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“A Night of Dark Intent”

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Poet Robert Frost (1874-1963)

I came out to California in 1966 after getting my college degree at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.With Robert Frost, his movement was in the opposite direction: Born in San Francisco, he is best known for the poems he wrote while living in New Hampshire.

I had the good fortune of seeing Frost give a poetry reading at Dartmouth in the last year of his life. Then, years later, Martine and I visited his home in Franconia, New Hampshire in 2005.

The following poem is one of his most un-New-England works:

Once by the Pacific

The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves hooked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent,
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God’s last Put out the Light was spoken.

“They Shall Storm Your Streets at Last”

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F. L. Lucas is remembered more as a literary critic than as a poet. The amazing thing, though, is how scholarly writers like Lucas can write powerful poems, like the following one:

Beleaguered Cities

Build your houses, build your houses, build your towns,
Fell the woodland, to a gutter turn the brook,
Pave the meadows, pave the meadows, pave the downs,
Plant your bricks and mortar where the grasses shook,
The wind-swept grasses shook.

Build, build your Babels black against the sky –
But mark yon small green blade, your stones between,
The single spy
Of that uncounted host you have outcast;
For with their tiny pennons waving green
They shall storm your streets at last.

Build your houses, build your houses, build your slums,
Drive your drains where once the rabbits used to lurk,
Let there be no song there save the wind that hums
Through the idle wires while dumb men tramp to work,
Tramp to their idle work,
Silent the siege; none notes it; yet one day
Men from your walls shall watch the woods once more
Close round their prey.

Build, build the ramparts of your giant town;
Yet they shall crumble to the dust before
The battering thistle-down.

“The Relief of Emptiness”

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Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)

I have always admired Joyce Carol Oates for being that most rare thing: a prolific writer of quality. Currently, I am reading one of her psychological mysteries, Jack of Spades, about a mystery writer with two personas, one of them destructive. The question arose: Did Joyce ever write any poetry? Upon checking, I found the following sobering poem about everyday life:

Women Whose Lives are Food, Men Whose Lives are Money

Mid-morning Monday she is staring
peaceful as the rain in that shallow back yard
she wears flannel bedroom slippers
she is sipping coffee
she is thinking—
—gazing at the weedy bumpy yard
at the faces beginning to take shape
in the wavy mud
in the linoleum
where floorboards assert themselves

Women whose lives are food
breaking eggs with care
scraping garbage from the plates
unpacking groceries hand over hand

Wednesday evening: he takes the cans out front
tough plastic with detachable lids
Thursday morning: the garbage truck whining at 7
Friday the shopping mall open till 9
bags of groceries unpacked
hand over certain hand

Men whose lives are money
time-and-a-half Saturdays
the lunchbag folded with care and brought back home
unfolded Monday morning

Women whose lives are food
because they are not punch-carded
because they are unclocked
sighing glad to be alone
staring into the yard, mid-morning
mid-week
by mid-afternoon everything is forgotten

There are long evenings
panel discussions on abortions, fashions, meaningful work
there are love scenes where people mouth passions
sprightly, handsome, silly, manic
in close-ups revealed ageless
the women whose lives are food
the men whose lives are money
fidget as these strangers embrace and weep and mis-
understand and forgive and die and weep and embrace
and the viewers stare and fidget and sigh and
begin yawning around 10:30
never made it past midnight, even on Saturdays,
watching their braven selves perform

Where are the promised revelations?
Why have they been shown so many times?
Long-limbed children a thousand miles to the west
hitch-hiking in spring, burnt bronze in summer
thumbs nagging
eyes pleading
Give us a ride, huh? Give us a ride?

and when they return nothing is changed
the linoleum looks older
the Hawaiian Chicken is new
the girls wash their hair more often
the boys skip over the puddles
in the GM parking lot
no one eyes them with envy

their mothers stoop
the oven doors settle with a thump
the dishes are rinsed and stacked and
by mid-morning the house is quiet
it is raining out back
or not raining
the relief of emptiness rains
simple, terrible, routine
at peace

“Today Is Cold and Hard”

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Prague in the Winter, Early 1900s

Franz Kafka is not know for his poetry, though he did write two poems in a 1903 letter to a school friend named Oskar Pollak. They were found by Christina Hennemann and quoted in a website called The High Window. Below is one of the two poems, entitled “Cold and Hard”:

Cold and Hard

Today is cold and hard.
The clouds freeze.
The winds are tugging ropes.
The people freeze.
The footsteps sound metallic
On ore-bearing stones,
And the eyes look –
Wide white lakes.

In the old town stand
Small bright Christmas cottages,
Their colourful windows look out
Onto the snow-covered square.
In the moonlight a silent man
Walks into the snow,
His big shadow is blown
along the cottages by the wind.

People who cross dark bridges,
past saints
with dim little lights.

Clouds that drift across the grey sky
past churches
with twilight towers.
One who leans against the ashlar parapet
and looks into the evening water,
hands on old stones.

It’s not Kafka’s best work, but it is interesting to see him work in a different literary medium.

“The Vanity of Success”

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Laozi (aka Lao Tzu and Lao Tse)

However you pronounce his name, Laozi is one the world’s greatest thinkers. Born in 571 BC or sometimes thought to be in the 4th century BCE, or whenever, and died whenever, Laozi may in fact never have existed; yet he is a great author.

