the

Louis Zukofsky, "Poem Beginning 'The'" [OCR PDF, 300 KB]

2,818 Words:

Poem beginning "The" Because I have had occasion to remember, quote, paraphrase, I dedicate this poem to Anyone and Anything I have unjustifiably forgotten. Also toJ. S. Bach-309,* Bede's Ecclesiastical History-248, 291, Max Beerbohm-245, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony-31O-312, Broadway-134, Geoffrey Chaucer- 1st Movement, Title, College Cheer-45, E. E. Cummings' Is Five-38, Dante-66, Norman Douglas' South Wtnd-14, Elijah, the Prophet-24, T. S. Eliot's The TlVaste Land and The Sacred Wood-25-27, John Erskine-184, 185, ( Heinrich Heine-266, 267, 269, 316, Robert Herrick-187, 188, Horace-141, Horses-224-237, Aldous Huxley's Those Barren Leaves-12, 18, HemyJames-2nd Movement, Title, Jewish FolkSong-191, 270-280,JamesJoyce-13, 20, 28, 29, D. H. Lawrence-8, 19, 133, Christopher Marlowe's Edward 11-46, 47, Modern Advertising-163, George Moore-24, Marianne Moore-22, Mussolini-74, 75, Myself-130, 142, 167, 309, Obvious-Where the Reference is Obvious, Walter Pater's Renaissance-165, Peer Gynt-281-285, Poe's Helen168- 182, Popular Non-Sacred Song-4, 5, 36, 37, 288, 289, Ezra Pound-15, 18, Power of the Past, Present, and Fumre- Where the reference is to the word Sun, E. A. Robinson's Children of the Night-132, Sophocles-6, Oswald Spengler-132, Max Stirner-199-202, Symbol of our Relatively Most Permanent Self, Origin and Destiny-Wherever the reference is to the word Mother, The Bible-I-3, 9, 313, 314, The Bolsheviki-203, 323, The French Language-31, 33, 51, 292, The King's English-I66, The Merchant of Venice- 250-265, The Yellow Menace-241-242, University Extension- 70, Villon-21, Franz Werfel-'68, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway-52, Yehoash-llO-129, 205-223, 318-330. *References following dashes are to lines in Poem beginning "The." 8  Poem beginning "The" First Movement: ':And out of olde bokes, in good feith" 1 The 2 Voice ofJesus 1. Rush singing 3 in the wilderness 4 A boy's best friend is his mother, 5 It's your mother all the time. 6 Residue of Oedipus-faced wrecks 7 Creating out of the dead,-'8 From the candle flames of the souls of dead mothers 9 Vide the legend of thin Christ sending her out of the temple,10 Books from the stony heart, flames rapping the stone, 11 Residue of self-exiled men 12 By the Tyrrhenian. 13 Paris. 14 But everywhere only tile South Wind, the sirocco, the broken Earth-face. 15 The broken Earth-face, the age demands an image of its life and contacts, 16 Lord, lord, not that we pray, are sure of the question, 17 But why are our finest always dead? 18 And why, Lord, this time, is it Mauberly's Luini in porcelain, why is it Chelifer, 19 Why is it Lovat who killed Kangaroo, / 20 Why Stephen Daedalus with the cane of ash, 21 But why les neiges? 22 And why, if all of Mary's Observations have been made 9  23 Have not the lambs become more sapient drinking of the spring; 24 Kerith is long dry, and the ravens that brought the prophet bread 25 Are dust in the waste land of a raven- winged evening. 26 And why if the waste land has been explored, traveled over, circumscribed, 27 Are there only wrathless skeletons exhumed I new planted in its sacred wood, 28 Why-heir, long dead-Odysseus, wandering of ten years 29 Out-journeyed only by our Stephen, bibbing of a day, 30 o why is that to Hecuba as Hecuba to he! 31 You are cra-a-zee on the subject of babies, says she, 32 That is because somehow our authors have been given a woman's intuition. 33 II y a un peu trop de femme in this South Wind. 34 And on the cobblestones, bang, bang, bang, myself like the wheels35 The tram passes singing 36 o do you take this life as your lawful wife, 37 I do! 38 o the Time is 5 39 I do! 40 o the Time is 5 41 I do! 42 o do you take these friends as your loves to wive, 43 o the Time is 5 44 I do! 45 For it's the hoo-doos, the somethin' voo-doos 46 And not Kings onelie, but the wisest men 47 Graue Socrates, what says Marlowe? 48 For it was myself seemed held 49 Beating-beating50 Body trembling as over an hors d' oeuvres51 10 __ :as:::: ox""",,,  52 And the dream ending-Dalloway! Dalloway53 The blind portals opening, and I awoke! 54 Let me be 55 Not by art have we lived, 56 Not by graven images forbidden to us 57 Not by letters I fancy, 58 Do we dare say 59 With Spinoza grinding lenses, Rabbaisi, 60 After living on Cathedral Parkway? Second Movement: International Episode 61 This is the aftermath 62 When Peter Out and I discuss the theatre. 63 Evenings, our constitutional. 64 We both strike matches, both in unison, 65 to light one pipe, my own. 66 'Tis, 'tis love, that makes the world go round and love is what I dream. 