Intertextuality

Book of Life

Book of Life

When I lost my place, I tied my hanky in a knot,
to help me remember the number of my page.
Last night I looked in pockets and sleeve, but
I couldn’t remember where I put my hanky.

At midnight the stars dropped liquid fires and they
pooled like letters on the fresh snow of my dreams.

One night I caught some falling stars and I joined them
together, one by one, till they stretched their daisy chain
across the garden. Words grow like flowers in the Spring.

Once I could accelerate the universe. But now I slow
down when I spell my name. There is a circlet of gold
on the sky’s bright brow. What gave these stars the right
to write my future in expanding letters? A satellite moves
in a straight line, north to south and starlight crumbles
in the wake of artificial knowledge spanning the eye ball
of the planet.  Who will repair these broken tunes? Who
will glue these scattered notes back into the piano’s frame?

My tongue stumbles against my teeth and trips on my lip.
A leaf of fire scorches the deep bell sound of my throat.

Commentary:

I looked over my shoulder, backward into time and space, and discovered this poem, penned more than a quarter of a century ago and abandoned in an old folder. Moo tells me he hasn’t painted for some time – I wondered if he was on a rotating striking, like our posties (Canadian for mail men and women), but he assured me that he had been sleeping, not sleep-walking in circles. Anyway, he felt inspired, put paintbrush to postcard and gave new life to my Book of Life. Thank you, Moo.

Do you remember when we used to tie knots in our hankies to remember what we had to do? Paper tissues put an end to that. No point in tying a knot in a soggy tissue, even if you could. And as Francisco de Quevedo told us – no point in looking in your hanky after you’ve used it. No point in searching for diamonds and emeralds, let alone pearls of wisdom, they just won’t be there. Good one, Franky. Of course, he was writing in Spanish, not English and my translation can’t do him justice.

It used to be fun watching the night sky out here in Island View. So clear – the satellites passed overhead and followed different paths from the stars. No Platonic dancing to ethereal music for them. Tone deaf, the lot of them, cutting their own little paths across the night sky. We used to get Northern Lights too, Aurora Borealis. They were always spectacular. Great crackling curtains of light hanging down from the heavens almost to the rooftops. Moo wishes he could paint everything h sees. I wish I could write down in verse every thought I think. If each of us had our wishes fulfilled, we’d have two books of life – one in color and one in black and white!

Clepsydra 33

33

… but the light cannot last forever
     so where do I go
          when the door in my head
               slams shut
         
then I know
     I have lost the key
          to my mind’s labyrinth
               I struggle
                    but I realize
                         there’s no escape

Ariadne’s thread
     the one that should lead me
          out of the labyrinth
               turns into a woven web
                     trapping me
                         leading nowhere

the minotaur
     half-bull – half-man
          bellows
               stifles all thoughts

my heart turns to stone
     indigestible
          in the throat’s gorge
               or the stomach’s pit
                    and my mouth’s
                         too dry to spit

in this starless night
     when fear descends with the dark
          a guillotine slices its way
               through muscle and bone
                    to sever all hope

no glow worm
     can worm its way
          into my mind
               to enlighten the path …

Commentary:

“… the minotaur, half-bull, half-man, bellows and stifles all thoughts …” I asked Moo for a painting of a Minotaur, but he didn’t have one. So I pottered about and found this photo of Los Toros de Guisando, a pre-Roman set of sculptures, in the Province of Avila, carved by the Celts. Not exactly a Minotaur, but certainly a set of taurine images that baffle with their size, silence, and presence. Indeed, they conjure up the images of the poem’s next verse ” … stone, indigestible in the throat’s gorge or the stomach’s pit …”

This is the cave painting, circa 5,000 BC of a bull, as found on the wall of the Caves of Altamira. Alas, he cannot bellow. Or should I say, Thank heavens, he can neither bellow nor pursue us. He stands silent on his cave wall. This photo comes from a glass ash tray my father purchased as a souvenir when we visited those caves (circa 1963-65, before they were closed to the public). Intertextuality – this bull as text and the long history of his multiple appearances. Metaphor and magic, mysterious and marvelous.

