Supernaturally: Issa's Sunday Service, #140

Photo by Tony Hisgett 

   

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Sunday Service regular, Nick Cave, steps in for another installment with the song "Supernaturally" from his album with the Bad Seeds, entitled Abattoir Blues. There are at least two literary precursors to this one, which I've mentioned on a previous post a few years back. First, a spirited live performance, then the lyrics, followed by something of an explanation

     

"Supernaturally"

Through the windswept coastal trees
Where the dead come rising from the sea
With a teddy-bear clamped between her knees
She says, where can my loverman be?
Well, I'm down here, babe, with the Eskimos
With the polar bears and the Arctic snow
With a party of penguins who do not know flow
How I can get back to thee
Well I'm gonna ask you, babe
Hey! Ho!
Oh baby don't you go
Hey! Ho!
Oh no no no
Hey! Ho!
Oh baby, don't you go
All supernatural on me
Supernaturally

Once I was your hearts desire
Now I am the ape hunkered by the fire
With my knuckles dragging through the mire
You float by so majestically
You're my north, my south, my east, my west
You are the girl that I love best
With an army of tanks bursting from your chest
I wave my little white flag at thee
Can you see it, babe?
Hey! Ho!
Oh baby don't you go
Hey! Ho!
Oh no no no
Hey! Ho!
Oh baby, don't you go
All supernatural on me
Supernaturally

Now I've turned the mirrors to wall
I've emptied out the peopled halls
I've nailed shut the windows and locked the doors
There is no escape, you see
I chase you up and down the stairs
Under tables and over chairs
I reach out and I touch your hair
And it cuts me like a knife
For there is always something
other little thing you gotta do
Hey! Ho!
Oh baby don't you go
Hey! Ho!
Oh baby, no no no
Hey! Ho!
Oh don't you go
All supernatural on me
Supernaturally


What might this have to do with literature? Well, first there is a poem by Auden, popularly known as "Funeral Blues":


(Song IX / from Two Songs for Hedli Anderson)
W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.


Previous to the Auden, however, there was a traditional Irish poem/song, adapted by Lady Gregory, known as "Donal Óg":


Donal Óg

It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.

When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,
I sit down and I go through my trouble;
when I see the world and do not see my boy,
he that has an amber shade in his hair.

It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you;
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday.
And myself on my knees reading the Passion;
and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.

My mother said to me not to be talking with you today,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,
or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge;
or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;
it was you that put that darkness over my life.

You have taken the east from me;
you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!


In the later are the lines "You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me"; in the former, it transforms into "He was my North, my South, my East and West" and, lastly, from our humble little litrock number there is "You're my north, my south, my east, my west." Though it might be thought that the connection between "Donal Óg" and "Funeral Blues is tenuous, the link with "Supernaturally", at least in the case of Auden is obvious, hence today's selection.

Though I can't seem to find the recitation of "Donal Óg" (a jumpy version may be found here) from John Huston's wonderful film The Dead, here is a very fine moment, indeed, from an otherwise average film, Four Weddings and a Funeral, that brought Auden's work back into the popular arena, at least for a few months:

     

Lastly, for the first person to answer the following question (and how many even made it this far into the post?) in the comment section, a free six-issue subscription (or choice of two chapbooks or a six-issue extension to a current subscriber) to Lilliput Review:

How is the picture at the top of this post connected to what follows?

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

a finger pointing
to the west...
autumn wind

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don 

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Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 140 songs

Found Items Friday ...

Found in a used copy of Carl Jacobi's Revelations in Black

Herein, some misc items, seen around the web and in print, for your perusal while I knuckle under, working on the 4 presentations I have to do in the next 8 or so weeks: they are specifically on haiku, Robert Frost, Robinson Jeffers, and, for work, customer service as a vocation or a way.

This first item, found in an old paperback copy of a horror novel I picked up probably 10 years ago, shows a shopper, on a meager (probably early 70's) budget, who has her priorities straight: Books, Drinks, Shop, and Food.  We can only hope that the remaining $45 was as wisely allotted.

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

A Wallace Stevens quote found somewhere on the net:

"Poetry and surety claims aren't as unlikely a combination as they may seem," observed Wallace Stevens.

