't that true of landscapes themselves? That breath-taking as they may seem in perspective, closer scrutiny will show them to be merely picturesque. And empty.

[1] Paterson himself is careful to make the point that this is a 'version' not a translation. He writes:

"By definition, pursuing a lyric aesthetic in translation makes it an act of versioning, no translation proper. Because you know the original surface-sense will suffer as a result, your allegiance switches from the original words to your subjective interpretation of them, i.e. to that wholly personal mandala of idea and image and spirit that floats free of the poem, and functions in a kind of intercessory capacity in it reincarnation. A translation is different. It tries to remain true to those original words and their relations, and its primary aim is usually one of stylistic elegance (meaning essentially the smooth elimination of syntactic and idiomatic artifacts from the original tongue, a far more subtle project than it sounds) - in which lyric unity is only one of several competing considerations."

Worth remembering for the next time we have the discussion about translations of Faiz on this blog.

Affair of Kites

2006-04-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

Robin Robertson

Listen

I sit, astonished by the pink kite:
its scoop and plunge, the briefness of it;
an escaped blouse, a pocket of silk
thumping like a heart
tight above the shimmering hill.
The sheer snap and plummet
sculpting the air's curve, the sky's chambers.
An affair with the wind's body;
a feeling for steps in the rising air, a love
sustained only by the high currents
and the hopeless gesture of the heart's hand.

The kitemaster has gone, invisible
over the hard horizon;
wind walks the grass between us.
I see the falling,
days later feel the crash.

Over the last six months, Robin Robertson has moved pretty high up on my list of contemporary poets to watch. First alerted to his poetry by poems that appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, I've since read both of his collections, A Painted Field and Slow Air (I liked Painted Field much better) and am looking forward to his third book, Swithering, which came out this month.

At his best, Robertson combines the lyrical accuracy of Heaney, with a violence that reminds me of Lowell, and a bloodthirsty-ness that does credit to his Scottish ancestors. He is a fine, fascinating poet, who this poem, picked to show off his more whimsical side, does not do full justice to (though it's a lovely poem for all that). Read him.

Pitching Horseshoes

2006-04-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

Claudia Emerson

Listen

Some of your buddies might come around
for a couple of beers and a game,
but most evenings, you pitched horseshoes

alone. I washed up the dishes
or watered the garden to the thudding
sound of the horseshoe in the pit,

or the practiced ring of metal
against metal, after the silent
arc - end over end. That last

summer, you played a seamless, unscored
game against yourself. Or night
falling. Or coming in the house.

You were good at it. From the porch
I watched you become shadowless,
then featureless, until I knew

you couldn't see either, and still
the dusk rang out, your aim that easy;
between the iron stakes you had driven

into the hard earth yourself, you paced
back and forth as if there were a decision
to make, and you were the one to make it.

Taken from Late Wife, a collection of poems for which Emerson won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry this year (see my review of the book here).

This is one of my favourite poems from the first part of the book. I like the unusual, lonely image of a man pitching horseshoes late into the night, the clanging and metallic flavour of it, the way Emerson makes it so vivid, so easy to picture. And I love the way this seemingly innocent hobby becomes a metaphor for so much more, for a sort of stubborn isolation, for the struggles of a man thinking things through over and over, trying to get it exactly right.

Macavity: The Mystery Cat

2006-04-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

T. S. Eliot

Listen (to the Mystery Cat read)

Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw -
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there!

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air -
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity's not there!

Mcavity's a ginger cat, he's very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he's half asleep, he's always wide awake.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square -
But when a crime's discovered, then Macavity's not there!

He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.
And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair -
Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!

And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty's gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair -
But it's useless to investigate - Mcavity's not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
`It must have been Macavity!' - but he's a mile away.
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long-division sums.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:
At whatever time the deed took place - MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!

Finally we have Macavity, where Macavity wasn't there! A guest recording by Mystery Cat.

Eliot and the Old Possum need no introduction. Neither does Macavity. And while you are at it something on Prof. Moriarty too.

note: The series on 'new' poetry will continue. Consider this just a defiance of Law, a deceitful and suave move by the Napoleon of Crime :)

Suicide of a Moderate Dictator

2006-04-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Bishop

Listen

for Carlos Lacerda

This is a day when truths will out, perhaps;
leak from the dangling telephone ear-phones
sapping the festooned switchboard's strength;
fall from the windows, blow from off the sills,
- the vague, slight unremarkable contents
of emptying ash-trays; rub off on our fingers
like ink from the un-proof-read newspapers,
crocking the way the unfocused photographs
of crooked faces do that soil our coats,
our tropical-weight coats, like slapped-at moths.

Today's a day when those who work
are idling. Those who played must work
and hurry, too, to get it done,
with little dignity or none.
The newspapers are sold; the kiosk shutters
crash down. But anyway, in the night
the headlines wrote themselves, see, on the streets
and sidewalks everywhere; a sediment's splashed
even to the first floors of apartment houses.

This is a day that's beautiful as well,
and warm and clear. At seven o'clock I saw
the dogs being walked along the famous beach
as usual, in a shiny gray-green dawn,
leaving their paw prints draining in the wet.
The line of breakers was steady and the pinkish,
segmented rainbow steadily hung above it.
At eight two little boys were flying kites.

I've blogged extensively about the new collection of Bishop's fragments and unpublished pieces elsewhere, so I'll spare you the larger discussion. This particular poem is one of the most polished of the collection though, and showcases admirably Bishop's gift for both atmosphere and surprise. Some of the phrases that Bishop throws in so casually are simply stunning ('tropical-weight coats, like slapped-at moths) and the sense of expected panic, of the fake calm of a day when a storm is expected comes across perfectly. "in the night / the headlines wrote themselves, see, on the streets / and sidewalks everywhere", Bishop writes, and you can just picture the town teetering on the edge of nervous anticipation. Even the normalcy of the last stanza, the obliviousness of the truly innocent (I'm reminded of Auden's Musee de Beaux Arts, that line about 'how everything turns quite leisurely away from the disaster'), only heightens the sense of submerged tension in the poem.

October

2006-04-18T23:31:00.000-07:00

Louise Gluck

Listen:

Part 5

Part 6

5.

It is true there is not enough beauty in the world.
It is also true that I am not competent to restore it.
Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use.

I am
at work, though I am silent.

The bland

misery of the world
bounds us on either side, an alley

lined with trees; we are

companions here, not speaking
each with his own thoughts;

behind the trees, iron
gates of the private houses,
the shuttered rooms

somehow deserted, abandoned,

as though it were the artist's
duty to create
hope, but out of what? what?

the word itself
false, a device to refute
perception - At the intersection,

ornamental lights of the season.

I was young here. Riding
the subway with my small book
as though to defend myself against

this same world.

you are not alone,
the poem said,
in the dark tunnel.

6.

The brightness of the day becomes
the brightness of the night;
the fire becomes the mirror.

My friend the earth is bitter; I think
sunlight has failed her.
Bitter or weary, it is hard to say.

Between herself and the sun,
something has ended.
She wants, now, to be left alone;
I think we must give up
turning to her for affirmation.

Above the fields,
above the roofs of the village houses,
the brilliance that made all life possible
becomes the cold stars.

Lie still and watch:
they give nothing but ask nothing.

From within the earth's
bitter disgrace, coldness and barrenness

my friend the moon rises:
she is beautiful tonight, but when is she not beautiful?

The more I read Gluck, the more I find myself admiring her work. Today's selection comes from her book - Averno [1] - which is a lovely collection of graceful, meditative poems about aging and mortality and grief. A handful of poems here ('Prism', 'Fugue') are a too fragmented, too insistently clever for my taste, but the rest are all consistently stunning.

I picked the last two sections of the long poem October both because they embody everything I like about Gluck's style, and also because they provide an excellent illustration of the way Gluck balances, in Averno, a sense of overwhelming despair with the kind of sad hope that comes only from acceptance. Hope is not a currency that poetry can presume to trade in, Gluck seems to say, but when you find yourself in the dark tunnel, what can the poem find to say to you, except that you are not alone? (that line, btw, is in italics in the original)

P.S. My plan for the rest of the week, just by the way, is to try and focus on 'new' poetry - poems from recent collections / magazines as well as by more contemporary poets.

[1] From the front pages of the book: "Averno. Ancient name Avernus. A small crater lake, ten miles west of Naples, Italy; regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld"

The Rose of the World

2006-04-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

W.B. Yeats

Listen

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna's children died.

We and the labouring world are passing by:
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.

Quite simply one of my favourite Yeats poems ever.

See commentary on Minstrels

Tell me the truth about Love

2006-04-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

W. H. Auden

Listen

Some say love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go around,
Some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't over there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

There's just no one quite like Auden, is there? This is such a delightful poem - with its laugh out loud wit and its infectious rhythm. What I love about it is the way Auden manages to strike the balance between the ridiculous and the clever. There are lines in here that are just downright silly (all that rhyming of pyjamas with llamas for instance) but in between them Auden manages to slip in the one line that lifts the whole thing above mere doggerel. Of all the questions it is possible to ask about the nature of love, I can think of none more pertinent than: "Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?". Ah, if only.

P.S. My copy of the Collected Shorter Poems has this poem listed as number XII in the collection Twelve Songs (yes, the same one that includes the 'stop all the clocks' poem) and provides no other title. I've followed other sites on the Internet though and called it Tell me Truth about Love

In Despair

2006-04-13T08:49:00.000-07:00

C P Cavafy

Listen

He has lost him completely. And now he is seeking
in the lips of every new lover
the lips of his beloved; in the embrace
of every new lover he seeks to be deluded
that he is the same lad, that it is to him he is yielding.

He has lost him completely, as if he had never been at all.
For he wanted - so he said - he wanted to be saved
from the stigmatised, the sick sensual delight;
from the stigmatised, sensual delight of shame.
There was still time - as he said - to be saved.

He has lost him completely, as if he had never been at all.
In his imagination, in his delusions,
on the lips of others it is his lips he is seeking;
he is longing to feel again the love he has known.

(English translation by Rae Dalven)

A follow-up of sorts to the Rilke poem. This is the flip side of the lover's absence - not the lover you can't find, by the lover you can't forget, the endless search for a present experience that will live up to the remembered bliss of the past.

Cavafy, of course, should require no introduction. He is a master of lyrical simplicty, his poems understated masterpieces, statements of plain fact or ordinary emotion that take on, in his writing, in the aching aura of his voice, the incantatory quality of truth.

Going Home

2006-04-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

Wislawa Szymborska

Listen (to Black Mamba read)

He came home. Said nothing.
It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong.
He lay down fully dressed.
Pulled the blanket over his head.
Tucked up his knees.
He's nearly forty, but not at the moment.
He exists just as he did inside his mother's womb,
clad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered darkness.
Tomorrow he'll give a lecture
on homeostasis in metagalactic cosmonautics.
For now, though, he has curled up and gone to sleep.

Retreating back to your mother's womb - life can make you crave that space, at times. All the things you have done and achieved just can't buy you, what you are dying for. There is just not enough homeostasis in the metagalaxy to comfort you. But then you wake up, walk the walk, talk the talk and the you everyone knows - is just fine.

note: Oh, Szymborska! again? you ask. :) Long answer : We like, we post :)

Cassandra, Iraq

2006-04-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

C K Williams

Listen

1.

She's magnificent, as we imagine women must be
who foresee and foretell and are right and disdained.

This is the difference between we who are like her
in having been right and disdained, and we as we are.

Because we, in our foreseeings, our having been right,
are repulsive to ourselves, fat and immobile, like toads.

Not toads in the garden, who after all are what they are,
but toads in the tale of death in the desert of sludge.

2.

In this tale of lies, of treachery, of superfluous dead,
were there ever so many who were right and disdained?

