James Laughlin

Catullus is my master and I mix a little acid and a bit of honey in his bowl love is my subject & the lack of love which lack is what makes evil a poet must strike Catullus could rub words so hard together their friction burned a heat that warms us now 2000 years away I roll the words around my mouth & count the letters in each line thus eye and ear contend in- side the poem and draw its move- ment tight Milton thought rhyme was vulgar I agree yet sometimes if it’s hidden in the line a rhyme will richen tone the thing I most despise is quote poetic unquote diction I prefer to build with plain brown bricks of common talk American talk then set 1 Roman stone among them for a key I know Ca- tullus knew a poem is like a blow an impact strik- ing where you least expect this I believe and yet with me a poem is finally just a natural thing.

(for Vanessa) Melissa and I were sitting by the little lake in Green Park in London playing “swapping minds.” It’s an old game that came down from the Lowlands. It was a fine day so we had brought a little picnic. Melissa makes wonderful pâté, as good as anything from Fortnum & Masson. Yummy. And we had a half bottle of Chardonnay between us. Here is how the game of “swapping minds” goes. It’s not a child’s game, it’s very intellectual, or should I say psychological. Just imagine Melissa and I are talking. She says something to me, “James why are you always so arrogant?” But, obviously that’s not what she is thinking. To answer her I must try to imagine what she was thinking when she asked that. I must swap minds with her. I ventured the following: “Melissa, you have the most lovely white skin in England, you must be careful not to get sunburned. Melissa:“James, why do you pretend you are Scots when you’re really of Irish descent?” James:“Melissa, are you remembering the handsome Russian boy you met in the Hermitage on your trip to Russia and he took you to have an ice cream with him?” Melissa:“James, did the other boys in school tease you because you were so bad at games?” James:“Do you really love me or are you just flirting?” Melissa:“I’m sorry, James, but the response is in your mind, not in mine.” That was the end of the “swapping game” for that day, and such a happy day it was, there in Green Park, watching the ducks on the pond.

How she let her long hair down over her shoulders, making a love cave around her face. Return and return again. How when the lamplight was lowered she pressed against him, twining her fingers in his. Return and return again. How their legs swam together like dolphins and their toes played like little tunnies. Return and return again. How she sat beside him cross-legged, telling him stories of her childhood. Return and return again. How she closed her eyes when his were open, how they breathed together, breathing each other. Return and return again. How they fell into slumber, their bodies curled together like two spoons. Return and return again. How they went together to Otherwhere, the fairest land they had ever seen. Return and return again. O best of all nights, return and return again.

For Wade Hall is to become a footnote in a learned work of the 22nd century   not just a “cf” or a “see” but a sol- id note such as Raby gives Walafrid Straho in Christ- ian Latin Poetry

Life kept rolling her over like a piece of driftwood in the surf of an angry sea she was intelligent and beau- tiful and well-off she made friends easily yet she wasn’t able to put the pieces to- gether into any recognizable shape   she wasn’t sure who she wanted to be   so she ended up being no one in par- ticular   she made herself al- most invisible   she was the person you loved so much who really wasn’t there at all.

a sentimental curator has placed two fragments of bronze Grecian heads together boy and girl so that the faces black- ened by the three thousand years of desert sand & sun seem to be whispering something that the Gurgan lion & the wing- ed dog of Azerbaijan must not hear but I have heard them as I hear you now half way around the world so simply & so quietly more like a child than like a woman making love say to me in that soft lost near and distant voice I’m happy now I’m happy oh don’t move don’t go away.

Am I a character in the dreams of the god Hermes the messenger? Certainly many of my dreams have nothing to do with the common life around me. There are never any automobiles or airplanes in them. These dreams belong to an age in the distant past, to a time perhaps when nothing was written down, to the time of memory. I chose Hermes not out of vanity but because from what I’ve read about him he had a pretty good time, was not just a drunkard on Olympus. In his traipsings delivering divine messages he must have met some pretty girls who gave him pleasure. We know that he invented the lyre for the benefit of poets, and Lucian relates in his Dialogues of the Dead that he was the god of sleep and dreams. My dreams are not frightening, they are not nightmares. But their irrationality puzzles me. What is Hermes trying to tell me? Is he playing a game with me? Last Monday night I dreamt about a school for young children who had heads but no bodies. Last night it was a cow that was galloping in our meadow like a horse. Another night, and this one was a bit scary, I swam across the lake with my head under water, I didn’t have to breathe air. What is the message of these dreams? Into what kind of world is Hermes leading me? It’s not the world described daily in the New York Times. A world of shadows? A kind of levitation? How can I pray to Hermes to lay off these senseless fantasies, tell him that I want real dreams such as my shrink can explicate. I’ve looked up lustration in the dictionary. Its definition is not encouraging: “a prefatory ceremony, performed as a preliminary to entering a holy place.” That’s too impersonal. I want a man-to-man talk with Hermes, telling him to stop infesting my nights with his nonsense.

