Saint Botolph's Review

SAINT BOTOLPH'S REVIEW
____________________________

Poem of the Saeta
The Interrupted Concert
Ballad of the Water of the Sea
The Old Lizard I & II
Admetos Reflects on Orpheus
_______________________________

Poem of the Saeta
—after Lorca’s Poema de la Saeta

The dark archer of Seville—
Comes nearer Botolph's Review
She’s got Betty Grable eyes
And a Maria Montez smile.

She comes from Smith—
Madamoseille with a tight pussy
She bites Ted on the cheek
She’s doomed like Marilyn Monroe.

White Goddess angst she brings—
Cambridge men aren’t ready
She’s much too intelligent to go
Steady Eddie with Teddy.
—for Ted Hughes,
Howard Hughes: Selected
Translations

The Interrupted Concert
—after Lorca’s El Concierto Interrumpido

The frozen night pauses—
Cold moon in the sky
London covered in snow
It’s a dreary night.

The ovens protest silently—
Hiding in dark kitchens
And the wolves, poachers of
Shadows, are mute.

In the nearby tavern—
The drunks have gone home
Beneath the ancient stars
They stumble in the night.

Sylvia is sleeping now—
In a visionary poem by Yeats
And a single poplar sighs
It’s hundred years old song.
—for Sylvia Plath,
Howard Hughes: Selected
Translations

Ballad of the Water of the Sea
—after Lorca’s La Balada del Agua del Mar

The sea—
Sails far off
Pubes of sailors
Sky-blue eyes.

What do you see—
You wild girl on shore
Your breasts naked
Yearning for more?

What do you hide—
Young dark sailor boy
Deep in your blood
The surging sea.

Taste is bitter—
The savage waves
It’s where we’re born
Womb of tears.

Salty, salty—
The sea far off
Pubes of spume
My needy lips.
—for Daniel Weissbort,
Howard Hughes: Selected
Translations

The Old Lizard
—after Lorca’s El Lagarto Viejo

In the bleak staircase—
I’ve seen the great poets
Auden smiles like a crocodile
In contemplation of his
Faber & Faber royalties.

Eliot the devil’s abbot—
With his tasteful bearing
Toasts the other poets
Those with burned-out eyes
Watching each other yawn.

W.H. Auden the old Lizard—
Knows more than he says
Like a bored old professor
He’s seen it all & then some
He yearns for Ischia sun.

Spender giddy old queen—
Drunk on cheap champagne
Myopic thinker seeking the path
Uncertain quick breaths with
Crumbling face in the afternoon.

MacNeice full of charity—
But only for himself he weeps
A halfpenny for dying heaven
He’s been reading a book
About British dragons & frogs.

Hughes is dismayed—
Feigning his wolfish teeth
He’s a hunter among lambs
Wolf among village dolts
Snake in Ariel’s kitchen.
—for W.H. Auden,
Howard Hughes: Selected
Translations

The Old Lizard II
—after Lorca’s El Lagarto Viejo

Auden watches the sun—
Setting on the Acropolis
His eyes reflect achingly
Thinking about ephebic
Loss of love & goodlooks.

Searching for Chester—
Here in Athens once the
Glorious center of the gods
Korus smile on a boy’s face
He once knew years ago.

A day for a lay distained—
Whether New York or Rome
The setting sun was the same
Key West with sleeping pools
Serpent scales shed like tears.

Kallman has flown the coop—
He’s searching for Greek men
He admires Yannis like a god
Among the tall fresh reeds
Ravished worse than Leda.
—for Chester Kallman,
Howard Hughes: Selected
Translations

Admetos Reflects on Orpheus
—after Euripides

I find myself thinking about Orpheus—
Deep in the thick of tragic things
Thinking the impossible going down
Into the underworld, you young Yannis
With your groin & deep voice.

I rode your dark pubes—
On a thumping bed of asbestos
Wrapped in your voice so baritone blue
Down & deeper down, I followed you
I got you to come home with me.

Death let you go too easily—
You helplessly lost it all the way
A small error my backward glance
At a crucial moment I thought
You’d come back but you didn’t.
—for Yannis Boras,
Howard Hughes: Selected
Translations

The Telephone

The Telephone

“The black
telephone’s
off the hook”
—Sylvia Plath
“Daddy,” Ariel

“Don’t answer it!” he shouted—
The buffoon falling down the stairs
Did he think I was stupid or something?
Of course, it was Assia Wevill!!!
Disguising her voice as a man.

And she was more of man—
More than my grease-ball husband was.
Hiding what I already knew so well,
He was an oily, smoothie womanizer who
Couldn’t help himself at all.

Court Green & the countryside—
I thought I could get him away from
The obvious temptations of London’s
Femme fatale snake pit of starved
Hungry men & women who wanted him.

But they came after him—
Here too in the calm countryside next
To the graveyard and tall black yews.
My telephone became my conduit
To the Land of the Dead.

The Telephone

“a startling alarm—
only to advance the plot.”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010

The plot thickens—
I’ve got James Merrill and
David Jackson on the line.
The two Ouija queens babbling
Just like Wystan Auden did.

The black telephone—
It may be off the hook.
But the voices are still
Worming their way thru.
Oh dear, what am I to do?

Big Daddy’s on the prowl—
The dead are born again.
We die with the dying,
See, we depart, and yet
Here we are again!

The Telephone connects—
Much better than Tarot.
The yew trees blow at night
Like hydras beneath the moon.
Little fugues are fuckers.

The Telephone

“this tar pit appliance
the distance it once
miraculously bridged.”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010

David was the medium—
A cinch to hypnotize.
Reacting with tears to
Messages that had yet
To be spelled out.

His single fault—
As a novelist was simple.
An unwillingness to
Either revise or plan
Ahead the narrative.

His untended gardens—
Turned to peat, to tar
And eventually fueled
Our séances at the
Ouija board so well.

Peering like teenage—
Grease-monkeys into
The celestial machinery,
We had to trust it to
Hang together well.

The Telephone

“Its frayed cord
a web of
dead roots.”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010

David was born—
With a caul around him,
A rag of membrane
Pressed tight & thin as
Family Bible tissue paper.

The South Dakota midwife—
Said that usually meant
That the kid would have
Psychic powers like those
Forces behind Sandover.

My lover David Jackson—
For some he was mysterious
Like you had to be Stanley
Deep in the interior looking
For David Livingstone.

Even his marriage’s failure—
Left him on happier terms
With his wife than before.
He had the golden touch,
The other world his friend.

The Telephone

“its dial a circle
of interminable clicks”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010

One night we were—
Conversing with some queens
There in Ischia, Limey lushes
As Auden called them, schmoozing
With the local passing trade.

Usually groups of Englishmen—
In blazers and striped socks.
All oppressively self-conscious,
Sitting around the café tables
With nobody to do.

All of a sudden—
A newcomer showed up, flabby,
Debauched, being fêted by a
Group of New York faggots
Who kissed his big fat ass.

