Saturday, July 26, 2008

Books, by Benjamin Hummel




Railing at M'lady

I'm incensed with you, Vincent
            But adore your poetry, your gift
The gemmy words studding
            The pages where I've found them
Irish waters by a Cornish prow
            Sonnets by the dozen.

You are to me, an historical anomaly
            1916 girls should be pure and demure
Not given to lovers chasing them
            To Paris, or back and forth across the Channel!
Ah, curse wealth and privilege, fame and fortune,
            Skill with the mouth, tongue and pen,
Why must they so inevitably lead to abandon? 
            Wherefore Anais Nin?

Damn it, poet!  I'm sure I would've been among
            The manly crowd admiring, longing, lusting
After your red, red lips, your flaming tresses.  Perhaps even, scaling that tower,
            I'd have shared in your collective social malaises, Millay.

I refuse to read your biographies because
            I'm jealous, out of season, out of time,
I want Paris, too, the cafes, the words
            Glittering like dark red wine in crystal stems,
And tall, strong Nordic companions
            Wearing crowns of red and gold or onyx
Like the shepherdess of Shulam.
            You died before I was conceived! 
                        But I've snitched snippets of your life
In the Borders stacks, furtively reading in the middle
            Looking at the pictures, an undisciplined hack. 

Your rhyme and rhythm enrapture me, wile’d flapper!
            And I wish I had been on the field then
I'd've won your heart, composed you verse
            To show you how, impossibly, I understood!
I know!  My blood is as red, my words as good.
            That I can love and long with the
Best of them -  with you!      
                                    For you. 
But I have nothing to commend me
            No one knows these words, my languages
Are all foreign, oriental, scented with cloves and
Black pepper, cinnamon and tea, I have no proper degree
No peerage, no land, or horses, houses, industries.
            I've not been to Paris, I haven't known women. 
Only jungle and granite, and deep blue saltwater. 

Your price is ever beyond my means, as are all the beautiful
            Ones, the brilliant ones, the red lipped ones, catching the eye
With hooks and tearing the heart, provoking love.
            And all I am able to do is pound out my longing
In words that tumble, and do not flow like the streams from your mouth. 
            You did some pounding, too, perchance.  But you had fulfillment right
There!  Why were you not happy with your English god and all
            His sycophants?  The lesser gods before and after? 

And here I am all out of time
            My white charger pawing sand, proud silver
Armor dulled by corroding air, chipped sword in hand
            Seeking a flat horizon for the damsel in distress.
Chivalry did not die with Alfred Lord, that Quixotic Victorian,
            But my sword, my pen are impotent.

Failing even now to rescue the living
            Sending for the dead 
For places in the realms of vision
            Where dreams succeed, dragons are slain. 
Pity, they are so soft
            Rather they were as real as pain.

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