This should come as no surprise: on the last day of National Poetry Month, we turn to William Butler Yeats, whose “Sailing to Byzantium” inspired the name of this site. Below you will find that incredible poem, as well as another favorite of mine from Yeats’ early period.

William Butler Yeats

Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees –
Those dying generations — at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

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In the spirit of a recently-expressed desire for the end of National Poetry Month and a return to feverish political debate, I took the liberty of combining the two and cutting up the President’s remarks from last night’s press conference. Here’s what it looks like to me, but I’m sure you could splice it any way you want.

Pax Americana

I

I’ve traveled the country to talk with the
American people
They understand
I happen to be one of them

A majority of Americans disapprove
So I’m not surprised
The American people understand
Why aren’t you doing something to fix it?

There’s a hole in the safety net
Why is that the case?

But I also understand the mind of the American people
They’re wondering what’s going on
America is a hopeful place in the future
And we’ll continue to work with China on this issue.

And all that’s left behind is cabinets full of IOUs
I can leave it whomever I want
Now, I hear complaints saying,
Well, you know, there’s going to be high –
Fleece the people

II

You can’t wave a magic wand. I wish I could.
It’s like that soldier at Fort Hood.
I said, I wish I could.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to shoot it down?
It just doesn’t work that way.

It’s amazing, isn’t it, that people want to serve?
It’s kind of a zero-sum attitude.

You bet, we’re going to fight people before they harm us.
There are some positive noises on Capitol Hill.

We’ll be relentless, we’ll be smart
We’ll use our friends and allies
We’ll find them where they hid

III

Some aren’t happy with democracy.
You’re like a dog chasing your tail.
But Iraq is – they’ve got people.

IV

We went down to Crawford with Jiang Zemin.
Really happy to talk to him.
I hope he comes soon.

V

And the reason why I think it’s working is because we’re measuring.
And I can say that with certainty, because we’re measuring.
Instead of just spending money and hoping for the best, we’re now spending money
And saying,
Measure.

And some people don’t like to measure.
I believe it’s best to measure early.
In other words, we said,
We’re going to measure.

It shouldn’t bother whether you measure.
That’s all we’re asking.
And that’s just not right in America.
It wasn’t working.

VI

Now wait, don’t get personal here, that’s international TV.
That’s a cheap shot.
In other words, if you’re a two-working family,
See what I’m saying?
It seems unfair to me.

I’ve talked to too many people when their spouse died early
And all they got was a burial benefit.
If you die early, that’s an asset you can leave to your
Spouse or children.
The system today is not fair,
Particularly if a spouse has died early.
And this will help remedy that.

VII

Let me finish with the TV people first.
You’re not a TV person, Ed. I know you’d like to be.
Stretch? Do you mind if I call you Stretch?
Final question, Hutch?
For the sake of the economy.

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Looks like the rumors were true — the New York Times reports that Uglesich’s is closing (thanks to Rod for the tip). You can read my thoughts on this New Orleans culinary landmark here, and you should definitely check out the Times article by legendary gourmand R.W. Apple Jr. — you’ll understand why I was raving about the place.

That shrimp and grit cake appetizer was the stuff that dreams are made of.

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I know that I’m helplessly late, in blog-time, to be commenting on this (blog-time moves three-times faster than the hands on Big Ben — the morning’s news is already stale by evening), but I was appalled by how many GOP talking points were reinforced in Matt Bai’s lead story in the New York Times Magazine last Sunday. Titled Democratic Moral Values?, the piece detailed the plight of that lovable, but hopelessly befuddled Democratic Party.

Disguised as a “where we need to go from here” piece that discusses Democratic reactions to the Shiavo case, the article echoed many criticisms of Democrats made by Republicans. It’s the kind of thing that drives me absolutely crazy, because it silently and insidiously transforms partisan insult into collective wisdom. We saw this happen when the Bush campaign branded Kerry as a flip-flopper, and the MSM helped make that label stick by incorporating it as an assumption.