67 Peter is polite and I to me am almost as polite as Peter. 68 Somehow, in Germany, the Jew goat-song is unconvincing69 How the brain forms its visions thinking incessantly of the things, 70 Not the old Greeks anymore,71 the things themselves a shadow world scarce shifting the incessant thought72 Time, time the goat were an offering, 73 Eh, what show do we see tonight, Peter? 74 "II Duce: I feel God deeply;' 75 Black shirts-black shirts-some power / is so funereal. 76 Lion-heart, frate mio, and so on in two languages 77 the thing itself a shadow world. 78 Goldenrod 11  79 Of which he is a part, 80 Sod 81 He hurried over 82 Underfoot, 83 Make now 84 His testament of sun and sky 85 With clod 86 To root what shoot 87 It sends to run the sun, I 88 The sun-sky blood. 89 My loves there is his mystery beyond your loves. 90 Uncalmyare the stars, 91 His slimness was as evasive 92 And his grimness was not yours, 93 Do you walk slowly the halls of the heavens, 94 Or saying that you do, lion-hearted not ours, 95 Hours, days, months, past from us and gone, 96 Lion-heart not looked upon, walk with the stars. 97 Or have these like old men acknowledged 98 No kin but that grips of death, 99 Of being dying only to live on with them 100 Entirely theirs, 101 And so quickly grown old that we on earth like stems raised dark 102 Feel only the lull, heave, phosphor change, death, the 103 One follow, the other, the end? 104 Our candles have been buried beneath these waters, 105 Their lights are his, 106 Ship-houses on the waters he might have lived near. 107 Steady the red light and it makes no noise whatever. 108 Damn it! they have made capital of his flesh and bone. 12  109 What, in revenge, can dead flesh and bone make capital? 110 And his heart is dry 111 Like the teeth of a dead camel 112 But his eyes no longer blink 113 Not even as a blind dog's. 114 With the blue night shadows on the sand 115 May his kingdom return to him, 116 The Bedouin leap again on his asilah, 117 The expanse of heaven hang upon his shoulder 118 As an embroidered texture, 119 Behind him on his saddle sit the night 120 Sing into his ear: 121 Swifter than a tiger to his prey, 122 Lighter than the storm wind, dust or spray, 123 The Bedouin bears the Desert-Night, 124 Big his heart and young with life, 125 Younger yet his gay, wild wife 126 The Desert-Night. 127 Some new trappings for his steed, 128 All the stars in dowry his meed 129 From the Desert-Night. 130 I've changed my mind, Zukofsky, 131 How about some other show132 "The Queen of Roumania," "Tilbury;' "The West-Decline;' 133 "Hall's Mills," "The Happy Quetzalcoatl " , 134 "Near Ibsen," "Dancing with H. R. H.," "Polly Wants a New Fur Coat;' 135 "The Post Office"/ 136 Speaking of the post office, the following will handicap you for the position, 137 my dear peter, 138 Your weight less than one hundred twenty-five pounds, 13  139 One half of a disabled veteran, and probably 140 the whole of an unknown soldier, 141 That's indomitaeque morti for you. 142 Is it true what you say, Zukofsky, 143 Sorry to say, My Peter Out. 144 "Tear the Codpiece Off, A Musical I Comedy," 145 Likewise, "Panting for Pants;' 146 "The Dream That Knows No Waking." Third Movement: In Cat Minor 147 Hard, hard the cat-world. 148 On the stream Vicissirude 149 Our milk flows lewd. 150 We'll cry, we'll cry, 151 We'll cry the more 152 And wet the floor, 153 Megrow, megrow, 154 Around around 155 The only sound 156 The prowl, our prowl, 157 Of gentlemen cats 158 With paws like spats 159 Who weep the nights 160 Till the nights are gone 161 -And r-r-run-the Sun! Fourth Movement: More "Renaissance" 162 Is it the sun you're looking for, 163 Drop in at Askforaclassic, Inc., 14  Hi4Get yourself another century, 165 A little frost before sundown, 166 It's the times don'chewknow, 167 And if you're a Jewish boy, then be your Plato's Philo. 168 Engprof, thy lectures were to me 169 Like those roast flitches of red boar 170 That, smelling, one is like to see 171 Through windows where the steam's galore 172 Like our own "Cellar Door:' 173 On weary bott'm long wont to sit, 174 Thy graying hair, thy beaming eyes, 175 Thy heavy jowl would make me fit 176 For the Pater that was Greece. 177 The siesta that was Rome. 178 Lo! from my present-say not-itch 179 How statue-like I see thee stand 180 Phi Beta Key within thy hand! 181 Professor-from the backseats which 182 Are no man's land! 183 Poe, 184 Gentlemen, don' chewknow, 185 But never wrote an epic. Fifth Movement: Autobiography 186 Speaking about epics, mother, 187 How long ago is it since you gathered mushrooms, 188 Gathered mushrooms while you mayed. / 189 Is it your mate, my father, boating. 190 A stove burns like a full moon in a desert night. 