Rimbaud

Rimbaldi

 

“ . . . The peculiarly adolescent quality of the poet’s life and work, the desire to rebel against whatever milieu he happened to find himself in—the schoolboy against school, the wunderkind against his admiring hosts, the poet against poetry—undoubtedly accounts for his particular appeal to teen-agers. (One statistic that Rimbaldians like to cite is that one in five French lycéens today claims to identify with the long-dead poet.) A striking feature of many of the translations and biographies of Rimbaud is the seemingly inevitable prefatory remark, on the part of the translator or biographer, about the moment when he or she first discovered the poet. “When I was sixteen, in 1956, I discovered Rimbaud,” Edmund White recalls at the start of his nimble “Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel,” by far the best introduction to the poet’s life and work; Graham Robb observes early on that “for many readers (including this one), the revelation of Rimbaud’s poetry is one of the decisive events of adolescence.”

Ashbery, too, was sixteen at the moment of impact, as was Patti Smith, the author of what is, perhaps, the most moving testament to the effect that a reading of Rimbaud might have on a hungry young mind. “When I was sixteen, working in a non-union factory in a small South Jersey town,” she writes in an introduction to “The Anchor Anthology of French Poetry,” “my salvation and respite from my dismal surroundings was a battered copy of Arthur Rimbaud’s Illuminations, which I kept in my back pocket.” The anthology, she adds, “became the bible of my life.”

I suspect that the chances that Rimbaud will become the bible of your life are inversely proportional to the age at which you first discover him. I recently did an informal survey among some well-read acquaintances, and the e-mail I received from a ninety-year-old friend fairly sums up the consensus. “I loved Rimbaud poems when I read the Norman Cameron translations in 1942,” she wrote—Cameron’s translation, my favorite, too, is among the very few in English that try to reproduce Rimbaud’s rhymes—but she added, “I have quite lost what it was that so thrilled me.” In 1942, my friend was twenty-one. I was twice that age when I first started to read Rimbaud seriously, and, although I found much that dazzled and impressed me, I couldn’t get swept away—couldn’t feel those feelings again, the urgency, the orneriness, the rebellion. I don’t say this with pride. Time passes, people change; it’s just the way things are. On the day before his death, a delirious Rimbaud dictated a letter to the head of an imaginary shipping company, urgently requesting passage to Suez. Sometimes, for whatever reason, you miss the boat . . .” ♦
[see full article]

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/08/29/110829crat_atlarge_mendelsohn?currentPage=1

GUERRE

Enfant, certains ciels ont affiné mon optique, tous les caractères nuancèrent ma physionomie. Les phénomènes s'émurent. À présent l'inflexion éternelle des moments de l'infini des mathématiques me chassent par ce monde où je subis tous les succès civils, respecté de l'enfance étrange et des affections énormes. Je songe à une guerre, de droit ou de force, de logique bien imprévue.

C'est aussi simple qu'une phrase musicale.


 
 

Rimbaud                                                                                  

child of rebellion and betrayal

pack raped at fifteen by soldiers
on the barricades
of the Paris Commune

legend of other’s hooligan dreams

later, you said  . . .

those silly words the carnival idiocies 
phrases you held so dear
Puke Songs &  Hell’s Reasons
oblique trills
floated as effluent for the dunking
in your petite bohemian visions

I wished to put away all that nonsense

yes - it’s true

I met that Desolation Angel
on those burning sands

as if freedom was ever a chance 

 

karl Gallagher
27/11/1999
 

Kabir - weaver and poet

 

SONGS OF KABÎR

Translated by Rabindranath Tagore

Introduction by Evelyn Underhill

New York, The Macmillan Company

1915

INTRODUCTION

The poet Kabîr, a selection from whose songs is here for the first time offered to English readers, is one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism. Born in or near Benares, of Mohammedan parents, and probably about the year 1440, be became in early life a disciple of the celebrated Hindu ascetic Râmânanda. Râmânanda had brought to Northern India the religious revival which Râmânuja, the great twelfth-century reformer of Brâhmanism, had initiated in the South. This revival was in part a reaction against the increasing formalism of the orthodox cult, in part an assertion of the demands of the heart as against the intense intellectualism of the Vedânta philosophy, the exaggerated monism which that philosophy proclaimed. It took in Râmânuja's preaching the form of an ardent personal devotion to the God Vishnu, as representing the personal aspect of the Divine Nature: that mystical "religion of love" which everywhere makes its appearance at a certain level of spiritual culture, and which creeds and philosophies are powerless to kill.

