The Sudden Red-Eyed Sun

For Richard Hugo

Now you say you love me, 20 years too late,
When all the brandy snifters have been loaded onto crates
And the fire sky clouds are as yellow and as gray
As your beard back in the day, when you were one
More nonjudgmental, disaffected intellectual
Snoring in the park, and speaking of the white Christ
Paradise where the homeless are the otherness that unites
In gangsnark screaming the differentially equated mean,
But it seemed you were too busy digging
The distinguished indigenous geniuses
Empirically pick through the empire's receptacles
For disingenuous treasures. Who was I?
Just another unhappy suburbanite trying to pretend
My backpack was as worthless as hers,
The woman with the orange hoodie.

But you did kiss me full on the lips, and hugged
Me with all of what little strength you had left,
And I, as unfeeling as a gypsy, walked diagonally
Away, pleased that I let you come that close.
The streets are too soft, the lost too forgiving.
There was nothing in it for me to feel, then,
But the shame you bravely refused to display.
A million steals and a million tales later
I still can't distinguish the real from the true.
Better that than believe nothing means what it says,
That the plans that are made in advance are as foolish
As asking a rich man for change.

Lines for the Lion's Gate

The bee has found

          the weed

so the codes seed

     minds

thoughts seize

forms

that live beyond

     their conceiving

there’s enough of a touch

     that memory is

           freedom

     it must be

captured as if

           for the first time

the circle turns

     when seen

the wheel cleaned
     for the clay

     and set

always for

     its seeming:

the passion of birth

the sadness of leaving

makes everything

     in between

accrue meaning

The repeatings seem

     in pulsings of time

unique becomings

that beckon the spiral

          to climb

past what is known

     what is everything

the familiar strangely
     seen

with always more waiting

     in how we respond

our new ways to see

            and feel 

            and say

            and deal

that is the force

that grows continually

what is real

     follows

the dreaming

in an inevitable

     course

For the sense is contained

     by the voice

           within

of what appears to be

     on some other side

when recognized

     as a choice

somehow hidden

     to learn what you

     already know

            again

there’s always a first time

     for stars to align

and for the brightness of all things

     to shine

as if destitute

in the blacknesses

      of space

to privately occupy

      its place

these islands we

             reach

the untangled facts

      the forbidden maybe 

what we long ago

      refused to see

the swirling of our being

in the ravages of sleep
            instead

the sprouts appear

     one at a time

     or maybe more

depending on the

            feeling

     needed

Noises are all around

     we call them

what we know of God

      a junkie on the nod

who stares at peeling

      ceilings while

the ants play deadly games

as if no change

      was ever needed

and the pain was for

      the best

what seems 

      a gross injustice

to the proctors

      of the test

who find no

              mediation

save the conscience

      and its foe

their path is torn in fire 

      from weary eyes

as if to somewhere

the strings to what is not
      cut

the urge that prods us on

      unknown

as the home we

      hammered 

             burns

and eyes so filled

with smoke and light

we don’t know how

we wounded them

     yet we’d do it

     all again

to lose the thing

     that wasn’t the lord

everything we touched

that turned

     to gold

it becomes a running from

     this perverse form

     of faith

these hopes that what

impels us

will be

     explained

justified even

     as right

though we never

     had our doubts

even as the city

                   darkens

                   far behind

The light neither
      beyond nor ahead

      stays with us

as if we’ve

reached

      the end

even as the return diminishes

      extends

away from our wishing

      to transcend

the blunt mechanics

      of our actions

the clear and present malice

      in our minds

to love what won’t

      stand still

to grab what won't

      take hold

perceive what can’t

      be seen and
think what can’t be known

      is what’s important

our discontent is as

     feverish 

as our dreams

but do we need

     redemption

when we’ve left the shore
     behind

when the foghorn of
     another world

     starts calling?

