NPM: The World Is Too Much with Us

Shotei Watanabe,
Seagulls over the Waves

Woke up in a Wordsworth kind of mood today. I considered posting "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" with a spiel about how it paints the complexion of the adult's nostalgia for childhood during an era before cartoons and video games, but really: no matter how snappy a foreword I supply, nobody's going to spend twenty minutes during their lunch break reading a 200-line poem. Instead, here's the much more succinct "The World Is Too Much with Us"—a poem to which the desultory undergraduate might presume to attribute an environmentalist message, though it's really about humanity's perception of the natural world rather than its footprint upon it. (See also: A.N. Whitehead's "The Romantic Reaction," which will probably take two or three times more time to read than "Ode" would have. Oh well.)


The World Is Too Much with Us
William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;——
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

NPM: Reservation Grass

Aaron Huey

I remember reading this poem by Natalie Diaz on a sidewalk placard when I was still living in Takoma Park, Maryland. (I miss Takoma Park.) All of the italicized phrases are borrowed from various Walt Whitman poems (if you couldn't guess).

Reservation Grass

Natalie Diaz (b. ?)

I keep no account of lamentation.

                              ~Walt Whitman

We smoke more grass than we ever promise to plant.
Our front yards are green and brown, triangles of glass——What is
     the grass?——emeralds and garnets sewed like seeds in the dirt.
The shards of glass grow men bunched together——multitudes——men
     larger than weeds and Whitmans, leaning against the sides of
     houses——dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers——
     upon dirt not lawn.
Corned beef comes on the first of every month——this the meat of
     hunger——in white cans with bold black writing.
We——myself and mine——toss it in a pot and wonder how it will ever
     feed us all——witness and wait——but never worry, never fret,
     never give a damn, over mowing the grass.
What have we——the red aborigines——out of hopeful green stuff woven?

NPM: Spring

Claude Monet, Willows in Springtime

This is new. My friends and family in higher latitudes are greeting the crocuses, cherry blossoms, and robins, while I'm down in the tropics, sweating my balls off in a summer without end and periodically dreaming of melting icicles and skunk cabbage. Today I'm posting a poem called "Spring" by the illustrious Edna St. Vincent Millay (whom we've visited once or twice before) as means of self-consolation.

If the daffodils ask about me, tell them they got lucky this year.

Spring

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950)

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

NPM: What Makes?

Yesterday I checked my inbox and found an email from my friend Amy in Maryland: You've put me much in mind, recently, of a favorite poem of mine from forever. It's Bukowski. I don't know if you love him or hate him, but this one makes me think of you.


What Makes?
Charles Bukowski (1920 – 1994)

this is hard to explain, I mean who the man was,
anyhow, it was in a large structure and he sat in
a chair in uniform, red coat and all, his job was
to examine the hand-stamp of those who left the
structure and returned, there was a lamp you put
your hand under and the stamp appeared (god that
was work) anyhow, as I put my hand under the lamp
the man asked, "listen, what's your name?"
"Hank," I answered
"listen, Hank," he asked, "what makes a man a
writer?"
"well," I said, "it's simple, it's either you
get it down on paper or you jump off a
bridge.
writers are desperate people and when they stop
being desperate they stop being
writers."
"are you desperate?"
"I don't know..."
I walked on through and as I took the escalator up
I saw him sitting there, probably thinking that it was possibly
bullshit, he had wanted me to suggest some special
school, some special way, like some way to get out
of that red coat, it was not an enlightening job
like designing a bridge or batting cleanup for the
Dodgers but
he wasn't desperate enough, the desperate don't ask,
they do
and at the top of the escalator I pushed through the
glass doors and as I did, I thought, son of a bitch,
I should have asked him his name, and then I felt
bad for him and for myself but a few minutes later
I had forgotten all about him
and the other way around
and he watched more hand-stamps under the lamp
and I watched the toteboard and the horses and
the desperate people
desperate in all the wrong
ways, in-
deed.

