blues

Happy Shakespeare's birthday! Here is a poem about Shakespeare. I have a migraine so that's all the commentary I have in me tonight, but this is a fun poem.

        Essay #1 Mrs. Goldberg's AP Intro to Lit

Shakespeare understood the blues.
He knew parting was such sweet sorrow.
Mr. Shakespeare was the main MC
Of the Elizabethan scene and so I figure

To be or not to be (similar to how you be?)
Be as timeless as hell and as universal
Since such questions never go out of style.
I only wish Othello had sussed out Iago

And taken Iago down to the crossroads
And asked Iago the devil's true-true name.
Juliet is like Lady Gaga (in my HBO rewrite)
And Romeo lives in Harlem with his moms—

Though that's only his nom-de-plume.
He wants to be the first rapper with a PhD.
And Robert Burns smiles to keep from crying
And when he penned the best-made plans

Of mice and men (not rats) often go astray
What he really meant was shit happens.
Dead Old White Men they knew the blues
Though they didn't always know what

They knew okay maybe not even in 1619
By which time Shakespeare was Auld Lang
Syne and Burns was not yet in this world
But the blues isn't stuck on color or CP time.

—Calvin Forbes, "Shakespeare and the Blues," from the October 2016 issue of Poetry Magazine.

a thousand windows and a thousand doors

I was thinking about going back to Auden for today, my 40th birthday, even though I changed the birthday rules in 2020. It's my 40th birthday! Also, I make the rules and can do what I want! I haven't posted any Auden in a couple of years, but I've been thinking about him—and, honestly, he was so prolific that I could just post Auden poems for a few hundred years—and then we went to the New York Public Library today and spent a while walking through the New Yorker Exhibit. And look, I really tried not to post this poem, because it's fucking depressing; it's also incredibly relevant, and also they have a draft manuscript that Auden sent to Benjamin Britten in 1939 in the exhibit at NYPL, so like. Here we are. Warnings for Nazis, etc.

Say this city has ten million souls;
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes,
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair;
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there.
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew;
Every spring it flowers anew.
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The Consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport, you're officially dead."
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a Committee; they offered me a chair,
Asked me politely to return next year.
But where shall we go today, my dear, where shall we go today?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker stood up and said,
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread."
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder, rumbling in the sky.
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die."
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle wearing a jacket, fastened with a pin;
Saw a door open and a cat let in.
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Went down to the harbor and stood upon the quay;
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free,
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked into a wood; saw the birds in the trees,
They had no politicians and sang at their ease.
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

Dreamt I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows, and a thousand doors.
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Ran down to the station to catch the express;
Asked for two tickets to Happiness,
But every coach was full, my dear, but every coach was full.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

—W. H. Auden (1907-1973). This is the poem as it was originally published, as "Song," in the April 15, 1939 issue of The New Yorker, but it's more widely known as "Refugee Blues." In the manuscript draft that Auden sent to Britten in March of 1939, it's just called "Blues"—and as the exhibit notes, the poem is set in a meter borrowed from blues music. The poem often appears with some alterations when it's published as "Refugee Blues" (as it is in my edition of Auden); Auden frequently edited after publication, and sometimes went on editing basically forever, so textual consistency with his poems is always very fun. Anyway, thanks for this one, Wystan. I sure do not love that it still hits so hard 86 years later, but I am very grateful that we had poetry then, and still have poetry now.

all the golden nights

This one's for all the shows we've seen (one more on Tuesday, or maybe two if we win a lottery for a Wednesday matinee), and especially for Audra McDonald in Gypsy today. And thanks to my wife for the poem suggestion. ♥

This is the quiet hour; the theaters
Have gathered in their crowds, and steadily
The million lights blaze on for few to see,
Robbing the sky of stars that should be hers.
A woman waits with bag and shabby furs,
A somber man drifts by, and only we
Pass up the street unwearied, warm and free,
For over us the olden magic stirs.
Beneath the liquid splendor of the lights
We live a little ere the charm is spent;
This night is ours, of all the golden nights,
The pavement an enchanted palace floor,
And Youth the player on the viol, who sent
A strain of music through an open door.

—Sara Teasdale (1884-1933), "Broadway," from Rivers to the Sea, 1915. I love a sonnet.

what belongs to the day

Hey so how about that episode of Ted Lasso, like, holy shit, am I right? WHEW. Unfortunately there are no good poems about soccer, but here is some Walt Whitman.

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

—Walt Whitman (1819-1892), "I Hear America Singing" from the 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass; the original version appeared as number 20 in the section titled "Chants Democratic" in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.

in the yearning

This poem is for Lan Wangji.

He is watching the music with his eyes closed.
Hearing the piano like a man moving
through the woods thinking by feeling.
The orchestra up in the trees, the heart below,
step by step. The music hurrying sometimes,
but always returning to quiet, like the man
remembering and hoping. It is a thing in us,
mostly unnoticed. There is somehow a pleasure
in the loss. In the yearning. The pain
going this way and that. Never again.
Never bodied again. Again the never.
Slowly. No undergrowth. Almost leaving.
A humming beauty in the silence.
The having been. Having had. And the man
knowing all of him will come to the end.

—Jack Gilbert (1925-2012), "After Love" from The Dance Most of All, 2009. This poem was also—I believe originally, although I couldn't swear to it—published in The New Yorker on June 30, 2008.

achieved flight

We were dancing—it must have

been a foxtrot or a waltz,

something romantic but

requiring restraint,

rise and fall, precise

execution as we moved

into the next song without

stopping, two chests heaving

above a seven-league

stride—such perfect agony,

one learns to smile through,

ecstatic mimicry

being the sine qua non

of American Smooth.