The idea that “religion is a glow-worm that glows in the darkness” is a metaphorical observation on the nature of faith. Its most famous expression comes from the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The statement suggests that religion appears most valuable and needed when people are in a state of ignorance, uncertainty, or despair.” Wikipedia – AI Generated. Our poet, that’s me, in case there are any doubts, refers back to this idea when he writes “no glow worm can worm its way into my mind to enlighten the path”. This too links back to the poetry of St. John of the Cross and his references to the dark night of the soul when hope seems lost and we despair of everything. Then we link to Goya’s etching – The Sleep of Reason – “when reason sleeps, monsters are born.”

However dark the night, someone has walked this way before us. We can follow in their footsteps and hope for the dawn. When it arrives, we can rejoice. But never forget the law of circularity, what goes round, comes round. Night will come back, the way will again be dark, but the light will always return once more. Images and symbols, metaphors and mystery, even the unspeakable can be spoken in the ways in which the ancient artists, sculptors, painters, saints, and philosophers have shown us.

Clepsydra 30

30

… but before all that
     did I emerge slowly
          from the grain
               of a granite heart
                    as a sculpture
                         emerges from stone

I broke out of a silent world
     left the flesh-and-blood house
          where my mother lodged me
               abandoned that amniotic silence
                    broken only
                         by my mother’s heartbeat

my own heart
     responded to that rhythm
          until I materialized
               and slipped into
                    this waiting world

only to be held at the hips
     trapped
          a climber in a cave
               half out
                    yet not able to break
                         completely free

and me
     visited all my life
          by the nightmare
               of that pincer grip
                    until the doctor
                         forceps in hand
                              pincered me
                                   and drew me forth
white meat
     from a reluctant lobster’s claw
          silent
               dangling upside down
                    a special lobster
                         blue at the bottom
                              red at the top
                                   breathless
                                        motionless

until that first slap
     broke the silence
          and wailing
                I came into
                     that waiting world …

Commentary:

Nice painting, Moo. I like that. Its original title is Walking on Air, and I guess that’s what it might have felt like, dangling up side down, held by my feet, trying to walk on my hands, and look at all those suggestive colours. Colors / colours – English or Canadian? Does it matter? Red is still red and a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Ecclesiastes, if I am not mistaken. “Great knowledge brings great grief; for in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” So, we live and we learn, but what do we learn? Only the wisdom of all the wise people who walked this way before us. “In my beginning is my end …” – T. S. Eliot – “and in my end is my beginning.” In blood we begin our days, and in blood will we end them, just as the day begins with the spilling of the sun’s blood and ends in an evening of glory. Except when it’s cloudy, and then, of course, we have to guess what’s happening.

Guess-work – we guess how it began and we guess how it will end. And there’s the Clepsydra for you – drop after drop of water and people gathering knowledge, only to know how little they know, for, as Erich von Richthofen said, in the Medieval Course at the University of Toronto, a long time ago, in the 60’sixties of the last century which was also in the last millennium – “The more I know, the more I realize how much I don’t know.”

Clepsydra 28 & 29

28

… diagnosed
     with a terminal illness
          called life
               I know it will end
                    in death

I have seen many
     pass that way
          two-legged humans
               four-legged friends
                    and none have come back

I recall
     holding the dog’s shaved paw
          while the vet slipped
               that last redeeming needle
                    into the exposed vein

the dog’s eyes
     pleaded for release
          her tongue licked my hand
               oh so trusting
                    even at that
                         for me
                              so bitter end

and did the poor dog know
     what was coming
          did she live her life
               as I have led mine
                    waiting for that last word
                         to be spoken
                              the last order given …

29

… two of us
     me and my death
          walking side by side
               everywhere
                    sharing the same bed
                         sleeping between
                              the same sheets

I wonder if
     we dream
          the same dreams

my death
     how would I greet him
          when he came
               as executioner
                    not friend

I re-create him as a man
     or as a dark angel
          with all-comforting wings

is he open-eyed,
          while I am blindfolded
               not knowing the way
                    afraid of falling

this death
     is it cruelty
          or merely love               

the path is ahead is new
     and totally unknown …

Commentary:

