Saturday 27 December 2008

The Spy in the War Museum

The original poem The Spy in the War Museum was written following Poet-in-Residence's visit a year and 4 days ago to Vienna's Military Museum in order to see amongst other things the famous Graef and Stift motor car which carried the Austrian heir to the throne to his death; to that fatal shot that is all too often reported, by the propogandists and the misinformed, as having started World War I. Of course the fatal shot did not start the war. There were many other reasons; greed, power politics, weapons manufacturing were just three of them. This is a newly revised version:

The Spy in the War Museum

finds first the glass-eyed
glass-cased moustachioed dummies
frayed and stiffly self-important;
dodderers in peacocked uniforms
with dangled sabres
and lightly pinned-on
ribbon breasted glories
beside the car,-

the Graef & Stift Doppel-Phaeton-Karosserie

with her twin headlamps perched like crocodile eyes
and her 32 horsepowers dormant under her long nose

on the rearward panel - driver's side - in black
a silver rosette
like a silver kiss
unfolded as the first bullet struck home.

And so the Austro-Hungarian soldier marches to war
shouldering his Mannlicher rifle
which he will soon learn to love
- perhaps more than his sweetheart.

Grey painted snare drums and dark grey bugles
are issued
to the loudest musicians.

Those trained in listening and shouting
are allocated field telephones
in wooden boxes
to lug around
to wind up
to bawl into.

Officers are issued with packs
of cigarettes
in flip-top hundreds.

Superior officers are issued
corona cigars
as befits the rank.

The long range Haubitz gun
weighs 21 tonnes.

Wives and children wait in line
to give up their
doorbells
teapots
candlesticks
lamps
toys
and other metallic bric-a-brac
to make more weapons.

Gabriele D'Annunzio circled Vienna
and scattered his poems
on the crowds below. Make Peace not War!

Wives and children wait in line
to give up their
bones
in Fish Street -
soap
candles
glycerine
lime
and spodium
- even dung
will be made from bones.

Passing
Fritz with no legs
Hans with no arms
and Franz with no hands
the Spy exits
into the cold.

Enough is enough.

Glass-eyed servants to greed
cannot see
the rose petals
through the cigar smoke.

That's it.

No more to learn.

-----
Thirty minutes after posting the above Poet-in-Residence heard the latest stomach-churning news from the so-called Holy Land. First reports speak of 155 killed and 250 injured in this damned atrocity. A brutal war is now being waged against a tiny land; against a few imprisoned people who have no food, no medicine, no water, and no resources. It is far beyond reason. It is not even self-defence. It is murder and it is madness.

Auld Lang Syne

"Light be the turf on the breast of the Heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment."(Robert Burns - 17th December 1788)


Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min'?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear.
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu'd the gowans fine;
But we've wandered mony a weary foot
Sin' auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidled i' the burn,
From morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine;
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

----
Robert Burns (1759-1796)

Monday 22 December 2008

haiku moments (10)

At dusk the pigs are always sent into their hut which is then securely locked. There are foxes in the area. These often get into the park by scurrying under the perimeter fence at strategic points. It's quite a task for the staff to monitor the entrances and exits. This evening the pigs were already in bed when the poet called.

pigs' hut
the door locked;
their smell lingers in the pen

It happened that there was another haiku waiting along the path; perhaps a kind of poetic compensation for missing the porky duo. Who knows?

reeds whisper
at the darkling pond;
the lamplight is broken

Sunday 21 December 2008

Impressions on the run

Dusk Run

A man in drab green overalls
dismounted a moped
and locked the park gate;
locked me out
and locked the pigs in.
And so
I run along the outside
of the perimeter fence
and gain the path
that runs up the hill
and goes through the crow-filled
tall trees
that sway
and knock together
under the slate-blue sky
with its tangerine horizon
and its one sapphire star
that gleams on high
above stringy wooden hands
that clap
for the high wind
that rushes about overhead
like some deity's
invisible train set.

Saturday 20 December 2008

Wordsworth's world is too much with us

William Wordsworth and sister Dorothy set off from Sedbergh, a small town situated amid the bleak and treeless hills that are the Howgills, on the 19th December. The weather was not the best. After less than 10 miles they halted in Kendal, a large market town on the eastern side of the Lake District; and there they stayed overnight. The next day the wintry weather continued as they journeyed on to their new home, the now famous Dove Cottage in the heart of the English Lake District. Ignoring winter colds and sneezes and the inclement weather the devoted sister soon turned the damp empty house into a warm and cheery home for her bardic brother and his guests.

