IN THE BEGINNING
I am driven by my longing
In the beginning
Of arms and the man I sing
In the beginning
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
In the beginning
A screaming comes across the sky
In the beginning
poetry was an act of creation,
explaining into being,
making garden Word
water Word, mountain Word,
woman Word, God Word.
Then we knew ourselves,
at least our lettered forms,
and the lines turned and twisted,
snaked in on themselves,
and in their wanderings
the Words became new woven garlands,
set upon the heads of heroes
whose deeds defied the dying years,
the Words became now thorny crowns
set upon the heads of prophets,
at whose bloody temples we worshipped.
These sounds we called valour and sacrifice,
were deafened by their echoes,
and we wondered how we could bear
to be so pinched between the Cross
and the Colossus of Rhodes,
living in their twofold freezing shadows,
till Words became bleeding wounds,
expressions of inadequacy,
a way of celebrating our own
imperfection, our failures.
So we tore down the garden Word,
the water Word, the mountain Word,
the woman Word, the God Word,
revelled in the death of meaning;
a grand poetics of grime.
But where does that leave me,
the Poet Notquiteyet,
striking up the old pose,
preparing to sing my songs?
Even the most bare-naked bitterness
has been drizzled with honeyed Words
and made a point of pride,
leaving me speechless,
feeling the promontory
crumble under my feet.
I can only sit upon my hands,
type out of my ass, literally,
longwinded ruminations on navel fuzz,
trying to conquer that last frontier
of technicalities and empty flare
turning Word back to formless sound.
I write serviceable poetry, indeed,
in meter, rhyme and verse
yet somehow lacking, lacunal,
that original voice
that lets poetry the air
to inspire lungs beyond my own.
Poetry, harder than turning
coal to diamond barehanded,
Poet, try harder to mean something,
shine
or stop.
II
And I would,
I would, I would,
cast Wordsworth's worthless Words
out into cloudless night,
mow down fields of dandelions,
and sit thoughtless in a concrete bunker,
at that sleepless hour when even candlelight
blares sterile like flickering fluorescence,
dreamless and so deprived,
rather than face freedom again.
But still Words fill my mind
Words challenge my silence
Words leave me sweaty, shaking, weak
till WordsWordsWords from lips finally tumble,
inappropriate, inchoate, embarrassing
as I fall to knees, desperate
to suppress these unconceived babes ,
cram Words back into mouth,
gnash Words with teeth,
paper to pulp till whole Words no more.
Yet a stone slips in and suddenly
I'm squirrelly-cheeked choking,
jumbles escaping lips pursed purple,
these Words, these Words, these Words!
This muse is demon,
this muse is Legion
for the days are many
when I awake, tongue still fuzzy
from licking Virgil's vellum,
with Blake's black inks boiling in my guts.
Save me from my mangled Words,
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth ,
a chewed up Mass cast into Pig's Latin
olyHay, olyHay, olyHay ordLay odGay,
a child's secret prayers to heaven,
Ite, missa est!
Iteyay, issamay estyay?
Ixnay on the upidstay .
Words pursue, Words pursue,
while the Great Dane remains inside;
contemplating my skull .
III
So fine then, have at me,
open up the floodgate veins
and let them fill the cup,
I’ll drink it all up,
every Word they’ve said,
every Word I’ve suppressed,
I’ll let the timbre of my voice carry them
as far as my breath will travel.
Paul Engle looked inside and found that
“Verse is not written, it is bled
out of the poet’s abstract head,
Words drip the poem on the page;
out of his grief, delight and rage,”
and an urn told Keats
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all
ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,”
yet had I but looked first at this crumpled scrap of paper
whose chiming Words have flaked and faded,
I’d have read a new poet’s declaration:
“No one ever feels fulfilled by half-measures;
The poet must commit the full cup,
And spill out all pain, all doubt, all love, all pleasure.
We can no more control the flow of a lifeline,
Than the Words by which it is defined.”
That last was me, so confident at nineteen,
this at least is me, these Words I’ve made my own,
made my lettered body, heart Word, brain Word,
cock Word, mouth Word, life Word.
If these wet new eyes are windows to the soul,
then look close and find my face
pressed white against the glass,
fogging it with happy laughter,
sharing drinks with Shakespeare,
composing all new odes
from the Words that defined our past:
O’ LET IT BE WRITTEN!
O’ LET IT BE SUNG!
[JM Francheteau]
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