I Asked Her If She Wanted to Make Love

I found her in a place
no one is supposed to go.

She said she wanted to touch
herself, alone, on a mountain

that overlooked the world.

I asked her if she wanted to make love
to a god.

She told me if she did
I would never understand.

I said you really do want
to be out there

beyond all perception, beyond time,
and the known.

She said you can come
here, too, but you need to stop

using the river
Styx in your poems.

I said you are a only
a myth, you live

on an island and sing
sailors to their deaths.

I do not need to listen to you.
She told me to go to hell.

I told her I had already been.
She told me there are no sailors

left on the water,
and the fish in the sea

are eaten by poets.

I told her I had to
say it that way.

I know.
She said.

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.

Czeslaw Milosz

Language is the Midwife of the Unknown

Poets are  in constant artistic motion, moving backward in time to go forward with words. The poet is a crustacean, a crab in heat, and is equally comfortable on both land and sea. We all need to become crabs. If you cannot accomplish this, just go catch some crabs, nurture them, and you will feel better. If you are not willing, or able, to go there, here are some guidelines to ponder when you consider crabs and poetry:

1. Consider the integrity and movement of the line.

Lines of poetry can and should be able to stand alone and hold intrinsic meaning. Certainly some lines are better than others, but it’s the same with crabs, so what the hell. For example, if you look at “Insinuating Revival,”  written by Joe Bastow, you come across this line:  ”the chimney — you want me.”  A good line of poetry moves a poem and carries some rhythmical pattern forward for both reader and writer.

A great line of poetry, like this one, stands alone, and creates intrinsic meaning of its own nature. First, you have the obvious phallic nature of the chimney, combined with the sexual overtones of “blowing smoke up” from the preceding line. However, this is then combined with a classic second movement–similar to the movements of a classical piece–”you want me,” and combined with the chimney, creates a line that resonates long after leaving it behind, especially for the patient and careful reader.

 2.  Use language that re-mythologizes the everyday world. 

As previously noted in the post in “Myth and the Poetry of Creation,”  good poetry hits the world head on and creates a new mythology of experience.  A dog barking annoyingly in the distance can become something much more significant to the eye and language of the poet. In this way, all of experience is open to this re-mythologizing of the world. It is important to note that the poet is not engaged in the act of recognition and framing of the world–no, far from it. The poet, here, is engaged in actually creating a new segment of the universe. The willingness to go to this place, experience it somehow in a mindful way and then return with a means to communicate a new truth is the life-work of the artist.

3. Remain infatuated with the tangible and in love with the unknown.

The poet begins with the objects of the world. Some call it the palette, the medium. The world grabs us by the tail, to borrow slightly from Yevtushenko, and infatuation nestles in to do its work.  A lot of good poetry is written at this interchange–object, infatuation, language–and there will be more incredible poetry written at this level. However, there are those who are willing to take the great leap–most do it without knowledge of it–into the unknown, into love itself:  “For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal”  (2 Corinthians 4:17-8). The act of creation is an act of love, and to create something that lasts, something eternal–something which outlives the creator–this is the real poetry. Poetry that returns to the eternals to make sense of modern living is essential right now. Infatuations are exciting, but ultimately puerile in nature. Think high school romance, and you are there.

We have had enough of this drivel in poetry lately. The unknown, the unseen, what we crave–the poet must fall in love with this other, this mystery, and be willing to fall in love with that part of the self where the unknown intrinsically lives, and waits, for language to breathe life into it. Language is the birth-mother of the unknown.

A Certain Quality of Light

Dr. Quigley is in the coffee shop
again, this time on the hunt:
he needs a cupcake for the soul.

His wondering eye notices desserts
in the glass case,
pastries like odes sit and wait for a whisper-

take me, I’m yours, they say,
everything he needs to hear-

kiss me on the river Styx,
now he is in love-

yes, there is love in Hades
and he has found it:
poets are there
working in droves
to lift the language
of what should not have been
done here
into what should be said
in Hell-

but Dr. Quigley remembers a day
that was so perfect
he could have bought vowels
by staring at stars-
or rearranged the music in his mind
just by catching a fish-

always, for him, it is light,
a certain quality of light
that inspires the language
of his alphabetic mind:

light, for vowels
shadow, for consonants

until he sees Jesus on the cross
and spells Hallelujah:
all vowels and a luminous L-
no sense in going to Hell.

Glowing with Thought Itself: Linguistic Neurons

     They are tired. The day was meaningless, full of thoughtless transactions, stolen newspapers and wasted smiles. The police were called and people were taken away. Coffee was consumed in quiet corners.

     November. A perfect day. Staring at the swollen sky, the poets dreamt of stoplights in space. It was time to hope for one and to believe with reverent abandon.  Intelligence in a vacuum. Everything depended on the ability of a thought inside the skull to exist at the same time as a beam of light in another galaxy from another sun, in a future so distant even the breath our children, passed through unborn lips to unborn lips, may not reach. Probably should not. Really, should not.

     Well, it must reach this infinite place and then go on past the infinite to come back to us again as light and touch this coneflower in the poet’s hands. Imagine a true appreciation so great that a petal is suddenly glowing not with sunlight, but with thought itself: linguistic neurons.  

     Well, here you are, if you are there. They, the ones who go here, just came back. Now go write down what they say. A perfect day. The way. . .