The World Is Too Much With Us

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 bears her bosom to the moon;
The Winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are gathered-up 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* coming from the sea;
Or hear old Triton* blow his wreathe`d horn.

----
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
*Proteus: Greek sea god, portrayed as an old man with prophetic powers. Had the ability to change his form to avoid communicating his knowledge.
*Triton: Greek sea god, portrayed as half man and half dolphin. By blowing his horn, a large shell, he could control the waves.

haiku moments (9)

This morning the pigs, having licked their platters clean, were soon contemplating the day ahead:

on the concrete patch
the clean pigs
stand by the muddy field

Thursday 18 December 2008

haiku moments (8)

The weather has taken a turn for the worse. Doubtless the pigs are sheltering in the warmth of their shed. Other creatures brave the elements:

perched
on waving branches ~
bird shadows in the sleet

A Poet-in-Residence poem Christmas Shopping can be found on today's front page at Charles Christian's popular INK SWEAT & TEARS website.
There's an easy-to-find link to take you there from the handy A-Z sidebar.

Wednesday 17 December 2008

Samuel Rogers' epitaph on a robin redbreast

Samuel Rogers, almost forgotten today, was celebrated as a poet in his own day and was so highly regarded that he was requested to give an opinion on the suitability of Tennyson for the post of Poet Laureate. No less a bard than William Wordswoth was an admirer of Rogers' poetry.
In his 365 poem book Poem for the Day (Chatto & Windus) the late Nicholas Albery wrote that Rogers was a man who had a sharp tongue but a generous purse.
Albery noted that Samuel Rogers was born in Stoke Newington on 18th December 1855. That date is in fact Rogers' deathday. An illustration of Samuel Rogers' tomb in a churchyard in Hornsey, London, was published in the Illustrated News of the World on 3rd July 1858.
With Christmas approaching, cards bearing pictures of robin redbreasts, often perched on snowy branches, are fluttering onto doormats and into letterboxes around the world. And so with this in mind the following poem is presented as a seasonal greeting to all Poet-in-Residence readers and in memory of a man with a generous purse.

An Epitaph on a Robin Redbreast (1806)

Tread lightly here, for here, 'tis said,
When piping winds are hushed around,
A small note wakes from underground,
Where now his tiny bones are laid.
No more in lone and leafless groves,
With ruffled wing and faded breast,
His friendless, homeless spirit roves;
Gone to the world where birds are blest!
Where never a cat glides o'er the green,
Or schoolboy's giant form is seen;
But Love, and Joy, and smiling Spring
Inspire their little souls to sing!

-----
Samuel Rogers (30th July 1763 - 18th December 1855)

Monday 15 December 2008

Zeno and Alva, a play

Zeno and Alva is the working title for a play that Poet-in-Residence is now working on. It may never be performed on the stage, but as with anything in life, one never knows. And does it matter anyway? The day to day doing of it is the thing. The joy to be found in the act of creation is its own reward.
The play is a natural development from what has gone before; that is, Genteel Messages' current resplendence as the Purple Patch Awards 'best individual small press poetry collection of 2008'.
Zeno and Alva appears to be taking a very Beckett like turn, but as there's a poem about Samuel Beckett in Genteel Messages maybe that's one of the reasons. Another reason might be in connection with a work in progress that Poet-in-Residence has been asked to look at; a poem by Evelyn Holloway about her real life meeting with Beckett in Oxford in the 1970s.
There's a small poem, recited or sung by Zeno, to be written into the play. Its origin is unknown; but it's possibly traditional and probably Welsh:

Going to the garden
to cut a posy
passing the lavender
and the lily
passing the pinks
and the red roses
cutting a posy
of stinging nettles.

Any reader interested in following the progress of this venture may do so. See LINK LIST for ZENO AND ALVA.