Many of the images in these two pieces are exercises in intertextual examples, Stanza 29 in particular, drawn from the Neo-Stoicism of Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645). His advice, set out in poem after poem, is to embrace death before it comes. Prepare for it, mentally, and be aware that it is the natural end of life. As Dylan Thomas also writes, “Every morning when I wake, oh Lord this little prayer I make, that thou wilt keep thy watchful eye on all poor creatures born to die.” The Dunvant Male Voice Choir gives us this version of it. Remember to turn your sound on! I like this version, not just for the music, but also for the views over one of my favorite childhood beaches, Rhossili and the Worm’s Head, not far from my home in Gower.

As I grow older and creakier, as my ailments accumulate, one by one, so I realize that indeed I have been “diagnosed with a terminal illness called life.” It’s funny to think of life as a terminal ailment. “Take two Tylenol and when you wake up tomorrow morning you’ll be feeling much better.” And yes, like every sane person “I know it [this terminal ailment] will end in death.” So, don’t be sad. Carpe Diem – seize each day and enjoy every one of them to the best of your ability. Remember the inscription on the Roman Sundial – horas non numero nisi serenas – I count only the happy hours. Whatever you do, have no regrets. If you do have some, make your peace with them now – or as soon as you possibly can. And, when the call comes, go willingly. Step with pride and joy onto that new and unknown path that will lead you to an eternity of joy, acceptance, and love.
                   

Clepsydra 27

Clepsydra 27

… the museum closes its doors
     inside the clepsydra murmurs
          on and on

evening falls from the sky
     in great cataracts of light
          stars flare like candles

who will see
     that last drop of water
          trembling at
               the clepsydra’s edge,

who will snuff out
     that last flickering
          flame of my life
               as the final verses
                    of the children’s song
                         loom closer

… Here comes a candle
     to light you to bed.
          And here comes a chopper
               to chop of your head…

Commentary:

Moo got it right this time – “evening falls from the sky in great cataracts of light, stars flare like candles …” Lovely painting of a star ‘flaring like a candle’ against the evening sky. I think he called the painting Affirmation. Yup, he’s nodding his head, and he has his eyes wide open. He’s not dropping off into one of those drowsy moments of old age. Too early in the morning to do ‘noddy’ I say. Oh-oh, there he goes. It’s Billy Cotton Band Show Time … “Wakey-wakey!” Now how many of you remember the Billy Cotton Band Show on BBC Radio on Sunday afternoons, just as people are dropping off to sleep after the enormous Sunday dinner and dessert? Hands up if you’re over eighty and remember that. Oh dear. Not a good idea. Moo’s hand’s gone up and he’s still got his eyes shut. Ah well, appearances aren’t everything.

And look at that comma after – the clepsydra’s edge, (line 10) -. The one that got away. There’s always one that gets away, no matter how hard we try – and try we do. Clepsydra is meant to be a single sentence, with no punctuation other than an ellipsis at the beginning and end of each sequence. And what have we here? A common or garden comma, growing like a large, spring dent-de-lion / dandelion in the middle of a patch of flowery images and metaphors. Out, out fowl spot! What bird was that? A Flying MacBeth just dropped something on my windshield. ‘What a foul fowl was that fellow,’ said the soccer referee pointing to the penalty spot. A round spot with a whale of a tail.

“Any questions?” I asked my students at the end of class one day. A brave young lad raised his hand. “I have a question, sir?” [I liked it when they called me, sir. It happened about once or twice a year. I always knew something drastic was about to happen when I received a knighthood.] “Ask away,” I replied. “What the heck are you on? I’d love to have some of that. Can you give me some, sir!” Two knighthoods in one day. I’ll be a KG next, instead of an RG. I bet you don’t get that joke! Answers by snail mail and dog sled, please!

