1269 Arts and sciences poems

She steps into La Roue de la Fortune movie theater off the Jersey Turnpike, buys a ticket, and so swiftly the waters roll above her instinctual visions:Plaza,Il Piazzo, creep of film over the sound of the words piano,purr, whisper across her neck, one door opens another, in the labyrinthine pitch to preserve order, the expulsion from Eden, the dark soda up her clear plastic straw, reels of rodents, popcorn, teenage workers, acne, blood and circulation turn to ice inside this mechanized paradise, where reality meets the sound of gardens growing past their makers’ dreams, growing strange and outrageous. She stops to check her phone and the phone lights up,Putin,Botox, Trump, the garden grows outward, up, to each side, the ghosts are simply plants who forgot to stop growing; they groan, shriek, quake, giggle, gurgle, stare, and point fingers at the living. I’m glad I’m in love, she thinks.

THENOT    &      HOBBINOLL Tell me good Hobbinoll, what garres thee greete? What? hath some Wolfe thy tender Lambes ytorne? Or is thy Bagpype broke, that soundes so sweete? Or art thou of thy loved lasse forlorne? Or bene thine eyes attempred to the yeare, Quenching the gasping furrowes thirst with rayne? Like April shoure, so stremes the trickling teares Adowne thy cheeke, to quenche thy thristye payne. HOBBINOLL Nor thys, nor that, so muche doeth make me mourne, But for the ladde, whome long I lovd so deare, Nowe loves a lasse, that all his love doth scorne: He plongd in payne, his tressed locks dooth teare. Shepheards delights he dooth them all forsweare, Hys pleasaunt Pipe, whych made us meriment, He wylfully hath broke, and doth forbeare His wonted songs, wherein he all outwent. THENOT What is he for a Ladde, you so lament? Ys love such pinching payne to them, that prove? And hath he skill to make so excellent, Yet hath so little skill to brydle love? HOBBINOLL Colin thou kenst, the Southerne shepheardes boye: Him Love hath wounded with a deadly darte. Whilome on him was all my care and joye, Forcing with gyfts to winne his wanton heart. But now from me hys madding mynd is starte, And woes the Widdowes daughter of the glenne: So nowe fayre Rosalind hath bredde hys smart, So now his frend is chaunged for a frenne. THENOT But if hys ditties bene so trimly dight, I pray thee Hobbinoll, recorde some one: The whiles our flockes doe graze about in sight, And we close shrowded in thys shade alone. HOBBINOLL Contented I: then will I singe his laye Of fayre Elisa, Queene of shepheardes all: Which once he made, as by a spring he laye, And tuned it unto the Waters fall. Ye dayntye Nymphs, that in this blessed Brooke doe bathe your brest, Forsake your watry bowres, and hether looke, at my request: And eke you Virgins, that on Parnasse dwell, Whence floweth Helicon the learned well, Helpe me to blaze Her worthy praise, Which in her sexe doth all excell. Of fayre Eliza be your silver song, that blessed wight: The flowre of Virgins, may shee florish long, In princely plight. For shee is Syrinx daughter without spotte, Which Pan the shepheards God of her begot: So sprong her grace Of heavenly race, No mortall blemishe may her blotte. See, where she sits upon the grassie greene, (O seemely sight) Yclad in Scarlot like a mayden Queene, And Ermines white. Upon her head a Cremosin coronet, With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set: Bayleaves betweene, And Primroses greene Embellish the sweete Violet. Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face, Like Ph{oe}be fayre? Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace can you well compare? The Redde rose medled with the White yfere, In either cheeke depeincten lively chere. Her modest eye, Her Majestie, Where have you seene the like, but there? I sawe Ph{oe}bus thrust out his golden hedde, upon her to gaze: But when he sawe, how broade her beames did spredde, it did him amaze. He blusht to see another Sunne belowe, Ne durst againe his fyrye face out showe: Let him, if he dare, His brightnesse compare With hers, to have the overthrowe. Shewe thy selfe Cynthia with thy silver rayes, and be not abasht: When shee the beames of her beauty displayes, O how art thou dasht? But I will not match her with Latonaes seede, Such follie great sorow to Niobe did breede. Now she is a stone, And makes dayly mone, Warning all other to take heede. Pan may be proud, that ever he begot such a Bellibone, And Syrinx rejoyse, that ever was her lot to beare such an one. Soone as my younglings cryen for the dam, To her will I offer a milkwhite Lamb: Shee is my goddesse plaine, And I her shepherds swayne, Albee forswonck and forswatt I am. I see Calliope speede her to the place, where my Goddesse shines: And after her the other Muses trace, with their Violines. Bene they not Bay braunches, which they doe beare, All for Elisa in her hand to weare? So sweetely they play, And sing all the way, That it a heaven is to heare. Lo how finely the graces can it foote to the Instrument: They dauncen deffly, and singen soote, in their meriment. Wants not a fourth grace, to make the daunce even? Let that rowme to my Lady be yeven: She shalbe a grace, To fyll the fourth place, And reigne with the rest in heaven. And whither rennes this bevie of Ladies bright, raunged in a rowe? They bene all Ladyes of the lake behight, that unto her goe. Chloris, that is the chiefest Nymph of al, Of Olive braunches beares a Coronall: Olives bene for peace, When wars doe surcease: Such for a Princesse bene principall. Ye shepheards daughters, that dwell on the greene, hye you there apace: Let none come there, but that Virgins bene, to adorne her grace. And when you come, whereas shee is in place, See, that your rudeness doe not you disgrace: Binde your fillets faste, And gird in your waste, For more finesse, with a tawdrie lace. Bring hether the Pincke and purple Cullambine, With Gelliflowres: Bring Coronations, and Sops in wine, worne of Paramoures. Strowe me the ground with Daffadowndillies, And Cowslips, and Kingcups, and loved Lillies: The pretie Pawnce, And the Chevisaunce, Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice. Now ryse up Elisa, decked as thou art, in royall aray: And now ye daintie Damsells may depart echeone her way, I feare, I have troubled your troupes to longe: Let dame Eliza thanke you for her song. And if you come hether, When Damsines I gether, I will part them all you among. THENOT And was thilk same song of Colins owne making? Ah foolish boy, that is with love yblent: Great pittie is, he be in such taking, For naught caren, that bene so lewdly bent. HOBBINOLL Sicker I hold him, for a greater fon, That loves the thing, he cannot purchase. But let us homeward: for night draweth on, And twincling starres the daylight hence chase. THENOTS EMBLEME O quam te memorem virgo? HOBBINOLLS EMBLEME O dea certe.

