SOME DARK CITY NOTES

I was born in the Dark City, so our ways have always seemed ordinary enough to me, but I can also understand that a visitor may need some help getting used to us. Thus, I’m writing both to welcome you and to pass on a few words of advice.

The first thing you need to remember is that morning coffee is usually brewed with water from the River Styx. Having drunk it, all oaths you make until it’s passed through your system are absolutely binding. The gods themselves cannot break an oath made by the Styx, so be very, very careful with your language while here. In particular, I urge you to avoid the construction “I’ll be damned if I [go to the Opera/ write my Aunt Petrohilos/ change my socks}.” When, as is inevitable, you go to the opera (possibly with your Aunt Petrohilos, and wearing a pair of clean socks), you will, of a surety, be damned, and your friends will have to mount a costly and dangerous expedition to extract you.

That is, we’ll mount such an expedition if we remember who you are. Another thing to keep track of is that bottled water in the DC comes from Lethe. (A small glass before retiring guarantees peaceful dreams. However, too large a glass guarantees not only a restful night but some time without a clue as to your own identity. I once experienced this, and was persuaded by my brother when I awoke that I was a blind street musician named Snigg. I spent a month tapping my way around town, building up quite a following for my virtuoso therebo playing. It wasn’t until a particularly hot day that I suddenly, in mid-madrigal, recalled that, while I couldn’t play a note, I had keen eyesight. Since you’ll be staying with us, I should warn you that my brother, the Marquis, still has the therebo somewhere. You can tell him from me by the squint, unless someone is shining a bright light into my eyes at the moment).

There’s no point in warning you to avoid the ambrosia, which vaguely man-like creatures roll into town in barrels now and again. Simply get drunk on it, as everyone else does, and you’ll pass for a native.

Its probably best to eschew religious conversations, as serious theologians tend to carry small arms when they socialize. If you must speak of things ecclesiastic, remember it is a matter of historical record that God has frequently manifested Himself (or Herself, if you live south of Weary Street) in the Dark City, almost always as a cat. The prudent, accordingly, treat all cats as if they may be God. Do not goggle, then, when someone mentions that they saw God chasing a mouse through the Drachenfells, or that God hissed at them when they stepped on His tail. (As I write you, God is sitting on a windowsill next to me, staring at a dust mote).

          If you walk in the park, remember that the trees know martial arts and that the squirrels are prone to bitter sarcasm.

BOOTLESS CRIES

       

       

          For long and overlong I had been troubled by my cries having to travel through the world barefoot. Having, alas, neither the skill nor the wherewithal to remedy the situation, I determined to petition Heaven, and see what it might do for my bootless cries.

          The way to Heaven, as is well known, is difficult and thorny and paved – when it is paved at all, with bad intentions (all the good ones are slated for the road to Hell). Also, unlike that to Hell, which is smooth and easy and open night and day, the road to Heaven is subject to unpredictable obstacles and closures – altogether an unnecessarily narrow and difficult path. Still, the cries had to have boots, and I saw no other way, so I persevered (It is wondrous the extent to which stubbornness can substitute for a lack of sense). At long last, barefoot and bleeding (my own shoes had long since been eaten) we arrived at Heaven.

          Heaven never appears the same way twice, its known, and either works according to mysterious and inexorable rules of law or no laws at all – possibly both. Thus, I was only mildly surprised to see that Heaven stood before me in the guise of King Charles I. I was glad that at least this seemed to be the King before his head was cut off. A headless king, while a striking object and a lesson to us all, is a difficult partner in a conversation (though Oliver Cromwell managed a very impressive monologue). The King stood with his hands behind his back, wearing a broad apron. “Well, Sir, what d’ye lack?” he asked.

          I felt it well to be blunt. “Boots,” I said. “I have many cries, and, as you can see, every many jack of them is bootless. Thus it is that I have come, though I regret much the necessity, to trouble Heaven with them.”

          The King had a narrow, kindly face. He put a hand to one ear. “What was it? What did you say?”

          “Boots!” I cried. “I call on God and Man and the Continental Congress to witness that I need boots!”

          “Come again? You perceive that I am, perhaps, a trifle hard of hearing.”

          I roared. I yelled. The King and I had a rather enjoyable time as I tried to act out the notion of boots (one word; one syllable; first syllable “boot”) but it was no go. I could not make him understand.

