Beautiful Cynicism III

A Canadian in Paris

Saturday, 30 June 2007 | 17:11

Looking for Sartre
and Simone de Beauvoir
at the Café Deux Maggots
looking for Voltaire
in bookstalls along the Seine
looking for Van Gogh
to say I loved him
finding only fleas
racing round my midsection
stomach upset from the water
turning over and over
every half hour
drinking only wine

Rounding a corner suddenly
to confront Audrey Hepburn
(which is nice confronting)
and her new husband Mel Ferrer
I had read in English papers
they were on their honeymoon
and had a kind of glow
that marks some newlyweds
it was like finding a story
on the Paris sidewalk

At the Louvre
moving from painting to painting
I began to lose the sense of reality
from these larger-than-life
people and places
expecting to see Pierre Bonnard
sneaking in to retouch his paintings
when the guard wasn’t looking
and me acting suspiciously

Before you speak to someone
they look at you knowingly
betrayed without a word
into being a foreigner
and thought American
- at least half of Paris
sitting somewhere
in front of street cafés
old men playing chess
other old men
searching for cigarette butts
old men wise as encyclopedias
old women who once knew Casanova

I want so much to be in love here
but no one to be in love with
and finding an emotion
shimmering like a pearl
lost near the Arc de Triomphe
by a despairing lover
it’s copyright and belongs
to someone else
I left it there
in the gutter shimmering

A room near the Metro
with the noise of trains
a vibration in your bones
of such intensity
it sucks you out of bed
dreaming of Marie Antoinette
and Eleanor of Aquitaine
in a castle the size of Alberta
joining the other scared passengers
clutching their transfers
and wake up sleepwalking

Before leaving Canada
I’d stayed with Irving Layton
a man so positive of himself
he’d exposed all my negatives
and in this most glamorous city
in the world I wandered
around not knowing who I was
tramping the Rue Pigalle
and Montmartre
at the Tuilleries and Odéon
making notes for poems
pretending to be a writer
then returning to London
back to Canada
- and after a long time
finally beginning to understand
the man in my head was me

Al Purdy, To Paris Never Again

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Presence/absence

Tuesday, 26 June 2007 | 13:15

Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows, like to thee, do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
So far from home, into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenour of thy jealousy?
O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for they sake:
For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet #61

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Visions of sugar-plums…

Sunday, 24 December 2006 | 16:03

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes – how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

Clement Clarke Moore, A Visit From St. Nicholas (1822)

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December

Friday, 1 December 2006 | 1:32

Here by the sea this quiet night
I see the moon through misted light.
The water laps the rocks below.
I hear it lap and swash and go.
The pine-trees, dense and earthward-bent,
Suffuse the air with resin-scent.
A landward breeze combs through my hair
And cools the earth with salted air.

Here all attempt in life appears
Irrelevant. The erosive years
That build the moon and the rock and tree
Speak of a sweet futility
And say that we who are from birth
Caressed by unimpulsive earth
Should yield our fever to the trees,
The seaward light and the resined breeze.

Here by the sea this quiet night
Where my still spirit could take flight
And nullify the heart’s distress
Into the peace of wordlessness,
I see the light, I breathe the scent,
I touch the insight, but a bent
Of heart exacts its old designs
And draws my hands to write these lines.

Vikram Seth, Qingdao: December

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La liseuse

Thursday, 30 November 2006 | 21:44

Photo: allposters.com

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
“For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned.” And she will.

Ted Kooser, Selecting A Reader

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Autumn reflection

Monday, 23 October 2006 | 13:21

By the purple haze that lies
On the distant rocky heights,
By the deep blue of the skies,
By the smoky amber light,
Through the forest arches streaming
Where Nature on her throne sits dreaming,
And the sun is scarcely gleaming,
Through the cloudlets, snowy white,–
Winter’s lovely herald greets us,
Ere the ice-crowned tyrant meets us–

A mellow softness fills the air,–
No breeze on wanton wing steals by,
To break the holy quiet there,
Or makes the waters fret and sigh,
Or the golden alders shiver,
That bend to kiss the placid river,
Flowing on, and on forever,
But the little waves are sleeping,
O’er the pebbles slowly creeping,
That last night were flashing, leaping,
Driven by the restless breeze,
In lines of foam beneath yon trees–

Dressed in robes of gorgeous hue,
Brown and gold with crimson blent;
The forest to the waters blue
Its own enchanting tints has lent;–
In their dark depths, life-like glowing,
We see a second forest growing,
Each pictured leaf and branch bestowing
A fairy grace to that twin wood,
Mirror’d within the crystal flood.

Susanna Moodie, excerpt, Indian Summer (1)

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Love Itself

Sunday, 15 October 2006 | 19:34

Photo: penguincatalogue.co.uk

The light came through the window,
Straight from the sun above,
And so inside my little room
There plunged the rays of Love.

In streams of light I clearly saw
The dust you seldom see,
Out of which the Nameless makes
A Name for one like me.

I’ll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door -
Then Love Itself was gone.

All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.

Then I came back from where I’d been
My room, it looked the same -
But there was nothing left between
The Nameless and the Name.

I’ll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door -
Then Love Itself was gone.

Leonard Cohen

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i like my body when it is with your body

Monday, 2 October 2006 | 22:40

Photo: absolumentfemmes.com

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh… And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

e. e. cummings, Sonnets-Actualities XXIV

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Us

Sunday, 22 January 2006 | 6:25

I was wrapped in black
fur and white fur and
you undid me and then
you placed me in gold light
and then you crowned me,
while snow fell outside
the door in diagonal darts.
While a ten-inch snow
came down like stars
in small calcium fragments,
we were in our own bodies
(that room that will bury us)
and you were in my body
(that room that will outlive us)
and at first I rubbed your
feet dry with a towel
becuase I was your slave
and then you called me princess.
Princess!

Oh then
I stood up in my gold skin
and I beat down the psalms
and I beat down the clothes
and you undid the bridle
and you undid the reins
and I undid the buttons,
the bones, the confusions,
the New England postcards,
the January ten o’clock night,
and we rose up like wheat,
acre after acre of gold,
and we harvested,
we harvested.

Anne Sexton, Us

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Gentle January

Sunday, 22 January 2006 | 6:18

Here is this vale of sweet abiding,
My ultimate and dulcet home,
That gently dreams above the chiding
of restless and impatient foam;
Beyond the hazards of hell weather,
The harceling of wind and sea,
With timbers morticed tight together
My old hulk havens happily.

The dawn exultantly discloses
My lawn lit with mimosa gold;
The joy of January roses
Is with me when rich lands are cold;
Serene with bells of beauty chiming,
This dream domain to be belongs,
By sweet conspiracy of rhyming,
And virtue of some idle songs.

Robert William Service, Finale (excerpt)