PIERCE       &         CUDDIE Cuddie, for shame hold up thy heavye head, And let us cast with what delight to chace, And weary thys long lingring Phoebus race. Whilome thou wont the shepheards laddes to leade, In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base: Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead. CUDDY Piers, I have pyped erst so long with payne, That all mine Oten reedes bene rent and wore: And my poore Muse hath spent her spared store, Yet little good hath got, and much lesse gayne, Such pleasaunce makes the Grashopper so poore, And ligge so layd, when Winter doth her straine. The dapper ditties, that I wont devise, To feede youthes fancie, and the flocking fry, Delighten much: what I the bett for thy? They han the pleasure, I a sclender prise. I beate the bush, the byrds to them doe flye: What good thereof to Cuddie can arise? PIERS Cuddie, the prayse is better, then the price, The glory eke much greater then the gayne: O what an honor is it, to restraine The lust of lawlesse youth with good advice: Or pricke them forth with pleasaunce of thy vaine, Whereto thou list their trayned willes entice. Soone as thou gynst to sette thy notes in frame, O how the rurall routes to thee doe cleave: Seemeth thou dost their soule of sence bereave, All as the shepheard, that did fetch his dame From Plutoes balefull bowre withouten leave: His musicks might the hellish hound did tame. CUDDIE So praysen babes the Peacoks spotted traine, And wondren at bright Argus blazing eye: But who rewards him ere the more for thy? Or feedes him once the fuller by a graine? Sike prayse is smoke, that sheddeth in the skye, Sike words bene wynd, and wasten soone in vayne. PIERS Abandon then the base and viler clowne, Lyft up thy selfe out of the lowly dust: And sing of bloody Mars, of wars, of giusts. Turne thee to those, that weld the awful crowne, To doubted Knights, whose woundlesse armour rusts, And helmes unbruzed wexen dayly browne. There may thy Muse display her fluttryng wing, And stretch her selfe at large from East to West: Whither thou list in fayre Elisa rest, Or if thee please in bigger notes to sing, Advaunce the worthy whome shee loveth best, That first the white beare to the stake did bring. And when the stubborne stroke of stronger stounds, Has somewhat slackt the tenor of thy string: Of love and lustihed tho mayst thou sing, And carrol lowde, and leade the Myllers rownde, All were Elisa one of thilke same ring. So mought our Cuddies name to Heaven sownde. CUDDYE Indeed the Romish Tityrus, I heare, Through his Mecoenas left his Oaten reede, Whereon he earst had taught his flocks to feede, And laboured lands to yield the timely eare, And eft did sing of warres and deadly drede, So as the Heavens did quake his verse to here. But ah Mecoenas is yclad in claye, And great Augustus long ygoe is dead: And all the worthies liggen wrapt in leade, That matter made for Poets on to play: For ever, who in derring doe were dreade, The loftie verse of hem was loved aye. But after vertue gan for age to stoupe, And mighty manhode brought a bedde of ease: The vaunting Poets found nought worth a pease, To put in preace emong the learned troupe. Tho gan the streames of flowing wittes to cease, And sonnebright honour pend in shamefull coupe. And if that any buddes of Poesie, Yet of the old stocke gan to shoote agayne: Or it mens follies mote be forst to fayne, And rolle with rest in rymes of rybaudrye: Or as it sprong, it wither must agayne: Tom Piper makes us better melodie. PIERS O pierlesse Poesye, where is then thy place? If nor in Princes pallace thou doe sitt: (And yet is Princes pallace the most fitt) Ne brest of baser birth doth thee embrace. Then make thee winges of thine aspyring wit, And, whence thou camst, flye backe to heaven apace. CUDDIE Ah Percy it is all to weake and wanne, So high to sore, and make so large a flight: Her peeced pyneons bene not so in plight, For Colin fittes such famous flight to scanne: He, were he not with love so ill bedight, Would mount as high, and sing as soote as Swanne. PIERS Ah fon, for love does teach him climbe so hie, And lyftes him up out of the loathsome myre: Such immortall mirrhor, as he doth admire, Would rayse ones mynd above the starry skie. And cause a caytive corage to aspire, For lofty love doth loath a lowly eye. CUDDIE All otherwise the state of Poet stands, For lordly love is such a Tyranne fell: That where he rules, all power he doth expell. The vaunted verse a vacant head demaundes, Ne wont with crabbed care the Muses dwell. Unwisely weaves, that takes two webbes in hand. Who ever casts to compasse weightye prise, And thinks to throwe out thondring words of threate: Let powre in lavish cups and thriftie bitts of meate, For Bacchus fruite is frend to Phoebus wise. And when with Wine the braine begins to sweate, The nombers flowe as fast as spring doth ryse. Thou kenst not Percie howe the ryme should rage. O if my temples were distaind with wine, And girt in girlonds of wild Yvie twine, How I could reare the Muse on stately stage, And teache her tread aloft in buskin fine, With queint Bellona in her equipage. But ah my corage cooles ere it be warme, For thy, content us in thys humble shade: Where no such troublous tydes han us assayde, Here we our slender pipes may safely charme. PIERS And when my Gates shall han their bellies layd: Cuddie shall have a Kidde to store his farme. CUDDIES EMBLEME Agitante calescimus illo