Ancedote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Wallace Stevens

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

Here is the short film, in three parts, on the magnificent Gerald Stern, entitled Still Burning.   He has a brand new volume, Early Collected Poems, 1965-1992, which contains the books, Rejoicings, Lucky Life, The Red Coal, Paradise Poems, Lovesick, and Bread Without Sugar, his first six.  It not only contains some of the best, most accessible, heartrending American poems of the 2nd half of the 20th century, but it is dedicated "To the Sorrowful."

You know who you are. 

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

To complement the Stern film, an interview with his old pal, Jack Gilbert, another fine poet, from the Paris Review.

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In a very positive review (link is an excerpt) of the debut collection by Evgenia Citkowitz entitled Ether: Seven Stories and a Novella, Joyce Carol Oates pulls a great quote from W. H. Auden:

This [collection] is not elevated tragedy or even the more familiar fissures of domestic drama but the stoic-melancholy vision of W. H. Auden, for whom "the crack in the teacup opens / a lane to the land of the dead."

It is amazing, how a brief quote from a longer work can open up its world, ironically not unlike the little crack in the little teacup ...

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
Tomorrow or today.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the teacup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With all your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

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Here's a 49 second visualization of the haiku by Moritake, "drifting back to the branch:"

"drifting back to the branch" by Moritake from arjuno kecil

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This week's feature poem from the archive comes from Lilliput Review #132, July 2003.  Enjoy.

at the edge of the world

to ask
           why the wave drowns
           the fisherman
is to give
           the wave
           humanity
and to take
           away our own

Jeff Stumpo

And Issa, to wrap it up:


hey boatman
no pissing on the moon
in the waves!

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue 

best,
Don

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Gerald Stern on W. H. Auden

Cover by Oberc

This past Sunday, February 27th, was the birthday of a personal favorite here at Issa's Untidy Hut: Gerald Stern. Stern was born in Pittsburgh, which has been my home for the last 18 years, and lives in New Jersey, where I was born and raised. Much of our non-mutual time was spent in the same haunts in Jersey, New York, Philly, and Pittsburgh. His imagery is familiar, I might almost say familial, an imagery that is spot-on in both detail and emotional sagacity. I won't belabor the point, as I've covered much of this territory in past posts.

Happy birthday, Gerald. Wishing you all the happiness you have so generously given others in the sharing of your work and life.

Yesterday, I noted the recent anniversary of W. H. Auden's birth. I thought it might be nice to dovetail these birthdays together with a poem by Gerald Stern in memory of W. H. Auden. It's a bit longer than I usually post here, but a lyrical, insightful homage.

In Memory of W. H. Auden

I am going over my early rages again,
my first laments and ecstasies,
my old indictments and spiritualities.
I am standing, like Schiller, in front of Auden's door
waiting for his carved face to let me in.
In my hand is The Poem of My Heart I dragged
from one ruined continent to the other,
all my feelings slipping out on the sidewalk.
It was warm and hopeful in his small cave
waiting for the right word to descend
but it was cold and brutal outside on Fourth Street
as I walked back to the Seventh Avenue subway,
knowing, as I reached the crowded stairway,
that I would have to wait for ten more years
or maybe twenty more years for the first riches
to come my way, and knowing that the stick
of that old Prospero would never rest
on my poor head, dear as he was with his robes
and his books of magic, good and wise as he was
in his wrinkled suit and his battered slippers
—Oh good and wise, but not enough to comfort me,
so loving was he with his other souls.
I had to wait like clumsy Caliban,
a sucker for every vagueness and degeneration.
I had to find my own way back, I had to
free myself, I had to find my own pleasure
in my own sweet cave, with my own sweet music.
--Once a year, later even once a month,
I stood on the shores of Bleeker and Horatio
waving good-bye to that ship all tight and yare
and that great wizard, bobbing up and down
like a dreaming sailor out there, disappearing
just as he came, only this time his face more weary
and his spirit more grave than when he first arrived
to take us prisoner on our own small island,
the poet I now could talk to, that wrinkled priest
whose neck I'd hang on, that magician
who could release me now, whom I release and remember.