The space between

keeps widening

until it seems

     the oceans

are as limiting

as the pavement sheen 

     around the island's edge

The particular’s allowed

to run in a sea

     of particulars

all espousing the

     general order

by denying it

             all enslaved

in bitter motions

to survive on

     theft of blood

while the larger world

stays peaceful

            underwhelmed

the wind billows

     how death is

            overcome

in each fresh

     moment

judgments form

and lapse without

      a witness ever
            leaving

just the changing

hues of shoes

     as sunlight

            moves

The light can only reach

     so far

     inside

before the pit of

     what is not

can no longer be
     by transmuting fantasy
     applied
and we are left a bundle

     of handles

and buttons that don’t lead

     to actions

the blackness of seeing
     with blackness

fathoms pulling

             down

with every independent

shadow playing away

from the central sound

which is silence

     all around

something’s missing

from the invitation

     the RSVP is

     too implied

the need for others

supersedes their

     reality

for when we are

     lost
     in ourselves

we are only thinking

     of others

how there’s no other

     self than

     what is seen

            in them

as hollow and as pale

as the motion picture flickers

     that stay inside of us

long after the people

have peeled away

and left you still

     not alone

the thing that you

     must never say

that you are not alone

     (are you insane?)

all the voices somehow

     realer 

than the words that people
     borrow

that just refuse to mean

    when clarity is not

              what’s needed

    when inside your

              separate brain

intention is known

              actions are clear

all things that

     one can never see

inside the eyes of

     others

whether you are

              right or

              true or

              sincere

the mystery of you

     hangs like a sheer

              and blows like a ghost

through the iridescent

     film

of what appears

It is this that

     resists the light

there is no illuminable thing

just currents

     flying free

like lightning chaos

     in the hold of

     central sky

there’s nothing but the feeling

     in the moment

nothing else

     can satisfy

and all the flows

     go into that

like lines of silence

     move

to destinations

it all flows through

     open gates

there are no walls

              to obtrude

only the illusion you

     connect

to what you’re

     not

your sight is

     so conversant

you thought your life

     was otherwise

than the plying

     of dimensions

like equations

                on a mind

     experience to solve

     solutions to experience

     ambiguity to salve

in endless strands

of phenomenological

     popcorn

for as long

as the movie

     spins

so what you create

     never ends

                or begins

It merely holds

     for the picture

of what you used to be

by what you are not now

what you've gleaned

     of infinity

                or of the bee

a way of seeing

     what

in being retrieved

cannot exist

     completely

the sky pours

     its quickening

to feed what sense 

     that you possess
to find and name
                what once was
                part of you
not to reclaim
     or make
     anew
but gauge your mind
     as it runs along
     the grooves
the spirit catches
    on the nuance
    hooks
for that is what
remains intact
                the witness
called back
     to gather
what will be kept
in holy permanence
     the final report
of a journey
     blind
                 through light
     the way you learned
to know yourself
in something else:
     the mind of everything
     the heart the king

Some Timothy for Monsieur Lapin

The terror of love is that it makes you not want
         to exist.
When water is flowing, what need for a throat
         to receive?

But it is only those without such swords
         who'll speak such words.
The others have drifted off
          into oblivion.

There's hope someday they'll reach a shore, or rather,
         that they won't.

Odes by Hölderlin: The Blind Singer

"He shed a half-hearted mockery of Mars" – Sophocles

Where are you, youthfulness? That always wakes

     Me in the hour of morning, where are you, light?

          My heart is awake, but night holds me 

               Always in holy, banishing magic.

Otherwise I’d listen for the twilight, otherwise I’d

     Wait for you on the hill, and never for free!

          You never deceived me, sweet holy

               Envoys of the skies, for always you came,

Came bearing blessings down the usual path,

     Won’t you come now, beautiful? Where are you, light?

          My heart’s awake again, though banished,

               And the infinite night always hinders.

My trellises would otherwise be green; and

     The flowers would illuminate me, like my

          Own bright eyes; my face not far away

               Would be incandescent, lit from above

And around the woods I would see the wings of

     Heaven wander the sky, as when I was young;

          Now I sit here silent and alone,

               For hours upon hours, and shapings

From love and grief of the brighter days create

     For my own pleasure now a thought, and there I

          Listen in the distance, whether or

               Not some friendlier savior comes my way.

It’s then I often hear the thunderer’s voice

     At noon, when he brazenly comes near, when the

          House shakes and the earth pounds from under

               The ground and the mountain reverberates.

I hear the rescuer in the night, I hear

     Him kill, the deliverer, restoring him,

          The thunderer, from sundown to the

               Dawn, and he follows along with his sound,

You my strings, follow him! It lives within him,

     My song, as the source follows the stream, and I

          Must too, wherever he remembers,

               Follow the mad road to the sure result.

To where? Where to? I hear you here, there and there,

     Magnificent one! Around the earth it sounds.

          Where do you end? And what, what is there

               Over the clouds and oh what will I be?

Day! Day! Above the plummeting clouds! Welcome

     My being! For my eyes will flower for you.

          Oh light of youth! O luck! What is old

               Returns anew! The spiritual flows down,

To the golden fountain of your holy cup!

     And to you, green soil, peaceful cradle! And you,

          House of my fathers! And the dear ones,

               The ones I once stumbled on, O come close,

O come, all of you, for yours, yours is delight,

     For you are the ones whom the sighted consecrate!

          O take, so I may endure, this my

               Life, all the godlike away from my heart.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Der blinde Sänger

Ελυσεν αινον αχος απ᾽ ομματων Αρης

Sophokles

Wo bist du, Jugendliches! das immer mich

     Zur Stunde weckt des Morgens, wo bist du, Licht!

          Das Herz ist wach, doch bannt und hält in

               Heiligem Zauber die Nacht mich immer.

Sonst lauscht ich um die Dämmerung gern, sonst harrt

     Ich gerne dein am Hügel, und nie umsonst!

          Nie täuschten mich, du Holdes, deine

               Boten, die Lüfte, denn immer kamst du,

Kamst allbeseligend den gewohnten Pfad

     Herein in deiner Schöne, wo bist du, Licht!

          Das Herz ist wieder wach, doch bannt und

               Hemmt die unendliche Nacht mich immer.

Mir grünten sonst die Lauben; es leuchteten

     Die Blumen, wie die eigenen Augen, mir;

          Nicht ferne war das Angesicht der

               Meinen und leuchtete mir und droben

Und um die Wälder sah ich die Fittige

     Des Himmels wandern, da ich ein Jüngling war;

          Nun sitz ich still allein, von einer

               Stunde zur anderen, und Gestalten

Aus Lieb und Leid der helleren Tage schafft

     Zur eignen Freude nun mein Gedanke sich,

          Und ferne lausch ich hin, ob nicht ein

               Freundlicher Retter vielleicht mir komme.

Dann hör ich oft die Stimme des Donnerers

     Am Mittag, wenn der eherne nahe kommt,

          Wenn ihm das Haus bebt und der Boden

               Unter ihm dröhnt und der Berg es nachhallt.

Den Retter hör ich dann in der Nacht, ich hör

     Ihn tötend, den Befreier, belebend ihn,

          Den Donnerer vom Untergang zum

               Orient eilen und ihm nach tönt ihr,

Ihm nach, ihr meine Saiten! es lebt mit ihm

     Mein Lied und wie die Quelle dem Strome folgt,

          Wohin er denkt, so muß ich fort und

               Folge dem Sicheren auf der Irrbahn.

Wohin? wohin? ich höre dich da und dort,

     Du Herrlicher! und rings um die Erde tönts.

          Wo endest du? und was, was ist es

               Über den Wolken und o wie wird mir?

Tag! Tag! du über stürzenden Wolken! sei

     Willkommen mir! es blühet mein Auge dir.

          O Jugendlicht! o Glück! das alte

               Wieder! doch geistiger rinnst du nieder,

Du goldner Quell aus heiligem Kelch! und du,

     Du grüner Boden, friedliche Wieg! und du,

          Haus meiner Väter! und ihr Lieben,

               Die mir begegneten einst, o nahet,

O kommt, daß euer, euer die Freude sei,

     Ihr alle, daß euch segne der Sehende!

          O nimmt, daß ichs ertrage, mir das

               Leben, das Göttliche mir vom Herzen.

The Whale and the Moon

The kind of moon

               that grows sharp over time

As it glows in far-away caves

               where the water can be heard

Like the breathing of the lover

  in your bed.

It was richer, we thought,

               for the darkest of wine

               and blackest of chocolate,

               the thickest of wrapped animal fats,
But any words said were deflections

               because there was nothing we could say

And are written like the last recovered hieroglyph

               from the first recorded melody in stone.

Gestures that are frozen,

               of hands and mouths and loins,

Go on in a loop of never-

   appeased desire.

The lanterns by the pool, the path

               from one room to the next,

The touch and smell of cushions

   and then sheets

Are retrievable like an outdated theory, by feel

               down this blind hallway

               to those full shelves.

How I got there

               and where I went

Were part of the long, slow story of my life

               that unfolds across my half-

               unconscious gaze –

If I’m to be asleep

               it’s better to dream

Where the memory is like the wind

               tossing my soul like a flower

To gently rock in place

               in the shape of what is lost

As if the never-buried won’t be

               entombed with me after all,

And the never-allowed to come to life

               will continue to leap

               into other people’s synapse sparks.

We don’t yet recognize

               the voice of love.

We judge it like we stupidly judge the devil

               as it slips through any guise:

Is it he, or her, or that, or there, or when?

               We ask of the familiar sound

That always answers our questions

               by darkening the lights

               and turning whispers into silence.

Ojai at 100 Degrees

With the other slash and burn city slickers

We went to see the sulphur sommelier,

The one who captures forbidden notes

From adjustments in the hot spring pipes

Of scents once inconceivable to quaff

To our rotten egg ancestors:

Root beer float, mulled Manhattan,

Cinnabar marmalade, orange grove at sunset,

The real sticky icky, because that’s how many

Toxins we carried through Oxnard and need to cleanse,

But when we got there, at the golden hour no less,

He was booked, it turned out, for months on end,

So we had to be content with picking white sage

At sunset, high up on a hillside crisp with flax,

Like we were someone else’s memories, and hadn’t

Seen the sommelier’s kind face and slower hands.

We were left with a mountain that eclipsed what we knew,

But it too came with a bouquet, bearing duende

At the rusted motor homes thrown past ends of streets

On Eucalyptus Ranch, where the horses have gone crazy

And the only people left who know what to do

Wait for the moon, so they might dance with a doom

That someone said would finally come through their old

Movie rooms like softer chairs. They were lost in the wars,

Victims of the paradise of fake names, their yellow homes

And front yard stones couldn’t counter the choking

Feyness, of internecine nagging and mansplaining.

The curtains still are drawn late afternoon,

For when it comes it’s over. No forgiveness or explaining.

Here’s hoping for that long and dusty trail on up the hill

Where wild animals and the end of the sky can still

Be seen – but not too clearly.

Pieces of China

I like her lies even more than I like mine,
For hers very well could be true.

It's perilous to steer a mutually-exclusive reality
With merely the rudder of my own,

But at the pink moment the hero learns why
He journeyed this far, past the utility of breathing,

For now he knows how to mourn
The kind fools who came before him

Who thought there was something to be gained
Beyond the gift of getting nothing.

The river leads whatever life I need to live —
How tragic that I needed her to show me.

Back of a Postcard

The dysfunctional California family on the beach,
Their only witness a robotic lifeguard,
They dredge crabs because they can into a yellow pan all day
As children leap transparent in the spray.

They've become a part of the sun and sand,
Leaving not much behind for an examinable life
But blue beach cruising with the etiquette of chill.
The sea has bleached the color from their soul.

At some point the water turns white,
The gulls return in synchronized flight
And the sun makes the beach full of shadows ...

Migrant children have joined them now
Doing the job the seagulls wouldn't.

Odes by Hölderlin: Voice of the People

[Second version]

You are God's voice, without that I would believe

Youth is holier; yes, and still I say it!

To be careless of all our wisdom

The rivers still murmur and rush, and yet,

Who does not love her? She moves me to the heart,

In the distance I hear the disappearing,

But my road’s not full of foreboding,

Though sure enough it hurries to the sea.

The wish for the Gods was fulfilled, the entire

Recipe, in forgetful oblivion

Gladly embraced; what is mortal when

Open eyes wandered once on their own course?

That’s the shortest path back to the all; thus fall

The waters of the stream down, he seeks repose,

It ruptures, pulls against his will, from

Cliff to cliff, the rudder of destiny,

The wonderful yearning for the bottomless

Gulf; the unbound teases and people are seized

As well by the desire for death and

Cities boldly, after they gave their best,

Carry on the work from year to year, they have

Sounded the holy depths; the earth remains green

And silence lies in front of the stars,

As does the prayer, thrown across the sand,

Vanquished by choice the one here reaches for art

Before the inimitable there; Man’s work,

Himself, is broken with his own hand,

In honor of the high one, the artist.

But he is not thought less of by the people,

Who will love again, as they were loved before,

And will continue to impede man's

Path, when reaching for the light he is glad.

And not just the children of the eagle, thrown

By the father from the nest, so they will not

Stay too long with him, we also force out

The impeccable thorn of the sovereign.

For those, who have gone off into the silence,

And fallen ahead of time, they too, even

Those sacrificed, like the first of the

Fruits of the harvest, they have found a part.

On Xanthos, in the time of the Greeks, lay a

City, where, for the greater ones currently

Resting there, it was their destiny

To overcome the holy light of day.

But they came to die, not in the open of

Battle, but by their own hand. It’s terrible,

What happened there, the miraculous

Legend that came to us from the East tells.

The kindness of Brutus tormented them. For

When he ran out of fire, he offered himself

To help them, while he, at the same time,

As a general, stood in siege at the gates.

But the servants threw what he sent them from the

Walls. And as the fire grew ever livelier,

They rejoiced cackling among themselves

And even stretched out their hands to Brutus.

And all were beside themselves. Jubilant cheers

Arose amid their cries. Men and women threw

Themselves into the flames, as boys crashed

Through the roof and into their fathers swords.

It’s not advisable to defy heroes.

But long ago it was prepared. The fathers

Too, as once they were taken, and as

The Persian army violently pressed,

Incited, seizing the reed in the torrent,

That they would find the open, the city. House

And temple taken, but people flew

Away from the flame for holy Aether.

That is what the children heard, and the legends

Probably are good, since a memory is

The highest thing to them, the only

Thing we have to interpret the holy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Stimme des Volks

[Zweite Fassung]

Du seiest Gottes Stimme, so glaubt ich sonst

In heilger Jugend; ja, und ich sag es noch!

Um unsre Weisheit unbekümmert

Rauschen die Ströme doch auch, und dennoch,

Wer liebt sie nicht? und immer bewegen sie

Das Herz mir, hör ich ferne die Schwindenden,

Die Ahnungsvollen meine Bahn nicht,

Aber gewisser ins Meer hin eilen.

Denn selbstvergessen, allzubereit, den Wunsch

Der Götter zu erfüllen, ergreift zu gern,

Was sterblich ist, wenn offnen Augs auf

Eigenen Pfaden es einmal wandelt,

Ins All zurück die kürzeste Bahn; so stürzt

Der Strom hinab, er suchet die Ruh, es reißt,

Es ziehet wider Willen ihn, von

Klippe zu Klippe, den Steuerlosen,

Das wunderbare Sehnen dem Abgrund zu;

Das Ungebundne reizet und Völker auch

Ergreift die Todeslust und kühne

Städte, nachdem sie versucht das Beste,

Von Jahr zu Jahr forttreibend das Werk, sie hat

Ein heilig Ende troffen; die Erde grünt

Und stille vor den Sternen liegt, den

Betenden gleich, in den Sand geworfen,

Freiwillig überwunden die lange Kunst

Vor jenen Unnachahmbaren da; er selbst,

Der Mensch, mit eigner Hand zerbrach, die

Hohen zu ehren, sein Werk, der Künstler.

Doch minder nicht sind jene den Menschen hold,

Sie lieben wieder, so wie geliebt sie sind,

Und hemmen öfters, daß er lang im

Lichte sich freue, die Bahn des Menschen.

Und, nicht des Adlers Jungen allein, sie wirft

Der Vater aus dem Neste, damit sie nicht

Zu lang ihm bleiben, uns auch treibt mit

Richtigem Stachel hinaus der Herrscher.

Wohl jenen, die zur Ruhe gegangen sind,

Und vor der Zeit gefallen, auch die, auch die

Geopfert, gleich den Erstlingen der

Ernte, sie haben ein Teil gefunden.

Am Xanthos lag, in griechischer Zeit, die Stadt,

Jetzt aber, gleich den größeren, die dort ruhn,

Ist durch ein Schicksal sie dem heilgen

Lichte des Tages hinweggekommen.

Sie kamen aber, nicht in der offnen Schlacht,

Durch eigne Hand um. Fürchterlich ist davon,

Was dort geschehn, die wunderbare

Sage von Osten zu uns gelanget.

Es reizte sie die Güte von Brutus. Denn

Als Feuer ausgegangen, so bot er sich,

Zu helfen ihnen, ob er gleich, als Feldherr,

Stand in Belagerung vor den Toren.

Doch von den Mauern warfen die Diener sie,

Die er gesandt. Lebendiger ward darauf

Das Feuer und sie freuten sich und ihnen

Strecket' entgegen die Hände Brutus

Und alle waren außer sich selbst. Geschrei

Entstand und Jauchzen. Drauf in die Flamme warf

Sich Mann und Weib, von Knaben stürzt' auch

Der von dem Dach, in der Väter Schwert der.

Nicht rätlich ist es, Helden zu trotzen. Längst

Wars aber vorbereitet. Die Väter auch,

Da sie ergriffen waren, einst, und

Heftig die persischen Feinde drängten,

Entzündeten, ergreifend des Stromes Rohr,

Daß sie das Freie fänden, die Stadt. Und Haus

Und Tempel nahm, zum heilgen Aether

Fliegend, und Menschen hinweg die Flamme.

So hatten es die Kinder gehört, und wohl

Sind gut die Sagen, denn ein Gedächtnis sind

Dem Höchsten sie, doch auch bedarf es

Eines, die heiligen auszulegen.

A Memory of Visiting My Grandma

The Emmett Kelly Room at the Comedy School

Teaches the kind of homelessness where you

No longer see your own reflection in the diner,

And teaches the kind of sadness where even

A banana peel is tragic, where there’s no

Pretending to be happy, or anything at all
But what drops out at that moment
When the one you thought had befriended you
Admits he's uncomfortable hanging in that space

Where all your hopes lie undivided.

He needs something more than you can give

Not to break out of character,
In order to torment the doomed.

He still teaches, although not seen anymore

Except in this one velour oil behind velvet ropes

Like the paint-a-clown art school test,

The perfect model, remembered only by the French.

You come to him with truth

And he shows you all the people you have hurt.

Blood Moon Denoument

The final hue of lavender on a wind-messed day,

Families on the way out down the long pink shadows

From where they floated in smiles through ocean ruffles,

The surface pearl perhaps embodying what they feel.

The ball drops from a cloud like phosphorescent Jupiter

As the misty docks display their night-time lights.

The anger has been in the air all day, just ready to be held

But the foam rolls in so sweet and warm, and the fire

As it dissolves tells nothing of the way things went.

The madness seems so ordinary, the unreasonable requests

That were impossible to ignore, the judgments, the shaming,

Seem colorings from another realm on the surrendering shore.

What now is only glistening cools in the arriving collapse

Of all that once was righteous and refused to change its course.

How easy everything moved out of its willful way

Despite whatever ridicule came with the flailing.

How natural it seems in a light that begins its dimming
As birds and children extricate themselves from having to see

What consciousness insists are higher, wiser thoughts,

These perverse insistences that gravity means nothing.

Stevens Textplication #44: To the One of Fictive Music

“Sister and mother and diviner love,” this poem from 1922 begins. One cannot help but think of the then-recent deaths of Stevens’ mother (often referred to indirectly in his poems to this date) and his beloved sister Kate as the impetus for this uncharacteristically elegiac reflection on poetic inspiration. They are in fact, as we will see, the addressee’s, and are shown to be, in more direct terms than Stevens otherwise uses, the reason he writes poetry. Here’s the poem:

Sister and mother and diviner love,

And of the sisterhood of the living dead

Most near, most clear, and of the clearest bloom,

And of the fragrant mothers the most dear

And queen, and of diviner love the day

And flame and summer and sweet fire, no thread

Of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown

Its venom of renown, and on your head

No crown is simpler than the simple hair.

Now, of the music summoned by the birth

That separates us from the wind and sea,

Yet leaves us in them, until earth becomes,

By being so much of the things we are,

Gross effigy and simulacrum, none

Gives motion to perfection more serene

Than yours, out of our own imperfections wrought,

Most rare, or ever of more kindred air

In the laborious weaving that you wear.

For so retentive of themselves are men

That music is intensest which proclaims

The near, the clear, and vaunts the clearest bloom,

And of all the vigils musing the obscure,

That apprehends the most which sees and names,

As in your name, an image that is sure,

Among the arrant spices of the sun,

O bough and bush and scented vine, in whom

We give ourselves our likest issuance.

Yet not too like, yet not so like to be

Too near, too clear, saving a little to endow

Our feigning with the strange unlike, whence springs

The difference that heavenly pity brings.

For this, musician, in your girdle fixed

Bear other perfumes. On your pale head wear

A band entwining, set with fatal stones.

Unreal, give back to us what once you gave:

The imagination that we spurned and crave.