I. I’m trying to spell out a state of amazement, A sweet dilation, the sway of spirit, That only finds room in your shape. They say that Transposed in our alphabet A Chinese sentence can turn into A series of one and the same conjunction. For instance: “And and. And and and. And and and and.” This is a genuine transcription of the beautiful poem “The Dance of the Yangtze River Valley And the Yangtze River.” II. Well, how many miracles, how many Chinese miracles, Have I missed this time? Too shrunk within the heart of Europe, Stuck to Greek reason, Spoiled by syllogism, And born too late for the Far East! III. No one gave me a silk scroll as a present At the time of the Han dynasty, Much less during the coming ones. My feet didn’t develop corns on the silk road, My shadow didn’t pass on the winding way To take the desert oases in its arms. I never wrapped my shoulders In the wavy mantle of the Yellow River. In 120 B.C. I didn’t show myself — idiot! — At the Music Chamber. What melodies I could have heard! My ear, a shell devoid of the sea’s roar, Missed the treasure of sounds Invading north to south. Would I have still remained With so many uncertainties? IV. I was late to the contest of impromptu poems And didn’t make libations to the Muse Along with Wang Xizhi. I wish I’d seen how they spelled “The literary spirit and the dragon engravings.” Humble observer, hidden in a fold of time, I wish I could participate unseen In the painting of the world’s first landscape. It would have included me no doubt As an accident on the horizon, A leaf on the sky’s water. I wish I’d been a judge when the names were checked Or, lazily lying in the Doctrine of the Great Vehicle, I wish I’d wandered beyond nature’s limits, And been struck by the sensation of a universal vacuum. V. I wonder if The five rice measures Would have finally revealed The vital principle. VI. Can’t you say anything, Beautifully written character? The Great Wall fits into you Like the moon in a cacoon. Open the silk door a moment And let this state of amazement in — Include this lotus flower In your closed-circuit breath. Why are you so silent, When you used to tell me about all these things?

