The Foggy,
Foggy Blue
When I was a young man, I loved to write poems
And I
called a spade a spade
And the
only only thing that made me sing
Was to
lift the masks at the masquerade.
I took
them off my own face,
I took
them off others too
And the
only only wrong in all my song
Was the
view that I knew what was true.
Now I am
older and tireder too
And the
tasks with the masks are quite trying.
I’d
gladly gladly stop if I only only knew
A better
way to keep from lying,
And not
get nervous and blue
When I
said something quite untrue:
I looked
all around and all over
To find
something else to do:
I tried
to be less romantic
I tried
to be less starry-eyed too:
But I
only got mixed up and frantic
Forgetting
what was false and what was true.
But
tonight I am going to the masked ball,
Because
it has occurred to me
That the
masks are more true than the faces:
—Perhaps
this too is poetry?
I no
longer yearn to be naïve and stern
And
masked balls fascinate me:
Now that
I know that most falsehoods are true
Perhaps
I can join the charade?
This is,
at any rate, my new and true view:
Let live
and believe, I say.
The only
only thing is to believe in everything:
It’s
more fun and safer that way!
Baudelaire
When I
fall asleep, and even during sleep,
I hear,
quite distinctly, voices speaking
Whole
phrases, commonplace and trivial,
Having
no relation to my affairs.
Dear
Mother, is any time left to us
In which
to be happy? My debts are immense.
My bank
account is subject to the court’s judgment.
I know
nothing. I cannot know anything.
I have
lost the ability to make an effort.
But now
as before my love for you increases.
You are
always armed to stone me, always:
It is
true. It dates from childhood.
For the
first time in my long life
I am
almost happy. The book, almost finished,
Almost
seems good. It will endure, a monument
To my
obsessions, my hatred, my disgust.
Debts
and inquietude persist and weaken me.
Satan
glides before me, saying sweetly:
“Rest
for a day! You can rest and play today.
Tonight
you will work.” When night comes,
My mind,
terrified by the arrears,
Bored by
sadness, paralyzed by impotence,
Promises:
“Tomorrow: I will tomorrow.”
Tomorrow
the same comedy enacts itself
With the
same resolution, the same weakness.
I am
sick of this life of furnished rooms.
I am
sick of having colds and headaches:
You know
my strange life. Every day brings
Its
quota of wrath. You little know
A poet’s
life, dear Mother: I must write poems,
The most
fatiguing of occupations.
I am sad
this morning. Do not reproach me.
I write
from a café near the post office,
Amid the
click of billiard balls, the clatter of dishes,
The
pounding of my heart. I have been asked to write
“A
History of Caricature.” I have been asked to write
“A
History of Sculpture.” Shall I write a history
Of the
caricatures of the sculptures of you in my heart?
Although
it costs you countless agony,
Although
you cannot believe it necessary,
And
doubt that the sum is accurate,
Please
send me money enough for at least three weeks.
Calmly
we walk through this April’s day
Calmly
we walk through this April’s day,
Metropolitan
poetry here and there,
In the
park sit pauper and rentier,
The
screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive
about us, running away,
Between
the worker and the millionaire
Number
provides all distances,
It is
Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many
great dears are taken away,
What
will become of you and me
(This is
the school in which we learn ...)
Besides
the photo and the memory?
(...
that time is the fire in which we burn.)
(This is
the school in which we learn ...)
What is
the self amid this blaze?
What am
I now that I was then
Which I
shall suffer and act again,
The
theodicy I wrote in my high school days
Restored
all life from infancy,
The
children shouting are bright as they run
(This is
the school in which they learn ...)
Ravished
entirely in their passing play!
(...
that time is the fire in which they burn.)
Avid its
rush, that reeling blaze!
Where is
my father and Eleanor?
Not
where are they now, dead seven years,
But what
they were then?
No more?
No more?
From
Nineteen-Fourteen to the present day,
Bert
Spira and Rhoda consume, consume
Not
where they are now (where are they now?)
But what
they were then, both beautiful;
Each
minute bursts in the burning room,
The
great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning
the trivial and unique away.
(How all
things flash! How all things flare!)
What am
I now that I was then?
May
memory restore again and again
The
smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is
the school in which we learn,
Time is
the fire in which we burn.
Tired
and unhappy, you think of houses
Tired
and unhappy, you think of houses
Soft-carpeted
and warm in the December evening,
While
snow's white pieces fall past the window,
And the
orange firelight leaps.