And because I was distracted

by the effort of

keeping my frame

(the leftward lean, head turned

just enough to gaze out

past your ear and always

smiling, smiling),

I didn't notice

how still you’d become until

we had done it

(for two measures?

four?)—achieved flight,

that swift and serene

magnificence,

before the earth

remembered who we were

and brought us down. 

—Rita Dove, "American Smooth," from American Smooth, 2004. Sometimes you just have to post a poem about dancing.

will it alter my life altogether

Here is a little Auden, late at night on my birthday. I had a good day—caught up on sleep and read a bunch of fic and did laundry and had a very nice dinner with wonderful friends—and here's to a good year.

Some say that love's a little boy,

And some say it's a bird,

Some say it makes the world go round,

And some say that's absurd,

And when I asked the man next-door,

Who looked as if he knew,

His wife got very cross indeed,

And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,

Or the ham in a temperance hotel?

Does its odour remind one of llamas,

Or has it a comforting smell?

Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,

Or soft as eiderdown fluff?

Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?

O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it

In cryptic little notes,

It's quite a common topic on

The Transatlantic boats;

I've found the subject mentioned in

Accounts of suicides,

And even seen it scribbled on

The backs of railway-guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,

Or boom like a military band?

Could one give a first-rate imitation

On a saw or a Steinway Grand?

Is its singing at parties a riot?

Does it only like Classical stuff?

Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?

O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;

It wasn't ever there;

I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,

And Brighton's bracing air.

I don't know what the blackbird sang,

Or what the tulip said;

But it wasn't in the chicken-run,

Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?

Is it usually sick on a swing?

Does it spend all its time at the races,

or fiddling with pieces of string?

Has it views of its own about money?

Does it think Patriotism enough?

Are its stories vulgar but funny?

O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning

Just as I'm picking my nose?

Will it knock on my door in the morning,

Or tread in the bus on my toes?

Will it come like a change in the weather?

Will its greeting be courteous or rough?

Will it alter my life altogether?

O tell me the truth about love.

—W. H. Auden (1907-1973), "O Tell Me the Truth About Love" or XII from "Twelve Songs," according to my Collected Poems, January 1938.

even the mistakes sound like jazz

It's Shakespeare Day! My tradition is to post both a poem that has something to do with Shakespeare, and a sonnet by Shakespeare. This year, it's Rita Dove and Sonnet 55.

He drums the piano wood,
crowing.

Champion Jack in love
and in debt,
in a tan walking suit
with a flag on the pocket,
with a red eye
for women, with a
diamond-studded
ear, with sand
in a mouthful of mush—

poor me
poor me
I keep on drifting 
like a ship out 
on the sea

That afternoon two students
from the Akademie
showed him the town.
Munich was misbehaving,
whipping
his ass to ice
while his shoes
soaked through. His guides
pointed at a clock
in a blue-tiled house.
And tonight

every song he sings
is written by Shakespeare
and his mother-in-law.
I love you, baby,
but it don’t mean
a goddam thing.
In trouble
with every woman he’s
ever known, all of them
ugly—skinny legs, lie gap
waiting behind the lips
to suck him in.

Going down slow
crooning Shakespeare say
man must be
careful what he kiss
when he drunk,
going down
for the third set
past the stragglers
at the bar,
the bourbon in his hand
some bitch’s cold
wet heart,
the whole joint

stinking on beer;
in love and winning
now, so even the mistakes
sound like jazz,
poor me, moaning
so no one hears:

my home’s in Louisiana,
my voice is wrong
I’m broke and can’t hold 
my piss;
my mother told me
there’d be days like this.

—Rita Dove (b. 1952), "Shakespeare Say" from Museum, 1983.

*

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

—William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Sonnet 55.

the soul's wicked cartridge

The first Rita Dove poem I ever posted, way back in 2009, was "Ludwig Van Beethovens' Return to Vienna" from Sonata Mulattica: A Life in Five Movements and a Short Play (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009). It's still one of my favorites, and although I've posted a whole lot of Rita Dove in the years since, I haven't been back to Sonata Mulattica since 2010. I bought a copy a couple of years ago, though, and it's time. To tell the truth, I really recommend just going and reading the whole book; but nevertheless, here is another one I love, for some of the same reasons:

I kneel, but not in sufferance, 
not in faith. There is a fulcrum
beyond which the bow tip wobbles;

no ardency nor forceful wrist
can make it sing. I am there,
at wit's balancing point. Music

pours through the blackened nave,
hollowing my bones to fit
the space it needs. It needs

so much of me, the soul's
wicked cartridge emptying
as fast as it fills. I kneel

because even the reed bends
before God's laughter
splits it, and the storm

moves on.

—Rita Dove (b. 1952), "Cambridge, Great St. Mary's Church" from Sonata Mulattica, 2009.

towards the songs' pretended sea

(For Blues People)

In the south, sleeping against
the drugstore, growling under  
the trucks and stoves, stumbling  
through and over the cluttered eyes  
of early mysterious night. Frowning  
drunk waving moving a hand or lash.  
Dancing kneeling reaching out, letting  
a hand rest in shadows. Squatting  
to drink or pee. Stretching to climb  
pulling themselves onto horses near  
where there was sea (the old songs  
lead you to believe). Riding out  
from this town, to another, where  
it is also black. Down a road
where people are asleep. Towards  
the moon or the shadows of houses.  
Towards the songs’ pretended sea.

—Amiri Baraka (1934-2013), "Legacy," from Black Magic (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1969).