Of Poetics, Polemics, and Politics

In the last post on this site, I put up a clearly political poem, “Endorsement”, and stated in emails to some of my correspondents that I had done so in a “What Would Neruda Do”?  moment.   I did not mean to imply that my work was the equal of Neruda's, nor even to suggest that this poem was meant to emulate any of his -- I simply wished to remind readers and other writers that he was not afraid to take a political stand and to let his poetry reflect that position.  Too often, I fear, we are using our pens "just for pretty", as the old New England boatbuilders said of adornments to their craft.

No one responding to my emails took an opposing political view to mine, and many thought the poem a pretty good one.  From the standpoint of one judging purely on the merits of its poetics, it may not be.  A few didn’t care for it’s lack of metaphor and other good and wonderful devices which made Neruda’s work stand out during his time and ours.  Perhaps we mortals should be more careful in invoking the name of San Pablo.  But as a bit of possibly memorable political communication aimed at 21st century Americans, I think my piece may still have some merit.

I did get a few comments, though, suggesting that as poets we are only able to “preach to the choir”, so it may be pointless for us to even delve into the political and, worse, when we do, we too often engage in mere rants and screeds.  Of course, there’s truth in that.

       But.

If we, having developed our craft to whatever little level decide not to speak to whatever little audience about injustice as we see it, then I believe we are complicit in that injustice.  Yes, we must say our poems in the very best way we can, but we must say them.  And they must, occasionally, actually be about something that matters.

     ~ RM    

Against the Wall

Endorsement

However fine are their qualities

and however fine ours may be,

if we empower as leaders

those bought and sold,

we, too, are bought and told

that this is the golden-

hued freedom we dumb

bastards fought for

and all the bleeding was for naught

and the dying fools.

We are buying that it’s cool

to sell the nation to the corporation,

build more jails, close more schools.

We can all just stay tuned

to the one station that broadcasts

the coronation, see the placement,

on that paid-for head,

of our crown of jewels.

~ Ralph Murre

Chicken Shack, or The Coop

bookmark: murre, from basho's road

photo: sharon auberle

Some of you will remember Norbert Blei.  My friend, my mentor, my publisher.  One of the people most influential in my writing life.  Wrote a bunch of books, published a lot of other people's books, stayed in touch with the wide world of literature and literati,and raised as much hell as he could to save the environment and a disappearing way of life; all from a not-too-reconstructed chicken coop in the Wisconsin woods.

Since Norb's death, his property has been sold, but thanks to his children, The Coop has been donated to Write On! Door County, and relocated to those grounds where it will serve as sanctuary and inspiration to other writers, young and old.

I attended a fine dedication ceremony last Saturday along with about 150 other folks, many of whom paid tribute with their words, their art, their music, and at least one original dance, choreographed just for the day.  Here's the poem I wrote for the occasion:

The Cock o’ the Coop

(On the studio of Norbert Blei)

Beyond Ellison Bay, in may-apple May

and blue-sky July gone by,

or in the gray of dim December,

south windows searching for sun,

there would have been Leghorns

I suppose, utilitarian,

clucking and cackling

in this chicken house.

Good layers, Leghorns.

Might have been White Rocks and Barred Rocks,

brooding.  Rhode Island Reds.  Perhaps even

Sunday-dinner Wyandotte, Orpington, or Jersey Giant.

For certain --

one Bantam rooster, crowing

doing his damnedest

to wake the neighbors

~ Ralph Murre

Observations on Earth Day

Starlings in America

The watchman stood alone on his blue hill

and watched, then, as he does now.

Saw them coming.

A few Vikings, some kook in a coracle.

He saw three ships come sailing in

from Spain.

They traded trinkets for coconuts and corn,

traded pox for potatoes.

A syphilitic wife will change your life.

The sun rises and the sun sets.

Their God was nailed to a tree

where they could keep an eye on him.

They brought original sin, brought a savior

and took silver, brought guns and took gold.

Brought alcohol, took tobacco.

They brought ponies and plunder,

were crazy for beaver

and a quick way to China.

In time, they brought steel and steam.

A steel knife will change your life, too.

The sun rises and the sun sets.

They brought bulldozers and drag-line buckets.

Tore the Earth.  Tore the Good Earth.

Put it on Mr. Peabody’s coal train.

  

Brought languages,

took languages away.

Brought starlings.

Brought Studebakers and Scotch Tape.

Duct tape and red tape.

They brought refrigerator magnets,

scotch and soda, the cotton gin, wrinkle –

free polyester.  Bourbon and Bud Lite and

a bomb that bloomed in the desert.

They taught children to hide under desks.

Atomic strife will change your life.

The sun rises and sets.

Edsels come and Edsels go.

The watchman stands alone on his blue hill.

Do not be hopeful,

he calls out at last,

but do not be without hope.

They brought Schubert.

~ Ralph Murre

A Funny Thing . . .

