Hope for 2001- in a wooden shed

I've been away from blogging, away in in meat space doing stuff with family and friends. After a few days off, I lose the habit of bowing to the computer.

But as 2010 peters out, I need to close the year with something. So I paste in here a poem, because that's what I do when I have nothing else to say. It's not a year-change poem particularly, but I like it because of the hope that it ends with.

All you can say about 2010 is that it was pretty shit, and 2011 is going to be shitter if the UK and/or global economy goes into a slump again.

So we need to bathe in the river of Hope.

This is addressed to Rudy Lewis, a veteran of the Civil Rights movement who edits Chickenbones, and was working on a shed when I wrote it, in 2006.

My poem goes goes like this:



The Shed
To Rudolph Lewis
I hope that you, old friend, toiling away
to fix the roof of your store shed
all day for days in overwhelming heat,
the sweat of natural Florida,
that makes this too-warm English summer
seem temperate again,
I hope you win. I hope your father’s store
Is gloried with the roof that it deserves.

I hope that you don’t fall.

I want my friends in Africa
pinned down in Mogadishu
by flying lead, not nails,
to know about your shed.

I want as many people now
to know about your shed
as stand to learn from it,
because it’s more than shed
we talking here.

Fine as it no doubt is as shed,
this one is more than timber,
more than tar paper and sweat,
more than determination,
more than a health and safety risk,
more than some slabs of wood
arranged with more or less regard
to canons of structural integrity:

It is a thing of spirit,
creation of a living poet.

Architecture. Frozen blues, maybe.
Cathedrals come to mind.

Not that they should come
en masse to make a pilgrimage,
although in fact when you have gone
they might well come,
for few are famous while they breathe,

And of the ones that are,
it would be better for us all
that they were not,
maybe.

The point is that this shed
is getting built.

Trees are our brothers.
They live and die
just like John Barleycorn,
and willingly give up the sap
to win new life in service to their family.

This shed was once alive,
bi-placentate in form,
a joiner-up of earth and sky
the fusion point in its green sap
to all four elements.

Like Shiva’s locks that broke the flood
Its leaves gave shade from blazing sun.
Trees give us unconditional love,
like dogs and gods;

some gods.

Sadly not all.

It died to find itself becoming shed.

Frozen blues? In Florida now
the only frozen things
are found in white machines
humming beneath their breath
just while the juice is on.

Not frozen: solid blues
from far away, blown out by Buddy Bolden,
crossing a river wider, deeper, cooler than
Pontchartrain to celebrate one poet’s work.

It’s up there with the wolf and owl
and in the end, I dare say
up there with
Eli, Eli Lama Sabacthani,
if all the Truth be known.

The point is this:
this is a shed that’s going up.
Rudy is in the business of building sheds,
not breaking them.

He does not use his strength to knock down sheds.
He does not bulldoze structures.
He brings no lethal force to bear on others’ work.
There are no bombs in Rudy’s bag.

That’s all. That’s good. That’s all we need.

(c) Richard Lawson 2006

Solstice Ballad

SOLSTICE BALLAD

Sun disc pale and white

At the low point of the year.

Day gives way to night

and the wet branch drips    a tear_

that holds a falling world

compressing all we see

into a tiny liquid globe

hung on a silent tree.

While Roman steel is hurting

and their armies make us bow,

From Mary’s belly bursting out

a child infused with power.

We listen for a while

to universal love;

he conjures up a spell

change the eagle   to a dove.

But   the dove   grew talons

and his song became a scream:

a Church bore down upon us

where the Roman boot had been.

So we traded Church for Market

and the donkey for a Ford

but there’s nowhere we could park it

and the children soon got bored

and the banks that gave possessions

are calling in their loans;

their smiles hide their aggression:

they want everything we own.

But the sun will rise beyond this death

And next year we shall find

Another  way to shield the Earth

From the Roman soldiers’ mind.

© Richard Lawson

December 2006

To think, or not to be?

I think, therefore I am.
A reasonable start
for any man,
not just Descartes,
but doesn’t get us far.
“What am I for?”
is more the thought
that calls us to the bar.

Make sure that you don’t fail:
set out to be the alpha male.
get the top job.
Make sure you don’t get stopped
or get your bollocks cropped.

Don’t mention that we’re headed for the shit.
I said it once, I think I got away with it.

