I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
– Sylvia Plath
I: In Which Four Villanellians Meet in Heaven
Four deceased composers of the villanelle -
Auden, Bishop, Thomas, and Sylvia Plath -
meet for tea in Heaven and get along well.
They speak of prose and of verse, Don Juan and William Tell,
and recall some quips from Chaucer’s Wife of Bath.
Four former craftsmen of the villanelle
at length fall headlong into Burgundian spell
and cannot reckon their bill through drunken math.
But they laugh, make merry and love each other well,
now vomiting terza rima from Dante’s hell,
with ironic asides on Milton’s Satan’s wrath.
Four erstwhile wardens of the villanelle
stumble out of the inn through a starry dell,
slurring antique verb forms like dost and hath.
In alabaster beds they sleep quite well,
dreaming of words that rhyme with good and fell
and appraising each as meet, so-so, or daft.
Four quondam masters of the villanelle
forget themselves in each other and make themselves well.
II: Time and Rhyme
The Supreme Non-being of us all is Time -
that cold abstraction of matter and fact.
And our Jesu and warm human savior is Rhyme,
who entered Creation, first, mute as a mime
and, to set things in motion, approached with tact
the Supreme Non-being we know as Time,
calling up to it through primordial slime
and presenting itself as the son Time lacked -
as Christus and rescuer of flesh. As Rhyme.
“Does such impertinence amount to crime?”
It seemed at least quite a breach of respect
to the Supreme Non-being that is Time,
who considered tossing this “son” in the lime.
Eventually, though, Time made a pact
with this would be messiah who called himself Rhyme
and erected a ladder for us to climb
against a plenum with days and minutes stacked.
Thus did the Supreme Non-being known as Time
acknowledge his son, our redeemer, Rhyme.
III: The Age of Prose
All poets languished in the Age of Prose.
There were no ears to hear their silent verse.
So few of them apostrophized the rose
or decked remorse in figurative clothes.
No Hippocrene to quench poetic thirst,
the poets dried up in this Age of Prose.
Just how it started, no one can suppose,
nor know how an affair can be reversed
in which there is no interest in the rose.
For all there was to read was news of woes,
in language neither beautiful nor terse.
The poets suffered in this Age of Prose.
Unfeeling gents would punch them in the nose
or “disappear” them in an unmarked hearse.
They lived, they died, and no one brought a rose.
The pallbearers were all the poets’ foes,
who mourned that there were no more left to curse!
The poets languished in this Age of Prose,
when folks could not care less about the rose.
IV: New Metaphors of Elemental Fire
— lines written while contemplating Jimi Hendrix’s first album (Are You Experienced?) —
New metaphors of elemental fire
are what the children need to make them sing
and, in their songs, to conjugate desire.
For it’s the task of every youthful crier
to catch them in his net and then unspring
new metaphors of elemental fire.
All day the young ones never seem to tire
but strive to have their way with everything
in which they can discern their own desire.
Beyond a certain age, as death draws nigher,
we wonder if it’s possible to swing
another toke on elemental fire -
some groove or path or method to inspire
our happenstance and keep it happening
as in old age we fan our old desire.
The children gather round, as we retire,
to chant, in rounds of Love and hymns of Spring,
new metaphors of elemental fire
through which they seize and conjugate desire.
V: Splendid Rock
Our birthplace and our home is splendid rock -
the central metaphor of this, our age.
Our tempo and our timekeeper. Our clock.
Our Plato and our Job, our modern Bach,
whose gods have names like Hendrix, Moon, and Page.
Yes, this our birthplace known as Splendid Rock
has monuments to view on every block -
like this one here, which showcases the rage
that slowly gathered ‘round Bill Haley’s clock.
And Otis felt it, sitting on that dock.
He sang it out like righteous macrophage
against the cancers threatening our rock.
We filled our elders with regret and shock.
How deep our anger flowed they could not gauge.
Their Bibles bore no clue, nor did their clock.
What more was there to do but jeer and mock
and vote to place our Jaggers in a cage?
But now our birthplace, home, and Splendid Rock
can be enjoyed by all. Just give a knock.