It was Chester Kallman—
Auden’s companion sitting there
With a tableful of dull chatty
Literary old fairies, by then
Ischia was getting rather old.

The Telephone

“It sits like an anvil
on end tables”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010

We were getting chatty—
On the clairvoyante Telephone,
Talking with Stephen Spender
About how tainted Ischia was
Becoming after ten years.

It was the pretty much the same—
With Key West as Elizabeth Bishop
Was saying to Auden back then.
Both had superb natural beauty,
But the despoilers, interlopers
Foreshadowed doom, dissipation.

The ruin of Ischia traditions—
Prompted Auden & Kallman’s adieu.
Good-bye to Mezzogiorno and
Good-bye to Giocondo the cute
But sullen houseboy/bartender.

The farmhouse in Kirchstetten—
Miss Auden bought for $12,000.
His first & only house & home,
It was comfy, near the autobahn,
Karajan played Wagner for them.

The Telephone

“Or is auctioned on eBay
to aficionados of the past”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010

A long distance occult call—
This evening on the Telephone.
I queried the famous queer couples
Merrill & Jackson, Auden & Kallman
About domestic couple happiness.

By then Auden was settled in—
Kirchstetten seemly unremarkable.
A welcome containment of landscape,
A house backed by orderly woods,
Facing a tractored sugar-beet field.

“Routine in an intelligent man”—
Auden said, “was a sign of ambition.”
He began writing at 7, then bed at 9:30.
A compulsive routine in between with
Kallman fixing meals, a modern stoic.

Merrill & Jackson the same way—
The light changing over Sandover,
The teacup moving over the table,
Shaping the material into a whole,
Beyond their conscious hands now.

The Telephone

“in old movies
and rings—“
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010,

Sandover as film noir poem—
Imagining it as occult movie.
Spooky black & white voodoo
Jacques Tourneur horror classic
I Walked With A Zombie (1943)?

Like Eleanora “Maya” Deren—
One of Merrill’s Dramatis Personae.
Is this Merrill’s idea of occult poetics,
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)?
Voodoo avant-garde cinema?

Experimental Waste Land?
Auden’s Sandover communiqué,
About “dwelling in the greenwood
Perspectives of the mother tongue”?
Metrical moats of the Unseen?

THINK WHAT A MINOR—
PART THE SELF PLAYS IN A WORK OF ART
COMPARED TO THOSE GREAT GIVENS
ALL TOPIARY FORMS & METRICAL MOAT
RIPPLING UNSOUNDED! FROM ARCADIA?

The Telephone

“who pay a fortune
to ship this relic”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010,

Truman Capote's unfinished novel—
Answered Prayers, titled after a quote
By Saint Teresa: "More tears are shed
Over answered prayers than…
Unanswered ones."

The missing chapters—
From Capote’s Answered Prayers,
Like the missing notes from Sylvia
Plath’s Journals waiting somewhere
To be found when it’s time?

Meanwhile the Black Phone—
Rings & rings, nobody to answer,
Except you & me, voyeur listeners
Tense like a movie audience in
“Sorry, Wrong Number.”

Like Sylvia's neighbor Percy Key—
Waiting, dying “Among the Narcissi,”
The voice of Ariel emerges, fully-fledged,
Terrifying her with this dark thing
That sleeps in all of us.

The Telephone

“an instrument of terror
in movies like Sorry, Wrong
Number and Midnight Lace”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010

The Black Phone so deadly—
“Trauma object” reemerging
Once again now with the strange
Publication of Ted Hughes’ “Last Letter”
Recently in The New Statesman.

The Voice of Ted Hughes saying:
“Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: “Your wife is dead.”

The Phone thus becoming—
Something even more intimate
Than Trinidad’s “Black Phone”
Sitting there on his desk
In its shiny black obsolescence

Not just the trauma object—
Separation & impending divorce.
But also the messenger of death
About Sylvia’s demise supposedly
By suicide her head in an oven.

The Telephone

“Merrill’s skillfully deployed
rhetoric of inauthenticity in
his pre-Sandover poems
occasionally surpasses even
the effects of Auden’s
double-talk.”—Piortr Gwiazda,
James Merrill and W.H. Auden:
Homosexuality and Poetic Influence

Double-talk the name of the game—
Poets and con-artists are good at it.
Truman Capote listening for hours
To the intimate conversations of
The two killers of In Cold Blood.

Answered Prayers full of it—
The hoity-toity dirt & elite gossip
Told to him at lunch over martinis,
At cocktail parties full of ladies
Not much different than killers.

Naturally Truman all was ears—
With his innocent eyes & coy
All-knowing demeanor, charming
To both cognoscenti & convicts,
Intelligentsia & those in the know.

Gossip is Literature, my dears—
Just ask the all-knowing Black Phone.
The Aether is full of lovely tidbits…
Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby and
Even poets calling late at night.

The Telephone

“cut off from the
rest of the world”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010

It’s amazing to me—
How the Phone trope works its way
Into this suppressed, secret Voice now
Coming to us from the bowels & archives
Of the British Library & Hughes Archives.

Isn’t it strange & weird—
Almost as if the Phone itself
Possesses a real life of its own?
Almost as if the Phone were a living
Breathing Planchette from the Dead?

A teacup writing the Storyline—
James Merrill’s homemade Ouija board
There at Sandover during those nights?
A film noir Phone call reaching out from
The Land of the Dead to us Living now?

Surely it’s a Wrong Number—
Like the old couple in their flat
Waiting for the Phone call with news
That their suicidal son is now dead
In Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols”?

When Chester Kallman died

“…Chester Kallman’s last
days in Athens. We who
were there and do, cannot
read the dismal People magazine
prose without protest.”
—David Jackson NYR 11/5/1984

When Chester Kallman died—
In Athens, his posthumous stepmother
Dorothy Farnan gave a patchy, inaccurate
Account of his life akin to the dismal prose
People magazine publishes without protest.

Dishing somebody dead is easy—
They can’t talk back to defend themselves
About their lovers (like Auden, Yannis,
Vassilis & other young often ambidextrous
Greek males.) Words like “squandered” &

“Disposed of” by his stepmother & the
Hostile, alienated attitude of the Kallman
Family are typical of what happens when
Gay lovers are lost & who owns the estate
Inevitably, depressingly, greedily comes up.

Chester’s family didn’t attend—
His funeral in Athens, Chester didn’t
Have much to do with his family once
Wystan entered his life for many decades.
Chester’s lifestyle was unacceptable to them.

But despite that the Kallman Estate sued
The Berg Collection of the New York Public
Library to get its hands on Auden’s priceless
Papers, valuable property for the Family
And the heirs whoever they would be.

“Unfortunately Chester’s stepmother—
Wasn’t up to describing a friendship between
Two poets without belittling the life and work of
One, or courting fame and royalties through
Having known the other.” NYR 11/5/1984

“Less gush and anguish—
Than this pointless book totters beneath.
We played those songs in the living room where
Farnan wrongly credits a photograph of Chester
With Yannis Boras as having been taken by…

David Kalstone. I took that picture myself, in the
Athens house I shared with Mames Jerrill—”not his
Real name,” as Farnan loves to add. (And at least
One of her pseudonyms is delicious: “Nikos
Piraeus”—as who should say “Joe Brooklyn.”)