          He meant well; I’ll give him that. As I turned, defeated, to retrace the long road back, he laid a hand on my shoulder, and said “Sir, I cannot let you walk so hard a path back, barefoot as I see you are. Please to follow me to the dockside, where I will see you provided with boats.”

GOD, THOMAS HARDY AND MY FATHER GO INTO A BAR

I went searching for my father's God
Who once went looking for my father
And found him.

When Thomas Hardy entered a church
The Absence of God put a hand on his
shoulder;

Hardy shook his head.
 
If God sought a place to stay, just for a bit,
Where would He lodge in a Henry James novel?
An unnamed servant, perhaps, would make room
In his own small space in the attic.

And Robbie Burns is dead

Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled

What are ye doing next my bed

Ken ye not you’re lang years dead

And shent of labors?

Why hae ye climmered from the mud

To stand here a’ adrip wi blood

And with some verra doubtful crud

Upon your sabres?

Some moght say it shows ill-breeding

To stand here ilka man just bleeding

Gangrel-like my cries unheeding

Get ye aff; ye’ll scare the neighbors!

Yet another two poems

So, greater community of blog-readers, how do you maintain that school-girl complexion amidst the arcane drudgeries of your daily existence?

TRUTH AND LOVE

Truth, I have read or heard somewhere,

Lives in a well. An unpleasant dwelling

But the rent is low and Truth most times

Admires the uncompromising frogs there

And can see the stars clearly, even at noon.

Love, a shepherd said, is usually found

Amongst the rocks on a barren shore

Bruising his feet continually

But aware of how well he looks

Tousled by the winds, staring at the water.

On Fifth and Main, on St. John’s Eve

They meet in a certain low bar.

Truth tries to pick up the waitress

Saying “You’re as pretty as others

I’ve seen in other bars” while Love

Swirls the liquor in his glass.

They do this every year and Truth

Never listens to his advice.

UNSETTLING YET ODDLY EXPECTED

A coin not of this realm found its way

(After adventures I cannot describe)

Into my pocket. It was of wood,

Something close-grained and very heavy,

And bore my picture, save that my nose

Had been broken and my left eye

Was gone. After three days my shadow

Showed clear signs of disaffection

Following me reluctantly or making

Curious quick gestures I could only half-see.

A week or so later other shadows

Startled and then knelt and in my dreams

Churches long gone to dust rebuilt themselves

And rang their bells backwards.

Back from the heartlands! Also, another poem

As above, I'm back from Iowa (a marvelous place). In my absence, this blog has been looked at (I know, I know -- probably by accident) by one person from China. I am in hopes that this person will fall in with my singular (and much-beloved) Venezuelan.

Anyway, more from Ghent:

Some of the other clerks at the bureau

Would come to work in winter

Along the canals, their bone skates

Fleeting over the ice; I walked.

I had no use then for speed

Nor much for living, but with the dead

I always was patient.

At night I would drink with Melancthon

The reformer. Mild, absent-minded,

When he died he did not notice,

And went not to heaven or hell

But to Ghent. At the bureau

I helped him find work.

He wrote indecipherably; the demon

Adzok hired him to take notes

For a memor. (Needing cash, I had

Tried to sell Adzok my soul.

He said I should try to meet some girls).

Muses

For the finest of all Venezuelanistas

In Rio, as the sun was sinking,

The Muses sat; they had been drinking

All that day, and through this folly

Some were mad and some were jolly

Some prey to loathed melancholy.

Fair Thalia sat and sadly wept

For debts unpaid and vows unkept

And floors that go for years unswept

By love-struck youths with brooms inept.

While Thalia’s tears like diamonds glistened

Clio spoke, of fates unchristened

Wise, though drunk, and no one listened.

The handsome barman’s young and thin

A kiss Melpomene blows to him;

Erato smiles into her gin

But while her drink she seeks to nurse

A hand has crept into her purse

She sees and mutters something terse

An Attic prayer, or else a curse.

“Polhymnia, you thieving crone

With no attribute of your own

Leave my credit cards alone!

I never trusted you, so calm

As if you were yourself a psalm.”

Euterpe sleeps, and in her dream

Calliope is run by steam,

In a world of blows and bruises

Where each man bets and each man loses

With very little room for Muses.

She wakes and pokes Terpsichore

“Oh say my dream through ivory

Came falsely now to trouble me

Into my mind so slyly creeping!”

Her sister nods, and goes on sleeping.

The stars come out, and for their trouble

Urania squints and sees them double.