Sunday 14 December 2008

haiku moments (7)

Only one pig to be seen in the pen this morning:

pig looks under
the empty food tray;
cold grey day

Friday 12 December 2008

Thomas Bernhard, Alte Meister

At the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Literatur (Austrian Society for Literature) yesterday there was a presentation of a new edition of the late Thomas Bernhard's novel Alte Meister (Old Master) published by the Frankfurt publishing house Suhrkamp. Bernhard's works are not published in Austria. Never have been. There was even a period after he died, nearly twenty years ago, when his plays were not allowed to be performed in Austria. This was by his express wish according to his Last Will and Testament.
Bernhard has a long history of courting controversy with the Austrian establishment which he has always seen as being full of old Nazis. During his lifetime his famous play Heldenplatz brought matters to a head. There were protests and demonstrations on the opening night in Vienna and Bernhard was labelled as a bird who soils his nest. Heldenplatz was the scene of an address by Adolf Hitler from the balcony of the Hofburg Palace to adoring crowds during what is called by the average Austrian in the street the Nazi time. These days the palace houses the offices of the Bundespräsident of the 2nd Republic.
The book reading from Alte Meister was by the wonderful articulate actor and friend of Thomas Bernhard, Martin Schwab. The man seems to have been around for ever. There was a tear in his eye as he ended what was an emotional reading. Alte Meister is on the surface the story of a man who goes into an art museum every second day to admire a Tintereto painting of a man with a white beard.-
One day an Englishman from Wales turns up and claims to have the same painting hanging above his bed in his house in Wales. Is one of the paintings a fake? Could it be that the painting in the Vienna museum is a forgery? But that question is only a metaphor. It is what is behind the question that is the point. Subsequent events in the story bring a scathing attack on the Austrian establishment and its bosom friend the Roman Catholic Church. It ends with a visit to the theatre where Bernhard's play Heldenplatz was controversially premiered. This time the play is called Zerbrochenen Krug (Broken Jug).
It was a great pleasure, indeed an honour, to speak with Martin Schwab at the end of the proceedings. The man is a gentleman. An actor of the old school. A rare bird in these times. A man worthy of respect. An old master one might say.
Purchased: One copy of Alte Meister signed by Thomas Bernhard's brother Peter Fabian. One copy of Holzfällen by Thomas Bernhard.

Thursday 11 December 2008

Neil McCarthy, poetry at the Inspektion

Last night the Irish monologue poet Neil McCarthy was in blarney good form in the Inspektion cellar bar on, or under, Theobaldgasse, a dark red and black lit nicotine filled dungeon with vinyl seating and a corner of bread snacks only a cheery beery wave and swerve away from the bright lights of Vienna's Cafe Kafka, the home of Labyrinth Poets, where Poet-in-Residence first met him. McCarthy was passing through with a couple of his musical friends. They were on the way to Prague. They were on the way from Budapest. And on the way they deserve to be.
McCarthy's friends were Niall Connolly, winner of the best Irish cd of 2007 award, and David Rynhart whose cd A Simple Life, recorded live at Coal Creek Coffee and Books on April 19th 2008, this blogging bard was bestirred to buy. The cd's inset tells that Rynhart plays a secret mysterious guitar found in 1940 in Beethoven's coffin and uses strings made from dinosaur intestines and woolly mammoth teeth fossils.
All three of these wandering minstrel characters, now on their way to the Prague Fringe, can be found from www.myspace/davidrynhart. Check out McCarthy's poems Criticism of the Dead and God Closing his Hand and have a listen to Connolly's She Makes me Want to be Clean on his YouTube spot. Check out their fixture lists. They might soon be coming to a place near you. If you live in Bishop Auckland, Inverness, Dublin, Galway, Glasgow or New York one or more of them is/are.

Tuesday 9 December 2008

haiku moments (6)

This morning's gentle jog along a path of frosted leaves found another haiku waiting in the woods:

borzoi and greyhound
sniff at tree's base;
labrador waits with ball

And as for the pigs? Well, they were in their usual place again; and there was much excitement!

