Robert Creeley: So There

.

Persian lacquer binding, 18th century: cover of Persian manuscript: Collected Works of Ḥāfiẓ: Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ [?1799] (Rare Books and Fine Printing Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand)

...for Penelope Highton

 
Da. Da. Da da.
       Where is the song.
What’s wrong
       with life
 
ever. More?
       Or less --
days, nights,
       these
 
days. What's gone
       is gone forever
every time, old friend's
       voice here. I want
 
to stay, somehow,
       if I could --
if I would? Where else
       to go.
 
The sea here's out
       the window, old
switcher's house, vertical,
       railroad blues, lonesome

whistle, etc. Can you
       think of Yee's Cafe
in Needles, California
       opposite the train
 
station -- can you keep
       it ever
together, old buddy, talking
       to yourself again?
 
Meantime some yuk
       in Hamilton has blown
the whistle on a charming
       evening I wanted
 
to remember otherwise --
       the river there, that
afternoon, sitting,
       friends, wine & chicken,
 
watching the world go by.
       Happiness, happiness --
so simple. What's
       that anger is that
 
competition -- sad! --
       when this at least
is free,
       to put it mildly.
 
My aunt Bernice
       in Nokomis,
Florida's last act,
       a poem for Geo. Washington's
 
birthday. Do you want
       to say ‘It's bad’?
In America, old sport,
       we shoot first, talk later,
 
or just take you out to dinner.
       No worries, or not
at the moment,
       sitting here eating bread,
 
cheese, butter, white wine --
       like Bolinas, ‘Whale Town,’
my home, like they say,
       in America. It's one world
 
it can't be another.
       So the beauty,
beside me, rises,
       looks now out window --
 
and breath keeps on breathing,
       heart's pulled in
a sudden, deep, sad
       longing, to want
 
to stay -- be another
       person some day,
when I grow up.
       The world's somehow
 
forever that way
       and its lovely, roily,
shifting shores, sounding now,
       in my ears. My ears?
 
Well, what's on my head
       as two skin appendages,
comes with the package,
       I don't want to
 
argue the point.
       Tomorrow
it changes, gone,
       abstract, new places --
 
moving on. Is this
       some old time weird
Odysseus trip
       sans paddle -- up
 
the endless creek?
       Thinking of you,
baby, thinking
       of all the things
 
I'd like to say and do.
       Old fashioned time
it takes to be
       anywhere, at all.
 
Moving on. Mr. Ocean,
       Mr. Sky's
got the biggest blue eyes
       in creation --

here comes the sun!
       While we can,
let's do it, let's
       have fun.


Robert Creeley: So There, from Hello (Hawk Press, Taylors Mistake, Christchurch, New Zealand), 1976

  

 

 "New life": Lane's Emulsion restores and maintains health: Stanley Davis (1882?-1938), colour lithograph by the Christchurch Press, 1927 (Printed Ephemera Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand)

Maltexo for Growing Greater: New Zealand Railways poster for Wilson's Maltexo, chromolithograph, c. 1935 (Printed Ephemera Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand)

 

The Great Levante … How's Tricks: poster for Opera House, Wellington, chromolithograph, 1941 (Printed Ephemera Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand)

The Fun of the Fair: poster for New Zealand Centennial Exhibition of 1939-40, offset lithograph by Charles Haines Advertising Agency Ltd, N.Z., November 1939 (Printed Ephemera Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand)

New Zealand Line. R.M.S. Rangitata in Gaillard Cut: poster for New Zealand Shipping Company Ltd, screenprint, early 1930s (Printed Ephemera Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand)