On the Crab

crab you're a new one

never been considered before

but it's neat how you toss your shell

i take it rebirth is pleasant

so you've been written about

on

so you've been painted

out of joint with other animals of your age

in conformity with the ways of outdoors

worth considering you

worth eating, the trouble

crab you're ever a new one a new one.

How to Start a Year

undisturbed

the canary

(by Beethoven)

on his perch.

A little Rimbaud Blitzkrieg

Recovering from a wisdom tooth extraction. Rimbaud is appealing to a sick person:

LIGHTNING

Human works! it's an explosion that lightens my abyss from time to time.

"Nothing is vanity! To science, foward!" cries the modern Ecclesiastes, that is, everybody. And yet the corpses of the wicked and lazy fall on the hearts of others.... Ah! Quick, quick a little; there, beyond the night, future, eternal recompense...Shall we flee them? ...

-What can I do? I know work; and science is too slow. How prayer gallops and how light scolds I see well. It's too simple, and it is too hot; that happens to me. I have my duty, I will be proud in the way of the many, setting it aside.

My life is worn. Let's go! Let's pretend, laze about-what a pity! And we'll live in amusing ourselves, in dreaming monstrous loves and fantastic universes, in complaining and fighting about the appearances of the world, acrobat, mendicant, artist, bandit, - priest! On my hospital bed, the odour of incense hits me very strongly; guardian of sacred aromas, confessor, martyr... I recognize my dirt childhood education. And more!... Get on, my twenty years, if others will be twenty years...

No! No! now I revolt against that death! The work seems too light for my pride; my treachery to the world would be a torture too short. At the last moment, I'll attack to the left, right...

So, - oh ! - dear poor soul, eternity won't be lost for us!

Heeding the First Snows

As the frosty season comes upon us here in Canada, I thought I would make tribute to those first Norsemen who poked about in our great land, partially because I have been reading the new edition of Frans G. Bengtsson's The Long Ships. It is a good time of year to read the traditional sagas and Eddur (?) as well.

I offer then to the coming of the Forst Giants, 11 original dróttkvætt written to the best of my ability and following as closely as possible the original Norse rules. Unlike the verse of Norse narrative/legendary poetry (Eddic verse), dróttkvætt are notoriously difficult to compose. Called "lord's verse", these tricky poems were divised by the professional Skaldic poets of the Norse courts to praise the deeds of their chieftains.

Of all traditional formal poetic constraints, I think those of dróttkvætt are especially beneficial for poetic practice. It is tightly a structured alliterative verse. At the same time, line length is syllabic (6 per line). But also accentual (every line must end on a trochee). Furthermore, every odd line must contain an internal assonance and whereas every even line must have an internal full rhyme. Finally, it is short (4 couplets or 8 lines). All of traditional poesy wrapped in a virtuosic package!

Being forced to cram all of that into eight six-syllable lines is as fun and difficult a challenge as a modern poet could ask for. The structure forces you to make melopoetic lines. The short lines favour monosyllabic words, and a sparing use of articles. As for the sense...The original poems are full of kennings, inverted/convoluted word order, and fragmentary phrases. Not at all clear, but striking nonetheless. Add to this the double meaning of political faction and satire, and you have a stanza so dense it could anchor a longship

I did not attempt to broach terribly modern subjects here, as these were done in the spirit of experimentation, fun, and Nordic personae-ficiation (a la Browning and Pound). Enjoy!

i

scouring the grey stall-shelves
stand rakes of the breakfast
ever waiting whether
we might yield the war field
bare to yolk of blooding ;
breach in fight white armour
and sate the red word snake
songmaker who wrongs men.

ii

by this the bank's river
breaking the fir's armour
blood chiefs were thieves' children
of her charging fur tax
ages akin long since
armed out they drove routers
bequeathed gods the cough leaf
cunning the thunder stream.


iii

though holding to hearsay
hewn from songs of yawning
dark ages approach far
aping goals of oarsmen
prows grey, prim, and clouded,
pruning tunes of merchants,
ill fame in game flying,
for birds fit news: chirping.


iv

his lord is no hoarder
who gives to those living
but who our dead barter
breaks faith with wraithdom
sees hunters unheeded
harassing his castle
marsh doom out of darkness
delights the rite-breaker.

v

among the mace-lungers
my king is no cringer
fell blood eels swell feeding
fatten on attackers
of gold rings a giver
grace to the skald's racings
Aesir, heavy handed
help glory our warlord.

vi

abore the firm fortress
fight not with the pithy
men clamour for closeness
cunning and unsleeping
while guiles outlast weekends,
water is diverted,
who feed on the foolish
feast on the unseeing.

vii

the harsh crow's cawing
corrupts the suppertime,
brings each from their beakers
bothers the verse-men.
but worse in deep winter
rats' unceasing chatter,
who nibble by knook-ends
names of great statesmen.

viii

many grim hours grate me
grieving among reavers
in the sword dance standing
strewing lives in hewing
or long speeches bleating
loathsome to men's earlobes
but worse than all worries:
waiting to die nameless.

ix

the Aesir's drink sloppings
sputter through the hut's moat
when she, fair shield maid
shimmering with grimness
fell deeds to us foretells
for one of our number
before we are homebound
breaks his fast in Asgard.

x

she wards the tree shadow
shedding near her tearfuls
the winds blow in westward
where, pearl of the jarl's kin
for carrion caring
cut of the birds' feasting
the mound is, her man's crown
mortar of dark troll-folk.

xi

berserks sharing bear hides,
born eldest, of hell men
wildly in winter
were-beasts, mad in feasting
swaddled in thin skin cloth,
summer finds them unnerved
augured cold by Odin
eating fire and iron.

And the telescope reports...

Wellsprings out of time. This is the core of poems in our age. Poems are insensitive to the needs of the time. Poems are about poems and nothing else. Poems are consistently problems. Poems are not stripteases. Poems are incapable of hitting the thing itself since the '60s. Poems are hard. Poems are elitist. Poems are vicious. Poems disdain novels. Poems are far from personal. Poems are hatred. Poems are unemotional. Poems are racial. Poems cause fights. Poems are not worth it. Poems are unnappealing. Poems are not assertive enough. Poems are a wide winter snowscape. Poems are not necessary. The well read do not need to read poems. Poems make prose redundant, but are not redudant before that. Poems have to confront men before they can be freed. Poems drink human blood in sacrifice. Poems are thick bark. Poems are an outdated salvation. One only needs a few poems. Poems discourage the wide for the deep. Poems come in chunks. Poems are not backed by the government. Poems are starving. Poems are worth overlooking. Poems are not lyrics. Poems are rarely printed. Poems try to fit in hard.

Fall: Rilke, Laforgue, Luther

Lord: it is time. The summer was damn long.

Lay your shadows on the Sun's hour

Let them winds loose on the fields.

Demand the last fruits ripen;

Give them only 2 southern days

Push em down to completion and speed

the last sweets in the heavy wine.

Who has no house now, build no more.

Who's now alone, it'll last awhile

will wake, read, write long letters,

and will in alleys back and forth

wander fitful, if the leaves rush.

*

Here comes the fall of miserable downpours

Drowning the banal summer of lovers

Who stupid and slow go to crossroads

Plotting the progeny of their filthy neuroses.

G'bye lilacs, gold wheat, dusts, red skirts.

In the spleen despairing of painful organs,

Fire pretty much pokes the regrets of happy days,

We keep the incurable sadness of things...

Enjoy! Immortal glory! O season!

Spleen! Glory! Love, moneys.

Some striking bugles

Some heroes, nude and hot

Attacking the fiery Olympos of the Iliad!

O! Why was I born in this sad century,

Why am I here below?

Does the Universe know?

O! If I had a goal!

To love! To love! To enjoy!

Is my life a dream?

I exist! Is this really true?

To glory! To love! To exhuast my unique life!

(The dead

It's good buried ;

It don't leave

Hurried.)

*

Enjoy yourselves with the BOSS, you righted; the Pious should hail him rightly.

Give thanks to the BOSS with harps; praise sing him on psalms and instruments of 10 stings!

Sing him a new song; play pretty on the strings with cheery sounds!

Cuz the BOSS's word is truthful, and what he says, that he'll do for sure.

He loves righteousness and the right; the Earth's chock full of the BOSS's goods.

Heaven is, through the BOSS's word, done up and all his Host through the breath of his mouth.

He holds the water of the seas together like a canteen, and collects the Floods in his cupboard.

All the World fears the BOSS, and before him quivers everybody who dwells on the Earthcrust.

Cause when he speaks, so goes it; if he asks, so it is.

The BOSS makes obliterate the Heathen Wit and straddles the thoughts of the people.

But the conclusion of the BOSS remains for all time, the thoughts of his heart forever and ever.

Well to the folk, of whom the BOSS is the god, to the folk, that he has raised to legacy.

The BOSS looks from Heaven and sees all Men are children.

From his stuck Throne he sees em all, who dwell on the Earth.

He drives the heart of em all, he perks up at all their work.

To a King, his big might don't help; A hero can't save himself from his might craft.

Horsies also don't help; there would ya be betrayed; and their big power wouldn't save nuthin.

Look, the eyes of the BOSS peeks at everyone who's scared of him, who hope out of his goods

that he might save em from Death and preserves their life from Hunger's knot.

Our souls await the BOSS; he's our help and shield.

Cause our Heart enjoys itself in his, and we trust his Holy Name.

Your good, BOSS, be upon us, as we hope from ya.

On Poems and Toros

There is a reason we hate poems. When we pick up a book of poems it naturally disgusts us it is pretentious and goes on forever (even though the lines are short) the words are muddled make no sense after one another and the story is either non-existant or indecipherable. Even if we know we would like to be different would like to like poems we have to steady our initial nausea swallow it unwholesomely until we learn to digest it. These are the many reasons we hate poems and those reasons are offshoots of the one thing.

It is the same reason we hate bullfighting. When we watch a bullfight it naturally disgusts us it is preventable and goes on inexplicably (we're modern civilization for chrissakes!) the passes are torture and cannot be seen one from the other and the tragedy is either non-existant or monstrous. Even if we know we would like to be different and would like to like bullfighting we have to steady our initial repulsion and swallow it unwholesomely until we learn to digest it. There is a reason we hate bullfighting and those reasons are offshoots of the one reason.

Look at the faena of the bullfight and the line of a poem. The line of a poem is its most basic narrative unit, where the poet can convince you beyond mere ornamentation (single words) and yet before you are consumed in the whole of the emotional poetic paragraph. In the faena the matador has his chance to shine with the muleta (red cloth on a stick) and is for the first time left all alone with the bull. Both units are the hinge of the whole. Of course there are differences. But in the faena the great matador will do a series of passes the goal of which is to bring the horns of the bull as close to his body as possible without killing him in order to prepare the bull for death in a deadly way. In the poetic line, the poet must string together words the goal of which is to bring the meaning as close as possible to prose (that is, a chained meaning as opposed to individual words) without becoming prosaic in order to set the poem to a structural blueprint.

Now if the matador is tossed or killed the effect is not spoiled but it becomes immediately prosaic; questions of timing, grace, emotion become subsumed in a scientific journalism that needs to know who what where why and how. The poetic line is similar; it must jostle but not gore the reader or he will lose himself in scientific journalism and the effect will not be spoiled but will become prosaic.

But who wants to live outside of journalism these days? That's why poems are not on the front page. News that stays news doesn't move papers. We will watch a goring before we watch a whole corrida and we will ask our w5 before we will concern ourselves with textual architecture. It's just the times and there's no blaiming that, but our taste for this sort of thing explains why we like neither poems nor bullfighting and will barely (or not) tolerate funding for either.