  

It’s hard not to read the first stanza as a direct and even perhaps mawkish address to his literal mother. Who else of “fragrant mothers” would be “most dear / and queen”? Who else (with the inclusion of his sister) would be “most clear, most dear” of “the sisterhood of the living dead”? They live inside him, even though they are dead – this is not a difficult concept. That his imagination is colored by his loving memory of them is also pretty straightforward – perhaps so much so it seems beneath Stevens to be so easy to follow.

Yet to hear many critics tell of it, the identity of the goddess muse figure this poem is dedicated to is akin to that of the mysterious “dark lady” of the Shake-spear sonnets, completely opaque. Stevens himself may have contributed to this, with these characteristically reticent responses when his publisher asked him in 1935 the seemingly simple question: “who is the sisterhood of the living dead?”

It is a muse: all of the muses are of that sisterhood. But then, I cannot say, at this distance of time, that I specifically meant the muses; this is just an explanation. (Letter 297)

Nothing in this “explanation,” of course, detracts from the above. In true lawyer’s fashion, he withholds the actual identity of the muse, while pontificating mightily about whether the muses were part of the much more poetically vague sisterhood.

He apparently thought better of that explanation, writing back one day later:

The purpose of writing to you this morning is that, as I copied the [poem] last night, I felt that the figures in the sisterhood had never been any clearer in my mind than they are in the poem … No muses exist for me. The One of Fictive Music is one of the sisterhood; who the others are I don’t know, except to say that they are figures of that sort. I felt as though I should have to say this to you in order to enjoy Thanksgiving properly (Letter 298)

Copying (by hand) a 12-year old poem already published twice in book form almost immediately after being asked about it? Not being able to enjoy Thanksgiving properly without providing an even vaguer response? Clearly something in this exchange, as they say today, triggered Stevens. Understand that the poems he was writing in 1935 were ALL about how “no muses exist for me.” The easy identification with art, the imagination, knowledge, other people and poetic tradition on display in his first book Harmonium had, after seven years of silence, turned into profound doubt about whether a world external to his imagination existed at all. Thus when he says “the figures in the sisterhood had never been any clearer in my mind than they are in the poem,” it is not as simple as “I had a vague idea but nothing more.” The mother, the sister, the muse, none of them can be said to exist outside the boundary of his imagination. The poem, as a product of the imagination, expresses who they are most clearly. He had, in fact, reached a similar conclusion as early as 1928, when in another letter he said the point of the poem was that “the imaginative world was the real world” (Letter 252). In other words, the grief and reflection that had motivated the composition of the poem had been transmuted over time into an understanding that, again as they say today, “it was all me.”

Actually, the progression from identifiable figure to imaginative construct (who is both the creator of fictive music and fictive herself) is in the original poem (one of the last composed for the original edition of Harmonium).  Ironically for a tribute to females, Stevens relies heavily on the diction and style of his two go-to male poetic role models, De Vere and Shelley, neither of whom were strangers to addressing the fictive muses. As such, there’s an elegant awkwardness to the expression here, and an overwrought philosophical grandeur that lulls the reader into believing it’s an exploration of the question “what is poetry?” when in fact there’s something far different going on.

The poem starts – as muse poems often do – with an enumeration of the qualities the deified female has that are essential for poetic cultivation. She is free of the “venom of renown” and is not honored as queen with a crown other than her “simple hair.”  Women, in other words, never get the credit for making men chase down their heart. Poetry is “music summoned by the birth / That separates us from the wind and sea, / Yet leaves us in them ...” The purpose of this muse is to mediate the interchange between the corporeal and non-corporeal. Until, that is, the life that is in the non-living makes the living world seem dead (“… until earth becomes, / By being so much of the things we are, / Gross effigy.” Another problem: The art created on earth by mortals is built “out of our own imperfections,” not out of the “laborious weaving” of perfection worn by the inspiring figure from the other side.

The reason for this is that man impulsively chases the “near” and “clear”, two qualities the speaker had earlier ascribed to the heavenly mother figure. Men (figuratively or literally) are “so retentive of themselves” they seek objects around themselves to value, and of the “obscure” only apprehend that which is already named or pictured. This results in the women who are unattainable – either as objects of desire or, as in this case, have passed into the inaccessible space – are seen only in terms of superficial feminine qualities (“among the arrant spices of the sun”) and the men, instead of transmitting these women’s higher and more sacred knowledge, become shrubbery (“O bough and bush and scented vine, in whom / We give ourselves our likest issuance”).