A funny thing happened on the way to the podium.  As the result of a process totally mysterious to me, I have been named poet laureate of Door County, Wisconsin.  While I was sure that this was some gross miscalculation or simply a hoax, apparently the county board didn't get the joke, and I was installed yesterday at the board meeting.  Another funny thing:  Flu.  I haven't been sick for years, but the night before my big moment, I was struck, hard, by some nastiness.  I could not attend.  Luckily for me, the out-going and outgoing laureate, Estella Lauter, said a few very kind words on my behalf and read the poem I had written for the occasion, an imperative piece which is as much a note to myself as to the assembled board.
In awe of the three who have held this post before me; Frances May, Barbara Larsen, and Estella Lauter, I humbly submit:

To the Duly Elected,

the newly elected, and those selected

to serve many times before –

I ask you to speak for the farmer as he tills,

for the builder as he builds.

Speak for the bagger of groceries

and speak, please, for the trees.

Speak loudly to save quiet places.

Speak, too, for the ferryman,

the fisherman, the schools of fishes.

Remember the one who taught you to read.

Remember the ones who wash dishes.

Be strong for the weak, the unhealthy.

Speak up for those in need.

Speak up for the artist and the scene she paints.

Speak, please, for the creek.

Be wary of saints and the wealthy.

Speak out against greed.

Speak for the nurses and nursery-men.

Represent those who scrub floors.

Represent those who pull weeds.

Speak for the firefighter, the all-nighter cop,

speak for the crop in the field.

Listen to the one who voted against you.

Listen to the wind in the night.

Listen to your heart when it says to stand fast,

listen close when it tells you to yield.

~ Ralph Murre

the poet, at seventy, observes

and the aged

   discuss at length

 their aging

   the raging pains

and nagging

   the sagging

and the gravity

   their long-lost

youth,  naïveté

   as though

there was forever

   to converse
they heed

   no call for terse

nor feel a need

   for brevity

~ ralph murre

Gone Blind -- Arvinson Log post # 600

Gone Blind  (2014)

                                                                                            

Justice! they cry

What’s it mean? sez I

ain’t it just another name for revenge?

She’s often portrayed

as a blind chick with a sword

as untoward as blind rage

or blind drunk on a binge

Oh, she looks good

sittin’ here on this page

but she lights fires, you know

and if we’re not burnt

we’ll be singed

To invite her

we’re gonna need courage

let us try

one more time

for courage

Justice! they cry

Save me from it, sez I

or I and my kind

will swing in the breeze

and a lonely trumpet play

and the harpies will

tug at our flesh

‘til sometime late in the day

if anyone knows

that we aren’t on our knees

begging the unknown in the sky

begging, please

Let us try

one more time

for courage, for courage

Let us try

one more time

for courage

For I and my kind

by choice have gone blind

and our names

are signed to the checks

and our names are in the fields

of oil and blood

and our spirits

are dragged through the mud

as Old Glory waves

and we salute the ones

who send children

We salute, and dig graves

for our children

Let us try

one more time

for courage

Justice! they cry

but does she ever forgive?

And if it’s an eye

for an eye

how will grandchildren live?

Just look at her there

Sweet Justice – how fair

though she seems only to care

for the sound of alarms

It takes courage, too

to not take up arms

it takes courage to say

Let her go, now

we’ll start new

let us try

one more time

for courage

~ Ralph Murre

as Mardi Gras approaches

Delta Blues

There, on the edge of the shelf,

in the sad and beautiful frames of generations,

the black and white portraits of us,

the sepia of our flesh,

the glisten and the dance.

There, the mouth of Old Man River

speaks to the sea of a continent stolen,

but Mother Ocean says, “Africa –

I’m here for her children. Europa –

I’m here for her children.  And Asia’s,”

she says.  There,

where those two meet day in and out,

night after night, in throes

of love and fight and blows

of gods of wind, there

in a mixed-blood flood,

she takes away a few of those

she’s brought on her broad back,

but carries them now in her womb

from that Crescent City where the water

rises above the tombs.

“Shall we gather . . .”, sings the old man,

“On that beautiful shore . . .”, says the sea.

~ Ralph Murre

The Grandfathers

the grandfathers
their hands flinty with work
reaching down to take mine

smell of oil and liniment and wool
smoke rising
snow falling

their heavy shovels
and plaid coats
the names of old countries


~ Ralph Murre

If that sounds like an old one to any of you, well, it is.  Kinda.  In the spirit of revise, revise, revise, I boiled a fair to middlin' nineteen lines down to nine, and I think I like it even better. If I keep going this way, someday, I'll say nothing at all, and that may be best.   ~ RM

In That House

In That House

". . . any room was full       

of such choreography . . ."

