Fire Sermon Redux: Revisiting T.S. Eliot

"For once I myself saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a cage, and when the boys said to her 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she replied, 'I want to die.'" Petronius, Satyricon. In the original draft, he used a quote from Heart of Darkness: Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision - he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath - 'The horror! The horror!'

The first time I read The Waste Land was in an undergraduate literature class. I was maybe 20 years old. I remember being awed by the poem's language and scope, and by the sense of loss that seeped in between every chewy, tactile word. And although I'd been writing poetry on the sly for almost 10 years at that point, it had never occurred to me that a poem could do... all that. I never credit myself with genius; I've known genius writers so I know the difference; and really, Mostly I plod along and stumble over things that I end up playing with on the page. And since I learned most of what I knew about history from cartoons and literature ...  (maybe not) surprisingly little in class ... up to that point, it was the first I'd read about the world after World War I. I had a young man's view of history -- namely, anything that happened before my birth, whether it was the Revolutionary War or Vietnam -- was OLD. I tried expressing this to the professor, Ron Morrison, once in a conference, and I think both my absolute rubism and my exasperation at needing more put him off. 

My love for T.S. Eliot's poetry has always been at odds with some of the politics people read in his work. It's unavoidable, I suppose. The Waste Land  is a deeply socio-political poem and he was, towards the end of his life, a notoriously conservative Tory. His early association with Ezra Pound -- who was saved from the rope for supporting  Hitler and Mussolini only because he was found psychologically unfit to stand trial for treason -- hasn't helped. 

And while I don't have to agree with a poet's politics to like their poetry, it's difficult to overlook the literary company Eliot kept. In an time when there's a lot of talk about cultural appropriation, revisiting T.S. Eliot is like trying to keep your footing in a mudslide.  Yes, he  borrowed (or stole, depending on how deep your reading into decolonialization is) from a cross-section of every culture that white Europeans have historically colonized or attempted to colonize.  It's necessary to recognize that -- in spite of the debt I feel I owe to his poetry. Overlooking it because he's dead or because he's been categorized as one of "the greats" by those who feel like they have the ability to offer up such an opinion doesn't help anyone, including Eliot.

  
I've been reading around in an anthology edited by Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland, The Making of  a Sonnet and was surprised to come across the first stanza of the "The Fire Sermon."

from poetryarchive.org

Granted, I hadn't read it in a long time, but I lived in "The Fire Sermon" for a long, long time, both on and off the page. The form and focus of my Expedition Notes was inspired by it in many ways. So reading it as a sonnet rather than a stanza surprised me. It shook me out of a long established context. And while I'm grateful to Boland and Hirsch for bringing this back to me and for providing another context, I'm not sure it's a sonnet in the traditional sense. 

Then again, sonnets don't have to be traditional anymore. And thank God for that. 

Various critics have argued that the sense loss in The Waste Land is the poetic version of the idiot's guide to nationalism.  But in 2011, Pouneh Saeedi argued that rather than embracing nationalism, The Waste Land seeks to unify seemingly disparate and false dualities. 

Now I like that idea: Eliot as man looking for a unifying principle, the poet's version of The Theory of Everything.  I'm still sifting that one through the brain box, but I like it. And while I'm not sure that 14 lines alone makes a sonnet, it did make me want to take a stab at one: 

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by dirtysacred (@dirtysacred)

“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”*

I had recent conversation about higher education and my thoughts on returning to the classroom, and while digging through some old files (looking for something else) I found this word collage. Names have been changed, and I apologize to the family of A.A. Milne and the creators of The Flintstones.

Word Collage / RE: ANNUAL EVALUATION

"During this review period (... one calendar year [January 1, 2008- December 31, 2008]...) your TEACHING SCORES -- RANGING FROM 1.17 TO 1.37 AND AVERAGING AN OVERALL 1.25 -- ARE BETTER THAN THE DEPARTMENTAL MEAN FOR BOTH YOUR RANK AND THE LEVEL OF CLASSES YOU TAUGHT. Students comment on your entertaining style and your pedagogy. "

/splice/

Your annual performance evaluation for this year is as follows:

Teaching: 2

Service: 1

Professional Development: 1

Overall: 1.8

{NOTE:  3=Meritorious performance. 2= Satisfactory performance. 1 = Unsatisfactory performance}

/splice/

"Your self-evaluation with no supplemental materials offers little evidence of service contributions and no evidence of professional development..."

/splice/

{NOTE: ON COURSE EVALUATONS, the lower the number the better. So a 1 = to an 'A'}

/splice/

From:

To: The Grand Pooh-Bah

Sent: Wed Mar 04 07:37:20 2009

Subject: Meeting to Discuss Annual Review

I am sending my annual review back signed, via campus mail, and I have saved a copy for my records. However, as you will notice, I would like to discuss it in more detail sometime soon. My score for Service does not reflect my contributions on the Steering Committee THIS academic year – which I did mention (and I thought, at some length) in my self-evaluation. Also, as with my evaluation last year, I am at a loss as to what I can do about Professional Development, as most of the opportunities that might apply are either not conducive to my schedule or too expensive.