Though such a devotion is indigenous in Hinduism, and finds expression in many passages of the Bhagavad Gîtâ, there was in its mediæval revival a large element of syncretism. Râmânanda, through whom its spirit is said to have reached Kabîr, appears to have been a man of wide religious culture, and full of missionary enthusiasm. Living at the moment in which the impassioned poetry and deep philosophy of the great Persian mystics, Attâr, Sâdî, Jalâlu'ddîn Rûmî, and Hâfiz, were exercising a powerful influence on the religious thought of India, he dreamed of reconciling this intense and personal Mohammedan mysticism with the traditional theology of Brâhmanism. Some have regarded both these great religious leaders as influenced also by Christian thought and life: but as this is a point upon which competent authorities hold widely divergent views, its discussion is not attempted here. We may safely assert, however, that in their teachings, two—perhaps three—apparently antagonistic streams of intense spiritual culture met, as Jewish and Hellenistic thought met in the early Christian Church: and it is one of the outstanding characteristics of Kabîr's genius that he was able in his poems to fuse them into one.

A great religious reformer, the founder of a sect to which nearly a million northern Hindus still belong, it is yet supremely as a mystical poet that Kabîr lives for us. His fate has been that of many revealers of Reality. A hater of religious exclusivism, and seeking above all things to initiate men into the liberty of the children of God, his followers have honoured his memory by re-erecting in a new place the barriers which he laboured to cast down. But his wonderful songs survive, the spontaneous expressions of his vision and his love; and it is by these, not by the didactic teachings associated with his name, that he makes his immortal appeal to the heart. In these poems a wide range of mystical emotion is brought into play: from the loftiest abstractions, the most otherworldly passion for the Infinite, to the most intimate and personal realization of God, expressed in homely metaphors and religious symbols drawn indifferently from Hindu and Mohammedan belief. It is impossible to say of their author that he was Brâhman or Sûfî, Vedântist or Vaishnavite. He is, as he says himself, "at once the child of Allah and of Râm." That Supreme Spirit Whom he knew and adored, and to Whose joyous friendship he sought to induct the souls of other men, transcended whilst He included all metaphysical categories, all credal definitions; yet each contributed something to the description of that Infinite and Simple Totality Who revealed Himself, according to their measure, to the faithful lovers of all creeds.

Kabîr's story is surrounded by contradictory legends, on none of which reliance can be placed. Some of these emanate from a Hindu, some from a Mohammedan source, and claim him by turns as a Sûfî and a Brâhman saint. His name, however, is practically a conclusive proof of Moslem ancestry: and the most probable tale is that which represents him as the actual or adopted child of a Mohammedan weaver of Benares, the city in which the chief events of his life took place.

In fifteenth-century Benares the syncretistic tendencies of Bhakti religion had reached full development. Sûfîs and Brâhmans appear to have met in disputation: the most spiritual members of both creeds frequenting the teachings of Râmânanda, whose reputation was then at its height. The boy Kabîr, in whom the religious passion was innate, saw in Râmânanda his destined teacher; but knew how slight were the chances that a Hindu guru would accept a Mohammedan as disciple. He therefore hid upon the steps of the river Ganges, where Râmânanda was accustomed to bathe; with the result that the master, coming down to the water, trod upon his body unexpectedly, and exclaimed in his astonishment, "Ram! Ram!"—the name of the incarnation under which he worshipped God. Kabîr then declared that he had received the mantra of initiation from Râmânanda's lips, and was by it admitted to discipleship. In spite of the protests of orthodox Brâhmans and Mohammedans, both equally annoyed by this contempt of theological landmarks, he persisted in his claim; thus exhibiting in action that very principle of religious synthesis which Râmânanda had sought to establish in thought. Râmânanda appears to have accepted him, and though Mohammedan legends speak of the famous Sûfî Pîr, Takkî of Jhansî, as Kabîr's master in later life, the Hindu saint is the only human teacher to whom in his songs he acknowledges indebtedness.