Gerald Stern

And, since it is his birthday, here's a beautiful, touching, resonant, celebratory, and tragic piece of wonder, that high steps to all the right notes, perfectly pitched:




The Dancing

In all these rotten shops, in all this broken furniture
and wrinkled ties and baseball trophies and coffee pots
I have never seen a postwar Philco
with the automatic eye
nor heard Ravel's "Bolero" the way I did
in 1945 in that tiny living room
on Beechwood Boulevard, nor danced as I did
then, my knives all flashing, my hair all streaming,
my mother red with laughter, my father cupping
his left hand under his armpit, doing the dance
of old Ukraine, the sound of his skin half drum,
half fart, the world at last a meadow,
the three of us whirling and singing, the three of us
screaming and falling, as if we were dying,
as if we could never stop — in 1945 —
in Pittsburgh, beautiful filthy Pittsburgh, home
of the evil Mellons, 5,000 miles away
from the other dancing — in Poland and Germany —
of God of mercy, oh wild God.

Gerald Stern

Though all of us wish an end to the long, senseless wars that rage on, perhaps none of us will ever dance as those who danced on that day in 1945.


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


If it's Tuesday, it's time for a dip into the Lilliput Review Back Issue Archive. This week it's issue #51, from December 1993. As I've mentioned previously, the further back in time we go, there is a noticeable change in tone and approach. This issue, I think, reflects this more than most. The sampling opens with a powerful piece by the excellent poet and Vietnam vet, Bill Shields.

dead poem #9

in the night
I'm my dream

my enemy

rabid dogs
suck my wet fingers

headless children sit in a circle
of chairs around my bed stomping their feet

as the mattress burns
the worms flow

my face
fills

out

Bill Shields

what dostoyevsky might have meant

-----------as
-----------dead dogs die

-----------let's
-----------shiver

-----------for
-----------them

------------Todd Kalinski

Orphans Adopting Themselves

from our fathers
we inherit feet
from our mothers
long arms

we walk away
always reaching back

Robert S. King

So It's Sometimes Said

Big Apple celebrityites
are to the ontological plenitude
of quotidian propinquity as
Arnold Schwarzenegger (minus
Great Garbo) are to the
ruck of humanity. Or so
it is sometimes said.

Wayne Hogan

Listening
Where there is nothing to hear
And no listener

James J. Langon

Issue #51 was dedicated to the memory of frequent contributor and correspondent during Lillie's first four years, Beatrice George. It's been almost 16 years since her passing.

This is still for you:

Something in the slight spring
of the branch
as the bird
alights —

best,
Don

W. H. Auden & Nina Simone

This past Saturday, February 21st, was the shared birthdays of W. H. Auden and Nina Simone. Auden was never a man of too few words; this poem, however, has the power of his longer works with an unaccustomed conciseness.

Epitaph On A Tyrant

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter;
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

W. H. Auden

Which calls to mind, for me, E. E. Cummings's

a politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man

There is a kinship here of a bygone era and yet the subject transcends all culture and time.

Also, here is an Auden poem from the 1936 film titled "Night Mail." A minor sub-genre of poetry, the mail is something that habitually creeps into the work of most poets, who are typically awaiting news of a manuscript or proof copies of a new book. In "Night Mail, Auden universalizes this obsession of writers everywhere. Oddly, the recitation of the main verses in the film, in an attempt to replicate the motion of the train carrying the night mail, comes off as a sort of stiff upper lip rap, many decades before its time.

When it comes to trains, give me John Lee Hooker anyday. When it comes to the mail, Auden, however, has the inside track:





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

And then there is Nina Simone, who knew how to give a different sort of look at sinnermen. Tt's all about the power, despite the static slide show presentation (lovely as the individual images may be). Just close your eyes and sway ... and, if you are work, make sure the cat is belled.





