this is a torch song

And, on the third poetry-and-theatre night of this week, a poem at least somewhat in keeping with the show I saw tonight—Norma Jeane Baker of Troy at The Shed—about which...I have some mixed feelings. Content warning for discussion of rape in this poem. 

The world is full of women

who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself

if they had the chance. Quit dancing.

Get some self-respect

and a day job.

Right. And minimum wage,

and varicose veins, just standing

in one place for eight hours

behind a glass counter

bundled up to the neck, instead of 

naked as a meat sandwich.

Selling gloves, or something.

Instead of what I do sell.

You have to have talent 

to peddle a thing so nebulous

and without material form.

Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way

you cut it, but I've a choice

of how, and I'll take the money.

I do give value.

Like preachers, I sell vision,

like perfume ads, desire

or its facsimile. Like jokes

or war, it's all in the timing.

I sell men back their worse suspicions:

that everything's for sale,

and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see

a chain-saw murder just before it happens,

when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple

are still connected.

Such hatred leaps in them,

my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary

hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads 

and upturned eyes, imploring

but ready to snap at my ankles,

I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge 

to step on ants. I keep the beat,

and dance for them because

they can't. The music smells like foxes,

crisp as heated metal

searing the nostrils

or humid as August, hazy and languorous

as a looted city the day after,

when all the rape's been done

already, and the killing,

and the survivors wander around

looking for garbage

to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.

Speaking of which, it's the smiling

tires me out the most. 

This, and the pretence

that I can't hear them.

And I can't, because I'm after all

a foreigner to them.

The speech here is all warty gutturals,

obvious as a slab of ham,

but I come from the province of the gods

where meanings are lilting and oblique.

I don't let on to everyone,

but lean close, and I'll whisper:

My mother was raped by a holy swan.

You believe that? You can take me out to dinner. 

That's what we tell all the husbands.

There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.

Not that anyone here

but you would understand.

The rest of them would like to watch me

and feel nothing. Reduce me to components

as in a clock factory or abattoir.

Crush out the mystery.

Wall me up alive

in my own body. 

They'd like to see through me, 

but nothing is more opaque

than absolute transparency.

Look—my feet don't hit the marble!

Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,

I hover six inches in the air

in my blazing swan-egg of light.

You think I’m not a goddess?

Try me.

This is a torch song.

Touch me and you'll burn.

—Margaret Atwood, "Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing," from Morning in the Burned House, 1995.

a deathless, inexhaustible wine

I didn't post a poem yesterday because it has been a hell of a week and I was too exhausted; but yesterday I watched the season finale of The Magicians, and today I went to see Hadestown on Broadway, and you know what that means? That means it's time for Rilke. Here are two sonnets from Sonnets to Orpheus, one for yesterday and one for today; normally I post the German as well as the translation, but I'm tired and I don't want to type it up, so I'm going straight to the excellent Stephen Mitchell translations. (I recommend his editions—they're usually bilingual and very good.) 

A god can do it. But will you tell me how

a man can penetrate through the lyre's strings? 

Our mind is split. And at the shadowed crossing

of heart-roads, there is no temple for Apollo. 

Song, as you have taught it, is not desire, 

not wooing any grace that can be achieved; 

song is reality. Simple, for a god. 

But when can we be real? When does he pour

the earth, the stars, into us? Young man, 

it is not your loving, even if your mouth 

was forced wide open by your own voice—learn

to forget that passionate music. It will end. 

True singing is a different breath, about

nothing. A gust inside the god. A wind. 

*

Praising is what matters! He was summoned for that, 

and came to us like the ore from a stone's 

silence. His mortal heart presses out 

a deathless, inexhaustible wine. 

Whenever he feels the god's paradigm grip

his throat, the voice does not die in his mouth. 

All becomes vineyard, all becomes grape, 

ripened on the hills of his sensuous South. 

Neither decay in the sepulchre of kings

nor any shadow that has fallen from the gods

can ever detract from his glorious praising. 

For he is a herald who is with us always, 

holding far into the doors of the dead

a bowl with ripe fruit worthy of praise. 