~ Michael Ondaatje

each of the chambers

of his heart

held a dance

his inner ear

a symphony

the optic nerve

told of roses

and rose windows

remembering that day

in that far away

when her eyes whispered

maybe

and still

after

the quick step

of all these

yesterdays

a waltzing

and that fox

still trotting

the way she does

in that house

full of the choreography

of whispered

yes

~ Ralph Murre

Islands

Islands

No man, you tell me, but everyman, I tell you,

and woman and boat, every Wisconsin farmhouse

and apartment in the Bronx; an island.

That blue circle of horizon, the dangerous passage,

those days the ferry cannot cross from my shores

to the quiet cove of yours.  The sea between.

~ Ralph Murre

That's the little tug Neverwas in my sketch above, departing Rock Island, Wisconsin, in the early afternoon of long ago, and getting a friendly wave from an unidentified guest at the Thordarson Boathouse, where Sharon Auberle and I were recently privileged to read to a sizable and receptive audience from our book Wind Where Music Was.  Headliner on the program was ferryman Richard Purinton, who was introducing his Thordarson and Rock Island, an absolute "must read" for anyone interested in the history of the region and the biography of the man.  I predict that this wonderfully researched volume will be the standard text on the topic for a long time to come.     ~ RM  

Falling

digitally derived from seed co. photo

Like a Melon, Love.

She weighed it in her hand

in her heart

this chance

this could be

as a cantaloupe

this fruit

this thing

bought on faith

before it could be

cut open.

She

smelled of it

felt of it

fell.

~ Ralph Murre

That first line (italicized) is a snippet

borrowed from Louis de Bernieres

Alignment

One Day at Stonehenge

pretty much like another

the August sun

and over there

a couple

making promises

beyond a prayer

and praying

for something fortuitous

in this once

in their lifetime

alignment of stones

and stars

and over there

the gods

and all

the rest

~ Ralph Murre

somewhere a bell

somewhere a bell

and within
a dim and smoky lantern

swinging still
from its nail

the ship
plowing forever

into night
the sea

vastly
unimpressed

the stars still
distant

the universe still
expanding

~ ralph murre

Pleasant

At his memorial

how pleasant we all are

dressed nice

a glass of wine

the blue of the sky

these shimmering women

this sultry day

almost as if

these fine shirted men

this striped awning

just as if

on a holiday

as if he'll be in

the Adirondacks

for the summer

Europe,  maybe

Bon Voyage!

how pleasant

~ Ralph Murre

It may be too much, all this going on for the passing of one friend.  I'd promise to stop soon, but I may not keep that promise.    ~ RM

Survivor

In the part of town     staggering     toward some awaited gentrification

Al's Hamburger     doing the same thing since '34     with little applause I'll bet

no ovation     Not much change after the depression     the second war

There's a notice posted     high on the white wall     near the white ceiling

This is not

BURGER KING

You don't get it your way.

You take it my way

or you don't get

the damn thing.

Hamburgers shall have onions fried or raw     that's the decree     Al's word is law

and that's O.K. with me

~ Ralph Murre

Another Memorial

Off Blackhawk Road

Blackhawk, old warrior

outnumbered by European starlings,

is that you, or your namesake,

perched high on that cottonwood branch?

Do you see me here on the land?

I think you’d still know it –

this path on this island of sand.

A creek still flows.

The deer still drink the cool of it.

But Blackhawk, hear the mourning dove mourn;

don’t fly back to that little lake.

In a hundred summers, the trees may return

that the damned fool clear-cut for a view.

Let his sons, for a hundred winters,

have nothing to burn.  Hell,

let his daughters freeze with them, too.

Or is that unkind, Blackhawk?

Too hawkish a thought for my mourning dove mind?

There’s a warning of chick-a-dee-dee.

Now, a racket of crows

and the waxwings wax alarming.

Can’t I relax?  After all,

a creek still flows

and the deer still drink the cool of it.

~ Ralph Murre

in this kind of light

and always

on a bench

on the dock

on this kind of day

in this kind of light

a few old men

buttoned in

their dark coats

and dispositions

listening

to each others'

long stories

their hearing aids

turned off

~ ralph murre

Wonders

Wonders

and how they

never cease

like the best

geysers

fair to middling

rivers

like, let’s say

promises

Anybody loving

anybody

is a kind of

wonder

to say

nothing

of you

loving me

To say

nothing at all

of miracles

~ Ralph Murre

Work (?) In Progress

What I Used to Know

I understood
that dandelions
are beautiful
as dahlias and
the cheesemaker's daughter
delightful

I knew
the grace of grasshoppers
equals
the pomp of presidents
or peacocks and
pigeons stand iridescent in sun

I suspected
there is less
to people
than they
let on
and more

and I knew
my flesh was holy
as communion bread
or Wonder Bread
and Mogen David wine
after blessing

I heard pines
whisper
prayers
that
went
unanswered

I saw the early signs
the dancers on aching toes
yet I never doubted
perfection
the questions
in the eyes of does

~ Ralph Murre

note: "work in progress" refers to the poem, not the building!