The little that we know of Kabîr's life contradicts many current ideas concerning the Oriental mystic. Of the stages of discipline through which he passed, the manner in which his spiritual genius developed, we are completely ignorant. He seems to have remained for years the disciple of Râmânanda, joining in the theological and philosophical arguments which his master held with all the great Mullahs and Brâhmans of his day; and to this source we may perhaps trace his acquaintance with the terms of Hindu and Sûfî philosophy. He may or may not have submitted to the traditional education of the Hindu or the Sûfî contemplative: it is clear, at any rate, that he never adopted the life of the professional ascetic, or retired from the world in order to devote himself to bodily mortifications and the exclusive pursuit of the contemplative life. Side by side with his interior life of adoration, its artistic expression in music and words—for he was a skilled musician as well as a poet—he lived the sane and diligent life of the Oriental craftsman. All the legends agree on this point: that Kabîr was a weaver, a simple and unlettered man, who earned his living at the loom. Like Paul the tentmaker, Boehme the cobbler, Bunyan the tinker, Tersteegen the ribbon-maker, he knew how to combine vision and industry; the work of his hands helped rather than hindered the impassioned meditation of his heart. Hating mere bodily austerities, he was no ascetic, but a married man, the father of a family—a circumstance which Hindu legends of the monastic type vainly attempt to conceal or explain—and it was from out of the heart of the common life that he sang his rapturous lyrics of divine love. Here his works corroborate the traditional story of his life. Again and again he extols the life of home, the value and reality of diurnal existence, with its opportunities for love and renunciation; pouring contempt—upon the professional sanctity of the Yogi, who "has a great beard and matted locks, and looks like a goat," and on all who think it necessary to flee a world pervaded by love, joy, and beauty—the proper theatre of man's quest—in order to find that One Reality Who has "spread His form of love throughout all the world."

It does not need much experience of ascetic literature to recognize the boldness and originality of this attitude in such a time and place. From the point of view of orthodox sanctity, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, Kabîr was plainly a heretic; and his frank dislike of all institutional religion, all external observance—which was as thorough and as intense as that of the Quakers themselves—completed, so far as ecclesiastical opinion was concerned, his reputation as a dangerous man. The "simple union" with Divine Reality which he perpetually extolled, as alike the duty and the joy of every soul, was independent both of ritual and of bodily austerities; the God whom he proclaimed was "neither in Kaaba nor in Kailâsh." Those who sought Him needed not to go far; for He awaited discovery everywhere, more accessible to "the washerwoman and the carpenter" than to the self—righteous holy man. Therefore the whole apparatus of piety, Hindu and Moslem alike—the temple and mosque, idol and holy water, scriptures and priests—were denounced by this inconveniently clear-sighted poet as mere substitutes for reality; dead things intervening between the soul and its love—

The images are all lifeless, they cannot speak:
I know, for I have cried aloud to them.
The Purâna and the Koran are mere words:
lifting up the curtain, I have seen.

This sort of thing cannot be tolerated by any organized church; and it is not surprising that Kabîr, having his head-quarters in Benares, the very centre of priestly influence, was subjected to considerable persecution. The well-known legend of the beautiful courtesan sent by Brâhmans to tempt his virtue, and converted, like the Magdalen, by her sudden encounter with the initiate of a higher love, pre serves the memory of the fear and dislike with which he was regarded by the ecclesiastical powers. Once at least, after the performance of a supposed miracle of healing, he was brought before the Emperor Sikandar Lodi, and charged with claiming the possession of divine powers. But Sikandar Lodi, a ruler of considerable culture, was tolerant of the eccentricities of saintly persons belonging to his own faith. Kabîr, being of Mohammedan birth, was outside the authority of the Brâhmans, and technically classed with the Sûfîs, to whom great theological latitude was allowed. Therefore, though he was banished in the interests of peace from Benares, his life was spared. This seems to have happened in 1495, when he was nearly sixty years of age; it is the last event in his career of which we have definite knowledge. Thenceforth he appears to have moved about amongst various cities of northern India, the centre of a group of disciples; continuing in exile that life of apostle and poet of love to which, as he declares in one of his songs, he was destined "from the beginning of time." In 1518, an old man, broken in health, and with hands so feeble that he could no longer make the music which he loved, he died at Maghar near Gorakhpur.