Still, there’s a “little” left over that’s not earth-bound, “to endow / Our feigning [pretending] with the strange unlike …” It is this ineffable sign of spirit in the work of earthly art that makes humans worthy of sympathy (“…, whence springs / The difference that heavenly pity brings”), presumably because man is both clueless and aware enough to know how little he knows. The “music” of poetry is how the heavenly mourn the pathos of the mortal. Man is both of the heavens and hopelessly separate, just as humans are shaped by their parents and ancestors but may be forever separated from them in life.

“For this,” the speaker continues, turning suddenly from deference to demand, the heavenly “musician” should give us “other perfumes,” different kinds of inspiration, and wear a headband as if dramatizing themselves as a “pale” human, “set with fatal stones,” doomed like humans to fall and die and be (in the original usage of the word fatal) “destined by fate.” Only then, presumably, could humans reach –even in their minds – the sources of their inspiration.

Thus, the muses are “unreal.” And so, the speaker asks they “give back to us … the imagination that we spurned.” The poem ends on this note of silence between the realms and an unbridgeable distance. There is no happy conclusion, like “since the Goddesses won’t cooperate, we might as well imagine everything into existence,” or even “I’ve reached closure with the fact that you will no longer speak to me.” It’s a request into air.

And that’s where the poem rises from the countless English verses to Greek muses and other thinly-disguised female objects of desire. The fictive muse has been revealed to be a femme fatale, who misleads but can’t be turned away from easily. When one does, there is only the cry into the void, where those on the other side – here, his mother and sister – are the only ones who can provide the wisdom he needs in order to create.

That is a difficult position indeed. Just as the world becomes imagination (as Stevens in his letters suggested), there is no source for the imagination but the memory of what is no longer there, that – taking the implication a step further – one never really had or knew in the first place.

Stevens’ poetry, seen in this way, is not quite the triumph over imaginative limitations it has seemed but something altogether more tragic, an attempt to capture the trace of the real in a sea of nothingness. It is all him.

The River of Opinion

                                            On it rolls, the music
And the falls, an endless acquisition over an ever-

Moving target, the slow parade that no one sees

Of straps unloosening, hats waved, flags aired,

Trash billowing across deserted streets, soon

Disappearing as if the whole confected machine

Was never there.

                                                The river glistens.

From the roofs of houses the oceans inside each 

Droplet fall to patterns, then to mirrors, then to seas. 

But the one thing, unique, from the mountain, never

Came to anything. It merely joined the clogged rush

Of oneness, not wanting to connect. We hear it 

Hiss as it goes down. It never begins, never ends. 

Its purpose is moving from one incomplete 

Destination to another.

                                                  Oh how the houses

Bind at their anchors! Their satellite engines orbit away

Only to be led back to the center, which is no center at all,

Just a spot where a seed didn’t die. They're hooked up now

To wires, comforted by grass, hiding a particular purpose

As if anonymity is how they're supposed to be.

                                                      How strange the
Unaccountable, radiant and unarguably new,
Emerges each day from this, the same sun and trees,

What was impossible even yesterday.

Slow News Day

"We will never again be under their control.” – Q, 7/25/18

Fiji folded, Europe blinked, Facebook naked took a chin,

The bankers capitulated without saying a thing,

The long-awaited trials can begin.

Even the President glints some ring

Instead of the ass he usually lets us see

As he stanched the traffic in blood through Long Beach,

Dismantled clown caves from a triggering breach,

Offered the blackmailed a chance to be free

From bloodlines that report up to star frequencies.

Peace is a weapon when war is the prize

In islands offshore where on children they dine

And supplies now are low on ceremonial wine

And their symbols can't save them, known now to the wise,

And no one senses their fear. The sun on the rise

Won’t betray the game played among spies.

It goes on without need of us hearing the cries

Or knowing the crimes of those we trusted

Or even our own minds, daily crop dusted

‘Til our efforts fed death and division, envy and lack,

As if our desire is to smile as we pull the clip back.

How will we know that it’s safe to be free?

When do they tell the country,

When so many people scream in their sleep

And the sentries awake still so lonely?

So long we have waited for what we had already,

The chains on all we see unsheathed finally.

The eyes of those who see are enough I guess;

Universes were created from less.