—Rainer Maria Rilke, I, 3 and I, 7 from The Sonnets to Orpheus, 1922; translated by Stephen Mitchell.

to reach the limits of ourselves

I went to see Cradle Will Rock at Classic Stage Company tonight (the first of three shows I am seeing this week). It was an amazing production, but I totally didn't realize how well I still knew the show from my obsession with the 1999 movie and the Patti Lupone recording of the musical (I know it...really well?!). Anyway, there are a shortage of poems about unions and labor organizing and the Federal Theatre Project. But I've been sitting on this poem since the beginning of the month, and although it's not directly related, it seems appropriate to me, in a sort of two-steps-sideways kind of way. 

I lived in the first century of world wars.

Most mornings I would be more or less insane,

The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,

The news would pour out of various devices

Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.

I would call my friends on other devices;

They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.

Slowly I would get to pen and paper,

Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.

In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,

Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,

Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.

As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,

We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,

To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile

Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,

Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means

To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,

To let go the means, to wake.

I lived in the first century of these wars.

—Muriel Rukeyser, "Poem" from The Speed of Darkness, 1968. With thanks to N., who brought this poem to my attention.

where your heart is

Be broken. 

Lie there

on the ground

in the wreckage

until you can feel

all of your new jagged

edges individually. 

Notice how much more

surface area there is to you now. 

Notice there's a rhythm to the stinging. 

It will lead you back to your pulse. 

Try to move if you can. 

Follow the path the pain takes

when it forks and sharks

through your body. 

Focus on your uneven breath. 

Try to love the way it hitches now, 

how each drag of air cuts

through the field of panic. 

As your thoughts struggle

to harden into words, 

return to your breath. 

Pull yourself into sitting

as best you can. 

Be tender. 

Try speaking. 

Grasp the leathery

harness of your voice. 

How long have you been crying? 

Hum something

your mother taught you. 

Anything is fine. 

Feel it vibrate in your chest. 

That's where your heart is, 

still beating, 

still wrestling life into you, 

still pushing back against the world. 

—Mindy Nettifee, "Zen of the Broken," from Rise of the Trust Fall, 2010.

that square & speckled stone

Notre Dame is on fire and I'm depressed about it; I really love that cathedral. I was sadly texting with K about it, and she requested this poem, and, well, yeah. Nobody does church architecture like Herbert does, and he still makes me cry sometimes. 

Mark you the floore? that square & speckled stone,

                         Which looks so firm and strong,

                                             Is Patience:

And th' other black and grave, wherewith each one

                         Is checker'd all along,

                                             Humilitie:

The gentle rising, which on either hand

                         Leads to the Quire above,

                                             Is Confidence:

But the sweet cement, which in one sure band

                         Ties the whole frame, is Love

                                             And Charitie.

     Hither sometimes Sinne steals, and stains 

     The marbles neat and curious veins: 

But all is cleansed when the marble weeps. 

     Sometimes Death, puffing at the doore, 

     Blows all the dust about the floore: 

But while he thinks to spoil the room, he sweeps. 

     Blest be the Architect, whose art 

     Could build so strong in a weak heart. 

—George Herbert (1593-1633), "The Church-floore" from The Temple, 1633, and in this case from the excellent Helen Wilcox edition (Cambridge University Press, 2007). 

For Herbert, the church is always a heart (and the heart, a church).

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.

above all do not be fooled

When suddenly at the midnight hour

an invisible troupe is heard passing

with exquisite music, with shouts—

do not mourn in vain your fortune failing you now, 

your works that have failed, the plans of your life

that have all turned out to be illusions. 

As if long prepared for this, as if courageous, 

bid her farewell, the Alexandria that is leaving. 

Above all do not be fooled, do not tell yourself

it was only a dream, that your ears deceived you; 

do not stoop to such vain hopes. 

As if long prepared for this, as if courageous, 

as it becomes you who are worthy of such a city; 

approach the window with firm step, 

and listen with emotion, but not

with the entreaties and complaints of the coward, 

as a last enjoyment listen to the sounds, 

the exquisite instruments of the mystical troupe, 

and bid her farewell, the Alexandria you are losing. 