Here’s what to do:
Eat, screw,
Look out for number one,
Have loads of fun.
Make mon-
-ey.

Don’t get caught, and if you do
blame it on someone you once knew.
Stay with the pack
head for the brink
and, no matter what may come
just never, ever,


think.

© Richard Lawson
Congresbury
3 Sept 2006

High Windows

I’m really just discovering Philip Larkin as a poet, though I memorised This be the Verse a few years ago just for the pleasure of shocking the other girls at my boarding school. But he is a super poet, he truly is, with a uniquely English perspective on things. At the moment my favourite amongst his poems is the wonderful High Windows with all of its sad ambiguity. And here it is.

The Victorian Crisis of Faith

Robert Browning fashions Easter-Day as a discussion between two voices, exploring, amongst other things, the nature of faith, how insecure it is, and how necessary God's help is in sustaining it. The simple fact is that the Victorian world was beginning to lose some of its past certainties in matters of faith and religion, a process that the publication of David Strauss's The Life of Jesus helped to accelerate. Browning was later to say "I know the difficulty of believing...I know all that may be said against it [the Christian scheme of salvation] on the ground of history, of reason, of even moral sense. I grant even that it may be a fiction. But I am none the less convinced that the life and death of Christ, as Christians apprehend it, supply something that their humanity requires; and that is true for them."

The same uncertainty, the same crisis of faith, was also taken up by Matthew Arnold in "Dover Beach":

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Of Arses and Red-Hot Irons: the Miller's Tale

I recently touched the wonderfully hedonistic and ribald poetry of the superb John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. But the bawdy tradition in English poetry predates him by many centuries, indeed it does. I’m thinking now of Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales, that stupendous compilation that shows so many paths into the Medieval mind. Have you read it? No, well you should; you will almost certainly be surprised by what you find. I first read it in Middle-English, though there are good modern translations.

Let me tell you about the Miller, one of the Pilgrims who accompanies Chaucer’s mixed company to the shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury . To while away the time during the journey from London each is encouraged to tell a tale. The Knight comes first, with a high story of adventure and romance. The Miller immediately takes it upon himself to bring matters down to earth somewhat with the story of a student by the name of Nicholas who persuades Alison, the much younger wife of his elderly carpenter landlord, to go to bed with him. So far, so bad!

But Alison has another admirer, Absolon, the parish clerk. While Nicholas and Alison are in bed together he appears at the darkened window of her house, asking for a kiss. Refusing to go away, Alison finally agrees to his request, though not in the way he imagines, oh no. Remember, it’s dark:

The window she unbarred, and that in haste.

Have done, said she, come on, and do it fast,

Before we're seen by any neighbour's eye.

This Absalom did wipe his mouth all dry;

Dark was the night as pitch, aye dark as coal,

And through the window she put out her hole.

And Absalom no better felt nor worse,

But with his mouth he kissed her naked arse

Right greedily, before he knew of this.

Aback he leapt- it seemed somehow amiss,

For well he knew a woman has no beard;

He'd felt a thing all rough and longish haired,

And said, Oh fie, alas! What did I do?

Teehee! she laughed, and clapped the, window to;

And Absalom went forth a sorry pace.

So, off he goes, poor man, full of fury and hot for revenge. He borrows a red hot iron from the blacksmith, returning to where Alison lives. Once again, he asks for a kiss. This time Nicholas, who has risen for a piss, decides to join in the fun.

This Nicholas had risen for a piss,

And thought that it would carry on the jape

To have his arse kissed by this jack-a-nape.

And so he opened window hastily,

And put his arse out thereat, quietly,

Over the buttocks, showing the whole bum;

And thereto said this clerk, this Absalom,

O speak, sweet bird, I know not where thou art.

This Nicholas just then let fly a fart

As loud as it had been a thunder-clap,

And well-nigh blinded Absalom, poor chap;

But he was ready with his iron hot

And Nicholas right in the arse he got.

Off went the skin a hand's-breadth broad, about,

The coulter burned his bottom so, throughout,

That for the pain he thought that he should die.

And like one mad he started in to cry,

Help! Water! Water! For God's dear heart!