A young
girl sings
That
song of Gluck where Orpheus pleads with Death;
Her
elders watch, nodding their happiness
To see
time fresh again in her self-conscious eyes:
The
servants bring in the coffee, the children go to bed,
Elder
and younger yawn and go to bed,
The
coals fade and glow, rose and ashen,
It is
time to shake yourself! and break this
Banal
dream, and turn your head
Where
the underground is charged, where the weight
Of the
lean building is seen,
Where
close in the subway rush, anonymous
In the
audience, well-dressed or mean,
So many
surround you, ringing your fate,
Caught
in an anger exact as a machine!
All Night, All Night
"I
have been one acquainted with the night" - Robert Frost
Rode in
the train all night, in the sick light. A bird
Flew
parallel with a singular will. In daydream's moods and
attitudes
The
other passengers slumped, dozed, slept, read,
Waiting,
and waiting for place to be displaced
On the
exact track of safety or the rack of accident.
Looked
out at the night, unable to distinguish
Lights
in the towns of passage from the yellow lights
Numb on
the ceiling. And the bird flew parallel and still
As the
train shot forth the straight line of its whistle,
Forward
on the taut tracks, piercing empty, familiar --
The
bored center of this vision and condition looked and
looked
Down
through the slick pages of the magazine (seeking
The seen
and the unseen) and his gaze fell down the well
Of the
great darkness under the slick glitter,
And he
was only one among eight million riders and
readers.
And all
the while under his empty smile the shaking drum
Of the
long determined passage passed through him
By his
body mimicked and echoed. And then the train
Like a
suddenly storming rain, began to rush and thresh--
The
silent or passive night, pressing and impressing
The
patients' foreheads with a tightening-like image
Of the
rushing engine proceeded by a shaft of light
Piercing
the dark, changing and transforming the silence
Into a
violence of foam, sound, smoke and succession.
A bored
child went to get a cup of water,
And
crushed the cup because the water too was
Boring
and merely boredom's struggle.
The
child, returning, looked over the shoulder
Of a man
reading until he annoyed the shoulder.
A fat
woman yawned and felt the liquid drops
Drip
down the fleece of many dinners.
And the
bird flew parallel and parallel flew
The
black pencil lines of telephone posts, crucified,
At
regular intervals, post after post
Of
thrice crossed, blue-belled, anonymous trees.
And then
the bird cried as if to all of us:
0 your
life, your lonely life
What
have you ever done with it,
And done
with the great gift of consciousness?
What
will you ever do with your life before death's
knife
Provides
the answer ultimate and appropriate?
As I for
my part felt in my heart as one who falls,
Falls in
a parachute, falls endlessly, and feel the vast
Draft of
the abyss sucking him down and down,
An
endlessly helplessly falling and appalled clown:
This is
the way that night passes by, this
Is the
overnight endless trip to the famous unfathomable
abyss.
In the
Green Morning, Now, Once More
In the
green morning, before
Love was
destiny,
The sun
was king,
And God
was famous.
The
merry, the musical,
The
jolly, the magical,
The
feast, the feast of feasts, the festival
Suddenly
ended
As the
sky descended
But
there was only the feeling,
In all
the dark falling,
Of
fragrance and of freshness, of birth and beginning.
O Love,
Sweet Animal
O Love,
dark animal,
With
your strangeness go
Like any
freak or clown:
Appease
tee child in her
Because
she is alone
Many
years ago
Terrified
by a look
Which
was not meant for her.
Brush
your heavy fur
Against
her, long and slow
Stare at
her like a book,
Her
interests being such
No one
can look too much.
Tell her
how you know
Nothing
can be taken
Which
has not been given:
For you
time is forgiven:
Informed
by hell and heaven
You are
not mistaken
The
Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me
"the
withness of the body" --Whitehead
The
heavy bear who goes with me,
A
manifold honey to smear his face,
Clumsy
and lumbering here and there,
The
central ton of every place,
The
hungry beating brutish one
In love
with candy, anger, and sleep,
Crazy
factotum, dishevelling all,
Climbs
the building, kicks the football,
Boxes
his brother in the hate-ridden city.
Breathing
at my side, that heavy animal,
That
heavy bear who sleeps with me,
Howls in
his sleep for a world of sugar,
A
sweetness intimate as the water's clasp,
Howls in
his sleep because the tight-rope
Trembles
and shows the darkness beneath.
--The
strutting show-off is terrified,
Dressed
in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,
Trembles
to think that his quivering meat
Must
finally wince to nothing at all.
That
inescapable animal walks with me,
Has
followed me since the black womb held,
Moves
where I move, distorting my gesture,
A
caricature, a swollen shadow,
A stupid
clown of the spirit's motive,
Perplexes
and affronts with his own darkness,
The secret
life of belly and bone,
Opaque,
too near, my private, yet unknown,
Stretches
to embrace the very dear
With
whom I would walk without him near,
Touches
her grossly, although a word
Would
bare my heart and make me clear,
Stumbles,
flounders, and strives to be fed
Dragging
me with him in his mouthing care,
Amid the
hundred million of his kind,
the
scrimmage of appetite everywhere.