—C. P. Cavafy (1863-1933), "The God Forsakes Antony," 1911. Translated by Rae Dalven (San Diego: Harcourt, 1948/1976). This is a sad poem, but I also find it really beautiful—which is a combination and a mood that Cavafy completely excels at, both here and elsewhere.

mi corazón

It's my last night in Mexico, so here is some Juana Inés de la Cruz, often referred to as Sor Juana because she was a pretty badass nun. It took me a while to track down both Spanish and English for this poem, which is a pretty classical Petrarchan love sonnet to a lady from a lady—it's a little less grammatically explicit about being addressed to a woman than some of her others, but I like this one. 

En que satisface un recelo con la retórica del llanto

Esta tarde, mi bien, cuando te hablaba,

como en tu rostro y tus acciones vía

que con palabras no te persuadía,

que el corazón me vieses deseaba;

y Amor, que mis intentos ayudaba,

venció lo que imposible parecía,

pues entre el llanto, que el dolor vertía,

el corazón deshecho destilaba.

Baste ya de rigores, mi bien, baste;

no te atormenten más celos tiranos,

ni el vil recelo tu quietud contraste

con sombras necias, con indicios vanos,

pues ya en líquido humor viste y tocaste

mi corazón deshecho entre tus manos.

In which she responds to jealous suspicion with the rhetoric of weeping 

This afternoon, my love, when I spoke to you, 

I could see in your face, in what you did, 

that you were not persuaded by mere words, 

and I wished you could see into my heart; 

and Love, assisting me in my attempt, 

overcame the seeming impossible, 

for among the tears that my sorrow shed

was my breaking heart, liquid and distilled. 

Enough of anger now, my love, enough; 

do not let tyrant jealousy torment you, 

nor base suspicion roil your serenity

with foolish specters and deceptive clues; 

in liquid humor you have seen and touched

my broken heart and held it in your hands. 

—Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), Sonnet 164, translated by Edith Grossman (New York: W. W. Northon & Company, 2014).

dazzling lurch of the sea

I had a plan to post another Mexican poet today, but then I was reading Pablo Neruda, because...well, let's be honest, when am I not reading Pablo Neruda. So we're going with Pablo Neruda, and with this one because the beach was glorious today. I need at least 100 years to post all of Cien sonetos de amor. 

Al golpe de la ola contra la piedra indócil 

la claridad estalla y establece su rosa 

y el círculo del mar se reduce a un racimo, 

a una sola gota de sal azul que cae. 

Oh radiante magnolia desatada en la espuma, 

magnética viajera cuya muerte florece 

y eternamente vuelve a ser y a no ser nada: 

sal rota, deslumbrante movimiento marino. 

Juntos tú y yo, amor mío, sellamos el silencio, 

mientras destruye el mar sus constantes estatuas 

y derrumba sus torres de arrebato y blancura, 

porque en la trama de estos tejidos invisibles

del agua desbocada, de la incesante arena, 

sostenemos la única y acosada ternura.

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks 

the clear light bursts and enacts its rose, 

and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds, 

to one drop of blue salt, falling. 

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam, 

magnetic transient whose death blooms 

and vanishes—being, nothingness—forever: 

broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea. 

You and I, Love, together we ratify the silence, 

while the sea destroys its perpetual statues, 

collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness: 

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics, 

galloping water, incessant sand, 

we make the only permanent tenderness.

—Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), IX from 100 Love Sonnets, translated by Stephen Tapscott (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986).

but the line goes on

For yuletide this year, I wrote a story based on this poem, which is one of my favorite poems in the world. I thought it was probably time to post it, this year, even though April isn't quite the right season. 

Camelot is served

By a sixteen-track stub terminal done in High Gothick Style,

The tracks covered by a single great barrel-vaulted glass roof framed upon iron,

At once looking back to the Romans and ahead to the Brunels.

Beneath its rotunda, just to the left of the ticket windows,

Is a mosaic floor depicting the Round Table

(Where all knights, regardless of their station of origin

Or class of accommodation, are equal),

And around it murals of knightly deeds in action

(Slaying dragons, righting wrongs, rescuing maidens tied to the tracks).