Communing with the dead

“Anybody who chooses
may make his own Ouija
board.”—James Merrill,
“On Scripts for the Pageant:
The First Five Lessons,” Prose

Anybody can do it—
It’s really very easily done,
Anybody can become a seer,
Anybody can be clairvoyante,
Lost Pilgrims are dime-a-dozen.

Anybody can be an Adept—
Even those inept, hare-lipped,
Cross-eyed, gimpy, spastic,
Even bums, sluggards, slackers,
College graduates, the unemployed.

Use a teacup’s handle—
To point across the paper, then
Write across the top in Capital
Letters A to Z, 10 Arabic numbers,
YES & NO, a half-moon between.

Two mediums sit at a table—
The left-handed teacup medium
Can transcribe the messages,
Let the overturned teacup move,
Let the Land of Death speak.

After the first few games

“After the first few games
of Patience, the new deck
understood that its life in
your hands would be one
of dire omens & cheating.”
—James Merrill, “The Poet’s
Notebook,” Collected Prose

Here they all come to die—
Fluent with their forked tongues,
But for a young poet not of
Their race, it was sheer madness
For you to lie about love.

Now you’re blind in one eye—
And you’ve got a gimpy leg,
All because you abused the
Teacup of destiny, saw the
Board as your own toy city.

Now the glittering occult—
Dark as dark chocolate and
Deep as the deep sea, every
Morning for you is misery,
Each dawn you can’t endure.

What makes you cry out—
The old masters could’ve told
You why, the burning sword
Above you, never falling,
Always dangling overhead.

Nobody can coax you back—
From the Land of the Dead,
Under the teacup everyone
Sees death without dying,
Spilling it with one’s hand.

After Dartmouth reading

“After Dartmouth reading
& question period, a student
(blond in tank top) comes up:
Who are you? Are you American?
What sort of English are you
Speaking?”—James Merrill,
“A Poets Notebook,” Prose

I take him back home—
To Sandover & flagellate him
Nude on the veranda, wondering
How Toulouse-Lautrec would have
Painted the lovely seminal scene.

Bruce remained vernal—
Long after Dartmouth, graceful
Enticing, flagrantly in bud,
Unlike his generation, bent and
Gnarled, scandalous lifeless lives.

A postcard from Pompidou Center—
His veins multicolored, his smile,
“You should hear the Hunchback
Play at the organ console, James.
It reminds me of you, my dear.

Watching him smoke a Camel—
On the beach by the sunset sea,
A log splits into blazing discs
On its bed of ashes & coals,
The board spells V-O-I-L-A!

Nearby a little crab—
Incandescent, Kabuki-faced
Pulses its claws open & shut
Demoiselle of the Dance,
Saurian lust, alligator love!

And when Sandover

“And when Sandover
began emerging from
our Ouija board it was
perhaps to be expected
that…”—James Merrill,
“Jung Love,” Collected Prose

Rain forest Indians—
Stripped him bare and
Conferred around his nude
Sleeping body, talking like
Eighteenth-century surgeons.

The People of the Mirage—
Blessed him & the Lady of the
Hills rocked him to sleep wound
Up in her long, black, silky hair,
Transported to a new continent.

Such exotic topographies—
And hallucinatory encounters
Accidentally sweep him off to
Confront the Old Man in the Sea,
Captain of the Flying Dutchman.

The amazed crew sight him—
A naked boy asleep on a raft
That’s the fairytale story of
W.H. Hudson’s A Little Boy Lost,
Images staged by de Chirico.

A boy-shaped tower—
Of water and spray, and white
Froth and brown seaweed,
Long ago dictating the protean
Aspect of Merrill’s angels.

Ouija poetics

“the actual spirit text
of one of the ouija
sessions. Usually his
communications were
gloomy and macabre,
tho not without wit.”
—Ted Hughes, Notes,
The Collected Poems
of Sylvia Plath

Otherworldly spirit-texts—
Speaking thru séances, trance
Mediumships, the Tarot cards
Madame Sosostris deals out for
Miss Eliot in The Waste Land

Such visionary discourse—
Serving at once as a display &
Abdication of literary, spiritual
Authority, does it not favor its
Medium poets rather coyly?

The very act of authorship—
Known as automatic writing
With its verbal pronouncements
And vatic images, such ghostly
Elaborate cosmologies, my dear!

W. B. Yeats with his practice—
Otherworldly gyres & geometries
With Biblical & classical revelations.
Written out rather nicely in English
Like some low-life Modernist scribbler.

Rainier Maria Rilke experimenting—
Briefly with a pencil planchette or
H.D. conversing on a tapping table
With a group of slain RAF pilots who
Spell out for her disaster predictions?

Ouija poetics with its occult imagery—
Drawing on classical Western mythology,
Learned alchemists, magus & mystics,
Such tropes of “high culture” mixed with
Carnivàle, Mardi Gras, popular parades?

These mysterious sessions

“an overturned
teacup which glided
about like a thing
possessed, indicating
with its handle
the desired symbol”
—James Merrill,
“the Scripts for the Pageant:
The First Five Lessons

The easy-going chat—
Becomes more stringent
In Mirabell, their familiar
Spirit no longer human,
But fallen angels instead.

Mirabell the Peacock—
Much mythologized tells
Us about Arcadian Atlantis
Where genetic engineering
Made centaur men possible.

Akhnaton shows up—
Exploding a pyramid of
Quartz with solar power
There’s this Research Lab
Deep inside our corpuscles.

These mysterious sessions—
Similar to Plath & Hughes’
Dialogue Over Ouija Board
Mirror a doorway to Death
Or Cocteau’s Imagination?

Chester Kallman

Chester Kallman

“and told us to
expect him sooner
or later in Athens”
—James Merrill
Harvard Magazine,
September-October 1980

Like Yeats’ A Vision—
Ghostwritten by his wife
On the train at night from
San Bernardino thru the
Fragrant orange groves…

One can imagine—
The Ballroom of Sandover
Full of illustrious guests,
Almost an alphabet of
August influences & ghosts.

Jane Austen, Marius Bewley,
Congreve, Dante, Maya Deren,
Auden, Alice Toklas with her
Brownies and, of course, the
One & only Gertrude Stein.

As well as handsome, young
Yannis, the Greek lover of
Chester Kallman who inspired
Auden’s companion so rudely,
His face buried in the pillow.

Occult reportage

“Admittedly I err by
undertaking this
in its present form”
—James Merrill,
The Changing Light
Of Sandover

The occult is much more
Gossipy than one would
Think, according to Merrill
Discussing Sandover the
Book years later.

In the beginning when
He & David Jackson began
Ouija conversation with
The dead, the completed
Form was unanticipated.

Poets like Merrill & Yeats
Naturally view the Unnatural
As poetic devices to display
What queens of heaven
They are to Readers.

