....Valley of the Isolated Tree 16 August 1916
Huddled
in these guts of rubble
hour on hour
I've dragged my mud
worn
carcass
slithering through
the ooze
an old shoe sole or
a seed of rusted whitethorn
Ungaretti man
of pain
illusion
is enough to encourage you
Out there
in the fog
a searchlight
creates a sea
Leaves of European Birch (Fagus): photo by The cat, 2006
..Non più m'attragano i paesaggi erranti
Del mare, né dell'alba il lacerante
Pallore sopra queste o quelle foglie;
Nemmeno più contrasto col macigno,
Antica notte che sugli occhi porto.
..Le immagini a che prò
Per me dimenticata?
Foggy sunset with Brown Pelicans: photo by Mila Zinkova, 2009
Chino open-pit copper mine, outside Silver City, New Mexico: photo by Eric Guinther, 2003
There must be something unusual in the air today, the buildings seem to be moving. Or is it just me?
(I was going to say it reminds me of the rolling motion of happy flesh upon the midsection of a jogger in the violet-streaked hush of the boxy evening, but now I have changed my mind, as there is a great deal of noise in the area, and far too much light remaining, or maybe advancing, for this to be described as evening, and I see no jogger in the picture, nor boxes either, in any case.)
Light is having a curious effect on the falling snowflakes. It is making them visible.
(There is a copper spire, or perhaps I should call it a steeple, just up ahead here, I think; though it may simply be I have smudged my eyeglasses, for the sharp weather causes my eyes to trickle; unless, that is, it is simply the trickling of the eyes, coming into contact with the withered lower tiers of the ancient countenance, that creates the impression of bitterness in the weather and of copperiness in the, let us admit seriously reduced, field of vision.)
The tulips are like clouds, in a way. Or perhaps I should say, the clouds are like tulips, in a way.
(Taking something out and working something in, resting comfortably and jogging, as a cradle is rocked, these are the margins, I meant to say the rhythms, of my spring song, I meant to say winter, continually making things up as I go along, ostensibly so as not to come to the end, but actually so as to prolong the middle so cunningly as to trick it into believing, if only for a moment, if only with suspicion, that it is still but the beginning, just waking, having a stretch and a song.)
Something large and blue is affecting my vision. It is either the sky or my winter muffler.
(There is every likelihood it is definitely my winter muffler, I am all but certain.)
I think the sun is out, but on this point certainty is not easily brought to bear, that large luminous object could as easily be the moon, or for that matter a streetlamp.
(It could also be the glaring ocular apparatus of a huge one-eyed ceramic rocking horse, whose motions I had earlier mistaken for those of a cradle.)
Only a moment ago, when I saw those buildings, I was sure I was in the city, but now I see no buildings, so this may actually be the country, or perhaps the suburbs.
(There are stems, but no leaves, protruding from the earth, unless, that is, the stems are stumps, and the earth is pavement, or perhaps finely-ground grey rubble, strewn with leaves -- copper stumps, copper leaves, that coppery feeling again, and, too, the metallic crunch when one treads upon the copper leaves.)
The 'Great Pit', mining area of the Great Copper Mountain, Falun, Sweden: photo by mig sjüalv, 2006
I have a feeling it is one of the winter months at present, December perhaps, or one of the other ones, November, January, March, and so on.
(Golden streaks line the edges of the furry black shapes that pop up peripherally, as I speak, and as quickly disappear again, these cannot be tulips, they must be clouds: unless, that is, they are the images of people; not actual people mind you -- there are of course none of those around, it is the holiday, the city and the country and the suburbs lie dead and vacant -- but the simulacra of people that populate my imagination, of those there is no lack, in fact more and more of them are popping up even as I say this.)
Given the choice, I would prefer one of the summer months, I believe.