Clepsydra 25 & 26

25

… how will it all end
     does it not need closure
          something to bring
               the water-wheel full circle
                    a golden key to open
                         what

the museum’s door
     memory’s door
          the archives where
               so many memories lie
                    gathering dust

though some may tell the truth
     whatever that is

or does the story go on and on
     never pausing
          never ending
               wrinkle after wrinkle
                    threaded through time
                         after time
                              the candle
                                    burning

the clepsydra
     dripping all life away
          the pendulum
               swaying
                    back and forth …

26

… Westminster Chimes
     chiming the quarters
          church bells
               ringing out a warning

the hills alive
     alight
          with burning beacons

what new armadas
     sailing now off our coast
          what fireflies flicker
               their thunderous roar
                    frightening birds in trees
                         driving deer
                              into the woods

how many people
     cast forth like bread
          upon the waters
               to return ten-fold

hark to the bells
     ringing out again
          St. Clement’s
               St. Martin’s
                    the Old Bailey
hark to the children singing
     dancing in a circle
          never-ending
               until the music ends

and the last child
     is caught by
          the lowering arms
               trapped
                    a fish flapping
                         in the osprey’s grasp …

Commentary:

I wonder how many people still sing the children’s song about the bells of London? Images from it – intertextuality – occur throughout Clepsydra.

“Oranges and lemons,”
ring the bells of St. Clement’s.

“You owe me five farthings,”
say the bells of St. Martin’s.

“When will you pay me,”
ask the bells of Old Bailey.

“When I grow rich,”
sing the bells of Shoreditch.

“And when will that be,”
sing the silver bells of Battersea.

“I do not know,”
booms the great bell at Bow.

“Here comes a candle
to light you to bed.
And here comes a chopper
to chop off your head.”

The song appeared at children’s parties. Two of them joined hands, held their hands high, like London’s Tower Bridge, and the children, in a long chain passed beneath the ‘bridge’ as the song was sung. At the end, the children speeded up and they tried to avoid the last verse when the bridge’s arms descended and two children were caught. These then had to replace the original two gate-keepers and the game started again. At least, that was how I remember it being played.

It is worth remembering how violent in their imagery children’s songs can be. The games seem sweet, but they often have dark undertones, some going back to the Black Death – “Ring a ring a rosies, a pocket full of posies, atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down.” If you don’t know what that all signifies, go down the rabbit hole with Alice and the white rabbit and look it all up! And find out what a farthing is, and a penny farthing – go on – I double-dog dare you!

And remember – poetry carries its own meaning – or multiple meanings – and they are not always easy to find. Dig, my friends, dig. There’s gold in them there hills.

Raven

Raven

When Raven flies through his trap door in the sky, a light bulb clicks off in my head and I fall into darkness. Is there some safety net before oblivion? Raven’s claws scar crow’s feet on a fingernail moon. His bleak black beak widens the hole in my head and the Easter egg of my skull shows thin blue cracks. Outside my window, the river moves backwards and forwards with the tide. Raven shrugs at cancerous creatures, promising nothing. He soars into clear skies in search of his private exit and extinguishes sun, moon, and stars, plunging our world into blackness. The light on the point picks out a heron, mobbed by a clacking ring of gulls. The sea mist wraps the real world tight in its cloak. Now sea and lighthouse, heron and gulls, are distant things of memory. Raven, shoulders hunched, stands like a stone, an anthracite block hacked out from the coal seam in my mind, hand carved from feathers and my forefathers’ blood.

Commentary:

I had forgotten all about this poem in prose. It comes from Fundy Lines, if I remember correctly. Photo credit (below) to one of my former students, an excellent poet herself, who took the trouble to locate the correct rock and then take a photo of book and rock together.


Moo thought his painting of a dark shape that looks a little bit like a bird of ill-omen would be just what this prose poem needed. Maybe he’s right. I trust him with his choice of paintings. Well, most of the time anyway. He can be a bit ‘off’ from time to time, but mostly we form a good team, especially where Surrealism is concerned.

I guess Raven formed part of my Surreal sequences. I really do enjoy Surrealism. The mixing of metaphors, for example, the unexpected meeting of a sewing machine with a carving knife and an umbrella on an operating table. And look what Raven’s up to. He discovers a trap door in the sky. Well, that would be very useful, if we had wings and could fly. Then he turns off the light bulb in my head. I didn’t even know I had one in there. I guess Raven, like coyote and zopilote is a bit of a Trickster. Next he changes into a woodpecker and widens the hole in my skull. Poor old me – avian trepanning – no wonder I have problems! My head becomes an Easter Egg and has cracks in it giving birth to what? Some mad ideas, I guess, pecking their way out into the wonderful world in which Moo and I live in perfect harmony with my beloved and our cat. And look at all those Welsh mining memories – lignite, house coal, steam coal, anthracite, jet – and remember, when the coal comes from the Rhondda down the Merthyr – Taff Vale line, I’ll be there.