Moreover, I am still left with the impression that being a good instructor means little or nothing… which seems ironic to me, since that’s what I was hired to do.

I am on campus on MWF and I teach from 7:30-12:40.  Is there a time soon that we could sit down and chat?

Regards,

/splice/

PLEASE RETAIN ONE COPY OF THIS LETTER FOR YOUR RECORDS AND RETURN ONE SIGNED COPY TO ME BY MARCH 23.

_X_ I will schedule an interview to discuss this review.

__ I will not schedule an interview to discuss this review.

From: The Grand Pooh-Bah

Sent: Wed 3/4/2009 10:29 AM

To: 

Cc: Pooh-Bah No. 2

Subject: Re: Meeting to Discuss Annual Review

Main Office staff makes my appointments.

--------------------------

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

/splice/

____________

* Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

going viral

Thanks for reading! If you like what I'm doing, please consider leaving a tip. It helps keep the lights on. Thanks again!

Darkness as the absence, not the opposite of light (For Smiley) - A Draft

 My father, I think,

wanted to be a deliberate man.

On days when the boil in my blood near overflows

I imagine what the sensation must feel like.

These ill-humors do no one any good.

Do I blame the rain? Should I pray for the sun?

Would Heaven part for the prayers

of yet another more sinner?

Ghosts of a stern religious past

cast my lot in with theirs –

resigned, at last, to darkness.

At least there is no rain.

I think of my father.

I hope for the sun.

The floor is dirty

and dishes to be done

and obligations to fulfill

between now and moonrise

when all our dead fathers rattle their chains

and bade us revenge

this murder most foul.

Please check out my work for sale in the STORE and  on Amazon.
You can also throw a little in the tip jar:

Exile Verse #2: desgracia

I knew the message was clear. In the dream
a hungry tribal pig climbed into my bed
sank its carnivorous teeth into my wrist
and dragged me under.

I knew by the painted markings and hollow eyes
from what parts my harbinger hailed. We’d met before
when neither of us was lean or tired or branded.

It knows my terrible secret:
on my own, I am not particularly brave.

I battle the inevitable exile
send poems to defend my father’s good name.

It’s only in those moments of pure uncertainty and terror
when ecstasy takes over and I find my own power.

Thinking back, I try to remember
when I was thusly marked.
Remembering is hard.
The maps have all disappeared.

I reject every advantage.
I flaunt the politest of instructions.
I laugh at the kindest admonishments
and mock civilized law.

Heaven embraces the fool society will not suffer.
But there is no Heaven here.
The black birds tell me it is too soon.

I know this world will grind me to dust.
If there truly is Grace, I hope I keep my heart intact.

If I am to be destitute let there be a grand symphony of words.

If you like what you're reading here, I have work for sale on my amazon author page:
www.amazon.com/author/mickparsons

Letting loose the Gonzo: the baboon formerly known as a civilized man

GonzoFest 2017 was a wonderful experience, in spite of the fact that I remembered everything I needed but somehow managed to forget my copies of the poems I'd prepared to perform. 

It's true I was nervous. I wasn't sure how large the audience would be. Then again, I've performed in front of audiences ranging between one and 100 or more, in venues ranging from open mics to Moth Story Slam stages, to bars full of drunk post-punk Gen Xers and newly non-bearded hispters looking for a new craft brew experience. I've read in front of church marms and firebrand preachers and people who, in another world, might be considered saints, as well as some others who embrace the truth that we are all sinners.

But lately, I've taken a different approach to taking the stage. Regardless of whether I'm performing with a music soundtrack or reading poems, whether they are written to be performed or written to be read (and yes, there's a difference), I've decided that it's better to be confident than it is to be humble. I've known some fine poets who stand up and exude supreme calm and supreme humility, and supreme confidence. When I'm being honest, though, I'm not that calm patrician poet who can charm the audience and let the words roll forth like thunder.

Poetry, for me, is lightening. Poetry is an epic baptismal flood. Poetry is a god damn holy fire. And while I hold some poets in high regards who can carry the day with gravitas and civilized restraint, the fact is that there as many different kinds of poets as their poems. 

And while I have tried to become something like a member of civilized society, the fact is that somewhere along the way, I lost the part of me that might have been able to embrace a completely socialized life. It's not even that I was ever NOT socially awkward. But the fact is, somewhere underneath all of it, there was something else. 

Poetry -- and the arts in general -- do help civilizations be more cultured, kind, and heartfelt. However, when poetry -- and the arts in general -- takes hold of a person, it's more akin to demon possession. There's very little surety in art. You're constantly bombarded with different ideas and different people and different cultural pushes, all of which act to influence you, your art, and your vision. To be an artist is to be comfortable in uncertainty and to be willing to embrace mysteries. It means following your own bad advice sometimes, if only so you can make it out on the other side and write about it.