In truth, most liberal commentators, such as Kos, approved of Harry Reid’s strategy. The Democrats saw that they were backed into a corner. If they had stepped forward to fight the GOP, they would have been branded as the “party of death.” By stepping aside when the GOP expected them to play the straw man, the Democrats gave Republicans the open ground they needed to trip over their own feet.

For some, of course, no confrontation is complete until defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory, which is why we end up with dreck like this:

Funny, but as I remember the incident, Republicans emerged as “the party making veiled threats against the judicial system,” while Democrats emerged as “the party that defends the system of government laid out in the Constitution.” But I guess I was wrong.

Want to know why “it’s not easy to imagine most Democrats credibly sermonizing”? Because journalists like Matt Bai have helped misrepresent Democrats as godless pols pandering for votes in whatever churches will tolerate them. Doesn’t Bai realize that his words and Wolf Blitzer’s slurs on Paul Begala’s Catholic faith are of a piece?

Bai’s criticisms of the Democratic Party so closely echo Republican criticisms of the Democratic party that it simply smacks of the usual GOP talking points, dressed up as journalistic analysis. But that’s nothing new, is it?

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One intrepid reader, Yoko of The Ballad of Yoko, took me up on the found poem exercise. Bravo, Yoko!

I hope that her example encourages others to take the plunge. Check out the link above for the rules.

Yoko

Love Poem

— pieced from J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

She was a funny girl, old Jane.
She knocked me out.
I couldn’t get her off my mind.
I told her I loved her and all.
I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life.
I really should’ve been a crook.

What a goddam fool I was.
Don’t ever tell anybody anything.
I know it’s crazy –
I’m as lonesome as hell.
Don’t let me disappear.

Rod

These are just some headlines from CNN, cobbled together.

CNN

The boy and the falling skyscrapers
Girls using steroids for looks
Sex doctors in the basement?

The Birds is coming — again
U2’s Bono bunks at Bill Gates’s home

Man spits in face at signing
His spirit is filled with gospel

Unlocking a whale’s demise
Could plant ivory save elephants?

Albuquerque prepares for 300th birthday
Super-jumbo set for maiden flight

George Lopez gets wife’s kidney
Cojocaru discusses transplant

salmon

This poem found me last year while processing books donated to the library where I worked. A well-used copy of Albert Camus’ “The Stranger” (translator, Matthew Ward) made its way to my desk. Its former owner, likely a student, had underlined many words, phrases, and passages with a pencil. This poem is based on anonymous underlined parts of the first page the book. The title comes from the only note written in the margin of the first page.

distance vs. emotions

be there
vigil
come back tomorrow night
I didn’t have anything to apologize for
day after tomorrow
it’s almost as if Maman weren’t dead
After the funeral
case closed

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Since I’ve started writing these poetry posts for National Poetry Month, I’ve tried to stay away from the usual suspects. It has been a great challenge, and has introduced me to many new writers.

I just discovered Tony Hoagland today. I very much like what I see, and look forward to reading more of his work.

Posting will be light this week, as I am in New York to teach a web design class, but I’m going to try to keep this poetry-train chugging until the end of the month.

Tony Hoagland

Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet

At this height, Kansas
is just a concept,
a checkerboard design of wheat and corn

no larger than the foldout section
of my neighbor’s travel magazine.
At this stage of the journey

I would estimate the distance
between myself and my own feelings
is roughly the same as the mileage

from Seattle to New York,
so I can lean back into the upholstered interval
between Muzak and lunch,

a little bored, a little old and strange.
I remember, as a dreamy
backyard kind of kid,

tilting up my head to watch
those planes engrave the sky
in lines so steady and so straight

they implied the enormous concentration
of good men,
but now my eyes flicker

from the in-flight movie
to the stewardess’s pantyline,
then back into my book,

where men throw harpoons at something
much bigger and probably
better than themselves,

wanting to kill it,
wanting to see great clouds of blood erupt
to prove that they exist.

Imagine being born and growing up,
rushing through the world for sixty years
at unimaginable speeds.

Imagine a century like a room so large,
a corridor so long
you could travel for a lifetime

and never find the door,
until you had forgotten
that such a thing as doors exist.