With no notion of what to do next? If we were true seers,
as prescient as she, as frenzied, we'd know what to do next.

We'd twitter, as she did, like birds; we'd warble, we'd trill.
But what would it be really, to twitter, to warble, to trill?

Is it ee-ee-ee, like having a child? Is it uh-uh-uh, like a wound?
Or is it inside, like a blow, silent to everyone but yourself?

3.

Yes, inside, I remember, oh-oh-oh: it's where grief
is just about to be spoken, but all at once can't be: oh.

When you no longer can "think" of what things like lies,
like superfluous dead, so many, might mean: oh.

Cassandra will be abducted at the end of her tale, and die.
Even she can't predict how. Stabbed? Shot? Blown to bits?

Her abductor dies, too, though, in a gush of gore, in a net.
That we know; she foresaw that - in a gush of gore, in a net.

(From the April 3, 2006 issue of the New Yorker)

To be right is not always to win. There are times when everyone loses, times when you almost wish you had got it wrong. For those of us who believed that the US should not have invaded Iraq, there is little satisfaction in knowing that time has proved us right. Rather there is only the frustration, and a terrible sense of loss for so many lives needlessly wasted.

Williams' poem captures that sense of bitter vindication perfectly, invoking Cassandra (a connection that seemed so obvious after I read it that I still can't believe I didn't think about it before) and delivering some truly superb lines along the way. I didn't think much of the second part of the poem, but I loved the opening, loved the "it's where grief / is just about to be spoken, but all of a sudden can't be" line, and loved the way the poem ends, the repetition of that final phrase combining menace with a sense of trapped helplessness.

Baazi hai ab ke jaan se badhkar lagi hui

2006-04-07T19:37:00.000-07:00

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Listen (to Falstaff read)

Sunne ko bheed hai sar-e-mahshar lagi hui
Tohmat tumhare ishq ki hum par lagi hui

Rindon ke dam se aatish-e-may ke bagair bhi
Hai maykade mein aag barabar lagi hui

Aabad karke shahar-e-khamoshan harek soo
Kis khoj mein hai teg-e-sitamgar lagi hui

Jeete the yon to pahle bhi hum jaan pe khelkar
Baazi hai ab ke jaan se badhkar lagi hui

"Lao to katlnama mera, mein bhi dekh loon
Kis kis hi muhar hai sar-e-mahzar lagi hui

Aakhir ko aaj apne lahoo par hui tamaam
Baazi miyan-e-kaatil-o-khanjar lagi hui.

That bet has now been placed on me
Translation by Agha Shahid Ali

The Day of Judgement is here.
A restless crowd has gathered all around the field.
This is the accusation: that I have loved you.

No wine is left in the taverns of this earth.
But those who swear by rapture,
this is their vigil:

they've made sure,
simply with a witnessing thirst,
that intoxication is not put out today.

In whose search is the swordsman now?
His blade red, he's just come from the City of Silence,
its people exiled or finished to the last.

The suspense that lasts between killers and weapons
as they gamble: who will die and whose turn is next?
That bet has now been placed on me.

So bring the order for my execution.
I must see with whose seals the margins are stamped,
recognize the signatures on the scrolls.

More than my life is at stake
Translation by Falstaff

The day of judgement has arrived.
A crowd has gathered to hear them proclaim:
I am accused of having loved you.

There is no wine left now;
But the thirst of the drunkards
Has kept the taverns burning.

Who is the tyrant's sword searching for?
Now that it has filled every graveyard,
Populated every silence?

I have lived this way before, it is true,
Playing games with death;
But this time more than my life is at stake.

So bring the order for my execution
Let me see who accuses me
Who signs his name to my death.

In the end,
This is all my life turns out to be:
A gamble between a killer and his sword
With my blood as the prize.

More Faiz on pō'ĭ-trē ,

[1] Raat Yun Dil Mein Teri
[2] Paon se Lahoo Ko Dho Dalo
[3] Aur Bhi Gham Hain Zamaane Mein
[4] Jinhe Zurm-e-ishq Pe Naaz Tha

Israfel

2006-04-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

Edgar Allan Poe

Listen

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute";
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars (so legends tell),
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above
In her highest noon,
The enamored moon
Blushes with love,
While, to listen, the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven,)
Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings-
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty-
Where Love's a grown-up God-
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.

Therefore thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,
Best bard, because the wisest!
Merrily live, and long!

The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit-
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy lute-
Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely- flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.

No, it's not that I'm that crazy about Poe. It's just that the 'To One in Paradise' post made me think of this relatively obscure little poem that I'd read about the same time as I read "To One in Paradise' and so I thought I'd just go ahead and post it.

I'm strangely fond of Israfel. Not that I'm making any extravagant claims for it - I see its many shortcomings (in particular, that second stanza always makes me wince) but I like the rhythm of it, the almost rap like beat (which is strange, seeing as I don't really like rap that much). And I love the little sting in the tail that Poe puts in. All that long, yawning praise, and then somewhere around the middle things start to sour and before you know it the poem has broken out in explicit rebellion. It's not the person, it's the context, Poe cries, anticipating decades of behavioural research to follow a century later. But what an unexpected, almost startling ending to a poem that started off seeming so unpromising.

You who never arrived

2006-04-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

Rainer Maria Rilke

Listen

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me - the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods -
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house - , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon, -
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, seperate, in the evening...

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

And the German Original:

Du im Voraus
verlorne Geliebte, Nimmergekommene,
nicht weiß ich, welche Töne dir lieb sind.
Nicht mehr versuch ich, dich, wenn das Kommende wogt,
zu erkennen. Alle die großen
Bildern in mir, im Fernen erfahrene Landschaft,
Städte und Türme und Brücken und un-
vermutete Wendung der Wege
und das Gewaltige jener von Göttern
einst durchwachsenen Länder:
steigt zur Bedeutung in mir
deiner, Entgehende, an.

Ach, die Gärten bist du,
ach, ich sah sie mit solcher
Hoffnung. Ein offenes Fenster
im Landhaus—, und du tratest beinahe
mir nachdenklich heran. Gassen fand ich,—
du warst sie gerade gegangen,
und die spiegel manchmal der Läden der Händler
waren noch schwindlich von dir und gaben erschrocken
mein zu plötzliches Bild.—Wer weiß, ob derselbe
Vogel nicht hinklang durch uns
gestern, einzeln, im Abend?

The hallmark of a great poem is its ability to make you feel nostalgic for things you've never had, the things you have forgotten to be. Rilke's verses ache with that sense of loss - they are poems that time and translation have worn to a slow beauty - like ancient sculpture they have the ability to make us recognise ourselves in the images of a lost age. Rilke is the poet of terrifying angels, at once Orpheus and Apollo, at once lyrical and profound.

This poem, an unpublished fragment, exemplifies this quality of Rilke's work. It is an exquisitely beautiful poem (and Mitchell's translation is, as always, superb), one that captures perfectly that sense of absence, of something just missed. "And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors / were still dizzy with your presence" Rilke writes. It's precisely that dizziness of presence that makes Rilke's poems so special.

Raat aadhi kheench kar meri hatheli

2006-04-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

Harivansh Rai Bachchan

Listen (to Amitabh Bachchan read)

Raat aadhi kheench kar meri hatheli
Ek ungli se likha tha pyar, tumne.

Faasla tha kuchh humare bistaron me
Aur charon or duniya so rahi thi.
Tarikayen hi gagan ki janti hain
Jo dasha dil ki tumhare ho rahi thi.
Main tumhare paas hokar door tumse
Adhjaga sa aur adhsoya hua sa.
Raat aadhi kheench kar meri hatheli
Ek ungli se likha tha pyar, tumne.

Ek bijli chhu gayi, sahsa jaga main
Krishnapakshi chaand nikla tha gagan me.
Is tarah karwat padi thi tum ki aansoo
Bah rahe the is nayan se us nayan me.
Main laga doon aag us sansaar me
Hai pyar jisme is tarah asamarth-kaatar.
Jaanti ho us samay kya kar guzarne ke liye
Tha kar diya taiyyaar tumne!
Raat aadhi kheench kar meri hatheli
Ek ungli se likha tha pyar, tumne.

Praath he ki oar ko hai raat chalthi
Auh ujaale mein andhera doob jaata.
Manch he poora badaltha kaun aise
kkoobiyon ke saath parde ko uttatha.
ek chehra sa laga thumne liya tha
aur meine tha utharaa ek chehra.
vo nisha ka swapn mera tha ke apne
par gazab ka tha kiya adhikaar thumne.
Raat aadhi kheench kar meri hatheli
Ek ungli se likha tha pyar, tumne.

Aur utne faasle par aaj tak
Sau yatna kar ke bhi na aye fir kabhi hum.
Fir na aya waqt waisa, fir na mauka us tarah ka
Fir na lauta chaand nirmam.
Aur apni wedna main kya bataun!
Kya nahi ye panktiyan khud bolti hain?
Bujh nahi paya abhi tak us samay jo
Rakh diya tha haath par angaar tumne.
Raat aadhi kheench kar meri hatheli,
Ek ungli se likha tha pyar, tumne.

in devnagiri

Wiki on Harivansh Rai Bachchan here.

A refusal to mourn the Death, by Fire, of a child in London

2006-03-31T06:14:00.000-08:00

Dylan Thomas

Listen (the poet reads)

Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.

You ask for Dylan Thomas, I give you Dylan Thomas. Thomas is the acme of lyrical intensity - the poet who most perfectly marries rhythm of language to complexity of image (though, if we're going by pure sound, there's always Hopkins, of course).

A Refusal to Mourn is, to my mind, one of Thomas's finest poems. It's a complex idea, but Thomas manages it exquisitely, finding that pitch-perfect balance between indignation and sorrow, between denial and heartbreak, between the tortured and the elegaic. There's a deep sense of hurt here, a sense of shocked innocence, of being awakened by pain into a new and more hazardous world. Children should not have to die, but once we recognise that they will, and that there is nothing all our love can do to protect them, then we are left with no consolation but that of granting them the dignity of their deaths. "After the first death, there is no other." Thomas writes. It's always seemed to me that that is a double-edged line. On the one hand, it's a return to a belief in the hereafter, to a blessed faith in the justice of the after life. But it's also, to me, a statement of resignation, of the realisation that after the blow of that first loss has worn off, nothing else will ever feel that raw again.

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd

2006-03-30T22:37:00.000-08:00

John Keats

Listen

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
By ear industrious, and attention meet:
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.

Precision, in poetry, is everything. This is what makes Keats so special - it's not that he has the finest voice in all of English poetry, it's that he has the finest ear. "Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress / of every chord, and see what may be gain'd / By ear industrious, and attention meet" is as good a manifesto for the kind of exquisitely lyrical poetry that Keats writes as any. You have only to listen to the flow of this poem, the way every phrase in it sounds exactly right, to recognise why Keats is as spectacular a poet as he is.

I think continually of those who were truly great

2006-03-29T22:33:00.000-08:00

Stephen Spender

Listen

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are fŠted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

Stephen Spender is, IMHO, one of the most underrated poets of the last century. Which is not to say that I think he's an incredibly great poet or anything - just that he deserves to be far more widely read than he is today.

Today's poem is one I have a love-hate relationship with. On the one hand, I'm not too fond of the overall sentiment, and all this over the top hero-worship definitely puts me off. On the other hand, I can't get away from the fact that there are some brilliant lines in this poem (I particularly love the "desires falling across their bodies like blossoms" line).

The way I rationalise it to myself, then, is this - if this poem had been written even slightly less skilfully, it would have deteriorated into something trite and unaffecting. That Spender manages to say something so hackneyed and still make it beautiful, is a serious compliment to his skill as a poet.

Can Poetry Matter?

2006-03-27T17:51:00.001-08:00

Stephen Dobyns

Listen (to Ludwig read)

Heart feels the time has come to compose lyric poetry.
No more storytelling for him. Oh, Moon, Heart writes,
sad wafer of the heart’s distress. And then: Oh, Moon,
bright cracker of the heart’s pleasure. Which is it,
is the moon happy or sad, cracker or wafer? He looks
from the window but the night is overcast. Oh, Cloud,
he writes, moody veil of the Moon’s distress. And then,
Oh, Cloud, sweet scarf of the Moon’s repose. Once more
Heart asks, Are clouds kindly or a bother, is the moon sad
or at rest? He calls scientists who tell him that the moon
is a dead piece of rock. He calls astrologers. One says
the moon means water. Another that it signifies oblivion.
The girl next door says the Moon means love. The nut
up the block says it proves that Satan has us under his thumb.
Heart goes back to his notebooks. Oh, Moon, he writes,
confusing orb meaning one thing or another. Heart feels
that his words lack conviction. Then he hits on a solution.
Oh, Moon, immense hyena of introverted motorboat.
Oh, Moon, upside down lamppost of barbershop quartet.
Heart takes his lines to a critic who tells him that the poet
is recounting a time as a toddler when he saw his father
kissing the baby-sitter at the family’s cottage on a lake.
Obviously, the poem explains the poet’s fear of water.
Heart is ecstatic. He rushes home to continue writing.
Oh, Cloud, raccoon cadaver of colored crayon, angel spittle
recast as foggy euphoria. Heart is swept up by the passion
of composition. Freed from the responsibility of content,
no nuance of nonsense can be denied him. Soon his poems
appear everywhere, while the critic writes essays elucidating
Heart’s meaning. Jointly they form a sausage factory of poetry:
Heart supplying the pig snouts and rectal tissue of language
which the critic encloses in a thin membrane of explication.
Lyric poetry means teamwork, thinks Heart: a hog farm,
corn field, and two old dobbins pulling a buckboard of song.

Pallbearers Envying The One Who Rides (Penguin, 1999)

Ludwig writes, "Nothing especially lyrical or beautiful about it, but
definitely an interesting and whimsical take on the writing and worth
of pō'ĭ-trē."

However playful it might be, the truth in this poem is undeniable. Reminds me of an apple falling on Isaac Newton' s head. :) People see what they are capable of seeing. And sometimes works of art seem that way too. Makes you wonder, "did the author/poet, really mean all that?"

More on Dobyns here.

Rashmirathi

2006-03-24T15:29:00.000-08:00

Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'

Listen (to Manas Baveja read)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

The text can be found here( in pdf, 6 MB)[1] and some more cantos here (in pdf)[2].

Rashmirathi (The Sun Charioteer[3]) describes the events that lead to the war in Kurukshetra. It starts with Lord Krishna's failed attempt at negotiating peace with the Kauravs. This failure leads Krishna to Karn, Kunti's firstborn, the one she abandons as a child. He tries to woo Karn away from his friend Duryodhan. Karn strongly refuses to leave his friend and goes on to explain why he could not, would not, do that.

Mahabharat is high drama and controlled chaos at its very best, an intricate spider web. There are so many side stories, all of which link into each other, they help build and are built upon one another. Every one of these stories is more convoluted and complicated than the other. Hear one story and boom! you are trapped.

Growing up in India, there were stories from the Mahabharat in school, the television, comic books, school plays, films, in every language under the sun. But the voice of a great storyteller can make the same stories magically and tantalizingly new. And, Dinkar is among the best and most vibrant storytellers.

Then, there is this one poem from my 8th or 9th grade hindi textbook - Krishn ki Chetavani (which I discover now, with great glee, was in fact a snippet from Rashmirathi.) This is when Lord Krishna goes to the Kaurava court to try and negotiate peace. Things don't turn out as planned (well, they never do in this epic). And he storms out of the court predicting a war like no other, the crazy violence, the bloodshed and the unfathomable destruction. Dinkar's lines remain etched in my memory to this day.

The other cantos are new to me. Heard them for the first time, when I recieved these recordings from Manas and Sanket. The dialogue between Karn and Krishna, is simply spectacular.

Reciting hindi poetry is a fine art. One must do it with just the right amount of fire and anger, while maintaining a pace that tickles the mind, teases it to keep up and then, not forget to tell the story. So here, the first hindi poem on our blog :) Enjoy!

Wiki on Dinkar here.

[1] These are scanned images of the text Manas reads from ( after many failed attempts at finding them online - we have the scanned copy online).

[2] Originally from here, and has been archived on our blog, as the downloads seem to be flaky.

[3] Yes, it has been translated! The English translation is equally hard to come by though. :(

To a Sad Daughter

2006-03-23T23:56:00.000-08:00

Michael Ondaatje

Listen

All night long the hockey pictures
gaze down at you
sleeping in your tracksuit.
Belligerent goalies are your ideal.
Threats of being traded
cuts and wounds
--all this pleases you.
O my god! you say at breakfast
reading the sports page over the Alpen
as another player breaks his ankle
or assaults the coach.

When I thought of daughters
I wasn't expecting this
but I like this more.
I like all your faults
even your purple moods
when you retreat from everyone
to sit in bed under a quilt.
And when I say 'like'
I mean of course 'love'
but that embarrasses you.
You who feel superior to black and white movies
(coaxed for hours to see Casablanca)
though you were moved
by Creature from the Black Lagoon.

One day I'll come swimming
beside your ship or someone will
and if you hear the siren
listen to it. For if you close your ears
only nothing happens. You will never change.

I don't care if you risk
your life to angry goalies
creatures with webbed feet.
You can enter their caves and castles
their glass laboratories. Just
don't be fooled by anyone but yourself.

This is the first lecture I've given you.
You're 'sweet sixteen' you said.
I'd rather be your closest friend
than your father. I'm not good at advice
you know that, but ride
the ceremonies
until they grow dark.

Sometimes you are so busy
discovering your friends
I ache with loss
--but that is greed.
And sometimes I've gone
into my purple world
and lost you.

One afternoon I stepped
into your room. You were sitting
at the desk where I now write this.
Forsythia outside the window
and sun spilled over you
like a thick yellow miracle
as if another planet
was coaxing you out of the house
--all those possible worlds!--
and you, meanwhile, busy with mathematics.

I cannot look at forsythia now
without loss, or joy for you.
You step delicately
into the wild world
and your real prize will be
the frantic search.
Want everything. If you break
break going out not in.
How you live your life I don't care
but I'll sell my arms for you,
hold your secrets forever.

If I speak of death
which you fear now, greatly,
it is without answers.
except that each
one we know is
in our blood.
Don't recall graves.
Memory is permanent.
Remember the afternoon's
yellow suburban annunciation.
Your goalie
in his frightening mask
dreams perhaps
of gentleness.

Okay, okay, so I'm getting sentimental in my old age. But I really like this poem. Poems to Daughters are an interesting micro-genre in themselves. There's Yeats, of course. And this gritty Carver version:

It's too late now to put a curse on you - wish you
plain, say, as Yeats did his daughter. And when
we met her in Sligo, selling her paintings, it'd worked -
she was the plainest, oldest woman in Ireland.
But she was safe.
For the longest time, his reasoning
escaped me. Anyway, it's too late for you,
as I said. You're grownup now, and lovely.
You're a beautiful drunk, daughter.
But you're a drunk. I can't say you're breaking
my heart. I don't have a heart when it comes
to this booze thing. Sad, yes, Christ alone knows.
Your old man, the one they call Shiloh, is back
in town, and the drink has started to flow again.
You've been drunk for three days, you tell me,
when you know goddamn well drinking is like poison
to our family. Didn't your mother and I set you
example enough? Two people
who loved each other knocking each other around,
knocking back the love we felt, glass by emptly glass,
curses and blows and betrayals?
You must be crazy! Wasn't all that enough for you?
You want to die? Maybe that's it. Maybe
I think I know you, and I don't.
I'm not kidding, kiddo. Who are you kidding?
Daughter, you can't drink.
The last few times I saw you, you were out of it.
A cast on your collarbone, or else
a splint on your finger, dark glasses to hide
your beautiful bruised eyes. A lip
that a man should kiss instead of split.
Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Christ!
You've got to take hold now.
Do you hear me? Wake up! You've got to knock it off
and get straight. Clear up your act. I'm asking you.
Okay, telling you. Sure, our family was made
to squander, not collect. But turn this around now.
You simply must - that's all!
Daughter, you can't drink.
It will kill you. Like it did your mother, and me.
Like it did.

- Raymond Carver 'To My Daughter'

And I suppose if you really wanted to, you could include those glorious Eliot lines in Marina. (O my daughter!). But the Ondaatje remains my favourite, blending as it does such a wealth of real feeling - love, humour, warmth, sadness, defeat. What I love about Ondaatje's poetry is the way ever so often such a beautiful little gem of a line will peek through ("ride / the ceremonies / until they grow dark"; "I'll sell my arms for you / Hold your secrets forever") and that talent is on full display here.

For more commentary on the poem, see Minstrels.

Parting

2006-03-22T16:48:00.000-08:00

Emily Dickinson

Listen

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

Just realised (to my horror) that we've got through some 50 + posts on this blog without including a single Dickinson. This will not do.

Parting (also called 'My life closed twice before its close') is quintessential Dickinson - the short, swift lines a miracle of perfection, that unforgettable sentence that the poem closes with. Dickinson's poems are like diamonds - melted to translucent hardness by an eternity of fire her voice has a beauty that is at once exact and timeless - one feels the urge to hold her lines in one's hand and watch the light reflect off them in a million planes.

Thank-You Note

2006-03-21T15:00:00.000-08:00

Wislawa Szymborska

Listen

I owe so much
to those I don't love.

The relief as I agree
that someone else needs them more.

The happiness that I'm not
the wolf to their sheep.

The peace I feel with them,
the freedom --
love can neither give
nor take that.

I don't wait for them,
as in window-to-door-and-back.
Almost as patient
as a sundial,
I understand
what love can't.
and forgive
as love never would.

From a rendezvous to a letter
is just a few days or weeks,
not an eternity.

Trips with them always go smoothly,
concerts are heard,
cathedrals visited,
scenery is seen.

And when seven hills and rivers
come between us,
the hills and rivers
can be found on any map.

They deserve the credit
if I live in three dimensions,
in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space
with a genuine, shifting horizon.

They themselves don't realize
how much they hold in their empty hands.

"I don't owe them a thing,"
would be love's answer
to this open question.

Tr. from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

Capturing the forgotten (moments, people, feelings, incidents). That is something Szymborska can do with such elegance.

This poem, for instance, thanks people who make life normal. Life is not always high drama and a torrent of emotions. For every garb in expensive fine silk, you need ten others in simple cotton. And making a perfect cotton dress needs an artist just as skilled, if not more.

To One in Paradise

2006-03-20T20:05:00.000-08:00

Edgar Allan Poe

Listen

Thou wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine:
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!"—but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast.

For, alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o'er!
No more—no more—no more—
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar.

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy gray eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams—
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.

What better antidote to all that Larkin and Stevens than this sort of overblown romanticism?

At one level, this is an almost grotesquely over the top poem - to the point where it's hard to read the 'fairy fruits and flowers' line without wincing a little. What rescues it, I think, is the rhythm of it, the verbal music, the way the sound ebbs and flows, falls and rises. Those two central stanzas are pregnant with a sense of struggle, products of a mind torn and tortured into repetition and digression. So that the easy flow of the last stanza feels more authentically like peace, like consolation, like transcendence.

2 notes on the text:

1. If you listened carefully to my fairly awkward rendition of the poem, you would have noticed that it doesn't quite match the text. That's because when I recorded the poem it was from memory, and I only accessed the text later. And because I'm too lazy to go back and re-record.

