In the dark alone
the old poet's rich sonorous tones
reverberate within,
after Spoleto
it was always cold
the grand voice just a whisper.
Jack the acolyte, taking Neal along
went down to Mexico
the hot sun on their arm
the old Ford belching fire
and threatening to expire.
their sustenance the ganga leaf
and tubes of Benzedrine
the hot fire of their make believe
the rush of tangent word
thrown together
traded like arrows in the heat
of some mythic battle
that the angels
watched gleefully,
as the world burned.
In the whorehouse
in the little town
the girl they wanted most
looked away.
angel’s eyes
in the dust laden room
with the sun slantwise;
yankee cartoons on the sod dancefloor,
sestina of dark hands dipping into pockets
sodden shirts
and the heat of tequila,
and outside of the verse, her, who frightened them,
yes, yes of course,
it lies years ahead
beyond the curve of the earth,
when the old man dies weakly in Spoleto,
and Jack explodes, cursed. and on the straggler
too the magic works
the sweet curve of her brown ass
the magic of the lightning glance
that elicits whimpers,
weak gestures of virility,
the goddamn puzzle in other words
where the pieces fit together
and the fucking poem works
like an ass on Montezuma’s ancient hills.
2.
As with all things
withal
the action fell apart
the witch that drains things
virtue’s gown
dragging the late sunshine’s dust
when everything's red
and these beasts come slouching out
ringed by the scarlet fire
their hot sins cringing
at the lowering sun
their crumpled bills fluttering to ground
their eyes matching the taste of the hot dust.
Sacred dogs with curved tails
slithering, while she of their thirst
sighs at another repast
the leak of the day disappearing
the cold shadow of the traveler
beating on the dirt walls
wishing the curse could be reversed;
even as the old poet booms his voice
across the continent
shattering mountain
and river bottom alike
with out remorse
for the piss leaking from his trousers’ leg.
and that, that too was true,
the many missing pieces loose
lost in the chant,
the rocks the ever present chance
the dogged romance
the Pierean roses
the sultry romance
the fists of cash,
gas for the old Ford
shit to get some hash
all of it while the faces whirled
and blended
until nothing was left but the angel
and the voice of the old poet
echoing off the walls,
where the shadow shrank.
yes, she had hidden her bit of truth
but it was something they all had
that tiny bit of flesh
hidden away not in any way to be put on view.
“I refuse to argue any more with you”
but don’t we agree? Lonelier, lonelier
than life! the flag draped walls,
the bloated sun caressing
the black doors of the Ford;
no not in any way to be put on view
either of them
though theirs was an underlying love
that could not denied
even as the angel died beyond the curve
at the edge of the world
buried yes one more missing piece
"april is the cruelest month;"
"and after rain
a deep reverberation fills with stars"
were it to be handled anymore carefully
the stones would fall. It is no more than that.
an in-between the triad of dreams
and you fucks leave it to be worked out
in the evening
when one cannot even look out over the valley
past the poet's stone.
3.
The city fell long ago
it’s face is wrecked
and scratched and old…
Concerned
with air
the fetid creatures
feasting on flesh,
a mile from town, no more,
the brass clang of the church bell,
the ding of the watchman
his lantern bouncing in the
wink of buildings slung low
gray in the reflection,
too harried, too fast to be slow.
Chained to the then of when
just as the poet’s voice rises
above the din in indignation
just as Artemis rises
bloody and furious from battle,
an accidental heaven
filled with acrid fumes
the blare of strident trumpets,
know you not the sound of hoofbeats,
the spark upon the rock
the white horse running through the night?
As some rejoiced,
the parting of the old voice
the swart ships crashed upon the Greek shoreline
the bodies strewn upon the rocks
for the birds to pick through.
Timbre and pitch of the lonely sky
where Heaven was put together in stitches
one piece of the puzzle at a time.
Alteration then,
to the Hamptons translation,
but not loss.
How was it then that omen was not seen
even as the ships were filled with new men
and set to cross the sea once again,
because in the old man’s voice
the horse was conjured & freed
the shadow is raised from the edge of the grave
led to the doge’s steps
and the white horse rises from the depths of the sea.
Author notes
See: Canto I, Ezra Pound, Lost In Translation, John Merrill, The Wastleland, T.S. Eliot
In a list
- shiny things and added jewels • next in list
- Longer Works, or, the wretched Dead • next in list
- My Favorite Writes By Other AP Wordartists • next in list
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 24 of 24
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There is no sense in me tripping over my tongue trying to express appreciation for the genius you know lies above. Salute'
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Wow
Such a stunning write...I felt like I was...on the road. -c
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shame you are writing anymore.
i just got accused of posting that poem for gabriel in order to "poke sticks" at moderators over there.
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I was thinking about this ....
xo -
Does there ever come a time in your life where you think you have written the best thing you are ever going to write? I think perhaps if I had this I may stop sit back and just be satisfied, but then I read it again for what seems like the 100th time (more like 10th) and even though it gets better each time and the images and the way I feel about it change, it actually makes me want to write more and that's almost impossible as I write everyday, even when I sleep. Mr. Lute this piece may possibly be a piece that new poets talk about old poets and how wonderfully modern they are, just as you probably did when reading Pound or Eliot for the first time. I am just going to keep coming back and garnering more from this the more I read it.