Better to be on board the Pequod,
with a mad one-legged captain
living for revenge.

Better to feel the salt wind
spitting in your face,
to hold your sharpened weapon high,

to see the glisten
of the beast beneath the waves.
What a relief it would be

to hear someone in the crew
cry out like a gull,
Oh Captain, Captain!
Where are we going now?

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Yesterday, cats. Today, fish.

Elizabeth Bishop

The Fish

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
–the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly–
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
–It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
–if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels–until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

Mary Oliver

The Fish

The first fish
I ever caught
would not lie down
quiet in the pail
but flailed and sucked
at the burning
amazement of the air
and died
in the slow pouring off
of rainbows. Later
I opened his body and separated
the flesh from the bones
and ate him. Now the sea
is in me: I am the fish, the fish
glitters in me; we are
risen, tangled together, certain to fall
back to the sea. Out of pain,
and pain, and more pain
we feed this feverish plot, we are nourished
by the mystery.

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Well, I had to return my digital camera to buydig last week because they sent me a gray-market piece of crap that made weird noises as it focused and wrote to the memory card. It also had spots of dirt on the lens when it arrived, and the battery charger didn’t work correctly. Thankfully, they gave me a full refund without charging me the 10-20% “restocking fee” they usually do, but I still wasted thirty bucks on shipping. Next time I’ll get it at newegg or in person at a store.

Since I can’t give you any real Friday cat blogging, I figure that, in honor of National Poetry Month, I’ll provide the next-best thing: a little Friday cat-poem blogging.

This is from Christopher Smart’s “Jubilate Agno,” a long, fragmented work that can be found in his Selected Poems.

In case you don’t know, Christopher Smart was a mad good poet, yo, and also just plain mad.

I’ve noticed, by the way, that my cat is a little different than Jeoffry. She goes in quest of food firstly.

Christopher Smart

Jubilate Agno [excerpt]

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually–Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

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Since I am nominally responsible for the sleeves of the Tattered Coat, I thought I would compose a brief (oh, who am I kidding, I don’t know the meaning of the word) discursion on the subject.

Some people recommend the use of fake sleeves, in the form of tattoos, although I have no idea why anyone would want to do such a thing. But you can check them out here. Or here. Oddly, the second link involves the wearing of clothing that is supposed to look like a tattoo, rather than a tattoo that is supposed to resemble clothing. This kind of behaviour starts to approach a form of sleeve fetishism with which I am frankly rather uncomfortable. Either wear sleeves or don’t. Just please don’t be coy about it.

Some people take the notion of the sleeve qua sleeve rather seriously, such that they even go so far as to make an academic career out of it, as follows. There are, evidently, more sleeves in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your or my philosophy, including my personal favorite, the raglan sleeve (see figures 16 through 19). I understand, although I have no personal experience in this area, that the knitting of the sleeve can be the source of much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of the knitter. If you, on the other hand, are the knittee, you may well be sitting there all cold and sleeveless wondering what all the fuss is about. My mother promised to knit me a sweater about five years ago and I’m still waiting for it. I don’t think this has anything to do with the sleeves in particular, although I’m sure it isn’t helping. Maybe sleeves are so hard to knit that my mother cannot even face the idea of anything at all to do with the rest of the sweater because she so dreads the idea of navigating the textile equivalent of the Magellan Straits, which is sad. I don’t want my imaginary sweater to be the cause of anyone’s anxiety, least of all my mother’s. I wish I’d never even mentioned the sweater.