A beautiful legend tells us that after his death his Mohammedan and Hindu disciples disputed the possession of his body; which the Mohammedans wished to bury, the Hindus to burn. As they argued together, Kabîr appeared before them, and told them to lift the shroud and look at that which lay beneath. They did so, and found in the place of the corpse a heap of flowers; half of which were buried by the Mohammedans at Maghar, and half carried by the Hindus to the holy city of Benares to be burned—fitting conclusion to a life which had made fragrant the most beautiful doctrines of two great creeds.

 

 

O sadhu! the simple union is the best. Since the day when I met
with my Lord, there has been no end to the sport of our love.
I shut not my eyes, I close not my ears, I do not mortify my
body;
I see with eyes open and smile, and behold His beauty everywhere:
I utter His Name, and whatever I see, it reminds me of Him;
whatever I do., it becomes His worship.
The rising and the setting are one to me; all contradictions are
solved.
Wherever I go, I move round Him,
All I achieve is His service:
When I lie down, I lie prostrate at His feet.

He is the only adorable one to me: I have none other.
My tongue has left off impure words, it sings His glory day and
night:
Whether I rise or sit down, I can never forget Him; for the
rhythm of His music beats in my ears.
Kabîr says: "My heart is frenzied, and I disclose in my soul what
is hidden. I am immersed in that one great bliss which
transcends all pleasure and pain."

=

Subtle is the path of love!
Therein there is no asking and no not-asking,
There one loses one's self at His feet,
There one is immersed in the joy of the seeking: plunged in the
deeps of love as the fish in the water.
The lover is never slow in offering his head for his Lord's
service.
Kabîr declares the secret of this love.

 =

He is the real Sadhu, who can reveal the form of the Formless to
the vision of these eyes:
Who teaches the simple way of attaining Him, that is other than
rites or ceremonies:
Who does not make you close the doors, and hold the breath, and
renounce the world:
Who makes you perceive the Supreme Spirit wherever the mind
attaches itself:
Who teaches you to be still in the midst of all your activities.
Ever immersed in bliss, having no fear in his mind, he keeps the
spirit of union in the midst of all enjoyments.
The infinite dwelling of the Infinite Being is everywhere: in
earth, water, sky, and air:
Firm as the thunderbolt, the seat of the seeker is established
above the void.
He who is within is without: I see Him and none else.

 =

Receive that Word from which the Universe springeth!
That word is the Guru; I have heard it, and become the disciple.
How many are there who know the meaning of that word?

O Sadhu! practise that Word!
The Vedas and the Puranas proclaim it,
The world is established in it,
The Rishis and devotees speak of it:
But none knows the mystery of the Word.
The householder leaves his house when he hears it,
The ascetic comes back to love when he hears it,
The Six Philosophies expound it,
The Spirit of Renunciation points to that Word,
From that Word the world-form has sprung,
That Word reveals all.
Kabîr says: "But who knows whence the Word cometh?

 

=

The Hidden Banner is planted in the temple of the sky; there the
blue canopy decked with the moon and set with bright jewels is
spread.
There the light of the sun and the moon is shining: still your
mind to silence before that splendour.
Kabîr says: "He who has drunk of this nectar, wanders like one
who is mad."

=

There is nothing but water at the holy bathing places; and I know
that they are useless, for I have bathed in them.
The images are all lifeless, they cannot speak; I know, for I
have cried aloud to them.
The Purana and the Koran are mere words; lifting up the curtain,
I have seen.
Kabîr gives utterance to the words of experience; and he knows
very well that all other things are untrue.

=

He is dear to me indeed who can call back the wanderer to his
home. In the home is the true union, in the home is enjoyment
of life: why should I forsake my home and wander in the forest?
If Brahma helps me to realize truth, verily I will find both
bondage and deliverance in home.
He is dear to me indeed who has power to dive deep into Brahma;
whose mind loses itself with ease in His contemplation.
He is dear to me who knows Brahma, and can dwell on His supreme
truth in meditation; and who can play the melody of the
Infinite by uniting love and renunciation in life.
Kabîr says: "The home is the abiding place; in the home is
reality; the home helps to attain Him Who is real. So stay
where you are, and all things shall come to you in time."