Talking like Pushkin to his horse, I climb into thick equestrian aesthetics. I’m horseman and veterinarian in one on an estate of troubled youth, I am an aristocratic fop, hello, galloping at full gallop shooting at treetops, yahoo to you Sir in treble multiplication, I know about stallions and I’m out of here to the city soon, I must meet N. or K., I forget which, and then the zisters C. Sorry, I mean the sisters Z. My sideburns incinerate the furniture in the salon of Y. I do not care for C++ , for I live in the nineteenth century. I barely lived through math at the Lyc é e. I’m now dans une boutique. Vous ne parlez pas fran ç ais? Merde, vous ê tes alors cr é tin, mon vieux monsieur le barbecue! What are you a Volga Tatar or something? Actually I’ve never been to Kazan but I wanna go some day, maybe when the emperor exiles me. You look familiar, I know you from somewhere. So what brings you to St. Petersburg on this particular twist of the century? Lozenges of the imagination climb reflected in the Neva of the sky and in the sky of the Neva and farther along the Nevkas, and the stars, the stars shine viscerally like old duel scars anticipated. I am stuck at home. I’ll never see you, Paris, London, Rome. Adrenal memory flows and gels and burns, acting in combination with my sideburns. I’ll show you some transculture. Gospoda, do you understand any Russian, ah? Nyet? Damn, then I must speak to you in English.

Radiante, 1967, by Olga Albizu Jestered ochre yellow my umber Rothko divisions my Brooklyns with Jerry Stern black then oranged gold leaf & tiny skulls perforations Dada sugar bread of Oaxacan ecstasy Lorca’s green horse the daffodil head corruptions of the State in tenor exhalation saxophonics blossomings rouged monkey Dalí roll down the keys the high G’s underStreets of the undeRealms my hair. Throttle up into hyper-city correlations = compassion compassion the void extends

The dream went like a rake of sliced bamboo, slats of dust distracted by a downdraw; I woke and knew I held a cigarette; I looked, there was none, could have been none; I slept off years before I woke again, palming the floor, shaking the sheets. I saw nothing was burning. I awoke, I saw I was holding two lighted cigarettes. . . . They come this path, old friends, old buffs of death. Tonight it’s Randall, his spark still fire though humble, his gnawed wrist cradled like Kitten.“What kept you so long, racing the cooling grindstone of your ambition? You didn’t write, you re wrote.... But tell me, Cal, why did we live? Why do we die?”

—For My Students Breakfast, and I’m eating plain yogurt, figs from my garden, and honey. I’m sitting in a lawn chair on the backyard patio— life is good, and the sunlight warming my lap and the pages of a book remind me of Tucson and the subterranean apartment I rented alone and far from home. There was a sofa in front of my one window where at noon the sun burned briefly on the cushions as starlings stirred in the trees with their admonishments. Stepping back there now, I remember feeling hopeless after reading Lorca’s “Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías.” I recall how I put the book on the coffee table and closed my eyes and saw blood glowing in my arteries. In the leaves, the starlings went on with their disconnected chatter, and I said to myself, “I’ll never write anything like ‘And the bull alone with a high heart! At five o’clock in the afternoon.’” For three months, I didn’t write one word but instead passed the days swimming in the public pool where, from my half-closed eyes, I watched light ride the splashing water or resting on the surface when I floated, face down, sinking with fear: “What do I do now?” I asked. Some nights, I filled my red truck with gas and drove west on the 19 until my headlights flooded the desert, and when the city was less than pinpoints of glitter, and when all I could hear was the whine of silence in my ears, I parked alongside the highway, leaned against my pickup, and stared at stars so sure of themselves as they shone that I believed they couldn’t help but give me something that would make me sit at my desk and write. I felt directionless and wanted to walk out into the landscape, but I feared snakes and scorpions hiding in the buckhorn and staghorn as I recalled my father’s words, “You’ll be lost forever on the far side of the moon”— words that haunted me as I imagined slipping into lunar shadows that no human telescope would spot as I wandered lost and ripped with nostalgia for the nights I read in used bookstores on Campbell—a time when the future seemed so clear I smelled it in dirt that somebody rinsed from the sidewalk as I walked home. Then, one night while sipping black coffee along the side of the 19, I remembered lying on the living room floor as my father and I listened to Brahms’s “Lullaby,” which inspired me to practice “Away in a Manger” on my trumpet: “It’s a lullaby. Play it like that,” my father said as my sixth grade lips struggled to phrase notes that would please a child under the beating stars, and remembering this, I looked up to the oblivious heavens and tied words to images—Cassiopeia, Perseus, Cygnus, Pegasus— and let them sing clearly through my mind.