NPM: Ocean

I had a day off at last, and finally made time to go for a long swim. It was like being born again. I thought I'd post something about the sea for NPM, but having already used my go-to ocean poem during NPM '11, I had to look around a bit. I found this piece by Jason Shinder in The Writer's Almanac archives (you can always depend on Garrison Keillor), and even though it wasn't quite what I set out looking for, it's too haunting not to share. Bear in mind that this was published in 2009, one year after Shinder's death, in a collection titled Stupid Hope.


Ocean
Jason Shinder (1955–2008)

Goodbye again. Say there is a little song in my head

and because of it I can't sleep or change my mind
about the future. Now the song runs all the way down

to the beach where I sit as if the sky

were my room now. No one, not even you,
can hear me singing. Not even me.

As if the music rose from the mouth of the ocean.

No mouth. Like rain before it reaches us.
Like wind twirling dresses on the clothesline.

Who has no one has the history of the ocean.

Lord, give me two more days. So that
the last moments may be with someone.

Indiana: Hating the Haters

Obligatory pizza clip art

I realize I'm a day late, and I'm getting sick of feeling compelled to stand up for bigots, but here we go again.

You must know the story by now. A local news reporter walks into Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana (pop. 2,144), and asks the proprietors how they feel about the state's contoversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Owner Kevin O'Connor and his daughter Crystal say they're a-okay with the bill, and tell ABC 57 that if asked to cater a gay couple's wedding, they would decline on the basis of their religious beliefs. As you might expect, the hivemind noticed and did not take kindly to this. And as you might expect, Memories Pizza announced a day later that it was temporarily shutting down while the owners waited for the phone calls, emails, Facebook posts, and calls for violence to stop.

I'm getting sick of saying this: harassing people for their beliefs (however screwed up or stupid) is going to ossify those beliefs in them. And this was entirely about what the O'Connors believe, not about any acts they've actually committed. Nobody was ever discriminated against at Memories, as far as anyone can tell.

It would be one thing if somebody from Indiana wrote a blog post about how they've been residents of Walkerton and customers of Memories for years, and felt betrayed when the O'Connors, members of their community, people who were a part of their lives (the part during lunchtime, I guess) told them flat out: "sorry, we like you, but something something Leviticus, you'll have to get someone else to cater your wedding." (I would hope the story might end with "we were hurt, I don't think we or our friends and family will ever be eating at Memories again, but we found a pizza parlor down the street to cater our wedding—because yes, we wanted to have the same food at our marriage ceremony that we had at our thirteenth birthday party, and that's our own business—and we said our vows, and life went on.")

But that's that's not what happened: some Huffington Post editor trawling local stations in Indiana found the news clip with Memories' owner and screamed into the bullhorn: LOOK, LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE. THEY SAID THEY WOULDN'T CATER A GAY WEDDING IN THE EVENT THAT SOMEBODY ASKED THEM TO. HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?

So some yokels we've never met, from some town we've never heard of and won't ever visit, state that if they were ever approached about catering a wedding between two gay persons, they would have to decline. Their business never even had the opportunity to be guilty of discrimination; the wedding they preferred to not cater never left the realm of the hypothetical. But the rod was nevertheless raised, and we dutifully (gleefully) brought the lightning down.

This shit is wearing me out.

I was disappointed to see people on my Facebook feed posting the pizzeria's number and encouraging their buddies to join them in taking time out of their day to anonymously threaten and harass some people from Indiana (people they've never met, who own a pizzeria they've never set foot in, in a town they've never even driven past) for saying stupid things about their stupid beliefs. If anyone should be having a conversation with them, it should be the members of their own community—the people in Walkerton, the people they actually live and do business with. Let the people who actually have to deal with them deal with them. They'd have a better chance at changing the O'Connors' minds than a swarm of vindictive anonymouses screeching out of the ether to terrorize and abuse them.

This story wouldn't bother me as much if it weren't for the palpable sadism we exude during these events. We're hurling stones at the heretics, and we're just beside ourselves about it. This hysteria about homophobic pizzeria owners in a flyover state ultimately wasn't about a constructive progressive social agenda: this was about singling out an ideological enemy, blasting them to pieces as a crowd, and congratulating ourselves for being so fucking justified.