2. In searching for a version of this text online (the one here comes from Bartleby) I came upon this alternate version of the poem which contrasts with both my memory and the Bartleby version and anyway doesn't scan as well.

Finally, fun fact: There's an episode of the original 1966 Batman Series where Batman quotes the last stanza of this poem to Catwoman (scroll down to the bottom of the page for the allusions section). Holy Poetry Batman!

Talking in Bed

2006-03-19T15:02:00.000-08:00

Philip Larkin

Listen

Talking in bed ought to be easiest
Lying together there goes back so far
An emblem of two people being honest.

Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside the wind's incomplete unrest
builds and disperses clouds about the sky.

And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation

It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind
Or not untrue and not unkind.

All his life (Martin Amis informs me [1]) Philip Larkin was a miser - a fact that Larkin himself, with characteristic honesty, acknowledges elsewhere. Yet a trait that is unattractive in a person can make for good, even great poetry, and Larkin's miserliness, it seems to me, is the key to the genius of his poems. It's the sparseness, the austerity of his work that first strikes you: this is a man who was (IMHO) one of the best poets of his century, and yet his collected poems take up little more than a 150 pages, and include only about ten dozen poems. By the end of his life (Amis again) Larkin was writing little more than one poem a year.

And reading the poems themselves (like this one here) you can see why. These are poems picked as bare as meaning will allow, skeletons of poems from which everything but the essential bones have been picked clean by Larkin's scavenging talent. Every word is carefully chosen and reluctantly offered, you can almost feel the pain Larkin feels with every extra line he has to put in.

And yet there is no compromise here - Larkin says exactly what he means (even going back, in that glorious last stanza, to correct a possible overstatement) and is able to create both sense and image with the pithiest, most concise phrasing ("dark towns heap up on the horizon"). This is an incredibly sad, incredibly weary, incredibly beautiful poem, a poem that comes to you from a "unique distance from isolation", and, like much of Larkin's other work, defeats you entirely by involving you in the confession of its own surrender.

[1] Amis' essay on Larkin, originally published in the New Yorker in 1993, can be found in The War Against Cliche - a brilliant collection of Amis' essays and criticisms.

The Man with the Blue Guitar

2006-03-17T19:12:00.000-08:00

Wallace Stevens

Listen (Parts I to VI)

I

The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."

The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."

And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."

II

I cannot bring a world quite round,
Although I patch it as I can.

I sing a hero'd head, large eye
And bearded bronze, but not a man,

Although I patch him as I can
And reach through him almost to man.

If to serenade almost to man
Is to miss, by that, things as they are,

Say that it is the serenade
Of a man that plays a blue guitar.

III

Ah, but to play man number one,
To drive the dagger in his heart,

To lay his brain upon the board
And pick the acrid colors out,

To nail his thought across the door,
Its wings spread wide to rain and snow,

To strike his living hi and ho,
To tick it, tock it, turn it true,

To bang it from a savage blue,
Jangling the metal of the strings...

IV

So that's life, then: things are they are?
It picks its way on the blue guitar.

A million people on one string?
And all their manner in the thing,

And all their manner, right and wrong,
And all their manner, weak and strong?

The feelings crazily, craftily call,
Like a buzzing of flies in autumn air,

And that's life, then: things as they are,
This buzzing of the blue guitar.

V

Do not speak to us of the greatness of poetry,
Of the torches wisping in the underground,

Of the structure of vaults upon a point of light.
There are no shadows in our sun,

Day is desire and night is sleep.
There are no shadows anywhere.

The earth, for us, is flat and bare.
There are no shadows. Poetry

Exceeding music must take the place
Of empty heaven and its hymns,

Ourselves in poetry must take their place,
Even in the chattering of your guitar.

VI

A tune beyond us as we are,
Yet nothing changed by the blue guitar;

Ourselves in the tune as if in space,
Yet nothing changed, except the place

Of things as they are and only the place
As you play them, on the blue guitar,

Placed so, beyond the compass of change,
Perceived in a final atmosphere;

For a moment final, in the way
The thinking of art seems final when

The thinking of god is smoky dew.
The tune is space. The blue guitar

Becomes the place of things as they are,
A composing of senses of the guitar.

Read the whole poem here

There is, quite simply, no one like Wallace Stevens. He is the 'impossible possible' poet, a voice of such labyrinth like intellect, of such infinite talent, that at his best he risks making all other writing irrelevant. Michael Ondaatje once compared him to King Kong ('King Kong meets Wallace Stevens') - the comparison seems paradoxical and yet is strangely apt, because Stevens is to brain what Kong is to brawn - a beast so ferocious, so beyond all ordinary perspective, that we scarcely know where to begin to apprehend him. To read Stevens is to experience the same sense of awe one gets from a Bach fugue.

That sense of Baroque variation is particularly strong in Man with a Blue Guitar, which remains one of my favourite poems of all time, and the inspiration for the picture in my blogger profile. The connection to Picasso is apt as well, because Stevens' method (both here and elsewhere) could easily be thought of as cubist - the juxtaposition of a multiplicity of planes and perspectives, to create a holistic image that is so much more than the sum of its parts. Read the full poem. Listen to its rhythm, relish its images, marvel at its overall perfection. And then try not to find everything else you read disappointing.

Jinhe zurm-e-ishq pe naaz tha

2006-03-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Listen (to Falstaff read)

Tere gum ko jaan ki taalash thi, tere jaan nisaar chale gaye
Teri rah mein karte the sar talab, sar-e-rehguzaar chale gaye

Teri kaj-adai se haar ke shab-e-intezar chali gayi
Mere zabt-e-haal se rooth kar mere gumgusar chale gaye

Na saval-e-vasl na arz-a-gum, na hikaytein, na shikaytein
Tere ahad mein dil-e-zaar ke sabhi ikhtiyar chale gaye.

Yeh humi the jinke libaas par sar-e-ru siyahi likhi gayi
Yahi daag the jo saja ke hum sar-e-bazm-e-yaar chale gaye.

Na raha junoon-e-rukh-e-vafa, ye rasan, yeh dar, karoge kya
Jinhei zurm-e-ishq pe naaz tha, voh gunehgaar chale gaye.

Faiz broke away from the idea of the Beloved, the archangel of urdu poetry. Yes, he puts her on the pedestal too, as tradition seems to demand. Only to build another pedestal (/tradition), equally exquisite, for all things just as precious.

"aur bhii dukh hai.n zamaane me.n mohabbat ke sivaa
raahate.n aur bhii hai.n vasl kii raahat ke sivaa
mujh se pahalii sii mohabbat merii mahabuub na maa.Ng"

"There are other sorrows in this world,
comforts other than love.
Don't ask me, my love, for that love again."

Posting poems by Faiz without the translation by Shahid Ali has always sparked interesting discussions on translation( [1], [2], unlike [3]). So here, we have two translations. One by Shahid Ali and the other by Falstaff. Compare, contrast, critique, appreciate...

Those once proud to be accused of love
(tr. by Agha Shahid Ali)

Your sorrow in search of someone
willing to spill his blood
but they who once lined the roads

ready to give up this life
at a moment's notice
for you

have left
no longer to be found

Beloved
the night waited with me for you
at dawn it admitted defeat and left

my consolers also departed
hurt to find my eyes
without tears

let down that I held back my grief

Nothing's left now
no possibility of the night of love
and no way to show even a glimpse of pain

there's no room for complaints
no margins allowed for suggestions

Tyrant
it's your era
the restless heart's lost its every right

It was me
it was my shirt
that was printed

with blood on the streets
darkened there with inks of accusation

I declared these stains a new fashion
and went to mingle with the guests
at my lover's home

Nowhere anymore
that abandon of passion

no one wear's fidelity's raw fabrics

Hangman
what will you do with that rope?
who's asked you to build the scaffold?

those once proud to be accused of love
they all have vanished.

And the other,

Those who were proud to be accused of love
(tr. by Falstaff)

Your sorrow came, searching for life,
But those who would have died for you are gone,
Those who would have bowed their heads when you passed
Have all gone their own ways.

And the night is gone too,
Annoyed with you for keeping it waiting;
And those who came to console me have left,
Angry with me because I would not cry.

There is no question of love now,
I cannot complain, cannot say what grieves me,
I have no suggestions to make
In the tyranny of your love
My heart has lost all its rights.

I was the one
Whose shirt turned red with the blood from the streets;
These are the stains that I wore proudly
All the way to my beloved's house.

But passion is out of style now,
And this rope, these gallows, are no longer needed;
Those who were proud to be accused of love
Have all vanished like criminals.

Niind

2006-03-14T16:10:00.000-08:00

Ali Sardar Jafri

Listen (to Jafri read)

Download www.aligarians.com/audio/neend - Ali Sardar Jafri.rbs

raat Khuubsurat hai niind kyuN nahiiN aatii

din kii Khashmagi nazrein kho gayii siyaahii meN
aahnii kaRoN kaa shor, beRioN kii jhankaareN
qaidioN kii saaNsoN kii tund-tez aavaazeN
jailaroN kii badkaari, gaalioN ki bauchhaareN
bebasii kii Khaamoshii, Khaamoshi kii faryaadeN, tahnashiin andhere meN

shab ki shoKh doshiizaa Khaardaar taaron ko
aahniiN hisaaroN ko paar kar ke aayii hai
bhar ke apne daaman meN jangaloN kii Khush-buueN
ThandakeN pahaaRoN kii mere paas laayii hai

raat Khuubsurat hai niind kyuN nahiiN aatii

neelguuN jawaaN seena, neelguuN jawaaN baaheN
kahkashaaN kii peshaanii, neem chaaNd ka juuRaa
maKhmalii andhere kaa, pairahan laraztaa hai
waqt ki siyaah zulfeN Khaamoshi ke shaanoN per
Kham-ba-Kham mahaktii haiN aur zamiiN ke hontoN per
narm shabnamii bosay, motioN ke daantoN se KhilKhilaa ke haNste haiN

raat Khuubsurat hai niind kyuN nahiiN aatii

raat peing letii hai, chaaNdnii ke jhuule meN
aasmaan par taare nanhe-nanhe haathoN se
bun rahe hain jaaduu saa
jhingaron ki aavaazeN, kah rahi hain afsaana
duur jail ke baahar baj rahii hai shehnaaii
rail apne pahioN se loriaaN sunaatii hai

raat Khuubsurat hai niind kyuN nahiiN aatii

roz raat ko yuNhii niind meri aankhon se
bewafaaii kartii hai
mujhko chhoR kar tanhaa jail se nikaltii hai
Bambayii kii bastii meN mere ghar ka darvaaza jaa kar KhatKhataati hai
ek nanhe bacche kii ankhRioN ke bachpan meN
miithe miithe KhwaboN ka shahed Ghol detii hai
ik hansiiN parii ban kar paalnaa hilaati hai loriaaN sunaatii hai

To think Jafri wrote this from a dingy prison cell to his son, as a gift for his first birthday. Jafri was deeply involved in the Indian freedom movement and was in prison, quiet a few times, as a result.

How does one write to one's infant child? When trapped in a prison cell, so far away.

He starts off by making a quick casual mention of his present setting - a dingy prison, rude jailors, the loneliness, the repression and quickly moves on to more beautiful, happy things - which are in fact, so far away.

Describing the beauty and joy of a sunset, flowers, the deep dark woods makes great poetry. But to be able to find beauty in the most common, everyday things, especially so when even they are inaccessible, is simply a class apart. To be in a prison and be reminded of lullabies when you hear a train, far far away, thumping on its tracks ...

The recording is from here . The Aligarians have a large online collection of some very fine Urdu poetry. A treat for anyone interested in poetry, Urdu and of course, Urdu poetry.

The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water

2006-03-10T18:05:00.000-08:00

William Butler Yeats

Listen

I heard the old, old men say,
'Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away.'
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say
'All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.'