It seems these poets have nothing up their ample sleeves they turn over so many cards so early, telling us before the first line whether it is wet or dry, night or day, the season the man is standing in, even how much he has had to drink. Maybe it is autumn and he is looking at a sparrow. Maybe it is snowing on a town with a beautiful name. "Viewing Peonies at the Temple of Good Fortune on a Cloudy Afternoon" is one of Sun Tung Po's. "Dipping Water from the River and Simmering Tea" is another one, or just "On a Boat, Awake at Night." And Lu Yu takes the simple rice cake with "In a Boat on a Summer Evening I Heard the Cry of a Waterbird. It Was Very Sad and Seemed To Be Saying My Woman Is Cruel—Moved, I Wrote This Poem." There is no iron turnstile to push against here as with headings like "Vortex on a String," "The Horn of Neurosis," or whatever. No confusingly inscribed welcome mat to puzzle over. Instead, "I Walk Out on a Summer Morning to the Sound of Birds and a Waterfall" is a beaded curtain brushing over my shoulders. And "Ten Days of Spring Rain Have Kept Me Indoors" is a servant who shows me into the room where a poet with a thin beard is sitting on a mat with a jug of wine whispering something about clouds and cold wind, about sickness and the loss of friends. How easy he has made it for me to enter here, to sit down in a corner, cross my legs like his, and listen.

Is dead serious about this one, having rehearsed it for two weeks they bring it right into the Odd Fellows Meeting Hall. Riding the backs of the Trojan Women, In Euripides’ great wake they are swept up, But the women of the chorus, in black stockings and kerchiefs, Stand up bravely to it, shawled arms thrash In a foam of hysterical voices shrieking, Seaweed on the wet flanks of a whale, For each town has its Cassandra who is a little crazy, Wed to some mystery or other and therefore painfully sensitive, Wiser than anyone but no one listens to her, these days the terror Reaches its red claws into back ward and living room alike, For each town has its Andromache who is too young, With snub nose and children just out of school Even she cannot escape it, from the bombed city she is led out Weeping among the ambulances, And each community has its tart, its magical false Helen Or at least someone who looks like her, in all the make-up she can muster, The gorgeous mask of whatever quick-witted lie will keep her alive At least a little while longer, on the crest of the bloody wave, That dolorous mountain of wooden ships and water In whose memory the women bring us this huge gift horse, This raging animal of a play no one dares to look in the eye For fear of what’s hidden there: Small ragdoll figures toppling over and over From every skyscraper and battlement hurtling Men and women both, mere gristle in the teeth of fate. Out over the sea of the audience our numb faces Are stunned as Andromache’s, locked up there on the platform Inside Euripides’ machine the women sway and struggle One foot at a time, up the surging ladder Of grief piled on grief, strophe on antistrophe, In every century the same, the master tightens the screws, Heightens the gloss of each bitter scene And strikes every key, each word rings out Over our terrified heads like a brass trumpet, For this gift is an accordion, the biggest and mightiest of all, As the glittering lacquered box heaves in and out, Sigh upon sigh, at the topmost pitch a child Falls through midnight in his frantically pink skin. As the anguished queen protests, the citizens in the chorus wail Louder and louder, the warriors depart Without a glance backwards, these captains of the world’s death Enslaved as they are enslavers, in a rain of willess atoms anonymity takes over utterly: as the flaming city falls On this bare beach, in the drab pinewood hall The Reading Club packs up to go; scripts, coffee cups, black stockings, Husbands and wives pile into the waiting cars Just as we expect, life picks up and goes on But not art: crouched back there like a stalled stallion Stuffed in its gorgeous music box is the one gift That will not disappear but waits, but bides its time and waits For the next time we open it, that magical false structure Inside whose artifice is the lesson, buried alive, Of the grim machinations of the beautiful that always lead us To these eternally real lamentations, real sufferings, real cries.