Alison’s husband, who is at home, though unaware what is going on, awakes; the neighbourhood awakes. All have a great laugh at the carpenter’s expense! :-))

Serendipity: Discovering Clive James

Life is not for television; life is for living! Yes, my declaration: I do not watch that much television; I’m altogether for too busy with deeper-and shallower-modes of experience. OK, OK, I confess that I simply refuse to miss Friends and Charmed when they are on and I like documentaries and good movies. Oh, gosh; maybe I do spend too much time watching telly after all!

What I have been watching recently, when I’ve been able, is the BBC’s poetry season, which has allowed me to immerse myself in the beauty of words and rhythms; allowed me some insight into how other people perceive poetry. I particularly enjoyed the programmes on John Donne, my favourite poet in the English language, full of deep sensuality, and John Milton, who, in Paradise Lost, might be have said to have recreated Lucifer as a modern hero, the greatest of all of the great rebels. There were also some wonderful new discoveries-new for me-and here I want to make particular mention of the show presented by the comedian Robert Webb, an hour long personal exploration in My Life in Verse.

I watched this for two reasons: first because I think Webb is a super comic, and second, because he was touching on the work of poets, modern poets, whose work I would like to understand better; poets like T. S. Elliot, E. E. Cummings and Philip Larkin. I learned Larkin’s This be the Verse years ago just to be able to recite it to the other girls in my school, more for the shock value, you understand, than because I thought it an outstanding poem. Well, yes, they do fuck you up, your mum and dad!

It was all good, the extracts from The Wasteland, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, and the readings from Cummings. But the poem that impacted on me most was High Windows, also by Larkin, which I simply could not get out of my head. It’s still there, now committed permanently to memory.

There was something else about this particular show: Webb introduced me to Clive James, whom he described as his favourite writer. Now, I absolutely adore serendipity, discovering something, something that takes me by surprise, while looking for something else. James is a writer, broadcaster and himself a poet. He was talking specifically about Cummings. He also read some of his own verses, good stuff, but it was not that specifically that impressed me; it was his general manner, the things he talked about and the way he used words. So, having time on my hands at the moment, I decided to find out more.

I suppose I should say that my mind works in a slightly eccentric way: it moves, capillary-like, down particular avenues in search of something, often branching off on discovering something else; lairs within lairs, meanings within meanings. You can see it at work here, for I started to talk about poetry and I’m about to finish at a different teminus altogether!

I have before me Cultural Amnesia: Notes on the Margin of My Time, a collection of essays by James, essays on a large variety of people, artists, politicians, musicians, writers; essays that cover people as diverse as Anna Akhmatova and Josef Goebbels. Who would have thought to find those two between the same covers!

The book’s quite delicious. It fills me with tingly delight, because, like me, the author goes off at tangents when he detects a scent he wants to pursue. The essay on Peter Altenberg, an Austrian writer and poet, was fascinating and frustrating; fascinating because I had never heard of him, frustrating because James says so little before setting off on a different path. Why did I find Altenberg of such interest? Simply because of a single quotation, from a work called Fechsung. It goes like this;

There are only two things that can destroy a healthy man: love trouble, ambition and financial catastrophe. And that’s already three things, and there are a lot more.

Anyone who writes like that is worth getting to know better. Clive James is worth getting to know better.

Beowulf

Hweat!

I love Beowulf, love the rhythms and the cadences of this wonderful poem. It’s about journeys of different kinds, between places and between worlds Even when it ends with Beowulf’s death it’s just the beginning of another sojourn; for the Anglo-Saxon verb ‘to die’ also means ‘to go on a journey.’ It’s an epic of ‘worda and worca’-words and deeds-as the poet puts it, transfiguring the mundane.



Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,



monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra



ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning!
Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned,
geong in geardum, þone god sende
folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat



þe hie ær drugon aldorlease
lange hwile. Him þæs liffrea,
wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf;
Beowulf wæs breme (blæd wide sprang),
Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in.



Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean,
fromum feohgiftum on fæder bearme,
þæt hine on ylde eft gewunigen
wilgesiþas, þonne wig cume,
leode gelæsten; lofdædum sceal



in mægþa gehwære man geþeon.
Him ða Scyld gewat to gescæphwile
felahror feran on frean wære.
Hi hyne þa ætbæron to brimes faroðe,
swæse gesiþas, swa he selfa bæd,



þenden wordum weold wine Scyldinga;
leof landfruma lange ahte.
þær æt hyðe stod hringedstefna,
isig ond utfus, æþelinges fær.
Aledon þa leofne þeoden,



beaga bryttan, on bearm scipes,
mærne be mæste. þær wæs madma fela
of feorwegum, frætwa, gelæded;
ne hyrde ic cymlicor ceol gegyrwan
hildewæpnum ond heaðowædum,



billum ond byrnum; him on bearme læg
madma mænigo, þa him mid scoldon
on flodes æht feor gewitan.
Nalæs hi hine læssan lacum teodan,
þeodgestreonum, þon þa dydon



þe hine æt frumsceafte forð onsendon
ænne ofer yðe umborwesende.
þa gyt hie him asetton segen geldenne
heah ofer heafod, leton holm beran,
geafon on garsecg; him wæs geomor sefa,



murnende mod. Men ne cunnon
secgan to soðe, selerædende,
hæleð under heofenum, hwa þæm hlæste onfeng.



LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!
To him an heir was afterward born,
a son in his halls, whom heaven sent
to favor the folk, feeling their woe
that erst they had lacked an earl for leader
so long a while; the Lord endowed him,
the Wielder of Wonder, with world's renown.
Famed was this Beowulf: far flew the boast of him,
son of Scyld, in the Scandian lands.
So becomes it a youth to quit him well
with his father's friends, by fee and gift,
that to aid him, aged, in after days,
come warriors willing, should war draw nigh,
liegemen loyal: by lauded deeds
shall an earl have honor in every clan.
Forth he fared at the fated moment,
sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God.
Then they bore him over to ocean's billow,
loving clansmen, as late he charged them,
while wielded words the winsome Scyld,
the leader beloved who long had ruled....
In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel,
ice-flecked, outbound, atheling's barge:
there laid they down their darling lord
on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings,
by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure
fetched from far was freighted with him.
No ship have I known so nobly dight
with weapons of war and weeds of battle,
with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay
a heaped hoard that hence should go
far o'er the flood with him floating away.
No less these loaded the lordly gifts,
thanes' huge treasure, than those had done
who in former time forth had sent him
sole on the seas, a suckling child.
High o'er his head they hoist the standard,
a gold-wove banner; let billows take him,
gave him to ocean. Grave were their spirits,
mournful their mood. No man is able
to say in sooth, no son of the halls,
no hero 'neath heaven, -- who harbored that freight!

Recessional

Recessional is a fine poem, a hymn to the noon-day of British Imperialism, but far from being a jingoistic clarion; it shows a deep sense of unease.

A lot of the introspection can be explained by contemporary events. France was, once again, proving troublesome, as the Fashoda Incident was to demonstrate, and Germany and Italy, Europe's adolescent nations, were disturbing the old imperial calm. More than that, the British manufacturing, the very thing upon which the Empire was built, was facing ever fiercer competition from both Germany and the United States. The problem here was that much of the traditional industrial base was increasingly obsolete, with a marked failure to modernise and reinvest. Only 'invisible' exports served to carry the economy into surplus.

Going beyond the area of economics there were any number of challenges to the old order. Trade unions were growing in strength and militancy; women were beginning to question political orthodoxy; and Irish nationalism was a problem that simply refused to go away. Kipling's poem, which was widely popular, might be said to have spoken to all of these anxieties, particularly over the possible decline of British Naval power; that the bonfires of celebration might well be temporary and over-optimistic-On dune and headland sinks the fire. It's as if a Roman poet were writing at the time of Marcus Aurelius, warning what lay just over the horizon;

If, drunk with sight of power,
We loose wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Of lesser breeds without the Law-
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Least we forget-lest we forget!

Kipling's sense of foreboding was also expressed in a letter to his cousin;

Seeing what manner of armed barbarians we are surrounded with, we're about the only power with a glimmer of civilization in us...This is no ideal world but a nest of burglars, alas; and we must protect ourselves against being burgled. All the same, we have no need to shout and yell and ramp about strength because that is a waste of power, and because other nations can do the advertising better than we can. The big smash is coming one of these days, sure enough, but I think we shall pull through, not without credit.

We did pull through, not without credit, as Kipling predicted, but only in such a way that all the pomp of yesterday would indeed be one with Nineveh and Tyre.