It will be a long way from Canada to Taff’s Well. Maybe Raven will be kind and fly me there, through his Island View trap door that has direct access to the trap door just above Castell Coch, the Fairy Castle of my childhood. That would be faster, and easier, than my old two-wheeler Raleigh bicycle with it’s Sturmey-Archer three gear click on the handlebars. I bet Raven can fly faster than I can pedal. And if I could have pedaled as fast as Raven flies, downhill and uphill, I would have been King of the Mountains and an all time winner of the Tour de France. Now that would have been surrealistically surreal, seeing me as a cereal winner, with my snap, crackle, and pop! Not that my dad would have been happy. He never was happy with anything I did!

Cage of Flame

Cage of Flame

Now you are a river
flowing silver beneath the moon.
High tide in the salt marsh:
 your body fills with shadow and light.
 I dip my hands in dappled water.

Twin gulls, they float down stream,
then perch on an ice-floe
of half-remembered dreams.

Eagle with a broken wing,
why am I trapped in this cage of flame?
When I turn my feathers to the sun,
my back is striped
with the black and white
of a convict’s bars.

Awake, I lie anchored
by what pale visions
fluttering on the horizon?

White moths wing their snow
storm through the night.
A feathered shadow ghosts
fingers towards my face.
Butterflies stutter
against a shuttered window.

A candle flickers in the darkness
and maps in runes
the ruins of my heart. Eye of the peacock,
can you touch what I see
when my eyelids close for the night?

The black rock of the midnight sun
rolled up the sky.
Last night, the planet quivered
beneath my body
and I felt each footfall
a transient god.

When will I be released
from my daily bondage?

Commentary:

Moo reminded me that this poem also existed as a prose poem. here it is in prose layout. Think about it and let me know which version you prefer. Is one easier to read than the other? Do the rhythms come through more strongly in one version? Meanwhile, since he hasn’t painted a cage of flame, nor a river flowing silver, he suggested that if I really felt like the poem suggested I might feel like, then All Shook Up – with its warm, colorful flame images, might be just the poem to fit the crime. Better, he said than playing billiards on a cloth untrue, with a twisted cue, and elliptical billiard balls.

I wonder how many people recognize that little tip of the hat to the past glories of English Comic Opera? Since Canada post is on rotating strike – talk about twisted cues and elliptical billiard balls – then send your answers by highly trained snails (snail mail) or dog sled via whatever route still has enough snow for the huskies to haul on. Meanwhile, Ottawa has declared that the Maritime provinces are continuing with their suffering a buffering from lack of rain and severe drought. I do long for that river flowing silver, not to mention high tide in the salt marsh. We need water badly. And the sooner the better. Aquifers, rivers, wells, they all need filling.

Ah, the majestic game of cricket – and how I long for that summer test match curse – Rain Stopped Play. Or as the BBC commentator said on the radio one day – I heard him – “play has been stopped because of piddles on the putch – oh, sorry, I mean puddles on the pitch.” I wonder what Mr. Hugh Jarce would have thought of that. I know he always loved that old cricketing Chestnut – ‘The bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey.” Unlike much wanted rain, it didn’t stop the match, but the commentators who perpetrated that jest laughed so much, the commentary stopped for nearly five minutes. Oh, the things one remembers as one gets old. Now, where did I put my glasses? I wonder if my beloved knows.