I was lucky at GonzoFest because I was able to ask my wife to run home and get them. But when it was time to take the stage, I knew there was no room uncertainty.  I was rattled. I was entirely too sober. And I was worried that my first live performance using a music track would fall as flat like a flat-earther's science test score. 

But since I've come to terms some of the more unsavory parts of my character, I've found it easier to let go of my nerves. You take in enough demons and you end up becoming one... or partially one. 

The part of me I lost, the part of me I never found, the part of me that, was maybe never there to begin

with, filled up with poetry.  Or, at least, with something that may feed my need to write and chase poetry like a rabid baboon.

If you like what you're reading here, I have work for sale on my amazon author page:
www.amazon.com/author/mickparsons

Day 13 into the Burning of Rome (poem)

We are digging around for answers.
smoke and ash make it difficult to read the etchings.

Somewhere over the ridge
a child is drinking dirty water.

Pale hate marketeers are pedaling contaminated snake oil
to combat the accompanying stomach illness.

Only the preachers and paleontologists know
the answer is in the dirt.

The Sisters of Perpetual Consummation are in the temple taking on new parishioners
for less than the usual market value of pearl-esque flesh.

Corporate Grand Wizards whisper their secrets into the ears
of corrupt mistresses who, for a few strips of half-rotted meat
and a few sips of stale beer
will sell your soul to the highest bidder
and auction off your testicles
for mothballs and a mouthful of pre-apocalypse scotch.

Teflon-suited oligarchs march forward
carrying on their war against the unsightly poor:
they declare new operations against Appalachia

while self-appointed store-front charlatans
(posing as holy men) proclaim their gospel
for a perpetual tithe of ten percent
and the choice of congregants' virgin daughters to bed.

The preachers and paleontologists make some progress.
They've called in a small group of esoteric linguists
and neo-formalist poets to aid in some of the translations.

But the work is slow and filled with delays.
The road between the dig and the camp is littered with shrapnel
and the giant rusted bones of all our fallen deities.
And every few miles there is a new toll to pay.

There is talk of moving the camp
but all the translators have gone on a hunger strike
and no one can establish a quorum.

And no one has the audacity to simply stay.
(They exchanged their backbones for exit visas.)

The truth is in the dirt.
Every morning is spent removing the mud
from the previous night's damage
and tracking the inevitable erosion.

If you like what you're reading here, I have work for sale on my amazon author page:
www.amazon.com/author/mickparsons

Poem Draft: Baptism in the Nose Bleeds

Hope rises expectant on Opening Day.

Last season’s transgressions are forgiven.

For a moment, we are wide-eyed.

For a moment, we are in love with the scent of a well-oiled leather mitt.

For a moment we are eager to knock off old dirt

and silence everything

except the welcome canticles of beer and hotdog vendors.

For a moment we shut out the prognostications of cynical game announcers.

For a moment unbelievers pray the Yankees don’t buy another pennant

and the faithful prepare to have their faith justified

or risk persecution by the All-Star Break.

For a moment all our digital distractions disappear –

politicians and their polished shit soliloquys are shushed

and all the noble rivalries rise to the surface.

You judge your friends by whether they watch the Cubs or the White Sox

and if they know Tom Seaver’s number

and if they embrace the dream of seeing Pete Rose in Cooperstown.

For a moment

the day, the hour, the minute, and the weight of all the ages past

rest upon whether that first pitch and the sound of the ball hitting the bat.

If you like what you're reading here, I have work for sale on my amazon author page:
www.amazon.com/author/mickparsons
You can also leave a tip if you'd like. Thanks for reading!

From the Daybook: Waiting for Gonzalo Guerrero

Waiting for Gonzalo Guerrero*

There is crystallized dirt as far as the eye can see.

Age old trees groan in the throes

of the mathematical expansion of ice.

Only the bluebirds are out this morning,

stripping the last few berries off the holly branches.

Already, the mind carries these bones into the future:

long hours of sleep haunted by dreams of an unknowable Spring.

This moment fades like December Solstice light

and we play the someday game

after the manner of our venerable forebearers.

This moment flashes and the image

is a poor representation.

Each trip to the grocery store,

we behave like Times Square tourists

who need pictures as proof

because no one trusts a memory.

Memory is a starving dog

covered in crystallized dirt

huddling outside the back door.

Sentimental as we are, we like the dog

until it chews the old man’s chair and is banished outside

left to wait for that unknowable spring

that might as easily bring bounty or conquistadors from the subterranean depths.

-- 4 Jan 2014, Louisville KY

Mural of Guerrero by Fernando Castro Pacheco (1918-2013)

 


















____________________________________  
*Gonzalo Guerrero was a Spanish mariner from Palos who was shipwrecked on the Yucatan Peninsula. He was captured by, and later won his freedom from, the Mayans. He eventually married a Mayan woman, raised three children, and fought with the Mayans against the early conquistadors. Although no written record of him exists, his children were supposedly the first children of mixed descent in the New World.