I have been reading Dancing with the Dead: The Essential Red Pine Translations (Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2023) with great pleasure. There is something about Chinese poetry—even in English translation—that hits me where I live. And Red Pine (alias Bill Porter) is a superb translator. His explanatory notes are revealing: He says that even Chinese scholars have a difficult time and have to rely on explanatory notes dated in the centuries after the poems were written.

Here is an excerpt from Laozi’s The Way and Its Power (aka Daodejing aka Tao Te Ching) on the subject of striving:

Instead of poring in more
better stop while you can
making it sharper
won’t help it last longer
rooms full of treasure
can never be safe
the vanity of success
invites its own failure
when your work is done retire
this is the Way of Heaven

Around 130 AD, the Chinese sage Heshanggong wrote the following note about this passage:

Excessive wealth and desire wearies and harms the spirit. The rich should help the poor, and the powerful should aid the oppressed. If, instead, they flaunt their riches and power, they are sure to suffer disaster. Once the sun reaches the zenith, it descends. Once the moon becomes full, it wanes. Creatures flourish then wither. Joy turns to sorrow. When your work is done, if you do not step down, you will meet with harm. This is the Way of Heaven.

This is very old and powerful wisdom. But does anyone listen? Not in today’s world.

My Light Is Spent

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English Poet John Milton (1608-1674)

John Milton was blind, but he did not suffer from blindness. Rather, he did not let it hinder him from producing a body of work that was nothing short of amazing. It reminds me of another blind poet, Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, who is one of my favorite writers and who wrote about Milton in a sonnet entitled “A Rose and Milton.” Now here is Milton in another sonnet writing about his own blindness:

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Yes, that last line is quite famous and known to virtually everyone. The preceding thirteen lines, however, are not so well known—though they should be.

“Keep an Even Mind”

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Horace and Virgil with Maecenas

Sometimes I think that philosophy has not progressed substantially since the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Here is an excerpt from Horace’s Epistles. Orcus is a god of the underworld, and Charon the boatman who ferries souls across the River Styx.

Book 2 Epistle 3: One Ending

When things are troublesome, always remember,
keep an even mind, and in prosperity
be careful of too much happiness:
since my Dellius, you’re destined to die,

whether you live a life that’s always sad,
or reclining, privately, on distant lawns,
in one long holiday, take delight
in drinking your vintage Falernian.

Why do tall pines, and white poplars, love to merge
their branches in the hospitable shadows?
Why do the rushing waters labour
to hurry along down the winding rivers?

Tell them to bring us the wine, and the perfume,
and all-too-brief petals of lovely roses,
while the world, and the years, and the dark
threads of the three fatal sisters allow.

You’ll leave behind all those meadows you purchased,
your house, your estate, yellow Tiber washes,
you’ll leave them behind, your heir will own
those towering riches you’ve piled so high.

Whether you’re rich, of old Inachus’s line,
or live beneath the sky, a pauper, blessed with
humble birth, it makes no difference:
you’ll be pitiless Orcus’s victim.

We’re all being driven to a single end,
all our lots are tossed in the urn, and, sooner
or later, they’ll emerge, and seat us
in Charon’s boat for eternal exile.

Victor Hugo on the Patience of the People

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A Drawing by Victor Hugo

The following poem by Victor Hugo is relevant to today’s political situation with President Trump attempting to test:

The Patience of the People

How often have the people said: “What’s power?”
Who reigns soon is dethroned? each fleeting hour
Has onward borne, as in a fevered dream,
Such quick reverses, like a judge supreme—
Austere but just, they contemplate the end
To which the current of events must tend.
Self-confidence has taught them to forbear,
And in the vastness of their strength, they spare.
Armed with impunity, for one in vain
Resists a nation, they let others reign.

Quatrain

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The Houses of Parliament in Budapest

I felt like posting a Hungarian poem in today’s blog. I know that the English translation is only a pale reflection of the original Magyar. Note, however, that the translation is from George Szirtes, whose name is a guarantee of quality when it comes to turning Hungarian into English. The poem is by Szabolcs Várady, whose unpronounceable name reproaches all of us well-meaning Yankees. It is called:

Quatrain

I stand in a hole between Will Be and Was
waiting for things to change but nothing does
The dust will mount forever. Rain? Unlikely.
Thunder perhaps. But not here, not precisely.

No Triumphalism Here

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Wars Go Through Three Phases

It seems that all the wars that involved the United States after 1945 have gone through three phases:

  • “Shock and Awe” and Waving the Flag and Glorifying the Power of Our Armaments.
  • Disenchantment sets in as the carnage continues apace and our boys start coming home in body bags. This is the longest stage of the military engagement.
  • The end where we just walk away call call the mess we have created a Glorious Victory. Followed by recriminations that last as long as the war.

Here is a poem from Lord Dunsany of Ireland, who fought on the British side in the Boer War and the First World War. He is better known as the author of such great fantasy novels as The King of Elfland’s Daughter and The Curse of the Wise Woman—not to mention scores of great short stories.

A Dirge of Victory (Sonnet)

Lift not thy trumpet, Victory, to the sky,
Nor through battalions nor by batteries blow,
But over hollows full of old wire go,
Where among dregs of war the long-dead lie
With wasted iron that the guns passed by.
When they went eastwards like a tide at flow;
There blow thy trumpet that the dead may know,
Who waited for thy coming, Victory.

It is not we that have deserved thy wreath,
They waited there among the towering weeds.
The deep mud burned under the thermite’s breath,
And winter cracked the bones that no man heeds:
Hundreds of nights flamed by: the seasons passed.
And thou last come to them at last, at last!