Finally, here is a 30 minute documentary entitled "Nina Simone." A wonderful snippet of her singing Kurt Weill, whose work I coincidentally spent some time listening to this weekend, is a great moment, among quite a few others. The sound is not up to modern standards and this is a warts and all production, as she notes herself, but well with a glimpse of an artist coming to terms with herself and the world. Enjoy.





best,
Don

Richard Brautigan: A Galilee Hitchhiker

Well Worn Back Cover

Today is Richard Brautigan's birthday and he is a sentimental favorite around here, as many of you know. I thought to celebrate, I'd highlight some poems from his collection Rommel Drives On Deep Into Egypt.

It appears that I've already posted "Feasting and Drinking Went on Far into the Night," not once but twice, so I'll just give you the link and leave sparing the redundancy up to you (of course reading a good poem over and over, in this case spaced months apart, is highly recommended, as you'll find it's changed - or was that you?). Let's see what else I can roust up:

Shellfish

Always spend a penny
as if you were spending
-----dollar
and always spend a dollar
as if you were spending
a wounded eagle and always
spend a wounded eagle as if
you were spending the very
-----sky itself.






A Lyrical Want, an Endocrine Gland Fantasy

A lyrical want, an endocrine gland fantasy,
a telescope that I thought had no thorns
have lead me to a pain that I cannot pronounce.
It gathers around me like a convention of translators
for a language that does not exist with all those meetings
-----to attend.







All Secrets of Past Tense Have Just Come My Way

All secrets of past tense have just come my way,
but I still don't know what I'm going to do
----next.







Snow Makes Me Sad

Flying East today first to Chicago,
then North Carolina snow makes me sad
below in the mountains of the West.
It is a white sadness that rises
from California, Nevada, Utah
and Colorado to visit the airplane,
to sit here beside me like a snowy 1943
-----map of my childhood.






At first, it was Mr. B's playfulness with a medium that was always so Serious that appealed to the flower generation (Auden and Lowell in the rear view, by the side of the road, each with a battered bag and a bemused expression), followed so very closely by his sadness. And, yes, tragedy.

Messy, indeed.

It is that sadness that lingers for those of us who loved him. Still it is the subtle blend of whimsy, sadness, and, yes, seriousness (for can there be sadness without the serious) that made him truly great.

What say we swing on back and pick up those those two old geezers, lonely, sad, serious and, if truth be told, even a bit playful, shuffling along there, by the side of the road?

Nice to see you smiling, Mr. B.


best,
Don

Tapping the Barometer, Why Buddha Sat Under the Tree, and Joe Pesci in Pittsburgh

The sad news of recent days is that the death of Hayden Carruth is reverberating through various poetic communities (no, I don't think there is only one, in practice or theory). Ed Baker was kind enough to send along notice, and point to a poem well worth sharing.

Agenda At 74
Tap barometer, burn trash,
put out seed for birds, tap
barometer, go to market
for doughnuts and Dutch
Masters, feed cat, write
President, tap barometer,
take baby aspirin, write
congressman, nap, watch
Bills vs. Patriots, tap
barometer, go to post
office and ask Diane if
it's cold enough for her,
go to diner and say "hi,
babe" to Mazie, go to
barber shop and read

Sports Illustrated, go
home, take a load off,
tap barometer, go to
liquor store for jug
(Gallo chablis), go
home, pee, etc., sweep
cellar stairs (be careful!),
write letter to editor,
count dimes, count quarters,
tap the fucking barometer ...

Hayden Carruth

This so perfectly captures a day in the life of an aging poet that it almost takes the breathe away with its understated quality and matter-of-fact resonance.

Beautiful.

Yesterday's poetry appreciation session went well, though not quite as I expected. Part of an overall package of programs for lifelong learners, the general attendance had been between 15 and 17; yesterday, there were 9. So it was cozy and comfortable. After a half hour intro, we got into the poems and folks didn't quite respond to the questions I'd prepared to stimulate discussion, so the session transmuted into more traditional class, with me riding herd all the way. Folks were much more comfortable with this and, as I pointed out various aspects of the poems (in a declarative rather than inquisitive manner), they began to respond and responded very well. Since I noticed three faces from last year, I didn't want to repeat poems I'd covered then so asked them where to start. One person wanted to hear the Ted Kooser poem ("For You, Friend"), so I told them I had two poems to lead into it and proceeded to show them how one poem directly and indirectly influenced the other. They were taken with the similarity of imagery (which the relationships are built on) and we just took off from there. They were enthused enough with the three poems ("Donal Og - Broken Vows," "Funeral Blues" by Auden, and "For You, Friend), that I decided to stretch it and go for the Shakespeare "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day"), which really spun out well from the Kooser. They loved it, particularly when I read Howard Moss's poem of the same name:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Who says you're like one of the dog days?
You're nicer. And better.
Even in May, the weather can be gray,
And a summer sub-let doesn't last forever.
Sometimes the suns too hot;
Sometime it is not.
Who can stay young forever?
People break their necks or just drop dead!
But you? Never!
If there's just one condensed reader left
Who can figure out the abridged alphabet,
-----After you're dead and gone,
-----In this poem you'll live on!

