"Odysseus und die Sirenen" (1909) by Herbert James Draper

Rage; I Sing of Arms



“The rage, sing Goddess, of Achilles” (First line of The Iliad)

“I sing of arms and a man” (First line of The Aeneid)



How the Muses have treated us.

They:
Sing of rage, then ragers.
Sing of weapons, then men.



How much weight

Carries this ‘then’?

‘Then’ heroes follow after
The fixtures of their fate.



We are always vanishing
In the folds of our feelings
And the armor that we wear.
All except one.



How does it go?

That story between

The rage of Achilles
And the weaponry of Aeneas?



It begins like this:

“The man,

To me tell Muse,

Of many-turnings.”



Of course Odysseus’
Story would open

With the call to hear
Of man, not raging arms.



For in this story
The man never appears.
He need not be enfolded.

‘Many-turnings’ enfold themselves.



The story of the liar,
The actor, master of disguise,
Should begin with a call for man.

A rich irony.



The poet calls for the story
Of a man

And the Muse gives a story

Of masks and ‘many-turnings’.



But that other disappearance
Behind Achilles behind his rage,
And Aeneas behind his arms,
And Odysseus’ ever non-appearance,



Hovers over the poem

Everywhere and nowhere

Like a breath on the waters.
Whose ‘many-turnings’?



Fingers weave, unweave, thread.
Creating, uncreating,

A veil destined
Never to conceal or reveal.



She, Penelope

She, Calypso

She, Circe
Turning, turning, the man.



She, Muse

Who never appears,
Who speaks, not accidentally,
Through the medium of a man.



This arrangement has,

Perhaps, suited
None of us
Well.



She, he, we.
The speechless speakers
The formless voices

The nameless warriors.



So many specters
Without even a decent death
To be avenged
Or a prophecy to intone.



It is not, then,

How the Muses have treated us.
Rather, perhaps, how poetry
Has ravaged all alike.



Woman and man,

Twisted threads in the loom,

Weaving about each other
Our many abuses. Misuses.



The poem begins wrong.
With the pernicious ambiguous ‘we’.
The call for man from woman.

Manifestation only of rage and arms.



I think we need a new poem.
I just don’t know

How it should begin.

(Photography by:  Chris Anthony)

Van Helsing Makes Amends
 
Van Helsing unfastened the coffin lid,
peeled the crucifix from the bone-white brow.
pulled the garlic from the rust-flecked mouth,
careful not to touch the teeth.
He stitched back on the severed head,
and he blotted up evidence of Holy Water,
and, full of care, heaved free the hammer-frayed stake,
like Excalibur from the nameless stone.
 
Then rolling up his sleeves, he said:
 
"Now here comes the hard part."

Drowning Man

Untrained flailings, tiring, fail
On a night crawl for a far, dark buoy.
I snatch at the sea
And she snatches me.

Goose-skinned, testicles shrugged, I succumb,
Disappear, descending.  
Numb.
Coward, cartoon balloons abort my head
In mercury burps; reason freezes
And fries--a burbling jam of memory.  I die:
The longest, thick, sickly twisting dive and sigh.

Picked clean for the occasion, skull to shin,
By each station, groomed by tickling slick schools,
(Requiem teaching the grin, moray polishing)
Encouraged by tentacle pats, I'm
Committed, lead as suicide, settled
In bone-lined beds of black horrific,
Where needled pressured demons shimmy and writhe
And wear dim lamps as tails and ties.

Photo by TheLynches' (Photographer's note:  Dorothy Wordsworth noted her visit here and William wrote his poem "Written in March" based on his visit here with his sister.)

The Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth

I like to hear what Wordsworth ate:

suet, chops, potatoes – he was

never well but trod the miles

dejected while his sister baked

pies, bread, raisin cakes;

William walked in sleet and rain, from

violets and the mossy stone where

Coleridge lay, his bowels in knots.

Dorothy’s were wretched too:

flour, ham, beef, lard – how

Wordsworth wrote The Rainbow or The

Singing Bird with bowels that bad

I’ll never understand – I want the

romance of it, though:

pockets crammed with

mutton as they trudged for Letters or composed

The Leech-Gatherer or held a

melancholy talk beneath the wall.

Words, sheep, stones. Stars:

they named the largest Jupiter

no matter where it hung, and looked on

glow-worms, daisies, celandine; on ordinary

distances; as heroes come to cut them free

with swords of English light.

Photography by Hannah Davis    (via BOOOOOOM!)

Al

i entered
the sanctuary of
your still life,
driven by the mind
i left twitching
in the gutter.

my footprints
must have soiled
your temple
as i walked
towards the edge
of blue dawn
into the embrace
of Owen, your child,
of your father's impeccability,
of the Acropolis.

was i worthy
to blanket you in sleep
while coveting
the power of angels,
to kneel by a sacred confessional
penniless and unprepared
for a voice that murmured
a strand of silk
from heaven.

yet we continued
a procession of hours
till i finally woke
to the swimming pool
brilliance of your eyes,
and as you laughed
over French toast,
i was seized
by the beauty
of pumpkins,
of a wreath of marigolds
that once blessed
the earth that
kissed your hands.

Mr. Standby

it was evening when
you smiled and took a
shower in my bathroom,
when I gagged inside my head
at the sight of a joint
among your three cigarettes.

it is now dusk,
after three weeks of my
standing on this pedestal,
and your silence
is blocking my
view of the
northern sky.

der Golem by Lady in the Radiator

Golem

How could I bring such a sorry creature into this world?
—Borges

I.
You, supplement to the endless series,
place this mirror up to your face:
Can you feel the steam of breath against your lips?
No doubt you know your name
and can march by rote.
I imagine you imagine
all that it is possible for me to—
I grant you all that.
You are not the cartoon monster I’ve read about,
you are the embodiment of the question that is me,
lending form and shadow, a prop.
You are the machine with my uploaded brain.
Even as Leviathans fall you stand in the flames
—with what thoughts—
while once more I have found
my knees.

II.
How shall I disengage myself,
be the distant, unseen master behind the strings?
Instead I make you me, just to see what happens,
exposing artistry and assuming myth in one move,
so that dead letters speak.
What proves it is, if I’m lucky,
you’ll outlive me.