Such a simple yet achingly beautiful poem. A poem that simply radiates sadness, that clutches at you like a gnarled hand. I love the rhythm of it, the weariness of tone created by the repetition of the word 'old', the marvellous use of rhyme to suggest a closing out, a surrender. But more than all that, I love the vividness of the image - Yeats' ability to create a portrait of these tired, defeated old men that has all the accuracy of a dream. This is a poem that cries out to be painted, or rather that does not need to be painted because you cannot read it without being able to see the painting that goes with it (I'm thinking El Greco here) as clearly as if it were right in front of you.

somewhere i have never travelled

2006-03-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

e e cummings

listen

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

what can you say about this poem, except that it's absolutely exquisite - a fragile miracle of a poem. plus, it features in a woody allen film!

for more commentary, see minstrels.

Lady Lazarus

2006-03-09T00:31:00.000-08:00

Sylvia Plath

Listen (Plath reads)

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it-----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?-----

Yes, yes Herr Professor
It is I.
Can you deny

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot-----
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone, I may be Japanese,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge.

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart-----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there-----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

This recording was made for the British Council only days after the poem was written and is slightly longer than the version published posthumously in the collection 'Ariel'.

Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus" is not what it first appears to be, a straightforward poem about suicide. The poem is a reaction to the oppressive patriarchy of the early sixties, a culture that did not welcome or support her. Plath absorbed the social cues and customs that alienated her, and explored and reacted to them in her writing. Plath's later poems, which include "Lady Lazarus," reveal her feelings of resentment that grew from being trapped in this cyclical and oppressive atmosphere, and the feeling of being blocked and prevented from truly achieving. In "Lady Lazarus," Plath's autobiographical account of her suicide, she expresses her anger at these restrictions while exploring themes of confinement, repression, and how it feels to live as a woman artist in a male-dominated society. She uses simile and cryptic historical allusions as a way of distancing herself from her inner being, and the disjointed structure of the poem shows seething emotions that are desperately fighting their way to the surface. - and more from the one guide the galaxy swears by, the h2g2.

A brief biography.

The Weary Blues

2006-03-07T22:21:00.000-08:00

Langston Hughes

Listen

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.

With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!

In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

Langston Hughes has always been, for me, the poet who best captures the authentic sound of jazz. Hughes' poems are the essence of jazz - with their rhythm, their colour, their sense of improvisation, their singing combination of wit and soul, the way they combine simple, everyday speech with an almost haiku-like conciseness. To read a Hughes poem is to imagine yourself sitting on a lonely fire-escape listening to Coltrane.

No poem of his better exemplifies the rhythm that Hughes brings to his poetry than 'The Weary Blues'. Ever since I first read it, this has always struck me as an amazing poem, simply because of the way it manages to make you hear the song it describes, so that just reading the words on the page you can imagine the exact piano notes, the precise pitch of the singer's voice [1]. Brilliant, just brilliant.

You can find another Hughes poem (well, several others if you choose to look) as well as a biography of Hughes on Minstrels.

[1] The other poem that does this brilliantly, of course, is Browning's Toccata of Galuppi's.

Rape

2006-03-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Adrienne Rich

Posted as part of the Blank Noise Blog-a-thon

Listen

There is a cop who is both prowler and father
he comes from your block, grew up with your brothers,
had certain ideals.
You hardly know him in his boots and silver badge,
on horseback, one hand touching his gun.

You hardly know him but you have to get to know him:
he has access to machinery that could kill you.
He and his stallion clop like warlords among the trash,
his ideals stand in the air, a frozen cloud
from between his unsmiling lips.

And so, when the time comes, you have to turn to him,
the maniac's sperm still greasing your thighs,
your mind whirling like crazy. You have to confess
to him, you are guilty of the crime
of having been forced.

And you see his blue eyes, the blue eyes of all the family
whom you used to know, grow narrow and glisten,
his hand types out the details
and he wants them all
but the hysteria in your voice pleases him best.

You hardly know him but now he thinks he knows you:
he has taken down your worst moment
on a machine and filed it a file.
He knows, or thinks he knows, how much you imagined;
He knows, or thinks he knows, what you secretly wanted.

He has access to machinery that could get you put away;
And if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
And if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
Your details sound like a portrait of your confessor,
Will you swallow, will you deny them, will you lie your way home?

The first time I read 'Rape', I wasn't too impressed by it. The starting seemed confused and off the point, some of the repetition seemed contrived and there was a general sense of clunkiness to the poem, the sense that things didn't quite fit. Rich, I thought, was capable of so much better than this.

Over the years, though, I've found myself haunted by this poem, forced to come back to it because every time I read some report on sexual violence or harassment the lines from this poem reassert themselves. That kind of impact, the ability of a poem to become part of the language you think in, is rare enough to force a reevaluation of the poem's merit, and my appreciation for it has deepened considerably over time. If relevance matters, if a valid test for poetry is its ability to be true in simple yet insightful ways, then this is a great poem.

There are three reasons why I think this poem works. First, because it highlights what I've come to consider the key issue in sexual harassment / violence (especially in the Indian context) - the inadequacy of institutional support. Rich dismisses the actual rapist with a single word ("maniac") [1] but chooses to focus instead on the reaction of the very person who's supposed to be protecting the victim - the policeman. Who is the real criminal here, she seems to ask, which is the real rape? No society is ever going to be able to entirely eliminate perverts and criminals from among its ranks. Therefore no system can guarantee a woman total security. What the right set of institutions can do, however is a) limit the probability of crime by enforcing strong sanctions against sexual criminals and b) contain the damage of the crime when it happens by ensuring support to and dignity of the victim. That's all that we can realistically hope for, that's all that initiatives like the Blank Noise Blog-a-thon may, just may, help to achieve. By focussing on that aspect of it, Rich draws attention to this graver, more general betrayal, and highlights, through it, the collective guilt we bear for the damage sexual violence does, our responsibility in it, the extent of our culpability.

Second, in writing about this sort of secondary victimisation, Rich manages to capture its true pathology. Line after line from this poem sums up, with a clarity tinged with bitterness, the indignities that victims of sexual crimes are subject to. Lines like "you are guilty of the crime / of having been forced" or "He knows, or thinks he knows, how much you imagined / he knows, or thinks he knows, what you secretly wanted" ring true precisely because these are arguments that we, tragically, still encounter. 'Rape' captures not only the bewilderment of finding that the very institutions you have been taught to trust, the people you grew up with, the men who are loving fathers, careful husbands, turn out to be the ones who let you down; but also the combination of machismo ("he and his stallion clop like warlords among the trash") and power ("he has access to machinery that could get you put away") that leads to that outcome.

Third, the more I think about it, it occurs to me that the very rawness of the poem, its clumsiness, its lack of fit, is a deliberate attempt to make the poem more disturbing, so that the queasiness you feel reading the poem - its "sickening light" - serves to enhance the experience it describes. This is an uncomfortable poem, but it is not a poem we can turn away from, it is not a poem we can afford to ignore.

The poem is not, of course, about street harassment (sorry, I couldn't find a poem about it, and I looked [2]), but I think the underlying ideas are still relevant, and the difference, sadly, may be more of degree than of kind.

Notes

[1] Not that Rich lets those who offend her get away so easily elsewhere. In 'The Phenomenology of Anger', she writes:

Fantasies of murder: not enough:
to kill is to cut off from pain
but the killer goes on hurting

Not enough. When I dream of meeting
the enemy, this is my dream:

white acetylene
ripples from my body
effortlessly released
perfectly trained
on the true enemy

raking his body down to the thread
of existence
burning away his lie
leaving him in a new
world; a changed
man

[2] the other poem I considered was an infinitely less sombre Don Marquis:

"i caught the boob in the shrubbery
pretty thing i said
it hurts me worse than it does you
to remove that left eye of yours
but i did it with one sweep of my claws
you call yourself a gentleman do you
i said as i took a strip out of his nose
you will think twice after this before
you offer an insult
to an unprotected young tabby
where is the little love nest you spoke
of i asked him
you go and lie down there i said
and maybe you can incubate another ear
because i am going to take one of
yours right off now
and with those words i made ribbons
out of it you are the guy
i said to him that was going to give
me an easy life sheltered from all
the rough ways of the world
fluffy dear you don t know what the
rough ways of the world are
and i am going to show you
i have got you out here
in the great open spaces
where cats are cats
and i m going to make you understand
the affections of a lady ain t to be
trifled with by any slicker like you
where is that red ribbon with the
silver bells you promised me
the next time you betray the trust
of an innocent female
reflect on whether she may
carry a wallop little fiddle strings
this is just a midl lesson i am giving
you tonight i said as i took
the fur off his back and you oughta
be glad you didn't make me really
angry my sense of dignity is all that
saves you a lady little sweetness
never loses her poise and i thank god
i am always a lady even if i do
live my own life and with that i
picked him up by what was left of
his neck like a kitten and laid him
on the doormat"

Not quite relevant, perhaps, but good fun.

The Walrus and The Carpenter

2006-03-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

Lewis Carroll

Listen

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright --
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done --
'It's very rude of him.' she said,
'To come and spoil the fun!'

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead --
There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand:
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
'If this were only cleared away,'
They said, 'it would be grand.

''If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,' the Walrus said,
'That they could get it clear?''
I doubt it,' said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

'O Oysters, come and walk with us!
The Walrus did beseech.'
A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.

'The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head --
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

Out four young Oysters hurried up.
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat --
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more --
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
'To talk of many things:
Of shoes -- and ships -- and sealing wax --
Of cabbages -- and kings --
And why the sea is boiling hot --
And whether pigs have wings.

''But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried,
'Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!'
'No hurry!' said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

'A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said,
'Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed --
Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.'

'But not on us!' the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
'After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!'
'The night is fine,' the Walrus said,
'Do you admire the view?'

'It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!'
The Carpenter said nothing but
'Cut us another slice-
I wish you were not quite so deaf-
I've had to ask you twice!'

'It seems a shame,' the Walrus said,
'To play them such a trick.
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!
'The Carpenter said nothing but
'The butter's spread too thick!'

'I weep for you,'the Walrus said:
'I deeply sympathize.'
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

'O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,
'You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none --
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

One of the joys of being an early collaborator on a new poetry project is that you get to be the first one to post your favourite poems and watch other people go "Damn! I wish I'd thought of that."[1] (Mandatory Plug: You too can be an early contributor to this blog! See details here)

The Walrus and the Carpenter has to be one of the most delightful poems ever written. How many poems combine such delicious wickedness with such signing rhythm? How many poems can manage a conversational ease of tone and still make you laugh out loud? How many poems can pretend so successfully to be nothing more than a simple children's story, but manage to be so deeply, hilariously, subversive; and leave a dozen phrases planted forever in your head? This is triviality at its most exquisite, and no collection of well loved poetry can ever be complete without it.

As usual, see commentary on Minstrels here.

[1] Ludwig, don't say I didn't give you the chance.

Paon se lahoo ko dho dalo

2006-03-02T00:48:00.000-08:00

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Listen (to Falstaff read)

Hum kya karte kis reh chalte
Har raah mein kaante bikhre the
Un rishton ke jo choot gaye
Un sadiyon ke yaranon key
Jo ik-ik karke toot gaye.

Jis raah chale jist simt gaye
Yun paon lahoo-luhan hue
Sab dekhne vaale kahte the
Ye kaisi reet rachai hai
Ye mehndi kyon lagvai hai
Vo kehte the, kyon kahat-e-vapha
Ka nahak charcha karte ho
Paon se lahoo ko dho dalo

Ye raatein jab at jayengi
Sow raste in se phootenge
Tum dil ko sambholo jismein abhi
Sow tarah ke nashtar tootenge.

And an excellent translation by Falstaff.