=

Jallah-din Rumi

 

The Masnavi, by Rumi, tr. by E.H. Whinfield, [1898]

THE SPIRITUAL COUPLETS
OF
MAULANA JALALU-'D-DlN MUHAMMAD RUMI

Book VI.

PROLOGUE.

O LIFE of the heart, Husamu-'d-Din,
My zeal burnt within me to write this sixth part!
The Masnavi became a standard through thy influence,
Thy sword (Husam) has made it an exemplar to the world
O spiritual one, I now offer it to thee,
This sixth part of the entire Masnavi.
Enlighten the world's six sides with its six parts,
That it may illuminate him who is not illuminated!
Love has naught to do with five senses or six sides,
Its only aim is to be attracted to the Beloved!
But haply leave may be given me hereafter
To tell those mysteries so far as they can be told,
In a discourse more closely approximating to the facts
Than these faint indications of those abstruse matters.
Mysteries are not communicable, save to those who know;
Mystery in the ear of infidels is no mystery.
Nevertheless, this is a call to you from God;
It matters not to Him whether ye accept or reject it.
Noah repeated His call for nine hundred years,
But his people only increased in rebellion.
Never did he draw back from admonishing them,
Never did he retire into the cave of silence.
He said, "At the barking and howling of the dogs
No caravan ever turned back in its road.
Nor does the full moon on a bright night cease shining
Because of the howling of dogs on earth.
The moon sheds her light, and the dogs howl;
Every one acts according to his nature.
To each one his office is allotted by the divine decree,
And he acts agreeably to his nature."
Art thou thirsting for the Ocean of spirituality?
Disport thyself on this island of the Masnavi!
Disport thyself so long as thou seest every moment
Spiritual verities revealed in this Masnavi.
When the wind blows the grass off the water,
The water then shows forth its own purity.
Behold the bright and fresh sprays of coral,
And the princely fruits growing in the water of life!
So, when the Masnavi is purged of letters and words,
It drops all these, and appears as the sea of Unity.
Then speaker and hearer and spoken words
All three give up the ghost in that consummation.
Bread-giver and bread-eater and bread itself
Are purified of their forms and turn to dust.
But their essences in each of these three grades
Are distinguished, as in those states, so eternally.
Their form turns to dust, but their essence not;
If one says it does, tell him it does not.
In the world of spirits all three await judgment,
Sometimes wearing their earthly forms, sometimes not.
The worth of a man depends on the objects of his aspiration.
One day a student asked a preacher,
Saying, "O most orthodox ornament of the pulpit,
I have a question to ask, O lord of learning;
Tell me the answer to it in this congregation.
A bird sat on the top of a wall;
Which was best, its head or its tail?"
He replied, "If its face was towards the town,
And its tail to the villages, then its face was best.
But if its tail was towards the town, and its face
Towards the villages, then prefer its tail to its face."
A bird flies with its wings towards its nest,
The wings of a man are his aspiration and aim.
If a lover be befouled with good and evil,
Yet regard not these; regard rather his aspiration.
Though a falcon be all white and unmatched in form,
If he hunts mice he is contemptible and worthless.
And if an owl fixes his affection on the king,
He is a falcon in reality; regard not his outward form.
Adam's clay was kneaded in the limits of a trough,
Yet was he exalted above heaven and stars.
"We have honored Adam"  was not addressed to the sky,
But to Adam himself full of defects as he was.
Did one ever propose to earth or heaven to receive
Beauty, reason, speech and aspiration?
Would you ever offer to the heavens
Beauty of face and acuteness of thought?
O son, did you ever present your silver body
As an offering to the damsels pictured on bath walls?
Nay, you pass by those pictures though fair as Huris,
And offer yourself sooner to half-blind old women.
What is there in the old women which the pictures lack,
Which draws you from the pictures to the old women?
Say not, for I will say it in plain words,
'Tis reason, sense, perception, thought, and life.
In the old woman life is infused,
While the pictures of the bath have no life.
If the pictures of the bath should stir with life (soul),
They would uproot your love to all the old women.
What is soul? 'Tis acquainted with good and evil,
Rejoicing at pleasant things, grieving at His.
Since, then, the principle of soul is knowledge,
He who knows most is most full of soul.
Knowledge is the effect flowing from soul;
He who has most of it is most godlike.
Seeing then, beloved, that knowledge is the mark of soul,
He who knows most has the strongest soul.
The world of souls is itself entirely knowledge,
And he who is void of knowledge is void of soul.
When knowledge is lacking in a man s nature,
His soul is like a stone on the plain.
Primal Soul is the theatre of God's court,
Soul of souls the exhibition of God Himself.
All the angels were pure reason and soul,
Yet when the new soul of Adam came, they were as its body.
When in joy they crowded round that new soul,
They bowed before it as body does before soul.
Fear of men's censure the greatest obstacle to acceptance of the true faith.
O Husamu-'d-Din, I might tell some of thy many virtues,
Were it not for the fear of the evil eyes.
From evil eyes and malice-empoisoned breaths
Already have I suffered fatal wounds.
Therefore I cannot relate thy ecstatic states,
Save by hints of the ecstatic states of others.
This manoeuvre is one of the devices of the heart,
Whereby the heart's feet wend their way to the truth.
Many hearts and souls would become lovers of God
Did not evil eyes or evil ears hold them back.
Of these Abu Talib, the Prophet's uncle, was one;
The malice of the Arabs scared him from the faith.
He said, "What will the Arabs say of me?
That my own nephew has perverted me from my religion!"
Muhammad said, "O uncle, confess the faith to me,
That I may strive with God for thee!"
He said, "Nay; it will be published by them that hear;
'A secret known to more than two is known to every one.'
As I live in the midst of these Arabs,
It will cause me to lose caste with them.
Yet, had the mighty grace of God led the way,
How could this fear have vied with God's attraction?
O Granter of aid, lend us aid
In this dilemma of the feeble will.
Prayers for right guidance in the use of free will, which gift was refused by heavens and earth, but accepted by man to his own.
This flux and reflux of resolves came to me from Thee,
Else these tides of will had rested still, O God!
By the same fiat whereby Thou madest me thus irresolute,
Of Thy mercy deliver me from this irresolution!
Thou triest me; O give me aid!
For men are as women through this trial.
How long, O Lord, is this trial to last?
Give me one ruling principle, not ten principles!
The whole world flees away from its own will and being
Towards self-abandonment and intoxication.
In order to escape a while from self-consciousness,
Men incur the reproach of wine and strong drink;
For all know well this existence is a snare,
This thought and memory and will only a hell.
Therefore they flee from self to being beside themselves,
Call it intoxication or call it preoccupation, O guided one.
Ere it is annihilated, no single soul
Finds admittance to the divine hall of audience.
What is "ascension" to heaven? Annihilation of self;
Self-abandonment is the creed and religion of lovers.