It is the only terminal, other than Gare d'Avalon in Paris,

To be hung with original tapestries,

And its lavatories rival those at the Great Gate of Kiev Central.

During a peak season such as this, some eighty trains a day pass through,

Five times the frequency at the old Londinium Terminus,

Ten times the number the Druid towermen knew.

(The Official Court Christmas Card this year displays

A crisp black-and-white Charles Clegg photograph from the King's own collection.

Showing a woad-blued hogger at the throttle of "Old XCVII,"

The Fast Mail overnight to Eboracum. Those were the days.)

The first of a line of wagons have arrived,

Spilling footmen and pages in Court livery,

And old thick Kay, stepping down from his Range Rover,

Tricked out in a bush coat from Swaine, Adeney, Brigg,

Leaning on his shooting stick as he marshalls his company,

Instructing the youngest how to behave in the station,

To help mature women that they may encounter,

Report pickpockets, gather up litter,

And of course no true Knight of the Table Round (even in training)

Would do a station porter out of Christmas tips.

He checks his list of arrival times, then his watch

(A moon-phase Breguet, gift from Merlin):

The seneschal is a practical man, who knows trains do run late,

And a stolid one, who sees no reason to be glad about it.

He dispatches pages to posts at the tracks,

Doling out pennies for platform tickets,

Then walks past the station buffet with a dyspeptic snort,

Goes into the bar, checks the time again, orders a pint.

The patrons half turn—it's the fella from Camelot, innit?

And Kay chuckles soft to himself, and the Court buys a round.

He's barely halfway when a page tumbles in,

Seems the knights are arriving, on time after all,

So he tips the glass back (people stare as he guzzles),

Then plonks it down hard with five quid for the barman,

And strides for the doorway (half Falstaff, half Hotspur)

To summon his liveried army of lads.

* * *

Bors arrives behind steam, riding the cab of a heavy Mikado.

He shakes the driver's hand, swings down from the footplate,

And is like a locomotive himself, his breath clouding white,

Dark oil sheen on his black iron mail,

Sword on his hip swinging like siderods at speed.

He stamps back to the baggage car, slams mailed fist on steel door

With a clang like jousters colliding.

The handler opens up and goes to rouse another knight.

Old Pellinore has been dozing with his back against a crate,

A cubical, chain-bound thing with FRAGILE tags and air holes,

BEAST says the label, QUESTING, 1 the bill of lading.

The porters look doubtful but ease the thing down.

It grumbles. It shifts. Someone shouts, and they drop it.

It cracks like an egg. There is nothing within.

Elayne embraces Bors on the platform, a pelican on a rock,

Silently they watch as Pelly shifts the splinters,

Supposing aloud that Gutman and Cairo have swindled him.

A high-drivered engine in Northern Lines green

Draws in with a string of side-corridor coaches,

All honey-toned wood with stained glass on their windows.

Gareth steps down from a compartment, then Gaheris and Aggravaine,

All warmly tucked up in Orkney sweaters;

Gawaine comes after in Shetland tweed.

Their Gladstones and steamers are neatly arranged,

With never a worry—their Mum does the packing.

A redcap brings forth a curious bundle, a rude shape in red paper--

The boys did that one themselves, you see, and how does one wrap a unicorn's head?

They bustle down the platform, past a chap all in green.

He hasn't the look of a trainman, but only Gawaine turns to look at his eyes,

And sees written there Sir, I shall speak with you later.

Over on the first track, surrounded by reporters,

All glossy dark iron and brass-bound mystery,

The Direct-Orient Express, ferried in from Calais and Points East.

Palomides appears. Smelling of patchouli and Russian leather,

Dripping Soubranie ash on his astrakhan collar,

Worry darkening his dark face, though his damascene armor shows no tarnish,

He pushes past the press like a broad-hulled icebreaker.

Flashbulbs pop. Heads turn. There's a woman in Chanel black,

A glint of diamonds, liquid movements, liquid eyes.