in our village are short and to the point. While the mourners are finding their seats Etta Andrews plays “Now the Day Is Over.” No one is ashamed to wipe his or her eyes. Then the Reverend stands up and reads the Lord’s Prayer with the mourners speaking it with him. Then there is a hymn, usually “Rock of Ages” or one chosen by the wife of the deceased. The deceased, I might say, is never present, except for an urn prepared by Mr. Torrant, who is always squinting. Next there are remarks by the Reverend. He is a kind man and can be relied upon to say something nice about the life of the departed, no matter how much he may have been scorned or even disliked. The Reverend’s eulogies are so much the same, with appropriate readings from scripture, that I gave up listening to them years ago. Instead, unheard, I eulogize myself, the real picture of how I’ve been in the village. I admit that I was self-satisfied and arrogant. I didn’t go to much pains to provide diversions for my wife. When the children and grandchildren came for visits I lectured them and pointed out their faults. I made appropriate contributions to the local charities but without much enthusiasm. I snubbed people who bored me and avoided parties. I was considerate to the people who worked in the post office. I complained a great deal about my ailments. When I’m asked how I’m doing, I reply that I’m not getting any younger. This inveterate response has become a bore in the village. After the Reverend’s eulogy is over there is another hymn, and the benediction. As they leave everyone, except me, presses the flesh of the bereaved with appropriate utterances. But I get away as quickly as I can. If they don’t bore me I like almost all the people in the village. But as they go, I tick them off. I’ve been to at least fifty funerals. When will mine be?

In love it may be dangerous to reckon on time to count on it time’s here and then it’s gone   I’m not thinking of death or disaster but of the slippage the unpredictable disappearance of days on which we were depending for happiness.

Even on Easter Sunday when the church was a jungle of lilies and ferns fat Uncle Paul who loved his liquor so would pound away with both fists on the stone pulpit shouting sin sin sin and the fiery fires of hell and I cried all after- noon the first time I heard what they did to Jesus it was something the children shouldn’t know about till they were older but the new maid told me and both of us cried a lot and so mother got another one right away & she sent away Miss Richardson who came all the way from England because she kept telling how her fiancé Mr. Bowles- Lyon died suddenly of a heart attack he just said one day at lunch I’m afraid I’m not well and the next thing they knew he was sliding un- der the table. Easter was nice the eggs were silly but the big lilies were wonderful & when Uncle Paul got so fat from drinking that he couldn’t squeeze into the pulpit anymore & had to preach from the floor there was an el- ders’ meeting and they said they would have the pulpit rebuilt but Uncle Paul said no it was the Lord’s manifest will and he would pass his remaining years in sacred studies I liked Thanksgiving better be- cause that was the day father took us down to the mills but Easter I liked next best and the rabbits died because we fed them beet tops and the lamb pulled up the grass by the roots and was sold to Mr. Page the butcher I asked Uncle Robert what were sacred studies he said he was not really sure but he guessed they came in a bottle and mother sent me away from the table when I wouldn’t eat my lamb chops that was ridiculous she said it wasn’t the lamb of God it was just Caesar An- dromache Nibbles but I couldn’t I just couldn’t & the year of the strike we didn’t go to Church at all on Easter because they said it wasn’t safe down town so instead we had prayers in the library and then right in the mid- dle the telephone rang it was Mr. Shupstead at the mill they had had to use tear gas father made a special prayer right a- way for God’s protection & mercy and then he sent us out to the farm with mother we stayed a week and missed school but it rained a lot and I broke the bathroom mirror and had to learn a long psalm.