Merrill says, for example:
Poetry is all ghostwritten
And that The Waste Land
Was actually not by Eliot but
Written by Arthur Rimbaud!

The New Pack

The new pack

“The new pack
of cards: slick,
disco-slithery.
—James Merrill,
Collected Prose

It’s an old, ongoing story—
From prehistory to fairy tales
Like Henry James’s late reverie
“The Great Good Place”
And Merrill’s Sandover.

We read about a hero—
Or heroine faced by an
Impossible task which thru
Some magical, unforeseen
Agency is accomplished.

Reading Sandover—
Late at night rummaging
For mislaid “gems” &
“Charms” to patterns
of Merrill’s kaleidoscope.

The Waste Land for Dummies

The Waste Land (For Dummies)

I. The Burial of Sylvia Plath

February—the coldest of months
London frozen—in a snow storm
Ariel and Caliban—freezing to death
Ted’s dull root—rotting in the cold
No love was left—in their marriage
Yeats was surprised—by it all
Sylvia in his kitchen—writing poetry!!!
There in the stairwell—so still
In front of—Trevor Thomas
Who lived—downstairs from
Plath there—on Fitzroy Road
He an artist—she a poet…
She read at night—by candlelight
She wrote at dawn—in the kitchen
Ariel spoke—and she listened
Big Daddy—who she once loved
His Root & Branches—Arms & Legs
Once was Gold—now just Garbage
She can’t say—only guess
A heap of broken—beating hearts
A Waste Land—of lost hopes
Dead trees—dying Court Green
And the ice—no running water
Under the Shadow—only Shades
She consults—Tarot & Ouija Board
She wants to know—something new
No longer—a smart Smith Girl
A Cambridge poet—she is now

Interview with Sylvia Plath

Interview with Sylvia Plath

“In spite of such interruptions
by other clinics, my own work
is advancing at a great rate.”
—Sylvia Plath, Johnny Panic
and the Bible of Dreams

Faber & Faber—in the middle of
Rethinking itself—rethinking the book
In the Digital Age—The Waste Land?

Thus, like magic—The Faber Academy viola!
A series of—creative writing séances
Taking advantage—of ancient technologies

Encouraging readers—to become writers
Using the charming—Tarot deck, my dears
To automatically write—Best Sellers!

It’s quite ingenious—encouragingly so
Guiding reading groups—down into Hades
Where things are—cheap & affordable

Plath’s “Black Telephone”—the Guide
Ghostwriting—as just a “switch word”
A paradoxical Phone—between 2 worlds

Like spirit photography—moving between
Two series—bridging the Deleuzian gap
Between techno—and spiritualist writing

An avant-garde—fringe element
Worthy of a séance—via Faber & Faber
Plath’s composition—cubist surreal collage

The New Text—Surrealistic Occult
Cubist Collage Art—and the Automatic
Politics of Plath’s—Ariel Poetics

Based on—the Mechanical Occult
Automatism, Modernism—and the
Specter of Politics—by Alan Ramon Clinton

Interview with Miss Eliot

Interview with Miss Eliot

“Publishers print books to
create an audience for the
work of a writer and the
digital age challenges what
we have always done.”
—Stephen Page, Faber &
Faber CEO, The Telegraph

Actually Miss Eliot was—a clairvoyante
Madame Sosostris—was her game
She was The Witch—of Faber & Faber

Every Wednesday—a literary séance
Gathering around—an octagonal old table
There in the offices—by the British Museum

Reading aloud—opinions & submissions
Guarded now—by Mr. Robert Brown
The distinguished—Faber & Faber archivist

Miss Eliot—so very acerbic & witty
A decent critic—a dormant skill back then
Twenty mss. a week—accepting 2 or 3

Jill was rejected—Philip Larkin’s novel
Later accepted—with its garish cover
Miss Auden’s For the Time Being—chosen

This Waste Land psychic—had baggage:
Auden, Forster, Spender—and Ezra Pound
Moore, MacNeice—and Robert Lowell

Faber & Faber—such a busy witches coven
Publishing not only—Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake
But also Eliot’s—Old Possum’s Book of Cats

Bubble, Boil—Toil & Trouble!!!
Outta Faber & Faber’s—lovely Slush Pile
Came Hawk in the Rain—Lord of the Flies

Gone now—the stairwell cocktail parties
Eliot, Auden, Spender—MacNeice and
Ted Hughes glowering in the corner

Eliot probably—wouldn’t recognize it
Even tho he'd been—a senior investment
Banker back then—at Lloyd’s Bank

Preserving the best—poetry & prose
Despite supermarkets—large retailers
And heavily discounted—book prices

It’s Mass Market Time now—best sellers
Tacky celebrity—and misery memoirs
Clogging the shelves—and aisles

It seems as if—The Waste Land returns
The burial of books—Burial of the Dead
A heap of broken images—no longer read

A Game of Chess—no longer played
The Fire Sermon—no longer heard
What the Thunder Said—forgotten

Interview with Johnny Panic

Interview with Johnny Panic

“Every day from nine to five
I sit at my desk facing the
door of the office and type
other people’s dreams.”
—Sylvia Plath, Johnny Panic
and the Bible of Dreams

“Naughty, naughty,”—says Nurse Ratched
Her breath stinks—a love-stink worse
More foul than—an Undertaker’s Basement

Not just merely—Electro-shock today
The clinic director says—let’s go all the way
Time for a lobotomy—time to forget

Soon Sylvia—will forget her tongue
We can’t have anymore—of that poetry
Ariel has already—caused such a flap

The male doctors—give the order
Warm up the drill—time to slice & dice
The air crackles—with Ted’s revenge

Ted’s blue-tinged—poet laureate eyes
His Yorkshire—rabbit-killer instincts
His queer croaks—and grunts

I heard it thru—the grapevine
Pan doodling there—with his wordage
They did it to witches—you’re next

I clutch the board—squeeze the teacup
The last floating bits—of The Titanic
The Archives groan—like Daddy’s toe

Pan does a—quick double-step
Under the bookcase—a secret kept
What does he know—what does he know?