Wash the blood from your feet

Where should we go and what should we do
When every road is scattered
With the thorns of our fallen loves?
When the friendships of centuries
Have broken, one by one?

Whatever path we take, whatever direction we choose
Our feet come away bathed in blood.

And the onlookers say:
What is this ritual you have devised?
Why have you tattooed yourself with these wounds?
Who are you to question
The barrenness of faith?

Wash the blood from your feet.

When the night has passed
A hundred new roads will blossom.
You must steady your heart,
For it has to break many, many times.

Faiz is one of my favourite poets. Rarely do you get poetry, which takes a real hard look at things in such excellent lyrical fashion. I like true honest writing in any form and I love ghazals for their form. With Faiz, you get them beautifully intertwined.

Salman Rushdie on Faiz.

A Scratch

2006-03-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

Arun Kolatkar

Listen

what is god
and what is stone
the dividing line
if it exists
is very thin
at jejuri
and every other stone
is god or his cousin

there is no crop
other than god
and god is harvested here
around the year
and round the clock
out of the bad earth
and the hard rock

that giant hunk of rock
the size of a bedroom
is khandoba's wife turned to stone
the crack that runs right across
is the scar from his broadsword
he struck her down with
once in a fit of rage

scratch a rock
and a legend springs

No other Indian poet writing in English(yes, my Bengali brethern, that includes Him too) moves me like Kolaktar does. I do not read much poetry; to me poetry is more of a fad that keeps repeating at regular intervals but you say Kolatkar and I am in. Anytime. This particular poem is one of my favorites in the Jejuri collection. All he needed to see was a scratch to write something so beautiful.

Btw, does anyone know why is it that it is so difficult to find Kolatkar's works in bookstores in India?

Ars Poetica?

2006-02-28T18:59:00.000-08:00

Czeslaw Milosz

Listen

I have always aspired to a more spacious form
that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose
and would let us understand each other without exposing
the author or reader to sublime agonies.

In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:
a thing is brought forth which we didn't know we had in us,
so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out
and stood in the light, lashing his tail.

That's why poetry is rightly said to be dictated by a daimonion,
though its an exaggeration to maintain that he must be an angel.
It's hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from,
when so often they're put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty.

What reasonable man would like to be a city of demons,
who behave as if they were at home, speak in many tongues,
and who, not satisfied with stealing his lips or hand,
work at changing his destiny for their convenience?

It's true that what is morbid is highly valued today,
and so you may think that I am only joking
or that I've devised just one more means
of praising Art with the help of irony.

There was a time when only wise books were read
helping us to bear our pain and misery.
This, after all, is not quite the same
as leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics.

And yet the world is different from what it seems to be
and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.
People therefore preserve silent integrity
thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.

What I'm saying here is not, I agree, poetry,
as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,
under unbearable duress and only with the hope
that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.

Continuing with the general trend of poems about poetry (no, BM, I'm not trying to make this a series, it's just, well, interesting), here's one of my all time favourites.

Oh, and do read the commentary on Minstrels. I have a lot to say about this poem (and about Milosz generally), but I couldn't put it better than the commentary there.

Banalata Sen

2006-02-28T18:30:00.000-08:00

Jibanananda Das

Listen

For thousands of years I roamed the paths of this earth,
From waters round Ceylon in dead of night to Malayan seas.
Much have I wandered. I was there in the grey world of Asoka
And Bimbisara, pressed on through darkness to the city of Vidarbha.
I am a weary heart surrounded by life's frothy ocean.
To me she gave a moment's peace -- Banalata Sen from Natore.

Her hair was like an ancient darkling night in Vidisa,
Her face, the craftsmanship of Sravasti. As the helmsman,
His rudder broken, far out upon the sea adrift,
Sees the grass-green land of a cinnamon isle, just so
Through darkness I saw her. Said she, "Where have you been so long?"
And raised her bird's nest-like eyes -- Banalata Sen from Natore.

At day's end, like hush of dew
Comes evening. A hawk wipes the scent of sunlight fom its wings.
When earth's colors fade and some pale design is sketched,
Then glimmering fireflies paint in the story.
All birds come home, all rivers, all of this life's tasks finished.
Only darkness remains, as I sit there face to face with Banalata Sen.

Banalata is apparently a recurring theme throughout Das's works though no one knows whether there really was a Banalata Sen. Which is perfect as the reader is completely left to imagine his own Banalata Sen.

See commentary on Minstrels.

And yes, I plead guilty. It is my voice.

Facing It

2006-02-27T17:17:00.000-08:00

Yusef Komunyakaa

Listen (read by the poet)

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

"Facing It" is one of Komunyakaa's most well known poems, printed in "Dien Cai Dau" about his experiences visiting the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C., and his emotions that he experienced while he was at the memorial. Imagine what the feelings would be like to see a friend's name etched on this wall? On October 30th, 2002 Yusef gave a phone interview. Yusef says later on, "The sky, a plane in the sky. / A white vet's image floats closer to me, then his pale eyes / look through mine. I'm a window."*

Death be not proud (Holy Sonnet X)

2006-02-23T22:13:00.000-08:00

John Donne

Listen

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure: then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

See commentary on Minstrels.

Ein Yahav

2006-02-22T18:27:00.000-08:00

Yehuda Amichai

Listen (to Chana Bloch read)

A night drive to Ein Yahav in the Arava Desert,
a drive in the rain. Yes, in the rain.
There I met people who grow date palms,
there I saw tamarisk trees and risk trees,
there I saw hope barbed as barbed wire.
And I said to myself: That's true, hope needs to be
like barbed wire to keep out despair,
hope must be a mine field.

Chana Bloch reads her translation of the hebrew poem by Yehuda Amichai. Amichai is considered one of the greatest modern Israeli poets. My bias toward poets who write about the ordinary and mudane makes him one of my favourites.

Acquainted with the Night

2006-02-21T19:47:00.000-08:00

Robert Frost

Listen

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

See the Minstrels commentary here.

For form freaks: As the comments point out, this is a terza rima, but a pretty special one, not only because it's also a 14 line sonnet, but because it also (in a move faintly reminiscent of villanelles?), makes its first line its last. All in all, a stunning poem.

The other famous poem to use the terza rima in English (which Minstrels, amazingly, does not mention, thus giving me the opportunity to add value) is Shelley's Ode to the West Wind.

A note on the text: The Minstrels version, as well as a number of other versions I've seen on the Web, say "O luminary clock against the sky". That makes no sense, and is not how I remember it, so I'm pretty sure it's an error.

Poetry

2006-02-19T18:39:00.000-08:00

Nikki Giovanni

Listen

poetry is motion graceful
as a fawn
gentle as a teardrop
strong like the eye
finding peace in a crowded room

we poets tend to think
our words are golden
though emotion speaks too
loudly to be defined
by silence

sometimes after midnight or just before
the dawn
we sit typewriter in hand
pulling loneliness around us
forgetting our lovers or children
who are sleeping
ignoring the weary wariness
of our own logic
to compose a poem
no one understands it
it never says "love me" for poets are
beyond love
it never says "accept me" for poems seek not
acceptance but controversy
it only says "i am" and therefore
i concede that you are too

a poem is pure energy
horizontally contained
between the mind
of the poet and the ear of the reader
if it does not sing discard the ear
for poetry is song
if it does not delight discard
the heart for poetry is joy
if it does not inform then close
off the brain for it is dead
if it cannot heed the insistent message
that life is precious

which is all we poets
wrapped in our loneliness
are trying to say

Eugenio Montale, speaking on the topic 'Isolation and Communication' in 1952 said: "the most important voices will the voices of those artists who through their isolated voices give expression to an echo of the fateful isolation of each of us. In this sense, only the isolated speak, only the isolated communicate".

There are few better examplars of that paradox, I think, than Giovanni, whose best poems do not so much reach out to you as draw you in; who connects best to her readers when she speaks, as she does here, from the calm depths of her loneliness, from a strength of introspection that makes her work deeply personal, deeply heartfelt. There are many Giovanni poems that are just, well, clever; but there are a few where her natural knack for rhythm combines with an exactness of intimacy that is quite stunning.

What I love about this poem is its unflinching absoluteness. Poems are never wrong, Giovanni tells us, it is the heart or brain or ear that must be at fault if they do not work. But even as she utters these didactic pronouncements Giovanni has the grace to laugh at herself, and acknowledge the lonely, often delusional nature of her craft. This is a fine poem because it argues that poetry is both helpless and necessary - not so much an art form to be polished and made robust, but a mode of being alive.

Minstrels doesn't have this poem. But it does have other Giovanni poems (as well as relevant links): here, here and here. Go read.

Reconciliation

2006-02-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

Walt Whitman

Listen

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white faced and still in the coffin - I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

For a change, Minstrels doesn't actually have this one. But here's some commentary on it that a dear friend sent me:

"It's almost impossible to have a favourite Whitman poem, but if I had to pick one this would be it. If there's one complaint I have against Whitman it's that he tends to ramble sometimes - so that reading his poems I often find myself wishing he'd edited them down a little.

Not so here - every line, every word is perfection. A poem that rises and falls in quiet, thoughtful cadences, the measured voice of a tired old man who discovers, at the end of all his struggle, a frail truth. Just the sound of this poem read aloud would be reason enough to love it; just the way in which that exquisite, aching first line tears all the world open only to have the slow diminuendo of the last line put it back together again, reconciling the poem with the silence.

But Whitman does more - in just six lines he manages to pack in such a wealth of emotion: consolation, defeat, regret, forgiveness, awe. And leaves us, using nothing more than a single phrase ("a man divine as myself"), with the tragic and dreamlike image of a man leaning over his own coffin, reconciled to his own death.

This is a poem that combines the richness of a haiku with the tone of a soliloquy, and still manages to achieve, overall, a sense of peace."

If I could tell you

2006-02-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

W. H. Auden

Listen

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away?
Will time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

As usual, see commentary on Minstrels.

* The title of this poem on Minstrels is simply Villanelle - which, of course, is the verse form. My edition of Auden's Collected Shorter Poems (Faber and Faber) titles it 'If I could tell you', so I decided to go with that.

Saddest Poem - II

2006-02-14T12:55:00.000-08:00

Pablo Neruda (Tr. By W.S. Merwin)

Rivera has recorded W.S. Merwin's translation of the Saddest Poem. His original recording can be found here.

Listen

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Breaking Up

2006-02-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

In what what would be our first listener request, we have a Yevtushenko poem, recorded by Rivera.

Listen

I fell out of love: that's our story's dull ending,
as flat as life is, as dull as the grave.
Excuse me -- I'll break off the string of this love song
and smash the guitar. We have nothing to save.

The puppy is puzzled. Our furry small monster
can't decide why we complicate simple things so --
he whines at your door and I let him enter,
when he scratches at my door, you always go.

Dog, sentimental dog, you'll surely go crazy,
running from one to the other like this --
too young to conceive of an ancient idea:
it's ended, done with, over, kaput. Finis.

Get sentimental and we end up by playing
the old melodrama, "Salvation of Love."
"Forgiveness," we whisper, and hope for an echo;
but nothing returns from the silence above.

Better save love at the very beginning,
avoiding all passionate "nevers," "forevers;"
we ought to have heard what the train wheels were shouting,
"Do not make promises!" Promises are levers.

We should have made note of the broken branches,
we should have looked up at the smokey sky,
warning the witless pretensions of lovers --
the greater the hope is, the greater the lie.

True kindness in love means staying quite sober,
weighing each link of the chain you must bear.
Don't promise her heaven -- suggest half an acre;
not "unto death," but at least to next year.

And don't keep declaring, "I love you, I love you."
That little phrase leads a durable life --
when remembered again in some loveless hereafter,
it can sting like a hornet or stab like a knife.

So -- our little dog in all his confusion
turns and returns from door to door.
I won't say "forgive me" because I have left you;
I ask pardon for one thing: I loved you before.