I suggest we ask ourselves what was actually accomplished here. Did we help to further the social acceptance of LGBT people? Well, not really: I don't see how this spectacle softened any hearts or changed any minds. Did it give social conservatives a martyr to converge around? Absolutely. What did the O'Connors learn? Good question. Whatever the case, they have hundreds of thousands of dollars in crowdfunded cash headed their way. Maybe they actually came out ahead after all of this, and now they know they can count on the support of a network of likeminded friends across the country. Boy, we sure gave them cause to sincerely reexamine their beliefs, didn't we?

Yes, it's 2015 and we should all of us be past the kind of bigotry espoused by these podunk pizza slingers. But it's equally disappointing that in 2015 the course of our social evolution is apparently even further from carrying us beyond self-righteous mob behavior.

NPM: Half-Hanged Mary

Happy first of April, everyone! Apropos nothing, I'd like to take a break from writing my next bestseller (I'm having such a hard time narrowing down what I want to do—so many ideas!) to announce that my girlfriend and I are moving back to the mainland, where we'll be buying a house together. It's a big step to take, but we agree it's the right one, given the stability of our finances and where we are in our relationship. It's astonishing to consider, but it really does seem like everything in my life is finally coming together.

APRIL FOOLS! Hah hah hah! I'll never pen a bestseller, I've got writer's block, my girlfriend and I broke up, I got no damn money, I'm still on this fucking island, and I still feel like the superfluous piece that got dropped into the cosmic Lego set because of some packaging error at the factory. Hee hee! Boy am I funny.

Anyway, the first of April is also the first day of National Poetry Month. I don't think our program for NPM 2015 will be anywhere near as full as previous years'; I've got a quite a bit on my plate lately, and don't forget that I already gave you The Descent of Winter last autumn. (Ingrates.) But I'd like to share at least a few poems with you all, beginning with this piece by Margaret Atwood (from her collection Morning in the Burned House). It's rather inexcusable that it took this long to include a piece of hers in one of our NPM posts.

Enjoy!


Half-Hanged Mary
Margaret Atwood (1939 – )

("Half-hanged Mary" was Mary Webster, who was accused of witchcraft in the 1680s in a Puritan town in Massachusetts and hanged from a tree——where, according to one of the several surviving accounts, she was left all night. It is known that when she was cut down she was still alive, since she lived for another fourteen years.)


7 p.m.

Rumour was loose in the air
hunting for some neck to land on.
I was milking the cow,
the barn door open to the sunset.

I didn't feel the aimed word hit
and go in like a soft bullet.
I didn't feel the smashed flesh
closing over it like water
over a thrown stone.

I was hanged for living alone
for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,
tattered skirts, few buttons,
a weedy farm in my own name,
and a surefire cure for warts;

Oh yes, and breasts,
and a sweet pear hidden in my body.
Whenever there's talk of demons
these come in handy.


8 p.m.

The rope was an improvisation.
With time they'd have thought of axes.

Up I go like a windfall in reverse,
a blackened apple stuck back onto the tree.

Trussed hands, rag in my mouth,
a flag raised to salute the moon,

old bone-faced goddess, old original,
who once took blood in return for food.

The men of the town stalk homeward,
excited by their show of hate,

their own evil turned inside out like a glove,
and me wearing it.


9 p.m.

The bonnets come to stare,
the dark skirts also,
the upturned faces in between,
mouths closed so tight they're lipless.
I can see down into their eyeholes
and nostrils. I can see their fear.

You were my friend, you too.
I cured your baby, Mrs.,
and flushed yours out of you,
Non-wife, to save your life.

Help me down? You don't dare.
I might rub off on you,
like soot or gossip. Birds
of a feather burn together,
though as a rule ravens are singular.

In a gathering like this one
the safe place is the background,
pretending you can't dance,
the safe stance pointing a finger.

I understand. You can't spare
anything, a hand, a piece of bread, a shawl
against the cold,
a good word. Lord
knows there isn't much
to go around. You need it all.


10 p.m.

Well God, now that I'm up here
with maybe some time to kill
away from the daily
fingerwork, legwork, work
at the hen level,
we can continue our quarrel,
the one about free will.