Rabbit holes—barren rat tunnels
All night elevators—the door grinds shut
Cattle cars stuffed—full of you know who

A chill air—touches the nape of my neck
I’m sitting cross-legged—on the floor
Sylvia’s Ouija board—got it on Ebay

“Ach du!”—the Board chides me
A little bit of Big Daddy—pointing to me
His shiny boots click—his little moustache

And then—Pan’s gentle voice
I disguise it so well—it’s been awhile
Out of circulation—pinstriped Palimpsest

Dream-books—are all downhill
Dead-of-winter nights—creaking doors
Both eyes shut tight—wide-open

Severed heads—in the closet
Extra-strong coffee—chocolate élairs
Systematically opening—the oldest book

Two hands—slip over mine
Guiding the planchette—over the page
Sylvia & me—together again

Such an—uncomfortable position
My legs are going asleep—séance time
Automatic writing—rushing errands

Her words whisper—so do mine
Snaking down—white-washed corridors
Basement passages—Emory Archives

Bare bulbs burning—in their sockets
Do works still speak—behind locked doors
First red Exit lights—and then none

We are entering—Alien territory
Sylvia and I one—I’m no longer just Pan
Ice ages pass overhead—it’s cozy down here

Archive walls—heavy-duty ceiling
Riveted metal—battleship plated walls
While plump Georgia peaches—rot above

Secret manuscripts—are down here
Jaundiced eyes—in the lavatory mirrors
Computers keep track—alarms are alert

The Ariel Archives—are unraveling
Thanks to us— the clairvoyant clique
All the cardinals of Rome—know the trick

A thousand Hail Marys—a chain reaction
Language flows—like a water faucet
Devoutly done with—censers & sacraments

Actually all it takes—is an Ouija board
Like dousing for gold—down in the depths
Sorry wrong number—a good-enough alibi

Remember one thing—Johnny Panic lies
He simply can’t help it—he’s so melodramatic
It’s the oldest—most obvious Play of words

Like Caliban—addressing the Audience
In Miss Auden’s version of—The Tempest
The Mirror and the Sea—Ariel’s double speaks

He’s sly, he’s subtle—he’s usually sullen
He injects a little bit of—occult poetic element
His business—you won’t find anywhere else

Interview with Pan

Interview with Pan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsPFDzAGb4A&feature=fvsr

“at midnight, when the moon
makes blue lizard scales of
roof shingles”—Sylvia Plath,
Dialogue Over an Ouija Board

Pan is back—telling all as usual
Even tho Sylvia—and Ted are gone
Their adolescent—successes as poets

One dead—the other powerless to be born
Leaving me—alone with the board
Umbilically disconnected—from both

New-not-yet-born—world of writing
A vision of time—a bridge between worlds
A dead world—and a newborn one

What an odd couple—Sylvia & Ted
First they asked me—about horse-races
I picked all the winners—but got bored

Now both gone—nasty, catty, capricious
Both of them quite—malicious misanthropes
Praising each other—for being superior

When actually both—just cruel & calculating
Ambitious, vulgar, vain—full of vanity
My cup of tea—just right for possession

Pardon me if I indulge—myself, my dears
But irony is the spice of life—and death
Professionally & publicly—I’m a born liar

I’m a crazy perfectionist—tooth & nail
Writing is a gap—I fill it, go beyond
No mail—just me killing some time

The last time—I saw the “real” world
Madame Blavatsky—read my palms
And Madame Sosostris—did my cards

Ted & Sylvia—husband & wife
Not exactly—Ladies’ Home Journal
But, well—beggars can’t be choosey

Both of them—exploiters & exploited
Promiscuous—human-being users
Selling their souls—to Faber & Faber

Vulgar wastrels—of the Waste Land
Both appealed—to my postwar talents
Dark, chill, frog-faced—cruel visage

What does one expect—from death?
Ouija spirits—a speaking planchette?
Lies & abuse—all of Europe gone bad?

No more Weimar—brave cabaret?
No more blind—unquestioning faith?
Can there be love—after Auschwitz?

And so, my dears—these 2 innocents
Bleeding badly—and not knowing it
Midnight at the movies—a horror flick

What did they expect—angels & harps?
Bright futures—faculty tea & wives?
Oxford tenure instead of—diabolical Tarot?

Ted Hughes—vain, liar, a lady’s man
Easy to guess—what next book he’d write
His navel? His penis? His big fat smile?

Sylvia Plath—Hammer Films starlette
Murder she wrote—Murder most foul
She heard the panther—up the staircase

Closed the door—and locked it
Ran for her life—hid in Yeats’ kitchen
But they stuffed her—in the oven anyway

Since then—Ted’s been acting guilty
Sliming, crawling—a Mytholmroyd thug
Worried about—Scotland Yard

That’s why I’m back—Big Sleep boy
I’m Pan (Johnny Panic)—private dick
How about a cup of coffee—let’s talk

The Woman as Hanged Man

The Woman as Hanged Man

“A smile fell
in the grass,
Irretrievable!”
—Sylvia Plath,
“The Night Dances”

The cold reality—of the world
It’s indifference—and lovelessness
The terrible insecurity—of the self
The inevitability—of death & loss
The Woman—as Hanged Man

The fragile identities—of people
Threatened by—oceanic spaces
Planets, comets—sons & daughters
Images of the self—fragmenting
Dissipating—even obsolescent

These are the—dancing images
Of Sylvia’s son—in the grass
Playing—at the beginning of
A boyish poem—irretrievable
Surreal gestures—playing

His gestures—ephemeral
Small breaths—drenched grass
Callous tiger lilies—self-involvement
Embellishing himself—all alone
His gestures—flaking comets

Indifferent—to the world
The world—indifferent to him
Her belief in—self & identity
Falling thru—aloof amnesias
A disillusioning—denouement

The self—swallowed up by
Inhospitable—unconscious space
A fatalistic—disintegrating image
Disturbing—irrelevant
Uncaring—dismemberment

Sylvia—the Hanging Woman
Entertaining—no hope of
An answer—to this empty
Mourning of loss—selfless
Arielesque—riderless
___________________________

“Another fine art deck was The Painted Caravan by Basil Rokoszi published 1954. These tarot images are in a late Cubist/Surrealist style. Rokoszi, a noted painter, drew upon his Hungarian family roots and long-term study of psychology for inspiration for his book. He offered yet another new viewpoint for tarot techniques, although he wrapped them up in Gypsy clothes to give them an attractive mystique.”—American Tarot Association, Quarterly Journal, Fall 2010, 23.

The Disquieting Muses

The Disquieting Muses

“I learned, I learned,
I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired
by you, dear mother.”
—Sylvia Plath, The
Disquieting Muses

De Chirico, de Chirico—
Where did you learn—to paint
So nightmarishly—so surreally
These strange—inhuman mannequins
All of them ill-bred—and rude?

Disfigured and unsightly—
With heads like—darning-eggs
Who can’t talk—or see or say
What’s bugging them—half-baked
Like a witch’s—gingerbread boy?

De Chirico, de Chirico—
Words can’t describe—the horror
I feel when—your spectral beings
Loom into view—dumb, eyeless
With stitched bizarre—bald heads.

At least with—Oscar Wilde
And his The Picture of Dorian Gray
There’s something—to look at
Up there in—the spooky, scary attic
A painting that—changes obscenely

But all your—eerie cityscapes
Don’t change—one little bit at all
It’s like El Duce—won the war
And everything—got frozen
Still in awful—stark fascismo

At least with—Edvard Munch
His painting—The Scream
It really screams—and shrieks
It gives me—chills & goosebumps
It’s got a terrifying—soundtrack

But your—The Disquieting Muses
With its dead—and silent landscape
Its grim, gothic—stoic silence
It’s more like a—film noir vacuum
Shadows cast—by silent movie stars

The problem: ekphrastic composition

1 How to join together—each Plath poem with each Tarot card? How to come in from one side—the reading of each Ariel poem. How to come in from the other side—the images of the Tarot cards? How to meld/morph/segue the poetry & image together simultaneously—into a meaningful narrative?