Vera Di Campli San Vito

Revolutions

'If you would have the message of the Gods

to direct your life, look for that which repeats,

again and again…'

                             — Marion Zimmer Bradley

         

Taking my leave but wanting to stay

It'll all come with me, anyway

These small revolutions in my head –

Will the Gods explain them when I'm dead?

◈

Have a nice life

You, with a hole in your sock,

red beard, long straight hair,

looking to belong somewhere.

The mild autumnal air is still

and at last, at last I don’t

care for this struggle any more –

wish you all the best

and have a nice life. For the rest

I’ll put you out of my mind,

let no thoughts of you intrude,

lest I’m tempted into longing.

You, with your quick blue eyes,

cruel mouth, airtight heart –

make yourself another cup of tea

and relax. This is the last you’ll see

of me.

◈

Dead End

You’re at this dead end

where pavement meets wall.

There’s no good friend  

on whom you can call.

Where pavement meets wall

a skip’s overflowing.

On whom can you call

where are you going?

A skip’s overflowing

what you’ve not said.

Where are you going?

Shed your black dread.

What you’ve not said

crows pick and crow.

Shed your black dread

don’t feel so low.

Crows pick and crow

shadow thoughts scatter.

Don’t feel so low

know it doesn’t matter.

Shadow thoughts scatter

where crow spirits fly.

Know it doesn’t matter.

Ask yourself why

where crow spirits fly

there’s no good friend.

Ask yourself why

you’re at this dead end.

◈

Halfway to –  (post-journey reflections)

Limited express tracks over the river

between towers of glass under mare’s tail skies.

Outstretched arms of cranes point to tunnels &

silver escalators moving deeper to a centre.

To unearth the uncommon: our destination.