(Kisses, blowing motions of the unpursed lips, solicitations of blessing, accompanied by the concession of pretentions to attention, the resignation of claims to preference, or perhaps the reverse, that is, the concession of claims to preference, or then again the sudden preference for claims to attention, or the grudging resignation of pretentions to claim, or finally the surrenders of claim, the resignation of concession, the preferences given over and yet again reclaimed, and as quickly forgotten, here, now, on this winter's, or summer's, night, or day.)
Well, that's all there was to say, or to pretend to say, for tonight, or today. One really ought to be running along now.
(But I feel I am breathing a little poorly, it must be that tailings dust from the copper mines. This wasn't mentioned in the syllabus, the gasping from the fumes, the inhaling of the vapors, the exhaling of the vapors, more difficult still -- or was it? Fine print was never my forte. Now the memories come flocking back, in finely-powdered particulate form, ground-up bits of the temples we'd gone to see, the sanctuaries, the ruins, ah the ruins, the ancient halls reduced to cracked and tumbled blocks of stone, the wretched starved weeds, the encroaching cobwebs, the mould, the places in which we had worshipped, I wouldn't exactly say prayed, but paid our observances, a hotel now to lizards, to scorpions and rats, the battiness of the dust-filled ancient halls, the collapsing tunnels, the choking aerosols of the noisome intrusive unending memories, I can't get over you, I can't remember what I wanted to tell you, I can't stop telling you, I can't tell you, I can't stop being surprised, there are no surprises left in store, it all breaks down, it all falls apart, still there is more, it all works in together, it blends, it cooperates, it says soft things in the sad low hush of the secret quiet dark, no it doesn't, I lied, it must be the tailings dust.)
Laser beam directed toward the centre of the Milky Way from Yepun laser star guide facility at ESO Paranal Observatory, Chile, crossing the southern sky and creating an artificial star at 90 km. altitude in Earth's mesosphere: photo by ESO/Yuri Beletsky, 2010
What causes the noises (or silence)?
(Adopt, for the sake of the internal demand to be writing something, a theory of causality)
What causes the light and shadows: Full moon? Bedlamp? Clouded sunlight?
(It will probably help to be a bit unclear about the light source, so as to eke out as many speculative projections as possible, thus adding the requisite dash of sensibility)
What effects does the light have on objects in the room, and on you?
(Don't attempt to fool yourself into thinking this matters to anyone, but keep in mind the fact that subjective impressions will add nuance to your expression)
Make a list of everything you can see and hear outside.
(Again, no one cares, but it's this sort of harmless cultivated irrelevance that helps reassure one's patrons)
What makes it light or dark out?
(Obvious questions deserve complicated answers: remember, this is poetry, stretch things as far as you can, and then a bit further)
Are there trees outside? What causes the leaves to move and change their colors? What effects do they have on birds and the sky and you?
(Keep in mind that everybody knows the answer to the first two questions, and nobody cares about the answer to the third -- but elaboration is to be desired, at any cost; after all, what better way is there to waste the time, while accumulating a few more lines?)
What person or event does the room remind you of? Why?
(This should be easy, like pinning the tail on the donkey, and then picking the name of someone wealthy or powerful or some event of curious yet slightly arcane significance to give the donkey)
What time of day is it?
(Don't just settle for looking at the clock, try to scrape up some aesthetically "interesting" atmospherics)
Look at one object inside or outside and describe its shape in detail. (Exaggerate if you wish!)
(No, hold that, in this business lying is everything -- exaggerate whether you wish or not!)
Still from Glocken aus der Tiefe (Bells from the Deep): Werner Herzog, 1993
There But For Fortune, the Phil Ochs documentary directed by Ken Bowser, opens in New York
in January.
The film takes us back to the folk/protest epoch of the 1960s, and follows the career of Ochs
while chronicling the major social and political events of the period (civil rights, Viet Nam & c.).
Few of which the busy troubadour Ochs, spiritual offspring of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger,
did not work into a song.