Talk of textiles gives us occasion to refer not only to knitting and purling, but also to the selection of bolts of cloth, which may or may not be made of worsted wool. Did you know that wool could be worsted? One of my fondest memories as a child was accompanying my father to his tailor, where he would be fitted for a suit (he used to wear fitted suits back then, whereas he has long since given up any pretence at sartorial diligence; now he just wears sweatpants all the time. This too is sad). The tailor would give him these big heavy books of samples, all of which had been cut with serrated shears, so that they had a crinkled, zig-zag edging. And the pages, such as they were, made of expensive fabric, would flop over heavily, with a lazy slap, and the material was soft and luxurious, and it smelled so perfectly new and clean. I especially liked the materials that contained a very feint stripe. There was something mysterious and discreet about, even to my very young aesthetic. My five-year old arms could barely lift the books, but I so wanted to be able to bring them home with me and look at them for days on end, picking out imaginary suits and smelling the fabrics. When my dad’s suit was in draft form, he’d go in and try it on, and the suit looked just so weird, with pins all in it and chalk marks everwhere. And sometimes, they’d just detach the sleeves in order to try out some different interaction between the arm and the shoulder, so that you could make yourself look more or less bulky, depending on the kind of sleeve arrangement you had. I was rapt. And I have to admit that the deconstructed suit made me kind of sad and upset, like it needed to be made whole, even though its evolving assembly was simultaneously fascinating. It’s hard to believe, in retrospect, that I didn’t become a tailor.

I used to fantasize, later in life, about the kind of suit I would wear to my wedding. The sleeves were a significant part of the fantasy. The suit would be some kind of green serge, and the jacket would be longer than your regulation suit jacket, almost like the kind that conductors wear, except that it would be green. But the thing about the jacket was the sleeves. They would be three-quarter length, and flared, so that when I raised my arms it would look like I had wings, green wings of love with which to enfold my betrothed. Needless to say, this fantasy has not been realized, either in terms of the suit or the nuptials. I don’t really want to talk about this anymore.

You can obviously wear your heart on your sleeve (see previous paragraph), although I wouldn’t advise it based on past experience where somebody took said heart from the sleeve where it was so prominently displayed, threw it to the dirty dusty ground, stomped on it until it was no thicker than an escalope, pummelled into bloody tenderness, and walked away laughing maniacally, leaving me with a messy sleeve and a broken, even messier heart. The tattered coat, indeed. Of course in flu and allergy season, it is not unknown that you might be wearing something else on your sleeve besides a pulmonary muscle, but that’s just nasty and uncouth and not to be recommended.

There are also some rather lovely and touching lyrics about sleeves, the most affecting of which is almost certainly Tom Waits’ “Rainbow Sleeves,” from 1983, which he wrote for, and about, Rickie Lee Jones around the time of their beautiful, poignant, and ultimately doomed dalliance. This song is available on Rickie Lee Jones’ “Girl At Her Volcano,” which I have on ten-inch vinyl. This album is hard, if not impossible, to find on CD. If you are lucky you will stumble across a rather expensive Japanese import, which you should certainly consider buying on account of its extreme quality. It also contains an exquisite cover version of the Four Tops’ “Walk Away, Renee.” The cover art work on the sleeve is gorgeous. The lyrics go like this:

“Rainbow Sleeves”
You used to dream yourself away each night
To places that you’ve never been
On wings made of wishes that you whispered to yourself
Back when every night the moon and you would sweep away
To places that you knew you would never get the blues

Now whiskey gives you wings to carry each one of your dreams
And the moon does not belong to you
But I believe that your heart keeps young dreams
Well, I’ve been told to keep from ever growing old
And a heart that has been broken will be stronger when it mends

Don’t let the blues stop singing
Darling, you only got a broken wing
Hey, you just hang on to my rainbow
Hang on to my rainbow
Hang on to my rainbow sleeves

Of course there are the almost equally affecting Green Sleeves of Leonard Cohen, which are terribly sexual, and the very prim and proper New Lace Sleeves of Elvis Costello, sleeves which seem to signify the big bourgeois sellout which Elvis finds so righteously repellent. I must confess to never being much of a fan of the original “Greensleeves” with all its Henry VIII and fol-de-rol and mead associations, but the Greensleeves record label has long been a purveyor of some of the finest reggae known to humankind, including the very wonderful Doctor Alimantado’s “Best Dressed Chicken in Town,” which might be the best album name ever, even though he’s shirtless on the cover and so sans sleeves, which is almost ironic, if you’re Alanis Morrissette.

I think that’s about all I have to say about sleeves for the time being.

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