The newshawks converge, but suddenly there appears

A sharp young man in a crisp blue suit

From the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits,

That elegant, comfortable, decorous, close-mouthed firm;

He's good at his job, and they get not so much as a snapshot.

Tomorrow's editions will ask who she was, and whom with...

Now here's a silver train, stainless steel, Vista-Domed,

White-lighted grails on the engine (running no extra sections)

The Logres Limited, extra fare, extra fine,

(Stops on signal at Carbonek to receive passengers only).

She glides to a Timkin-borne halt (even her grease is clean),

Galahad already on the steps, flashing that winning smile,

Breeze mussing his golden hair, but not his Armani tailoring,

Just the sort of man you'd want finding your chalice.

He signs an autograph, he strikes a pose.

Someone says, loudly, "Gal! Who serves the Grail?"

He looks—no one he knows—and there's a silence,

A space in which he shifts like sun on water;

Look quick and you may see a different knight,

A knight who knows that meanings can be lies,

That things are done not knowing why they're done,

That bearings fail, and stainless steel corrodes.

A whistle blows. Snow shifts on the glass shed roof. That knight is gone.

This one remaining tosses his briefcase to one of Kay's pages,

And, golden, silken, careless, exits left.

Behind the carsheds, on the business-car track, alongside the private varnish

Of dukes and smallholders, Persian potentates and Cathay princes

(James J. Hill is here, invited to bid on a tunnel through the Pennines),

Waits a sleek car in royal blue, ex-B&O, its trucks and fittings chromed,

A black-gloved hand gripping its silver platform rail;

Mordred and his car are both upholstered in blue velvet and black leather.

He prefers to fly, but the weather was against it.

His DC-9, with its video system and Quotron and waterbed, sits grounded at Gatwick.

The premature lines in his face are a map of a hostile country,

The redness in his eyes a reminder that hollyberries are poison.

He goes inside to put on a look acceptable for Christmas Court;

As he slams the door it rattles like strafing jets.

Outside the Station proper, in the snow,

On a through track that's used for milk and mail,

A wheezing saddle-tanker stops for breath;

A way-freight mixed, eight freight cars and caboose,

Two great ugly men on the back platform, talking with a third on the ballast.

One, the conductor, parcels out the last of the coffee;

They drink. A joke about grails. They laugh.

When it's gone, the trainman pretends to kick the big hobo off,

But the farewell hug spoils the act.

Now two men stand on the dirty snow,

The conductor waves a lantern and the train grinds on.

The ugly men start walking, the new arrival behind,

Singing "Wenceslas" off-key till the other says stop.

There are two horses waiting for them. Rather plain horses,

Considering. The men mount up.

By the roundhouse they pause,

And look at the locos, the water, the sand, and the coal,

The look for a long time at the turntable,

Until the one who is King says "It all seemed so simple, once,"

And the best knight in the world says "It is. We make it hard."

They ride on, toward Camelot by the service road.

The sun is winter-low. Kay's caravan is rolling.

He may not run a railroad, but he runs a tight ship;

By the time they unload in the Camelot courtyard,

The wassail will be hot and the goose will be crackling,

Banners snapping from their towers, fir logs on the fire, drawbridge down,

And all that sackbut and psaltery stuff.

Blanchefleur is taking the children caroling tonight,

Percivale will lose to Merlin at chess,

The young knights will dally and the damsels dally back,

The old knights will play poker at a smaller Table Round.

And at the great glass station, motion goes on,

The extras, the milk trains, the varnish, the limiteds,

The Pindar of Wakefield, the Lady of the Lake,

The Broceliande Local, the Fast Flying Briton,

The nerves of the kingdom, the lines of exchange,

Running to a schedule as the world ought,

Ticking like a hot-fired hand-stoked heart,

The metal expression of the breaking of boundaries,

The boilers that turn raw fire into power,

The driving rods that put the power to use,

The turning wheels that make all places equal,

The knowledge that the train may stop but the line goes on;

The train may stop

But the line goes on.

—John M. Ford (1957-2006), "Winter Solstice, Camelot Station" (1988). The poem is online in a couple of places, and printed in Heat of Fusion and Other Stories (2004).