I know there are a whole bunch of people who would not appreciate this poem today and others who would, and then there is the third kind, who will wonder, what all the fuss is about? :) This is for everyone of you.

Check the minstrels for commentary on the poem and wiki for Yevtushenko's bio.

Last Sonnet / Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art

2006-02-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

John Keats

Listen

Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

First love is wonderful, isn't it?

John Keats was the first poet I ever fell in love with - something breathtaking and unshamable about his engagement of beauty, the equal purity of his verses and his heart, spoke to my adolescent self in a way that can only be described as enchantment [1]. And while I am no longer as starry-eyed about his poetry as I was at 15, he remains, for me, one of the most exquisite and ravishing of all poets; the only writer, whose language, for sheer aestheticism, is fully the rival of Shakespeare's.

It's only fitting then, that if we must celebrate Valentine's Day, we shall do it, Not chariot'd by Hallmark and its cards, but on "the viewless wings of Poesy".

For more commentary, see Minstrels.

[1] Keats himself describes the feeling of discovering poetry for the first time: "I am brimful of the friendliness / that in a little cottage I have found / Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress / And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd / Of lovely Laura in her light green dress / And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd"

Why did I laugh tonight?

2006-02-12T18:29:00.000-08:00

John Keats

Listen (the voice is mine)

Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell
No God, no demon of severe response
Deigns to reply from heaven or from hell
Then to my human heart I turn at once:
Heart, thou and I are here, sad and alone,
Say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O darkness! darkness! Forever must I moan
To question heaven and hell and heart in vain?
Why did I laugh? I know this being's lease
My fancy to it's utmost blisses spreads
Yet would I on this very midnight cease
And all the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds
Verse, fame and beauty are intense indeed
But death intenser, death is life's high meed.

See commentary on Minstrels.

A Supermarket in California

2006-02-10T14:56:00.000-08:00

Allen Ginsberg

"Beatnik-Sputnik. I never can remember those kinds of terms."
- Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami

Just one of those days when you want to go back to some good beat poetry.

Listen (to Ginsberg read)

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in
an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

The minstrels have good commentary on this too.

The More Loving One

2006-02-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

W.H. Auden

Listen

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

(black mamba reads the poem)

For commentary on the poem, check the minstrels.

Adonais : An Elegy On The Death Of John Keats

2006-02-07T16:33:00.000-08:00

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Listen (to the BBC recording)

I weep for Adonais -he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!"

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,
When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies
In darkness? where was lorn Urania
When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,
Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

O, weep for Adonais -he is dead!
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
Descend; -oh, dream not that the amorous Deep
Will yet restore him to the vital air;
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

Most musical of mourners, weep again!
Lament anew, Urania! -He died,
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain,
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride,
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,
Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite
Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Not all to that bright station dared to climb;
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time
In which suns perished; others more sublime,
Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;
And some yet live, treading the thorny road
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished -
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,
And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;
Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,
The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;
The broken lily lies -the storm is overpast.

...(click here for more)

For more on the poem, check the Literary Encyclopedia.

Saddest Poem

2006-02-06T21:56:00.000-08:00

Pablo Neruda

Listen

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

(Rivera reads the poem)

Kubla Khan

2006-02-06T11:05:00.000-08:00

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Listen (from the BBC)

(or, a Vision in a Dream, a Fragment)

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Look here for commentary.

Epitaph on a tyrant

2006-02-04T20:29:00.000-08:00

W H Auden

(One of my favorites, by one of my favorite poets. Some more commentary here)

Listen

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

(Susmit reads the poem)

Prayer

2006-02-04T17:08:00.000-08:00

Rabindranath Tagore

(My first two lines of Bengali, ha ha ha!)

Listen

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depths of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

2006-02-03T12:47:00.000-08:00

T. S. Eliot

Listen (to Sir Antony Hopkins read)

 S`io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair---
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin---
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all;
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all---
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all---
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep...tired...or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon
a platter,
I am no prophet --- and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say, "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor
---
And this, and so much more?
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or to
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous---
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Til human voices wake us, and we drown.

(audio copyright held by The Poetry Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts )

Solitary Reaper

2006-02-03T09:10:00.000-08:00

William Wordsworth

Introducing Rivera, my friend whose beautiful rendition and guitar playing, feature in this recording. (Scroll to the end of the post, for the alternate version of the same poem).

On why he chose to record this poem, “When I read this poem in my sixth grade, I found it near and dear to me. It reminded me of someone yearning for lost love.”

Listen [1]

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

[1] Rendered by Rivera.

Listen to a more interesting alternate version recorded by him. I was unsure if all the fancy guitar playing in the later version, distracts the listener from the poetry, so the former version is posted at the top.

Ars Poetica

2006-02-02T13:38:00.000-08:00

Archibald MacLeish

Listen

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown -

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,

Memory by memory the mind -

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea -

A poem should not mean
But be

(falstaff reads the poem)

Kabhi Kabhi

2006-02-02T09:35:00.000-08:00

Sahir Ludhianvi

Listen (to Amitabh Bachchan read)

kabhii kabhii mere dil me.n Khayaal aataa hai...

ke zindagii terii zulfo.n kii narm chaao.n me.n
guzarane paatii to shaadaab ho bhii sakatii thii
ye tiirgii jo merii ziist kaa muqaddar hai
terii nazar kii shuaao.n me.n kho bhii sakatii thii

ajab na thaa ke mai.n begaanaa-e-alam ho kar
tere jamaal kii raanaaiiyo.n me.n kho rahataa
teraa gudaaz badan terii niim-baar aa.Nkhe.n
i.nhii.n hasiin fasaano.n me.n maaho rahataa

pukaaratii.n mujhe jab talKhiyaa.N zamaane kii
tere labo.n se halaawat ke ghuu.NT pii letaa
hayaat chiikhatii phiratii barahanaa-sar, aur mai.n
ghanerii zulfo.n ke saaye me.n chhup ke jii letaa

magar ye ho na sakaa aur ab ye aalam hai
ke tuu nahii.n, teraa Gam, terii justajuu bhii nahii.n
guzar rahii hai kuchh is tarah zi.ndahii jaise
ise kisii ke sahaare kii aarazuu bhii nahii.n

zamaane bhar ke dukho.n ko lagaa chukaa huu.N gale
guzar rahaa huu.N kuchh a.njaanii guzar_gaaho.n se
muhiib saaye merii simt ba.Date aate hai.n
hayaat-o-maut ke pur_haul Khaarazaaro.n se

na koii jaadaa na manzil na roshanii kaa suraaG
bhaTak rahii hai Khaalaao.n me.n zindagii merii
i.nhii.n Khalaao.n me.n rah jaauu.Ngaa kabhii khokar
mai.n jaanataa huu.N merii ham-nafas magar yuu.N hii

kabhii kabhii mere dil me.n Khayaal aataa hai

The poem in devnagri.

Sahir Ludhianvi is one of the most important lyricist in Bollywood, who has penned some of the greatest hits/classics in its history. Interestingly some of his very popular lyrics have a more serious companion version - which are just as admired and appreciated by the Urdu Literary world .

For instance, the recording featured here, is a slightly modified and shortened version of the original in Talkhiiyaan .

Sonnet XXIX

2006-02-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

William Shakespeare

Because after all, no collection of poetry can ever be complete without the Bard.
Listen

When in disgrace with Fortune and mens eyes,
I all alone beweepe my out-cast state,
And trouble deafe heaven with my bootlesse cries,
And looke upon my selfe and curse my fate.
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possest,
Desiring this mans art and that mans skope,
With what I most injoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my selfe almost despising,
Haplye I thinke on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the Larke at breake of daye arising)
From sullen earth sings himns at Heavens gate,
For thy sweet love remembred such welth brings,
That then I skorne to change my state with Kings.

(the voice mauling the poem is mine, btw)

Men and Their Boring Arguments

2006-01-31T18:29:00.000-08:00

Wendy Cope

Some more Wendy Cope then?

Listen (to Cope read)

One man on his own can be quite good fun
But don't go drinking with two -
They'll probably have an argument
And take no notice of you.

What makes men so tedious
Is the need to show off and compete.
They'll bore you to death for hours and hours
Before they'll admit defeat.

It often happens at dinner-parties
Where brother disputes with brother
And we can't even talk among ourselves
Because we're not next to each other.

Some men like to argue with women -
Don't give them a chance to begin.
You won't be allowed to change the subject
Until you have given in.

A man with the bit between his teeth
Will keep you up half the night
And the only way to get some sleep
Is to say, 'I expect you're right.'

I expect you're right, my dearest love.
I expect you're right, my friend.
These boring arguments make no difference
To anything in the end.

Copyright Wendy Cope

Waste Land Limericks

2006-01-30T20:44:00.000-08:00

Wendy Cope

(For some, there's Eliot's Waste Land. For all others, there's Cope's Waste Land Limericks.)

Listen

I

In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me--
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

II

She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions--
Bad as Albert and Lil--what a pair!

III

The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep--
A typist is laid,
A record is played--
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.

IV

A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business--the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.

V

No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.

(veena reads the poem)

The Waste Land

2006-01-30T10:15:00.000-08:00

T. S. Eliot

Listen (to Eliot read)

I. The Burial of the Dead

II. A Game of Chess

III. The Fire Sermon

IV. What the Thunder Said

The Waste Land in ascii can be found here.

The White Birds

2006-01-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

W. B. Yeats

Listen

I WOULD that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:
For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;
Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be,
Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

(falstaff reads the poem)

Metalogue to The Magic Flute

2006-01-27T10:45:00.000-08:00

W. H. Auden

Listen (to Auden read)

(Lines composed in commemoration of the Mozart Bicentenary, 1956. To be spoken by the singer playing the role of Sarastro.)

Relax, Maestro, put your baton down;
Only the fogiest of the old will frown
If you the trials of the Prince prorogue
To let Sarastro speak this Metalogue,
A form acceptable to us, although
Unclassed by Aristotle or Boileau.
No modern audience finds it incorrect,
For interruption is what we expect
Since that new god, the Paid Announcer, rose,
Who with his quasi-Ossianic prose
Cuts in upon the lovers, halts the band,
To name a sponsor or to praise a brand.
Not that I have a product to describe
That you could wear or cook with or imbibe;
You cannot hoard or waste a work of art;
I come to praise but not to sell Mozart,
Who came into this world of war and woe
At Salzburg just two centuries ago,
When kings were many and machines were few
And open atheism something new.
(It makes a servantless New Yorker sore
To think sheer Genius had to stand before
A mere Archbishop with uncovered head;
But Mozart never had to make his bed.)

The history of Music as of Man
Will not go cancrizans, and no ear can
Recall what, when the Archduke Francis reigned,
Was heard by ear whose treasure-hoard contained
A Flute already but as yet no Ring;
Each age has its own mode of listening.
We know the Mozart of our fathers' time
Was gay, rococo, sweet, but not sublime
A Viennese Italian; that is changed
Since music critics learned to feel "estranged";
Now it's the Germans he is classed amongst,
A Geist whose music was composed from Angst,
At International Festivals enjoys
An equal status with the Twelve-Tone Boys;
He awes the lovely and the very rich,
And even those Divertimenti which
He wrote to play while bottles were uncorked,
Milord chewed noisily, Milady talked,
Are heard in solemn silence, score on knees,
Like quartets of the deafest of the B's.
What next? One can no more imagine how,
In concert halls two hundred years from now,
When the mozartian sound-waves move the air,
The cognoscenti will be moved, then dare
Predict how high orchestral pitch will go,
How many tones will constitute a row,
The tempo at which regimented feet
Will march about the Moon, the form of Suite
For Piano in a Post-Atomic Age,
Prepared by some contemporary Cage.

