Saturday, December 10, 2011

Theodore Enslin, I.M.: Baker, Giannini & Philips

Photo courtesy of Ed Baker

This post contains some poems and photographs in tribute to Theodore Enslin, by fellow poets and friends  Ed Baker, David Giannini, and John Phillips, as well as a poem by the poet himself.  In addition, there is also a link to a brief obituary (and an excerpt from same) and a recording of Brahms Intermezzo, Opus 18, No. 2, which Theodore Enslin requested be played in lieu of a memorial service or other type of observance.


“let me tell you a
"story
"about that chair you’re sitting in
"I call it The Low Down Chair

 “it was many years ago now.
 “She was a Catholic girl.
 “Very pretty.”

 & then he took a snap of me w my
 little Kodak Instan-matic.

“In THAT LOW DOWN CHAIR
 “SHE
“& It was many years ago

 “& lots of poems-into-books came
“afterwards.”

 “and the cane?”

“It’s one that I made.
“I make them. Sell them.

“That’s how I got to be so rich.
“Selling canes. Selling poems.”

a short time later
we walked his property to that Old Pine

“There’s a story in that Old Pine
“You sure take a lot of pictures.

 "I’m hungry. You hungry?

“I know a place in town. Great Haddock Chowder
“Ever eat a Bloomin' Onion?  Big as a basketball.”

At the diner he flirted w the cute waitress
who
knew his ways & means

made Love with spoon in chowder
Ed Baker




Here are three poems by David Giannini:




THREE POEMS to TED (THROUGH the YEARS)

             
1           1.  AUDUBON SANCTUARY, WELLFLEET

Beyond sanctuary     the sea
“so quick to feel surprise and shame”
of waves     at crest     that suspense
suspension where     the soul feels

the soul feels its mirrors      mirrors
of salt     of our bodies     of our blood
of instants     of the moon     of the tides
spreading us     to grains     and with

 “The earth under our feet we are
 not asked to begin nowhere”—
we stand     on belief     and sand
then step     this way     to the marsh.







2. MAYBE SONG
                                                                                
Maybe if you tell it the wind will stop maybe
the long wind if you tell will stop banging its
bells. Maybe the wind will stop if you slip
into the wind silence that wants in maybe
bell longing will come. Maybe your silence
lives inside the will of the wind maybe in
long bells hiding from ruthless interims
of eye. Maybe if you spy them the bells will
stop maybe the long bells if you spy them
will stop if you will.  Maybe if you slip into 
the silence the wind that wants in will spy
a forest being maybe many still trees. Maybe
if you feel it being tall pine air maybe the
being will be silent ruthless interims of ear.


                                                                                   
                                                                                                                      
3.

To age
             and move uneasily
to become
                     more          
                                  adventuresome
in mind (assuming
                                    the necessary
foolishness,
                       the course
                                            and curse of it)
despite macular de-
                                   generation and
the falling
                     to ground, then
                                                    abed, 
and the final jit-
                               tery track of
being
              what you always were,
Ted.


David Giannini



A poem and a photograph of Theodore Enslin by John Phillips:




Photo courtesy of John Phillips



 

LETTER
for Ted Enslin

The daffodils are
just
       coming into
 bloom
            Still
a number of
                    croci
& a kind of blue
scilla
          I found
          years ago
in an
         abandoned garden
      a swallow just
              fluttered in


23.4.05

John Phillips




Here is an excerpt from an obituary in the Daily Bulldog, in Farmington, Maine:


Anyone who knew Ted will be familiar with his desire to have the last word -- so here it is:
"In lieu of a memorial service or other observances, I would prefer that concerned friends in thinking of me might listen to or perform, the Brahms Intermezzo, Opus 118 #2, whenever it might occur to them as appropriate. To me, that one short piece sums up what I might have hoped to achieve in a life in art."


The Way Desideratum

Goodbye, but not
goodbye again.
I do not leave you--
land behind me
in the land ahead.
I step the curve,
and curve enough
returns.
Theodore Enslin








Intermezzo in A Op118 No. 2 by Brahms on Grooveshark 
 
 
 

Photo courtesy of Ed Baker



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





from the thin curve
of the sickle moon...
one leaf falls
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue








best,
Don



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