All the newness of spring.

Blankness comes from movement,

like a horse in windy weather: keep it

moving & it won’t spook.

Sweeten the feeling.

If all this disappeared, what would take its place?

Peppercorns & pines, more sun than ever &

the IVALDA MASONIC TEMPLE.

We’re swimming in camaraderie,

the air serene, mare’s tails swishing in the blue.

Each stop another line written

yet lost in this formlessness.

Alphington not Framlingham & Ivanhoe no crusader.

Poplars & pickets recede.

Red & green signal lights blink,

tracks slide together – the horizon.

Here is a platform for our company,

we work on the move.

Cranes beckon us back to glass towers,

each thought fluid as river water.

No fixed frame of reference – only a to & fro

till each finds a still point: blank, lined, squared.

What lies beyond?

Bend in the river, curve of the tracks.

◈

Wind Poem #1

Oh the wind is anything but ordinary

in its organ loft in the clouds.

It turns the washing to origami

and blows leaves off the oleander.

An obstreperous ogre huffing and puffing

it makes a dust bowl of everything.

We wait for the off-season,

onlookers of an occult game of the elements.

This wind wants to nuzzle my norks

and make my nipples stand on end.

Wind Poem #2

This dun coloured dray horse

pulls a heavy load.

Its dreary work is never done.

Accompanied by the music of a dumb piano

he stops now and then to pluck

a mouthful of eau-de-Nil coloured grass.

All never ending work is divine

by nature, whether or not

it makes you feel ecstatic.

Eden never had electric lights

and living there meant

you could never be eclectic.

Wind Poem #3

Around the time of the summer solstice

the twins next-door would sleepwalk in my garden.

I’d taught them short-division

and we were working on the long.

Stalwart in their dreams, they used to

spit at snails on the grass,

ran the spectrum of bizarre acts.

Once I saw them breathe

into the spiracle of a stick insect.

They lived within their own sphere

and were supicious of all else.

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Wayward

When I arrive home later than expected

she's pacing up and down the street

one hand shielding her eyes

the other clutching a wooden spoon.

Never will I understand

why I'm punished when I'm late.

Sometimes, I have a good reason.

Shouldn't she be glad to see me?

But no. She has to Teach me a Lesson.

'Wait till you have kids –

then you'll know what it's like to worry.'

But I haven't. And I don't.

So what do I do instead?

Perfect my ability to get waylaid.

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Dare's Lane, Ewshot

A woman rides a dapple grey horse

on a blue sky winter's afternoon,

rides a steady, collected canter

da-da dum da-da dum da-da dum.

She goes round big, goes round small,

navigates jumps and obstacles, then

halts at the far end of the manège,

dismounts in one swift, fluid movement,

adjusts the bridle and with slight effort

remounts. The big grey awaits her sign.

I lean on a fence a short distance away,

standing in mud, foot-numb.

Relentlessly round and round they go:

da-da dum da-da dum da-da dum.

She's rocking gently on her cantering

horse, a constant slow-time rhythm.

I watch and watch and wish it was me;

it's a perfect day for riding.

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Little Mermaid

First time I broke the waves

and saw him, he danced

till dawn on his ship.

When the storm came

and he was drowning,

I gathered him in my arms,

kissed him and wished

he might live. I saved him.

But I lost myself.

At home I’d embrace

my statue, remember

the prince’s head,

limp on my breast,

the curve of his mouth

damp locks of his hair.

Imagine my desire,

my fierce, fearless hope,

wanting always to be

amongst humans,

amongst forests,

fields and mountains.

Love is a gamble.

I gambled my heart,

my art, for love.

I crossed my destiny,

paid a price.

My prince, I saw the best

in you, believed you would

give your best to me.

I left home and family

for you, forever lost

my siren’s voice for you,

lost my tail, my fishy scales,

and you married another.

I saved you, not myself.

On his wedding night

I danced and laughed,

though daggers

stabbed my feet,

plunged deeper still

into my heart.

O bride, who cherished

my story in your childhood,

hear me now.

You will never

change your destiny,

try as you might –

never change another,

love them as you will.

Accept your fate,

love others as they are.

And be wise to whom

you give your heart.