2 This was the composition problem for me—and it still is. Ekphrastic composition via Plath’s Ariel. Each Ariel-Tarot combination is unique—depending on the reader-writer. For example, The Applicant Tarot Card—I’ve interpreted as an Emperor poem with Ted Hughes as the Boss and myself as the applicant. It’s totally unique—and probably only applies to me & my lifestyle. Ekphrastically tho, I’m "telling the story of" somebody like me who is applying to be somebody (an outsider) in a powerful society (straight, hetero) who’s acceptance of me is rather problematic. Something I’m used to—something perhaps like Plath felt?

3 Another example, “The Cut” tarot card—paired with my own version of Plath’s “Nine Female Figures” collage. Plath’s cubist-collage poetry is something I’ve already discussed in detail here in Melba and with others on Snarke. That and her “Nine Female Figures” (1950-51) and “Two Women Reading” (1950-51).

4 Ekphrasis is a ‘rhetorical’ device—that Plath uses. One can hear it—during her BBC reading of Ariel. It’s not just static & imagistic—like Pound with faces like petals on a bough at a train station. Pound’s ‘ideogrammic’ method—is more like a snapshot. Plath’s imagery—is more filmic; it’s something more narrative & story-like—both cinematic as well as cartoonish. Satirical—and one might even say even dystopian-critical of the Modernist male agenda. As Plath dishes the Modernist male persona with her cosmopolitan, chic, female imagination—she shares with the reader/listener her experiences with her father & husband. For me, the BBC reading—is the Voice of Ariel. Ecstatically ekphrasis—visceral and vivaciously alive. Dramatic—and angry. Ditching Ted & her father—in favor of something uniquely relevant to herself & career as a poet/artist.

“Stasis in darkness
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances”

5 I can see how Plath’s early collage artworks of the ‘50s preoccupied her with de Chirico surrealism and collage cubism. All how all of a sudden there was this ekphrastic gestalt into her poetry. Ariel became quick, surreal & ultra-imagistic. Imho Plath was thinking/feeling/seeing/composing ekphrastically.

6 Here is some lit crit on the ekphrastic method:

“Ekphrasis has been considered generally to be a rhetorical device in which one medium of art tries to relate to another medium by defining and describing its essence and form, and in doing so, relate more directly to the audience, through its illuminative liveliness. A descriptive work of prose or poetry, a film, or even a photograph may thus highlight through its rhetorical vividness what is happening, or what is shown in, say, any of the visual arts, and in doing so, may enhance the original art and so take on a life of its own through its brilliant description. One example is a painting of a sculpture: the painting is "telling the story of" the sculpture, and so becoming a storyteller, as well as a story (work of art) itself. Virtually any type of artistic media may be the actor of, or subject of ekphrasis. One may not always be able, for example, to make an accurate sculpture of a book to retell the story in an authentic way; yet if it's the spirit of the book that we are more concerned about, it certainly can be conveyed by virtually any medium – which in itself is challenging and interesting – and thereby enhance the artistic impact of the original book through synergy. This, of course, controversially assumes that books have isolatable, essential spirits. In this way, a painting may represent a sculpture, and vice versa; a poem portray a picture; a sculpture depict a heroine of a novel; in fact, given the right circumstances, any art may describe any other art, especially if a rhetorical element, standing for the sentiments of the artist when s/he created her/his work, is present. For instance, the distorted faces in a crowd in a painting depicting an original work of art, a sullen countenance on the face of a sculpture representing a historical figure, or a film showing particularly dark aspects of neo-Gothic architecture, are all examples of ekphrasis.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekphrasis

The Applicant

The Applicant

“First, are you our
sort of person?”
—Sylvia Plath
The Applicant

First of all—are you straight?
Can you butch it up—look okay?
Do you lisp—do you mince?
Is your wrist—weak or strong?
Are your lips—rubbery?

Are you hetero—enough?
Do you cry—or act too fem?
Are you married—have kids?
Do you live—in the lovely suburbs?
Do you watch football—on weekends?

Or do you like—the opera instead?
Do you like to read—James & Proust?
Do you wilt, dissolve—if glared at?
Do you object—to the Plague?
Should we ship you off—to Auschwitz?

Do you mind the rack—and screw?
Are you waterproof—shatterproof?
Were you bullied—in high school?
Do you feel put-upon—like a Negro?
Are you allergic to gas—like a Jew?

Tell me sweetie—out of the closet?
You know what—we think of that!
Do you like being—de Chirico-esque?
Are you a nice—brainless mannequin?
Is your last resort—Head in Oven?

Nine Female Figures

Nine Female Figures

“What a thrill—“
—Sylvia Plath,
“Cut,” Ariel

What a thrill—all my faces
Pealing back nicely—like an onion
Each face—a different woman
Each woman—a sort of hinge
All of them—Ariel

Little portraits—big portraits
Straight from my—bleeding heart
I can step into—each one of them
I’ve been there—done that
All nine women—have been me

I almost was a painter—not a poet
The Mademoiselle award—the trick?
And now I’m Ariel—both poet & artist!
A celebration—female cubist collages!
Ekphrastic ecstasy—my dears!

Susan Alliston

Susan Alliston

“Yes, and then opposite
The mammoth many-storied monster
Still in a cage of scaffolding—
Men were flies on its side—
Was hideous and grey in growing pains”
—Susan Alliston, St. Martin's Lane, London

Something was in the air I thought—
Something like “murder most foul”
Something “to redress the balance of the old”

I couldn't say why I stopped in my haste—
And slunk back home where it wasn't cold—
I no longer drank with Hughes at the bar

Later after I finally died & was gone—
Ted, Daniel Weissbort and Olwyn Hughes
Were nosing around in my dingy flat

Why Olwyn the Estate Executor?
And Weissbort his Cambridge booze-buddy?
Six years later after Sylvia died?

There’s a rumor Trinidad mentions—
One of Hughes's girlfriends stole them—
Some of Plath's letters to his family

There they were in my death flat—
Hidden in plain sight for all to see
Like Sylvia Plath's missing journals
_______________

"There is a rumor that one of Hughes's girlfriends, in the seventies, stole Plath's letters to his family; to this date, their location is unrevealed." David Trinidad, “Hidden in Plain Sight: On Sylvia Plath's Missing Journals,” Plath Profiles #3, 152-153 http://www.iun.edu/~plath/vol3_Supp/Trinidad.pdf

Death & Co.

Death & Co.
—for Sylvia Plath

Two. Of course there’s two.
It seems perfectly fey now.
John Malcolm Brinnin the fag.
His lover nelly Bill Reid.
Visiting us at Court Green.

A pair of simpering homosexuals.
Traveling all the way from America.
To entice Ted with a teaching job.
There at the University of Connecticut.
A 3-way ticket back without me.

Dido Merwin was bad enough.
Assia and all the other girlfriends.
But these two friends of Capote.
Fawning, effeminate, smirking queers.
Two bastards masturbating a glitter.