Is it my choice that I'm dangling
like a turkey's wattles from his
more then indifferent tree?
If Nature is Your alphabet,
what letter is this rope?

Does my twisting body spell out Grace?
I hurt, therefore I am.
Faith, Charity, and Hope
are three dead angels
falling like meteors or
burning owls across
the profound blank sky of Your face.


12 midnight

My throat is taut against the rope
choking off words and air;
I'm reduced to knotted muscle.
Blood bulges in my skull,
my clenched teeth hold it in;
I bite down on despair

Death sits on my shoulder like a crow
waiting for my squeezed beet
of a heart to burst
so he can eat my eyes

or like a judge
muttering about sluts and punishment
and licking his lips

or like a dark angel
insidious in his glossy feathers
whispering to me to be easy
on myself. To breathe out finally.
Trust me, he says, caressing
me. Why suffer?

A temptation, to sink down
into these definitions.
To become a martyr in reverse,
or food, or trash.

To give up my own words for myself,
my own refusals.

To give up knowing.
To give up pain.
To let go.


2 a.m.

Out of my mouths is coming, at some
distance from me, a thin gnawing sound
which you could confuse with prayer except that
praying is not constrained.

Or is it, Lord?
Maybe it’s more like being strangled
than I once thought. Maybe it’s
a gasp for air, prayer.
Did those men at Pentecost
want flames to shoot out of their heads?
Did they ask to be tossed
on the ground, gabbling like holy poultry,
eyeballs bulging?

As mine are, as mine are.
There is only one prayer; it is not
the knees in the clean nightgown
on the hooked rug.
I want this, I want that.
Oh far beyond.
Call it Please. Call it Mercy.
Call it Not yet, not yet,
as Heaven threatens to explode
inwards in fire and shredded flesh, and the angels caw.


3 a.m.

wind seethes in the leaves around
me the trees exude night
birds night birds yell inside
my ears like stabbed hearts my heart
stutters in my fluttering cloth
body I dangle with strength
going out of the wind seethes
in my body tattering
the words I clench
my fists hold No
talisman or silver disc my lungs
flail as if drowning I call
on you as witness I did
no crime I was born I have borne I
bear I will be born this is
a crime I will not
acknowledge leaves and wind
hold on to me
I will not give in


6 a.m.

Sun comes up, huge and blaring,
no longer a simile for God.
Wrong address. I’ve been out there.

Time is relative, let me tell you
I have lived a millennium.

I would like to say my hair turned white
overnight, but it didn’t.
Instead it was my heart;
bleached out like meat in water.

Also, I’m about three inches taller.
This is what happens when you drift in space
listening to the gospel
of the red hot stars.
Pinpoints of infinity riddle my brain,
a revelation of deafness.

At the end of my rope
I testify to silence.
Don’t say I’m not grateful.

Most will only have one death.
I will have two.


8 a.m.

When they came to harvest my corpse
(open your mouth, close your eyes)
cut my body from the rope,
surprise, surprise:

I was still alive.

Tough luck, folks,
I know the law:
you can’t execute me twice
for the same thing. How nice.

I fell to the clover, breathed it in,
and bared my teeth at them
in a filthy grin.
You can imagine how that went over.

Now I only need to look
out at them through my sky-blue eyes.
They see their own ill will
staring them in the forehead
and turn tail.

Before, I was not a witch.
But now I am one.


Later

My body of skin waxes and wanes
around my true body,
a tender nimbus.
I skitter over the paths and fields,
mumbling to myself like crazy,
mouth full of juicy adjectives
and purple berries.
The townsfolk dive headfirst into the bushes
to get out of my way.

My first death orbits my head,
an ambiguous nimbus,
medallion of my ordeal.
No one crosses that circle.

Having been hanged for something
I never said,
I can now say anything I can say.

Holiness gleams on my dirty fingers,
I eat flowers and dung,
two forms of the same thing, I eat mice
and give thanks, blasphemies
gleam and burst in my wake
like lovely bubbles.
I speak in tongues,
my audience is owls.

My audience is God,
because who the hell else could understand me?

The words boil out of me,
coil after coil of sinuous possibility.
The cosmos unravels from my mouth,
all fullness, all vacancy.