I did this in my best "drop dead" Jersey accent and they loved it - when I heard the unrestrained laughter, I knew they were enjoying poetry and, so, I'd accomplished what I came for.

One of the more enlightening moments for me came during the questions that were asked as we were wrapping things up. One person in particular asked why is it that many times when she hears poets read, on places like the NewsHour, they just sound so flat and they drone on and on. As I paused to answer, everyone in the room was either vocally assenting or nodding their heads at this observation and I realized poets are very often their own worst enemies. My response was that I'd chosen works I love and greatly admire and those kinds of works for me contain a great deal of emotion that needs to be conveyed. They are works I believe in.

Everyone seems to lament the fact that no one reads poetry anymore and yet, when we have the opportunity to put our best faces forward, we drone on and on and on. And it is not just a matter of entertainment, though this too is a factor. A woman I ran into at the library an hour after class stopped me to say how much she enjoyed the session and how moved she always is by Auden's "Funeral Blues," to the point she has difficulty listening to it, yet finds it immensely powerful even in the extreme emotion it invokes. She noted how she could never have expressed those emotions in words yet the poet had gotten it perfectly. I told her the old adage was true: we look to our poets to speak for us, they give us our own voice.

That, friends, is poetry, to be touched deeply, to be moved permanently.

If you write something, you better believe in it. And if you believe in it, when you read it spin it like the bottle you want to land on just the right spot ...

In other news, the Basho Haiku Challenge entries will be accepted up until midnight this evening. The response has been quite amazing and I'm very pleased. I finished up David Landis Barnhill's translations, Bashō's Haiku, and had intended to report on that today but am running out of space and time, so I'll postpone it until next week. Suffice to say that of the over 700 haiku, I marked 35 that grabbed me.

Eventually, when I run out of back issues to feature, I've got a couple of ideas about featuring different work here on a weekly basis. One of the ideas I mentioned previously is to showcase work from the books on the Near Perfect list (157 and counting). Though I'm not going to begin that now, I ran across a video of one of the poets on the list, the amazing and powerful and moving Etheridge Knight. Here is a video rendition of his poem, "The Idea of Ancestry."







This week's featured back issue is a special one, issue #75, from January 1996. As a milestone number, I came up with the idea to solicit poems, all to be entitled "Why Did Buddha Sit Under the Tree." I received lots of work and featured 14 poems in the issue, 13 entitled "Why Did Buddha Sit Under the Tree" (the 14th was called "The Joke" - and that's another story). So, here's a handful of the best, including the "Winner":




Why Did Buddha Sit Under the Tree
there is no tree
no Buddha
& no contest.

please go home.

C Ra McGuirt
"Winning"poem

Why Did Buddha Sit Under the Tree
Because.
Because he is.
Because he is waiting.
Because he is waiting for you.

Evans Burn

Why Did Buddha Sit Under the Tree
To learn that
the words of
the prophets are
written on
subway walls.

Alan Catlin

Why Did Buddha Sit Under the Tree
When you read Nazi books
why do you always turn
straight to the pictures?

Noelle Kocot

Why Did Buddha Sit Under the Tree
Buddha did not sit
under the tree.
The tree stood
next to Buddha.

Laura Kim

Why Did Buddha Sit Under the Tree
When two or more are gathered in my name

Marty Campbell

Best of luck and thanks to everyone participating in the Basho Haiku Contest,

Don