The one fag who never looks up.
His eyes lidded like a coy crocodile.
The other with yellow gloves, a lisp.
Verdigris of condor suit & tie.
Hair greased back with Brilliantine.

They reek with faggoty death.
Weak wrists, a mince, much too fey.
Exaggerating it, their nelly trademarks.
After my handsome wolfish husband.
Shall I let them have him, hmm?

Medusa Man

Medusa Man

“Then Olwyn said
to me: ‘Do you want
to be a murderer?’”
—Judith Kroll, Chapters
in a Mythology: The
Poetry of Sylvia Plath

Death—has five fingers
A need to strangle—and kill
Fights and arguments—murders

Sylvia’s stooges—squeezing hard
Even after she’s dead—and gone
Ghastly Vatican eunuchs—hissing

Cobra communions—eely tentacles
Jellyfish—living off her royalties
Riding the whitecaps—of her fame

Dragging their—suicidal stigmata
Like an old—barnacled umbilicus
Behind them—fake Atlantic cable

Poor Ted—full of remorse
Paralyzed by—his ersatz guilt
Hoping nobody—will ever find out

Even tho—the oily tentacles
Are reaching out—feeling, sucking
He’s overexposed—like an X-ray

Men can be—Medusas too
Slick as Death—just one look
Even poet laureates—can lie

Arielesque

Arielesque

“It happens.
Will it go on?”
—Sylvia Plath
Paralytic

The air’s full of fish-hooks—
Lots of questions & answers.
I don’t feel very Ariel-esque
The Archives are unraveling.

I remember too much—
The Zen garden on Bainbridge.
The Friday nights at Blue Moon
Getting ditched by my lover-boy.

Now he’s in LA—
Running off with a rich divorcee.
She dies & no he’s wealthy.
Been down there ever since.

Without any of him left—
Not a toe, not a finger, a kiss.
Just some dirty, winding sheets
And some hangover blues.

It seems like just yesterday—
Even tho its ancient history
In this noir city without tears
Beneath the crummy sky.

The Gymnast

“I hardly knew him”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday

He’s a gymnast.
King of the rings.
Prince of high-bar.
Trampoline royalty.
My lucky animal.

I follow him.
Up here to Seattle.
His Boeing dad.
UW sophomore.
Sunny armpits.

A dunce-cap kid.
Monkey-brain boy.
Blowing me kisses.
Breathing hard.
I get to know him.

Cross-eyed, spaz.
Charley-horse, jerkoff.
Sky always falling.
Caught in his pubes.
Slug-tracks on my lips.

My kept-boy lover.
Worthy of an Emmy.
Me Duchess of Nothing
Comets & mollusks.
I hardly know him.

Little Fugue

“Lopping the sausages!”
—Sylvia Plath, Little Fugue

Seattle’s black clouds oozing—
Overhead like scudding snot.
Which I try to ignore but
After awhile I get depressed.

I like sunny skies—
Not film noir featurelessness.
Moody weather all the time
Makes me feel blue inside.

My gymnast lover—
I can’t stop feeling him up.
Even tho he’s helplessly hetero
All his anxious girlfriends.

I can hear young chicks—
In his voice when he loses it.
High-pitched like Maria Lopez
Or needy-greedy Isabella.

It really turns me on—
At least at first but then things.
Get very femme fatale for me
Hanging around all the time.

Like in The Waste Land—
The girlfriends who come & go.
Speaking of my meaty Michelangelo
Built so nicely a brick shithouse.

All the horrible complications—
My bulging eyeballs at the keyhole.
Fingering the tumult of runny Trojans
Full of his runny Grosse Fugue.

Deafness is another curse—
I can’t stuff my ears with enough
Wax like Odysseus to avoid going
Crazy like Sirens do to my crew.

My red badge of courage—
It isn’t pink, it isn’t pretty.
It’s blood red like a big thick
Delicatessen veiny sausage!!!

I should’ve known beforehand—
It wouldn’t possibly ever work out.
The sinister noir clouds overhead
Like vacuous dirty sheets.

I remember him eyes-closed—
Tangy as tangerines & groaning.
Letting me make him lame
Limping with his voodoo hickie.

I survive thwarted love—
As best I can living with him.
I get lots of babypaste tho
I even feel pregnant…

Blue Moon Tavern

“The wax image
of myself”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday

If you live long enough—
And don’t burn your
Candle at both ends
You might survive.

Funny how time works—
A thicket of shadows
A dartboard for love
All those lost lovers.

Can I survive them—
Along with Nixon
And the war in Nam
And the war now?

The back-burners—
They’re always hot
Ring after ring
Turning up the heat.

Uncut

What a thrill—
Pealing him back
Like a nice Onion.

Skinning it back—
Like a nice scalp
Savage Apache desire.

Squeezing him like—
A bottle of champagne
Ready to fizz.

A secret door—
Nice & cheesy with
A greasy hinge.

A hum-job—
For my cute
Homunculus man.

A last shot—
For my young
Cute Kamikaze kid.

How he limps—
Dirty boy with
A thuggish grin.

Lady Lazarus

“Dying is an art”
—Sylvia Plath,
Lady Lazarus

I’ve done it again—
Each night ten inches
I manage to get him off.

I pull the phone—
Outta the wall so that
None of them can call.

His distended face—
Like a hanged man
Banging the headboards.

Who needs a napkin—
To clean up the mess
To dab my dainty lips?

His bedroom eyes—
Cross-eyed for me
Going totally spaz.

Soon, soon his flesh—
Will be part of me
Deep inside me.

He’s like a cat—
With nine lives to
Lose each weekend.

This is my fate—
Being white trash
In a trailer court.

He’s my Hercules—
I’m Baclanova
Queen of Trapeze.

I peal him back—
The big strip tease
His lovely foreskin.

Others may object—
But I only crave
His cheesy smegma.

The second time—
He squeals like a pig
Porky Pig sticky pearls.

He loses it nice—
Dying so very well
Squirting his brains out.

I do him to feel it—
It feels realer then real
Real to the last drop.

It’s easy enough—
To make him theatrical
His babypaste baritone.

Comeuppance cums—
In broad daylight
His brute face weak.

It’s a miracle—
Each time he shoots
The back of my head off.

There’s a big charge—
Blue veins & voltage
Lots of male electricity.

He’s my socket—
I plug him in
His flesh & boner.

I kiss his ass—
I kiss his pouty lips
I eat him some more.

The Courier

The slime of a snail—
The mucous of a mollusk
The snotty track of a slug.

It’s better than a gold card—
Better than American Express
It’s genuine, I accept it.

It’s the royal seal of Icarus—
The blue wedding band of light
The key to the swanky penthouse.

It’s all to itself way at the top—
Like snow & ice on the high tips
The Alps stretching up to heaven.

It’s a sudden disturbance—
Smattering, shocking, sinful
News from a rude young courier.

Tim

“That loves me, pumps”
—Sylvia Plath, Paralytic

I can still taste him—
My Tri-Cities trick
Thick as my wrist.