man at pigpen
with wheelbarrow
brings forth tailspinning squeals

Götterdämmerung

Richard Wagner's opera is nothing less than a parable for our times. Sven-Eric Bechtolf's production performed last night at the Vienna State Opera demonstrated the point.
The minimalist scenery, the emphasis on light and shade, the special effects; the final scene where Valhalla, the home of the gods, is devoured by a seething whirlpool of computerised flame and the world vanishes below the rapidly rising waters is immense.
It all begins with the rope of fate and the chopping down of one tree too many. The gods are on the hill in their glass palaces. The light is green and subdued. The Vienna Philharmonic is packed into the orchestra pit. The sound emanating from there is out of this world. The musicians, especially the horns, are on top of their form. The conductor, the man who is soon to be the new musical director of the renowned opera house, Franz Welser-Möst is heading for a standing ovation; but that's five hours away. There's a lot to get through between now and then.
The story revolves around the chicanery of the scheming, megalomaniac Hagen (Eric Halfvarson). Nothing and no-one can stand in his way as he undermines and wangles his way through various power struggles. He's one of the world's smiling in your face and sticking the spear in your back leaders. His vast army is always ready to obey the latest order. Fear is weak. Army is strong. Punishment brings joy.
The scenery is Orwellian. Soldiers in field grey supply the guard of honour for the royal wedding of Brünnhilde (Eva Johansson) and Gunther (Boaz Daniel). The temple of grey pillars is illuminated in an icy blue light. Hagen prances through the scene like a demented despot. The man orders soldiers here and there, on a whim.
The incompetent Siegfried (Stephen Gould) is duped at every turn. He lives on past glories. He is unable to adapt to the present. He loses his queen, his mind, his life. Demons and sorcerers, arrive unseen in the shadows, the broken rope of fate is useless, and chaos reigns. Vengance, once a sacred right, becomes the everyday.
Siegfried is speared in the back by the smiling Hagen and the world begins to disintegrate, slowly at first with the soft tap-tap of death's drum. This rises to become the loud drumbeat of war. It can only end in a holocaust of Armageddon proportions. And it does. There are no survivors. Flame and water mercilessly devour all; except in the distance, small and silent two humans stand holding each other in their naked embrace. And darkness falls.
Somewhere in all that chaos there was heard the neighing of a horse. A note struck on a violin. It was the last sound of life.

Friday 5 December 2008

haiku moments (5)

The tale of the pigs (continued). Observed on his morning's jog:

pigs and sheep
stand face to face;
a stillness at the slatted gate

And a little further on the run brought another haiku moment:

a crow
clears the path;
trampolines into the woods

Not so bad as it seems at Cafe Kafka

For today's pre-Christmas Labyrinth Poets' poetry mic at Vienna's Cafe´ Kafka Poet-in-Residence will take along a couple of war poems; after all it's that time of year when we wish for peace on earth and send goodwill to all men.
The poems are bringing contradictory elements into play, like (recently posted on these pages) and Not so bad as it seems, first published at Poets Against War and now here:

Not so bad as it seems

The televisions do their best
To make the war seem full of zest
As soldiers in their desert kit
With trembling pens write home of it;
About the way their goose is cooked
Or how the homeward trip is booked.

Some highfalutin' politician
Is on the screens to plug the missions
With wine-faced Generals on both sides
And a bathchair Admiral we thought had died.

Hail! to those television screens
And their stories of war - it seems.

May we all rejoice that Victory
Will bring those folks electricity
So that those who've lost their sons and minds
In the terror of the nightmare kind
Can see the bulletins on their screens
And learn that it's all
Not so bad as it seems.

-----
At Cafe´Kafka the bardic mind changed its mind and went for:
The Nameless - a poem about an Egger-Lienz WWI war painting
Roosevelt Platz - a poem about Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven & co
To Arthur C Clarke - a tribute to the famous SF writer
Judging by the silence, the applause and dare one say it, the many kind remarks, the poems went down very well. All three can be found via the search box above left on this page.

Wednesday 3 December 2008

Rainer Maria Rilke's Parisian Panther

On 4th December 1874 the great Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke first saw the light of day. He was born in Prague. He became arguably the finest German-language poet of his generation.
In order to celebrate Rilke's birthday here's a Poet-in-Residence translation of a poem written by Rilke in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and published in Rilke's Neue Gedichte (New Poems) in 1907. The poet appears to have a great depth of feeling for the plight of the imprisoned creature.

The Panther

His view, from passing the bars,
has become so tiring that he no longer
looks, it's as if there are a thousand bars
and beyond those thousand bars no world.