A Dream
Of Whitman Paraphrased Recognized And Made More Vivid By Renoir
Twenty-eight
naked young women bathed by the shore
Or near
the bank of a woodland lake
Twenty-eight
girls and all of them comely
Worthy
of Mack Sennett's camera and Florenz Ziegfield's
Foolish
Follies.
They
splashed and swam with the wondrous unconsciousness
Of their
youth and beauty
In the
full spontaneity and summer of the fieshes of
awareness
Heightened,
intensified and softened
By the
soft and the silk of the waters
Blooded
made ready by the energy set afire by the
nakedness
of the body,
Electrified:
deified: undenied.
A young
man of thirty years beholds them from a distance.
He lives
in the dungeon of ten million dollars.
He is
rich, handsome and empty standing behind the linen curtains
Beholding
them.
Which
girl does he think most desirable, most beautiful?
They are
all equally beautiful and desirable from the gold distance.
For if
poverty darkens discrimination and makes
perception
too vivid,
The gold
of wealth is also a form of blindness.
For has
not a Frenchman said, Although this is America...
What he
has said is not entirely relevant,
That a
naked woman is a proof of the existence of God.
Where is
he going?
Is he
going to be among them to splash and to laugh with them?
They did
not see him although he saw them and was there among them.
He saw
them as he would not have seen them had they been conscious
Of him
or conscious of men in complete depravation:
This is
his enchantment and impoverishment
As he
possesses them in gaze only.
. . .He
felt the wood secrecy, he knew the June softness
The
warmth surrounding him crackled
Held in
by the mansard roof mansion
He
glimpsed the shadowy light on last year's brittle leaves fallen,
Looked
over and overlooked, glimpsed by the fall of death,
Winter's
mourning and the May's renewal.
The
First Night Of Fall And Falling Rain
The common
rain had come again
Slanting
and colorless, pale and anonymous,
Fainting
falling in the first evening
Of the
first perception of the actual fall,
The long
and late light had slowly gathered up
A sooty
wood of clouded sky, dim and distant more and
more
Until,
at dusk, the very sense of selfhood waned,
A
weakening nothing halted, diminished or denied or set
aside,
Neither
tea, nor, after an hour, whiskey,
Ice and
then a pleasant glow, a burning,
And the
first leaping wood fire
Since a
cold night in May, too long ago to be more than
Merely a
cold and vivid memory.
Staring,
empty, and without thought
Beyond
the rising mists of the emotion of causeless
sadness,
How
suddenly all consciousness leaped in spontaneous
gladness,
Knowing
without thinking how the falling rain (outside, all
over)
In slow
sustained consistent vibration all over outside
Tapping
window, streaking roof,
running
down runnel and drain
Waking a
sense, once more, of all that lived outside of us,
Beyond
emotion, for beyond the swollen
distorted
shadows and lights
Of the
toy town and the vanity fair
of
waking consciousness!
Though
Delmore Schwartz’s reputation is sadly diminished from what it was at his
beginnings, in the late nineteen-thirties, it has been kept alive thanks, in
large part, to James Atlas’s excellent if depressing biography, which appeared
in 1977, eleven years after the poet’s early death. Alas, the biography was a
success not so much because people were at the time interested in Schwartz’s
poetry but because of the cautionary nature of his life story. Readers
indifferent to modern poetry could still take grim relish in the classic saga
of a brilliant poet, first heralded as a genius, the greatest young poet of his
day, who quickly burnt himself out as a result of mental illness and addictions
to alcohol and narcotics, and died almost forgotten at the age of fifty-two in
a seedy hotel room in New York’s Times Square district. In a way, Atlas’s
biography is the contemporary counterpart of Samuel Johnson’s great essay on
the little-known eighteenth-century poet Richard Savage, which has become a
classic study of the self-destructive, paranoid artist. Unfortunately, the
story of Delmore Schwartz’s life hasn’t really sparked an ensuing revival of
interest in his poetry. It has, however, kept his “Selected Poems” and several
other collections of his writings in print at New Directions, which first
published him in the thirties, and also resulted in the publication of a volume
of his letters and a copious selection from his unpublished notebooks. The
patient—that is to say, his reputation—is still alive, if not exactly well.
The
Heavy Bear: On Delmore Schwartz. By John Ashberry. The New Yorker , February 18, 2016.
More poems here :
No comments:
Post a Comment