Come trim the weeds. We’ll pay a living wage!
Behold our birthplace, home, and Splendid Rock,
and, in this square, our battered, precious clock.
VI: The Dialectic of Surfeit and Need
The dialectic of surfeit and need
infuses us all with a sense of dread.
It pinches the social impulse with greed
and seems to undermine our every deed,
from buying stocks to lining up for bread.
The dialectic of surfeit and need
is a struggle from which we would be freed
if to all the world it hadn’t yet spread,
yoking humanity to abject greed
and replicating itself in our seed
to outlive us when our last word is said.
The dialectic of surfeit and need
surpasses good will with inhuman speed.
In fact, we say “Godspeed,“ though God has sped
and left us to worthless bounties of greed
in hope we will reformulate our creed
before we final humans all drop dead.
Behold, this dialectic of surfeit and need
that limits us all at times to limitless greed.
VII: Funessence, Square of Life
The square of life, life’s root, is precious fun.
This I assert without a speck of qualm.
It’s good to know it now, ere day is done.
That’s not to say serenity’s to shun.
We need at end of day some quiet balm
to soothe us after squaring life for fun,
like lotion that protects us from the sun
and blue mobiles that keep a baby calm
while studying how life and days are done
and how to crawl and laugh and cry and run
and how to write a poem and win the palm.
To dig the root of life in mirth and fun
should make us sympathize with everyone
from Eden out to Avignon and Guam
who’s keen to laugh and smile ere day is done.
“Funessence,” so revealed, may shock and stun,
but I’ll repeat this as my solemn psalm:
The square of life, life’s root, is precious fun,
and I’m glad to have learned this ere my days are done.
VIII: Furlongs Thick and Fathoms Deep
- for Timm Freitas -
The dude was capable of perfect sleep,
although he did not know he had a snore
that sounded down ten thousand fathoms deep
and varied from a siren to a beep.
It irked his brother Tim right to the core
that Andy could enjoy such perfect sleep
across the room inside his bundled heap
that rattled windowpanes and shook the door
and sounded furlongs thick and fathoms deep.
Across the floor our restless Tim did creep
and thought how best to interrupt the roar
so that he too might get some perfect sleep.
His road to victory, alas, was steep.
For Andy’s dreams were filled with magic lore
that dropped his NREM-3* just far too deep,
brought on by making love to Meryl Streep.
Returning to his bed, Tim’s ears were sore.
Yes, Andy sure was capable of sleep.
And sure, Tim slept. But no, it wasn’t deep.
[*Read: “en-rem-three” (the deepest stage of human sleep, that precedes and may follow the REM stage, in which we dream).]
IX: Accessing the Real (or, Dazzling Chrome)
- for Hannah Bethard -
The ultimate goal is access to the real,
and that’s the raison d’être of the poem.
In getting there, we learn to think and feel,
stuffing eidetic fish into our creel
to fry up nicely on our stove at home -
the ultimate goal in accessing the real.
Nutrition is the ultimate appeal!
The hippocampus is a hippodrome,
and, as they race and learn to think and feel,
our mental horses need a solid meal
before we send them out in dazzling chrome.
The ultimate goal of access to the real
will make each pilgrim gush and grin and squeal
upon release of that ecstatic foam
that feeds and cleanses as we think and feel,
angling lines for popular appeal
to scan beneath the moon and midnight dome.
The ultimate goal in accessing the real:
a poem that teaches us to think and feel.
X: The Universe Is God Enough for Me
The cosmos whirls. Imagination’s free
to paupers looking up through Heaven’s maze.
The universe has got enough for me!
Are we the spawn of man-made deity,
or is our maker but this milky haze?
The universe is God enough for me.
“Let riches fade to rags.” An earnest plea.
We’re in accumulation’s human phase.
This universe has got enough for me
without my having to smite oil from Brie!
And manna shall descend right where I laze.
This universe is God enough for me!
I worship it upon my bended knee
and celebrate it in my gnomic lays.
The universe has got enough for me,
and I’m content within it just to be
and think that sometimes it returns my gaze.
This universe has got enough for me!
And Universe is God enough for me.
Honolulu
November and December, 2023