A draft-dodger—
Refused Viet Nam
Spent a year in jail.

Wife divorced him—
Left for Hawaii with
His 2 young daughters.

Such a hustler—
Back in the Seventies
He needed some love.

Sleeping in bed—
My mouth full of pearls
I did him again.

Eyes, nose, ears—
A Greek korus smile
Just like Kritios.

Statue of an ephebe—
Archaic athlete in marble
My Pasco boyfriend.

Kyle

“A palace of velvet”
—Sylvia Plath, Gigolo

Gigolo godzilla—
He tricks rather nicely
For a cul-de-sac kid.

Stuck in Zillah—
Down by the Columbia
His lizardly smile.

His father owns—
Vineyards in the hills
Kyle’s his youngest son.

Spoiled, lazy—
I gulp down jellyfish
His aphrodisiac squid.

Bored as sin—
I give him some time
Staying in town awhile.

Rings thru his nose—
Ears, tits & cock
He’s so primitive!!!

A gigolo palace—
A house of mirrors
A hush in his pickup.

The Godzilla Church—
Has a Lizard in front
I’ve got one on wheels.

Dwayne Jerome

“After whose stroke
the wood rings”
—Sylvia Plath, Words

Up in the woods—
There in Seward Park
Echoes travel far.

Thru cedars, firs—
Lake Washington below
A mirror, Alpine lake.

Ditched by his girlfriend—
I see her running away
Down the path past me.

There he is standing—
Morose on the hill
Smoking a cigarette.

If sap could cry—
They’d be like tears
I feel sorry for him.

Words are useless—
I solve his problem
Up against a tree.

Ronnie

“Color floods to
the spot, dull purple”
—Sylvia Plath, Contusion

He bruises so easy—
The color of bruised fruit
A purple hickie tells all.

I see him in the shower—
At the local YMCA gym
Guileless young animal.

His queer roommate—
Gives me the evil eye
I thought I was invisible.

The kid’s so proud—
Like a peacock in a zoo
His lover over-protective.

I really can’t blame her—
Fat, ugly fag who stares
His vampire lips tremble.

The kid so vulnerable—
The garish purple blemish
His uncut young manhood.

Eddie

“Stiffens and odors bleed”
—Sylvia Plath, Edge

He’s not perfect—
Not accomplished yet
Illusion of Greek necessity.

No folds flow down—
From his nonexistent toga
He’s bare-assed instead.

He’s got big feet—
Pimples on his forehead
Incomplete coiled inside.

He’s got a lot of it—
That unfinished look
But nothing to cry over.

He stiffens, odors bleed—
He blushes in the garden
Next to the clematis.

He’s sprained his neck—
Maybe it’s his funny bone
Or is it his charley-horse?

Eddie limps a lot—
He’s at the edge of things
The chaises-lounge knows.

Joe

“The doom mark”
—Sylvia Plath, Contusion

The pit in my stomach—
It growls & sucks obsessively
Makes me crawl up the wall.

I’m all washed up—
No more deep sea pearls
Words so dry & riderless.

The blood jet is poetry—
But it’s petered out for me
Mere dribbles my cup of tea.

I yearn for fluidity—
But my days of oozing are over
My bilge pump is drained dry.

What then is the remedy—
Praying at Chartres Cathedral?
Crawling on my hands & knees?

I’ve already tried that—
I’ve been doing it for years
Wanna see my knee-cap calluses?

I jest, of course—
It’s just fake pantomime show
To make Joe sorry for me…

Douglas

“Morning has
been blackening”
—Sylvia Plath
Sheep in Fog

The Seattle hills—
Steeped in foggy whiteness.
The people & staircases
No longer disappointing.

The busses cleave fog—
Leaving a trail of exhaust
From far away one can see
The blue-brown trails above.

Streetcars once cleaved—
This morning darkness but
Now the ferry’s down below
How they come & go.

Here I am left alone—
Beneath viaduct stillness
Where he once met me
Welcoming me home.

Forty years later—
Past Pound, Olson, Spicer
Elliot Bay is still there
And I’m still here too.

Plath-Roethke Series

Plath-Roethke Series

1. Roethke

“O the beauty
of usage!”
—Sylvia Plath
Poem for a Birthday

Let me float in this pool.
The ladies won’t mind.
My heart a stopped geranium.

The water in my lungs.
I’m blooming upside-down.
My breath a still hydrangea.

Cemetery stones console me.
Beneath Saginaw grasses.
I hibernate down here.

Dead poets have no eyes.
The cemetery is full of those.
Who think they are birds.

I’m a root, stone, dream.
I used to teach poetry.
It’s still all I think about.

2. The Blue Moon Tavern

“This is a dark house”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday

It’s a dark tavern.
Not big, by the freeway.
I drink in a private corner.
Thinking of something else.

So many U-District bars.
Full of young eely delvings.
Oozing the wiggling glue.
Roethke would love it.

He sleeps in a pool.
On Bainbridge Island.
Three perfect mint juleps.
Now a Zen garden.

Elizabeth Bishop.
She replaced Roethke.
Lived awhile here.
Last Exit on Brooklyn.

3. Neptune Theater

“Once I was ordinary”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday

It was 1969.
Nixon was president.
Viet Nam raged on.
Things were gloomy.

After Cambodia.
They closed it down.
The Freeway clogged.
No traffic moved.

On the brick wall.
The Blue Moon Tavern.
Spray-painted: America
Gets What It Deserves.

That Xmas night.
Watching Romero.
Night of the Living Dead.
At the Neptune.

4. Post-Roethke

“Now coldness comes”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday

Now 40 years later.
Nixon is dead.
Viet Nam is over.
The Neptune still here.

Roethke is dead.
Ted Hughes is dead.
Overhead the monsoon.
Rain of forgetfulness.

Blue Moon still here.
But Last Exit gone.
Hippie U-district gone.
But war is still here.

The living undead.
Nixon-clones smile.
They learn from us.
Correct their mistakes.

5. Last Exit on Brooklyn

“The wax image
of myself”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday

If you live long enough.
And don’t burn your
Candle at both ends.
You might survive.

Funny how time works.
A thicket of shadows.
A dartboard for love.
All those lost lovers.

If you survive them.
Along with Nixon.
And the war in Nam.
The devil loses.

But the burners.
They’re always hot.
Ring after ring.
Turning up the heat.

6. Stoned

“I lie on a great anvil”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday

This is the city.
Where I got stoned.
Beneath a scudding sky.
Just call me road-kill.

This is the city.
Mother-lode of pestles.
It grinds you up.
And spits you out.

This is the city.
A quarry of silences.
Stoic, taciturn, loaded.
Happy as a slug.

Thru a stone eye.
The daylight is dim.
Seattle is sameness.
Full of spare parts.

The Queen of Hearts.
Offed by head long ago.
Dead men have no eyes.
Love an elusive boner.

A city without tears.
Its rainy streets itch.
It’s got two heads.
It’s got ten fingers.