It's remarked by a friend, in the film, that all Phil had to do to get a song was open the New York
Times.
Ochs' earnest sardonic lyrics, his bitter wit and biting commentary, were distinctive.
He had the voice of a crooner implanted upon a soul that was born to always be cankering about
something or other.
After some years of success, Ochs went into a bad decline, career-wise and personally. He drank
heavily. Friends feared for him.
The movie is frank, candid, unflinching on the subject of Ochs' many troubles. It's also terribly sad.
Ochs' brother Michael fearlessly confronts the issue of his brother's demons. You get the feeling
he's worked through all this before.
At a certain point about two-thirds of the way through the documentary, you get that Uh-oh, I don't
like where this is going feeling.
A fellow "counterculture" folk singer, the poet Ed Sanders, was close with Phil.
Sanders' testimony in the film is perhaps the most affecting of the many close-up talking-heads
reports.
Ochs was only thirty-five when he went out to his sister's place in Far Rockaway and hung himself.
Sanders recounts the shock of the news.
"I went out to where he was staying, you know, where he had hung himself.
"This was a day or so after it happened. He had hung himself off, I guess, a hook on the wall. I went
out there just to look at it, to re-create it in my mind.
"It was so horrifying.
* * *
"He attracted really close friendships, and that's why people [around him] were so traumatized, and
full of angst, in his later years.
"He just couldn't stop drinking. I know it was guilt. He felt guilty, you know, about his daughter and
his marriage.
"When you make mistakes there are no time machines to rectify mistakes, so mistakes are lodged
like harpoons and fish-hooks in an intelligent person's soul.
"And I think Phil couldn't get beyond those personal harpoons that made him feel, in some ways,
worthless."
![[Mrs. Ella Watson, a government charwoman, with three grandchildren and her adopted daughter]](http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/ppmsca/05800/05823r.jpg)
Canopic tomb burial jars containing the organs of Neskhons, wife of Pinedjem II; calcite, with painted wooden heads, from Deir el-Behri royal cache, c. 990-969 BC: image by Captmondo, 2008 (British Museum)
More resolutions, while we're at it. (That's right: resolutely, more resolutions.) Make abundant use of the principle of parsimony, as if it were familiar to me (it is not too late). Assume notably henceforward that the thing said and the thing heard have a common source (resisting for this purpose the temptation to call in question the possibility of assuming anything whatever). Situate this source in me (without specifying where exactly, no finicking): anything is preferable to the consciousness of third parties and (more generally speaking) of an outer world. Carry if necessary this process of compression to the point of abandoning all other postulates than that of a deaf half-wit, hearing nothing of what he says and understanding even less. Evoke at painful junctures (when discouragement threatens to raise its head) the image of a vast cretinous mouth (red, blubber and slobbering) in solitary confinement, extruding indefatigably (with a noise of wet kisses and washing in a tub) the words that obstruct it. Set aside once and for all (at the same time as the analogy with orthodox damnation) all idea of beginning and end. Overcome (that goes without saying) the fatal leaning towards expressiveness. Equate me (without pity or scruple) with him who exists (somehow, no matter how, no finicking), with him whose story this story had the brief ambition to be. Better: ascribe to me a body. Better still: arrogate to me a mind. Speak of a world of my own (sometimes referred to as the inner) without choking. Doubt no more. Seek no more. Take advantage of the brand-new soul and substantiality to abandon, with the only possible abandon, deep down within. And finally (these and other decisions having been taken) carry on cheerfully as before.
Something has changed nevertheless. Not a word about Mahood, or Worm, for the past..... Ah yes, I nearly forgot: speak of time, without flinching. And what is more, it just occurs to me (by a natural association of ideas), treat of space with the same easy grace. As if it were not bunged up on all sides, a few inches away. After all that's something - a few inches - to be thankful for. It gives one air: room for the tongue to loll, to have lolled, to loll on.
Samuel Beckett: from The Unnamable (1959)