Cage of Flame

Now you are a river flowing silver beneath the moon. High tide in the salt marsh: your body fills with shadow and light. I dip my hands in dappled water. Twin gulls, they float down stream, then perch on an ice-floe of half-remembered dreams. Eagle with a broken wing, why am I trapped in this cage of flame? When I turn my feathers to the sun, my back is striped with the black and white of a convict’s bars. Awake, I lie anchored by what pale visions fluttering on the horizon? White moths wing their snow storm through the night. A feathered shadow ghosts fingers towards my face. Butterflies stutter against a shuttered window. A candle flickers in the darkness and map in runes the ruins of my heart. Eye of the peacock, can you touch what I see when my eyelids close for the night? The black rock of the midnight sun rolled up the sky. Last night, the planet quivered beneath my body and I felt each footfall of a transient god. When will I be released from my daily bondage?

Monologue

Monologue

“They broke our walls,” Mono whispered, “stone by stone.
A new church they built on the land they stole from us.
Red was its roof from a thunderstorm of blood.
The white bones of their lightning scattered us like hail.

They ripped out our tongues and commanded us to sing.
Carved mouths were ours, stuffed with grass.
Stone music forced its way through our broken teeth.

Few live who can read the melodies of our silence.
We wait for some wise man to measure our dance steps.

Pisando huevos: we walk on tiptoe across
these stepping stones of time.

Commentary:

Mono means monkey (in Spanish). Hence, monologue means monkey speaking to himself. Cute, eh? Monkey is one of the day signs in the Mixtec Codices. Lots of double meanings and rabbit holes down which the ardent reader can descend. Dig deep, my friend. Pisando huevos – literal meaning – ‘walking on eggs’ – meaning walking very carefully, on tip-toe, step by step.

Who said poetry was simple? You want it simple, there are so many simplifying factors out there. I want you to think. To think for yourself. To understand complicated language with multiple meanings. You want simplicity? Go watch a TV ad – Tide’s in, Dirt’s out. Omo adds bright, bright, brightness. The Esso sign means happy motoring. Don’ forget the Fruit Gums, mum – (said as the little boy throws a brick out of the window and it hits his mother on the head).

I’d say “wake up and smell the coffee.” But if wake means woke, I’m not the sort of bloke that accepts the meaning of wake or woke! Hereward the Wake. Robin Hood the Bloke in the Hood who Awoke- and I don’t mean the flower / flower, nor the Lincoln Green of the Lincoln Continental.

So what do I mean? I don’t know. Coded words are meaningless unless you have the meaning to the code. What code? The miscued code. And the meaningless lack of meaning in meaningless. Just like my friend who’s just been screwed, blued, and tattooed – and totally rude. Or was it scrod?

Inquisitor

Inquisitor
Sun and Moon

He told me to read,
and plucked my left eye from its orbit.
He slashed the glowing globe of the other.
Knowledge leaked out, loose threads dangled.
He told me to speak and I squeezed dry dust
to spout a diet of Catechism and Confession.

He emptied my mind of poetry and history.
He destroyed the myths of my people.
He filled me with fantasies from a far-off land.
I live in a desert where people die of thirst,
yet he talked to me of a man who walked on water.

On all sides, as stubborn as stucco,
the prison walls listened and learned.
I counted the years with feeble scratches:
one, five, two, three.

For an hour each day the sun shone on my face,
for an hour at night the moon kept me company.
Broken worlds lay shattered inside me.
Dust gathered in my people’s ancient dictionary.

My heart was like a spring sowing
withering in my chest
It longed for the witch doctor’s magic,
for the healing slash of wind and rain.

The Inquisitor told me to write down our history:
I wrote … how his church … had come … to save us.

Commentary:

No wonder the little girl in Moo’s painting looks so sad. She must have read this poem and understood how the exercise of power and authority, be it religious or secular, can effect those upon whom it is exercised. Times change, but so many things remain the same. The pendulum swings, and it moves from chaos to order and back again. The meaning of meaning – how we define chaos and how we define order define who we are.

Birds of a feather flock together. Manners maketh the man. Wonderful sayings. But fine words do not necessarily make for fine men or women at that. Serpents and senators, both can speak with forked tongues. It is up to us to apply discourse analysis and distinguish between what they say and what they actually mean. As my friend Jean-Paul Sartre once said – “L’homme n’est rien d’autre que ce qu’il fait.” A man is nothing more than what he does. His deeds reveal his true inner self – and remember – the plumage doesn’t necessarily make the bird.