An opera composer may be vexed
By later umbrage taken at his text:
Even Macaulay's schoolboy knows today
What Robert Graves or Margaret Mead would say
About the status of the sexes in this play,
Writ in that era of barbaric dark
'Twixt Modern Mom and Bronze-Age Matriarch.
Where now the Roman Fathers and their creed?
"Ah where," sighs Mr. Mitty, "where indeed?"
And glances sideways at his vital spouse
Whose rigid jaw-line and contracted brows
Express her scorn and utter detestation
For Roman views of Female Education.

In Nineteen-Fifty-Six we find the Queen
A highly-paid and most efficient Dean
(Who, as we all know, really runs the College),
Sarastro, tolerated for his knowledge,
Teaching the History of Ancient Myth
At Bryn Mawr, Vassar, Bennington, or Smith;
Pamina may a Time researcher be
To let Pamino take his Ph.D.,
Acquiring manly wisdom as he wishes
While changing diapers and doing dishes;
Sweet Papagena, when she's time to spare,
Listens to Mozart operas on the air,
Though Papageno, we are sad to feel,
Prefers the juke-box to the glockenspiel,
And how is - what was easy in the past -
A democratic villain to be cast?
Monostatos must make his bad impression
Without a race, religion, or profession.

A work that lasts two hundred years is tough,
And operas, God knows, must stand enough:
What greatness made, small vanities abuse.
What must they not endure? The Diva whose
Fioriture and climactic note
The silly old composer never wrote,
Conductor X, that over-rated bore
Who alters tempi and who cuts the score,
Director Y who with ingenious wit
Places his wretched singers in the pit
While dancers mime their roles, Z the Designer
Who sets the whole thing on an ocean liner,
The girls in shorts, the men in yachting caps;
Yet Genius triumphs over all mishaps,
Survives a greater obstacle than these,
Translation into foreign Operese
(English sopranos are condemned to languish
Because our tenors have to hide their anguish);
It soothes the Frank, it stimulates the Greek:
Genius surpasses all things, even Chic.
We who know nothing - which is just as well -
About the future, can, at least, foretell,
Whether they live in air-borne nylon cubes,
Practise group-marriage or are fed through tubes,
That crowds two centuries from now will press
(Absurd their hair, ridiculous their dress)
And pay in currencies, however weird,
To hear Sarastro booming through his beard,
Sharp connoisseurs approve if it is clean
The F in alt of the Nocturnal Queen,
Some uncouth creature from the Bronx amaze
Park Avenue by knowing all the K's.

How seemly, then, to celebrate the birth
Of one who did no harm to our poor earth,
Created masterpieces by the dozen,
Indulged in toilet-humor with his cousin,
And had a pauper's funeral in the rain,
The like of which we shall not see again:
How comely, also, to forgive; we should,
As Mozart, were he living, surely would,
Remember kindly Salieri's shade,
Accused of murder and his works unplayed,
Nor, while we praise the dead, should we forget,
We have Stravinsky - bless him! - with us yet.
Basta! Maestro, make your minions play!
In all hearts, as in our finale, may
Reason & Love be crowned, assume their rightful sway.

Today is the 250th Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Happy Birthday Maestro!

Postcard from Kashmir

2006-01-27T10:30:00.000-08:00

Agha Shahid Ali

Listen

Kashmir shrinks into my mailbox,
my home a neat four by six inches.

I always loved neatness. Now I hold
the half-inch Himalayas in my hand.

This is home. And this the closest
I'll ever be to home. When I return,
the colors won't be so brilliant,
the Jhelum's waters so clean,
so ultramarine. My love
so overexposed.

And my memory will be a little
out of focus, it in
a giant negative, black
and white, still undeveloped.

(falstaff reads the poem)

Jana Gana Mana

2006-01-26T19:31:00.000-08:00

Rabindranath Tagore

Listen (to Tagore recite)

জনগণমন-অধিনায়ক জয় হে ভারতভাগ্যবিধাতা!
পঞ্জাব সিন্ধু গুজরাট মরাঠা দ্রাবিড় উত্‍‌কল বঙ্গ
বিন্ধ্য হিমাচল যমুনা গঙ্গা উচ্ছলজলধিতরঙ্গ
তব শুভ নামে জাগে, তব শুভ আশিস মাগে,
গাহে তব জয়গাথা।
জনগণমঙ্গলদায়ক জয় হে ভারতভাগ্যবিধাতা!
জয় হে, জয় হে, জয় হে, জয় জয় জয়, জয় হে॥

Translation

Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people, dispenser of India's destiny.
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat and Maratha, of the Dravida and the Orissa(Utkala) and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindyas and Himalayas, mingles in the music of Jamuna and Ganga and is chanted by the waves of the Indian Sea.
They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise. The saving of all people waits in thy hand, thou dispenser of India's destiny.
Victory, victory, victory to thee.

Transliterations

(in devnagiri)

जन गण मन अधिनायक जय हे
भारत भाग्य विधाता !
पंजाब सिंधु गुजरात मराठा
द्राविड़ उत्कल बंग
विंध्य हिमाचल यमुना गंगा
उच्छल जलधि तरंग
तव शुभ नामे जागे,
तव शुभ आशिस मागे,
गाहे तव जय गाथा ।
जन गण मंगलदायक जय हे
भारत भाग्य विधाता !
जय हे, जय हे, जय हे
जय जय जय जय हे ॥

(in english)

Jana-Gana-Mana-Adhinayaka, Jaya He
Bharata-Bhagya-Vidhata
Punjab-Sindhu-Gujarata-Maratha Dravida-Utkala-Banga
Vindhya-Himachala-Yamuna-Ganga
Uchchhala-Jaladhi Taranga
Tava Subha Name Jage
Tava Subha Ashisa Mage
Gahe Tava Jaya Gatha.
Jana-Gana-Mangala Dayaka, Jaya He
Bharata-Bhagya-Vidhata,
Jaya He, Jaya He, Jaya He,
Jaya Jaya Jaya, Jaya He

(all the above from wiki)

Happy Republic Day, folks!

The End

2006-01-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

A. A. Milne

Listen

When I was One,
I had just begun.

When I was Two,
I was nearly new.

When I was Three,
I was hardly Me.

When I was Four,
I was not much more.

When I was Five,
I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

(From "Now we are six")

(Read by Cool Man Cool)

The Road Not Taken

2006-01-24T00:10:00.000-08:00

Robert Frost

Listen (to Frost read)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

audio (Copyright (C) 1996 by the Library, University of California, Berkeley.)

You and Me and P.B. Shelley

2006-01-20T14:13:00.000-08:00

Ogden Nash

Listen (to Nash read)

What is life? Life is stepping down a step or sitting in a chair.
And it isn't there.
Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor.
Life is pulling doors marked PUSH and pushing doors marked PULL and not
noticing notices which say PLEASE USE OTHER DOOR.
It is when you diagnose a sore throat as an unprepared geography lesson
and send your child weeping to school only to be returned an hour
later covered with spots that are indubitable genuine.
Life is a concert with a trombone soloist filling in for Yehudi Menuhin.
But, were it not for frustration and humiliation
I suppose the human race would get ideas above its station.
Somebody once described Shelley as a beautiful and ineffective angel
beating his luminous wings against the void in vain.
Which is certainly describing with might and main.
But probably means that we are all brothers under our pelts.
And that Shelley went around pulling doors marked PUSH and pushing doors
marked PULL just like everybody else.

Manathil Urudhi Vendum

2006-01-18T12:47:00.000-08:00

So BM has reluctantly given me the keys to this place and needless to say, I intend to abuse this space as much as I can. Hmm..what shall we start with now? How about my first Bharathy poem? Appa, are you reading this?

So here, listen to KJ Yesudas rendering one of Bharathy's most famous. The music is by Illayaraja; the poem/song made its appearance in a brilliant 80s movie called Sindhu Bhairavi. Before I came across Ilayaraja's version, I had always imagined this poem recited in a demanding Bharathy-esque manner - imagine a Sivaji Ganesan or a Kamalhassan reciting Achamillai Achamillai if you will - but Illayaraja gives it a lighter, 'Chinna Chinna Aasai' (Chotti Si Aasha) tone which I am not sure I particularly like.

மனதிலுறுதி வேண்டும்,
வாக்கினி லேயினிமை வேண்டும்;
நினைவு நல்லது வேண்டும்,
நெருங்கின பொருள் கைப்பட வேண்டும்;
கனவு மெய்ப்பட வேண்டும்,
கைவசமாவது விரைவில் வேண்டும்;
தனமும் இன்பமும் வேண்டும்,
தரணியிலே பெருமை வேண்டும்.
கண் திறந்திட வேண்டும்,
காரியத்தி லுறுதி வேண்டும்;
பெண் விடுதலை வேண்டும்,
பெரிய கடவுள் காக்க வேண்டும்,
மண் பயனுற வேண்டும்,
வானகமிங்கு தென்பட வேண்டும்;
உண்மை நின்றிட வேண்டும்.
ஓம் ஓம் ஓம் ஓம்.

So you think maybe I should attempt some translation now? Here's the issue though:
A) I am really bad at this and
B) This is one of those poems that even when translated well would appear extremely simplistic in any other language than the one it was written in.
But if I have to translate it, it would go something like the following:

Let the mind be firm
Let the speech be sweet
Let the thoughts be noble
Let one attain what's dear
Let all dreams come true
And quickly, too
Let there be wealth and happiness
And fame in this world
Let the eyes be open
Let one be determined in achieving one's goals
Let the women attain freedom
Let God protect us all
Let the land be fertile
Let us feel the heaven here
Let the Truth prevail
Om Om Om Om

(No, no, do NOT think of Hallmark poetry. I promise I will not do any more translations.)

This poem always reminds me of Tagore's Prayer - the difference, atleast in my mind, is that while Tagore prays, Bharathy demands. Its really "The mind must be firm" rather than "Let the mind be firm" but no, I am not going to attempt translations again. :)

A Walk After Dark

2006-01-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

W.H. Auden

Listen (to Auden read)

A cloudless night like this
Can set the spirit soaring:
After a tiring day
The clockwork spectacle is
Impressive in a slightly boring
Eighteenth-century way.

It soothed adolescence a lot
To meet so shamelesss a stare;
The things I did could not
Be so shocking as they said
If that would still be there
After the shocked were dead

Now, unready to die
Bur already at the stage
When one starts to resent the young,
I am glad those points in the sky
May also be counted among
The creatures of middle-age.

It's cosier thinking of night
As more an Old People's Home
Than a shed for a faultless machine,
That the red pre-Cambrian light
Is gone like Imperial Rome
Or myself at seventeen.

Yet however much we may like
The stoic manner in which
The classical authors wrote,
Only the young and rich
Have the nerve or the figure to strike
The lacrimae rerum note.

For the present stalks abroad
Like the past and its wronged again
Whimper and are ignored,
And the truth cannot be hid;
Somebody chose their pain,
What needn't have happened did.

Occuring this very night
By no established rule,
Some event may already have hurled
Its first little No at the right
Of the laws we accept to school
Our post-diluvian world:

But the stars burn on overhead,
Unconscious of final ends,
As I walk home to bed,
Asking what judgment waits
My person, all my friends,
And these United States.

Raat yun dil mein teri

2006-01-11T15:27:00.000-08:00

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Listen

Raat yun dil mein teri, khoyi hui yaad aayi
Jaise viraane mein chupke se bahaar aa jaye
Jaise sahraon mein haule se chale baad-ae-naseem
Jaise bimaar ko be-wajaah quraar aa jaaye

Here is a translation by Vikram Seth (courtesy Aditya Johri)

Last night your faded memory came to me
As in the wilderness spring comes quietly,
As, slowly, in the desert, moves the breeze,
As, to a sick man, without cause, comes peace.

(da black mamba reads the poem)