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From a potterer

What can I tell you about myself? You, a stranger. I guess we’re all strangers to start with and, as someone once said, “How could the world continue if somebody didn’t kiss a stranger?” Autobiography reminds me of being asked by someone you’ve just met, “So, what do you do?” 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt like a black sheep. My family’s traditional values and love of material comfort and security frustrates my less pragmatic ideals. Perhaps it began when I started to show a love for animals? The only pets I was allowed were goldfish, tadpoles, budgerigars and mice. My father kept a succession of sulphur-crested cockatoos. Cats, dogs, and even guinea pigs were out of the question, never mind the fact that for a while it seemed that every stray dog and lost kitten would follow me home. What I wanted most of all, of course, was a pony. I grew up on the banks of the Yarra River, in an inner suburb of Melbourne, and I was obsessed with horses. When I was twelve or thirteen, I used to visit an old Thoroughbred, Matlock, at Creswick Reserve, having befriended his owner, a girl my age whose parents had succumbed to their daughter’s desire for a horse. One day, Matlock wandered out of his yard, out on to the main road. He was hit by a car and had to have stitches in his head. Even I knew that the city was no place for a horse.

Having decided that when I grew up I wanted to be a veterinary surgeon, I worked as a veterinary nurse for a local practice all through high school. I began by volunteering, just because I wanted to be around the animals, but eventually was offered a part-time job. I worked on Saturdays and in the school holidays. Even before I finished high school, I knew I wouldn’t have the grades to enrol in veterinary science. I studied maths, biology, chemistry and physics, but I wasn’t any good. The standard of the teachers at my school didn’t help. I barely scraped through my leaving exams and eventually completed an arts degree in creative writing, literature and music history.

I was always wayward. It came with my image of myself as a rebel. Having heard the wayward youth stories of others, I’m aware that it’s all relative. My rebelliousness was mild to say the least, but in the context of my parents’ strictness, it counted for something. Although I never felt particularly encouraged in my interests,  neither was I expected to do anything I didn’t want to, apart from find a suitable husband, marry and have children. None of this eventuated. I was always disappearing on my bicycle, sneaking off, late coming home, worried about getting into trouble. Once, in my student magazine/radio days, I arrived home at 2am with a long-stemmed red rose and a fifty dollar note in my hand. I had a hard time explaining to Dad that I’d been working legitimately, packing up a college fashion show.

I’ve spent all my life around books. My father loved books, especially encyclopaedias, dictionaries and atlases. I devoured books when I was a kid – from fairytales (The Little Mermaid made me cry) to popular children’s fiction by authors such as Mary O’Hara, KM Peyton, the Pullein-Thompson sisters, John Christopher, LM Montgomery and SE Hinton. I read lots of pony books, until my English teacher suggested I was a little too old for pony books now and might like to read something more grown-up. I don’t think he suggested anything in particular though, and so I came home from the local library with titles by Ian Fleming, Gore Vidal and Vladimir Nabokov (who dedicated all his novels to his wife, Vera). Perhaps they seemed the most “grown up” books to me? My mother said I’d go blind if I read too much. I paid no attention to her. I’ve worked in secondhand bookshops, in a university bookshop and in lots of different libraries. My hands have absorbed quantities of book dust and grime. The acid in the paper dries the skin.

I have friends who, like me, feel that they are in the world but not of it. Perhaps it relates to the black sheep feeling, its roots in our upbringing? Some of these friends I met at a Womenspirit camp in the early 90s. These women are the sanest, strongest, smartest people I know – creative, artistic, psychic, able to walk across a bed of hot coals at will. In theory, we’re capable of doing anything we want. In practice, we’re limited by the society we live in, the choices we make, our lack of confidence in ourselves. We struggle on, pull through, ride our ups and downs, our lives and the Great Weaving ultimately a mystery. My friends have had a great influence on my life. I’ve learnt about all sorts of things from them. Their presence shapes my identity, as does their absence.

When I finally departed Melbourne in 1993, bound for London via a visit to the relatives in Italy, I felt like a caged bird set free, with all the ambivalence that implies. I lived in London for nine years and loved it, worked mainly in libraries and, for the last two years of my stay, at The Poetry Society in Covent Garden. I’ve never felt quite settled in Melbourne – the grass has always seemed greener elsewhere. Having been back for ten years, I still dream of a place in the country – just me and my pony.

28/5/12

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