The supple walk, the soft strong steps
that turn in smallest circles
as a dance of strength, and deadened
in the centre the great will stands.

Sometimes the curtain slides off the pupils,
opens silently, and in goes a picture
that goes through the limbs with a silent tension
that has to be heard in his heart.

And now the original

Sein Blick ist von Vorübergehen der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält
Ihm ist, als ob er tausend Stäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um ein Mitte
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf,- Dann geht ein Bild hinein
geht durch der Glieder angespante Stille -
und hört in Herzen auf zu sein.

-----
Rainer Maria Rilke (1874-1926)

Tuesday 2 December 2008

haiku moments (4)

A bit of news: the pigs have moved from bare earth to patch of grass:

two fat pigs
munch the grass
fast, fast, fast, , ,

And now, here's the haiku moment from this morning's jog:

cyclist rolls along
the track
in the forest a dog barks

Monday 1 December 2008

Mark Doty's Guardian Poetry Workshop

Mark Doty poses a fascinating poetic task in this week's Guardian Poetry Workshop. The idea is to write a poem taking a close look at a member of the animal kingdom. Most of us would do well to think about animals more deeply and more often than we do.
Poet-in-Residence firmly believes that we should never think or believe that we are too old to learn anything new. And so, at 60, he has joined the Guardian poetry classes. Here, on his way to school as it were, he shows you his second piece of homework. The first homework submitted was an enigmatic imbroglio; and was a flop. Far too many fungibles.
He hopes Mr. Doty will give the following sensible sonnet a big red tick:

Crow's Breakfast

Crow cocks his head in silent morning greeting.
He seems to be in a good mood. No blinking. No open
And shut beak. No sulky stare groundwards. No
Wiping of beak on branch. No stretching of wings.
No shiver of tail. No pacing up and down the branch.
No screeching at passing birds. No stretching of neck.
No cormorant impressions. No ruffle of feathers.
Just one twist of the head. And that was it. And now
Sitting still. Happy, I should say.
"Crow, what is the cause of your strange behaviour?"

Ah ha, another crow lands. Same branch. Shuffles along.
They touch. Sit side by touching side. So that's it.
Fourth affair in as many years; and a breakfast order
for two. I should know better by now. That's Crow.

-----------
Gwilym Williams
(2008)

Haiku moments (3)

This morning's bardic run over wooded parkland brought a wonderful and precious haiku moment; there patiently waiting, unmissable in a patch of mud, was a pleasant surprise:

two pigs
pink pig, black pig
fat pig, fat pig

or, maybe better?:

two pigs
pink pig, black pig
plump pig, fat pig

Arnost Lustig's Lovely Green Eyes (trans: Ewald Osers)

In 1942 when he was a teenager Czech born Arnost Lustig was picked-up and taken to Theresienstadt and later from there to Auschwitz, the place where his father was murdered in the gas chambers. From Auschwitz Arnost Lustig was taken to Buchenwald. He was subsequently freed. He had survived the Holocaust.
The novel Lovely Green Eyes is an account of a teenage girl forced to be an unpaid prostitute who has to accomodate a dozen German soldiers each day, with the exception of Sunday, but not always with the exception of Sunday, and not always a dozen soldiers on the way to and from the front who want to spend their seed; it might be fifteen.
Hanka Kaudersova, known as Skinny, is Jewish. But she has pale skin, ginger hair and green eyes. By pretending to be 18, three years older than her real age, and passing herself off as a member of the pure Aryan race she finds a way out of Auschwitz and into a field brothel behind the eastern front where she does her patriotic duty. Move to Rabbi Gideon Shapiro, a man reduced to tears of despair. A man with no answers.
From time to time the girls are stripped, but strangely they are allowed to keep their shoes on, and put up against the wall and shot. Often on a whim. It's a grim existence. One cannot call it life. Skinny must somehow survive and preserve her identity, hang on to her soul. This takes more than mere tenacity. Her words of one syllable dialogue is suitably terse. Tension builds. It's not possibly to read more than 10 pages at one go; so good is Ewald Osers' translation.
Finally in a straggling column force marched through snowdrifts she finds a train and makes a dash for freedom under a pile of coal and a green tarpaulin.
Lovely Green Eyes ISBN 0-099-44858-0 Vintage paperback 2003 edition