C
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excellent
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Opinion/Reason
Let's go in sequence:
1. Titles were to be used as the title of your write of which you were to then write
2. Lines were not to be no longer than (fifty) lines
3. Quotes were to be used as inspiration which you did which is good
Try again. Hence the removal of this entry -
fabulous poetry!
oh man! this is a poem! I am envious...I wish I had written a piece like this. it inspires me.
I love the voice. lute's best.
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Quite a trip
in both senses of the word and quite a party. But the white horse rises from the depths of the sea and perhaps there's a sense of redemption and purification.
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holy shit mr. lute....
this is too grand for here...
after traveling through parts of mexico and south america you made so many images true...
i went into this one place where it advertised dinner and drink.. after i sat down i realised it was all women and i was in the local whore house..
a brown doe eyed girl with a tiny ass came over and said, 20$ i take you.
should i tell you the ending?
lol
nahhh
i will leave it to your imagination
lol
this - this needs to be elsewhere and seen by many
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a nice cocktail of myth and fantasy, I'm well impressed.
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I wonder if you altered some of this since when I read it before, or more likely that it is a poem that eventually one studies as a lifetime's companion . like The Wasteland perhaps, or Anna Karenina, and it is like the Yorkshire Moors, constantly changing perspectives and colours in the landscape, yet the same physical topography.
I would like to have this in a proper book to be such a companion.
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This is wondrous ...
I am but a simple poet. Mercy, please.
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Probably, in my opinion, one of the most important things you've written if not The. Center of the Vortex. Yes.
I hope it wins $5,000 but even if it doesn't in favor of Charles-Simic styled today poetry -- does't matter, it exists.
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sits in awe with my mouth wide open...
excellent poem, even if I don't have the proper praise for it. I can just sit here dumbfounded with my head swirling around.
Perhaps I should just go put lots of clappy guys on all your poems...
Yes. that's what I should do, I'm sure of it. Now, off I go.
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what is this obsession with whores?
*laughs and smiles*
well , back on subject, it was alright. not the kind of poem I'd sit down and read but a good for referencing when in need of a hard to find line or thought in need of written words.
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Yes. Lute. This is it.
If you said "Lisa, this is the last poem I will write" I would be incredibly sad but I would know that you did your work. And did your work well.
Perhaps, a Lisa comment on a Lute poem is looked upon in these parts with a bit of a smirk - but I read part 1 and said -- This is It. I've read everything you have posted here for what 4 years now? Not every poem but many of your poems lead you here. I see Robin, Lisa, Aphrodite, I see Ezzara, the Muse, the creaking oar dipping in the water, Sweet Jenny, Emily, A Sunday in Hell, Geist Klaang, the One who rides the Tale of the Comet --
Someday, I believe a yet unborn poet will be holding their head in the darkness -- struggling and will hear your voice in their head...
Not something I can comment on in typical AP Fashion, pretty impossible. Too far reaching into the future with the weight of the past for wings.
Nice work, fella.
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"I shall return..."
I didn't all together understand this piece when I read it the first time... I only understood it a little better the second time... By the third read it was beginning to make a little more sense... But something in it kept calling me back - wanting my attention, demanding my understanding - Its strength is surely in that voice... This is not an easy piece offering the casual reader instant gratification; the commited reader will have to work almost as hard at this piece as the poet...
This is not intended as a crtitcism - I have gone exactly this route with other pieces that, in the fullness of time, have become some of my all time favourites. I will continue to return to it until I feel I fully understand...
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Wow
I don't know what to say this wonderful write takes you on a journey Thanks
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It's interesting. I'm reading Merrill and Pound (not so much Pound, but more of Merrill) and both infuse their poetry with mythology, like you do here. I know Merrill had a home in Greece even though he was American . . . smart man.
This is a smart poem. It's a credible piece of work insofar you lay your poetic chops down. Lute got some good work.
Here are my favorite lines from Pound's Canto XIV:
The slough of unamiable liars,
bog of stupidities,
malevolent stupidities, and stupidities,
the soil living pus, full of vermin,
dead maggots begetting live maggots,
slum owners,
usurers squeezing crab-lice, pandars to authority,
pets-de-loup, sitting on piles of stone books,
obscuring the texts with philology,
hiding them under their persons,
the air without refuge of silence,
the drift of lice, teething,
and above it the mouthing of orators,
the arse-belching preachers.
And Invidia,
the corruptio, foetor, fungus,
liquid animals, melted ossifications,
slow rot, fetid combustion
chewed cigar-butts, without dignity, without tragedy,
Episcopus, waving a condom full of black beetles,
monopolists, obstructors of knowledge.
obstructors of distribution.
Now if that isn't a rant, I don't know what is.
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This is your dying love, this is your lover, this is your waste land..
i became engrossed in the sounds and the utter despair of it... it took me on a wave and the horses gnashed at my side... the spoke too...
but it was lost in the roar of the poem.....
i shall be back to become lost again..
tis important, as Bear said...
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Apollinaire! Excellent!
This is what all the poems build up to, yes?
The poem it make with the fall of civilisation since it was first born and started to crumble as it fell out if the crucible right up through all those times people think it is in its dying throes yet it still linger on and on like the smell of drains or the novel Brothers Karamazov in the bablefish translation.
This is more than magnificent work Lute and should be somewhere important.
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Ah well this is deffinately too deep for me and so seems to be really lost in translation from word to mind. Maybe if I were smoking some of the mentioned stuff it might free my mind enough to comprehend. What can I say But that I'm sorry to waist your points and time.
Cheryl
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