191 Un in hoyze is kalt. You think of a new grave, 192 In the fields, flowers. 15  193 Night on the bladed grass, bayonets dewed. 194 Is it your mate, my father, boating. 195 Speaking about epics, mother,196 Down here among the gastanks, ruts, cemetery-tenements197 It is your Russia that is free. 198 And I here, can I say only199 "So then an egoist can never embrace a party / 200 Or take up with a party? 201 Oh, yes, only he cannot let himself 202 Be embraced or taken up by the party." 203 It is your Russia that is free, mother. 204 Tell me, mother. 205 Winged wild geese, where lies the passage, 206 In far away lands lies the passage. 207 Winged wild geese, who knows the pathway? 208 Of the winds, asking, we shall say: 209 Wind of the South and wind of the North 210 Where has our sun gone forth? 211 Naked, twisted, scraggly branches, 212 And dark, gray patches through the branches, 213 Ducks with puffed-up, fluttering feathers 214 On a cobalt stream. 215 And faded grass that's slowly swaying. 216 A barefoot shepherd boy 217 Striding in the mire: 218 Swishing indifferently a peeled branch 219 On jaded sheep. 220 An old horse strewn with yellow leaves 221 By the edge of the meadow 222 Draws weakly with humid nostrils 223 The moisture of the clouds. 224 Horses that pass through inappreciable woodland, 225 Leaves in their manes tangled, mist, autumn green, 226 Lord, why not give these bright brutes- your good land227 Turf for their feet always, years for their mien. 16  228 See how each peer lifts his head, others follow, 229 Mate paired with mate, flanks coming full they crowd, 230 Reared in your sun, Lord, escaping each hollow 231 Where life-struck we stand, utter their praise aloud. 232 Very much Chance, Lord, as when you first made us, 233 You might forget them, Lord, preferring what 234 Being less lovely where sadly we fuss? 235 Weed out these horses as tho they were not? 236 Never alive in brute delicate trembling 237 Song to your sun, against antumn assembling. 238 Ifhorses could but sing Bach, mother,239 Remember how I wished it once240 Now I kiss you who could never sing Bach, never read Shakespeare. 241 In Manhattan here the Chinamen are yellow in the face, mother, 242 Up and down, up and down our streets they go yellow in dIe face, 243 And why is it the representatives of your, my, race are always hankering for food, mother? 244 We, on the oilier hand, eat so litde. 245 Dawn't you iliink Trawtsky rawthaw a darrling, 246 I ask our immigrant cousin querulously. 247 Naw! I think hay is awlmawst a Tchekoff. 248 But she has more color in her cheeks than· the Angles-Angels-moilier,249 They have enough, though. We should get some more color, moilier. 250 IfI am like them in ilie rest, I should / resemble them in iliat, moilier, 251 Assimilation is not hard, 252 And once the Faiili's askew 253 I might as well look Shagetz just as much as Jew. 17  254 I'll read their Donne as mine, 255 And leopard in their spots 256 I'll do what says their Coleridge, 257 Twist red hot pokers into knots. 258 The villainy they teach me I will execute 259 And it shall go hard with them, 260 For I'll better the instruction, 261 Having learned, so to speak, in their colleges. 262 It is engendered in the eyes 263 With gazing fed, and fancy dies 264 In the cradle where it lies 265 In the cradle where it lies 266 I, Senora, am the Son of the Respected Rabbi, 267 Israel of Saragossa, 268 Not that the Rabbis give a damn, 269 Keine Kadish wird man sagen. Half-dozenth Movement: Finale, and After 270 Under the cradle the white goat stands, mother, 271 What will the goat be saddled with, mother? 272 Almonds, raisins 273 What will my heart be bartering, mother, 274 Wisdom, learning. 275 Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, lullaby. 276 These are the words of the prophet, mother, 277 Likely to save me from Tophet, mother278 What will my heart be burning to, mother, 279 Wisdom, learning. 280 By the cat and the well, I swear, my Shulamite! 281 In my faith, in my hope, and in my love. 282 I will cradle thee, I will watch thee, 283 Sleep and dream thou, dear my boy! 284 (Presses his cheek against her mouth.) 285 I must try to fare forth from here. 286 I do not forget you, 287 I am just gone out for to-night, 18  288 The Royal Stag is abroad, 289 I am gone out hunting, 290 The leaves have lit by the moon. 291 Even in their dirt, the Angles like Angels are fair, 292 Brooks Nash, for instance, faisant un petit hruit, mais tres net, 293 Saying, He who is afraid to do that should be denied the privilege, 294 And where the automobile roads with the gasoline shine, 295 Appropriately the katydid296 Ka-ty did Ka-ty didn't .... 297 Helen Gentile, 298 And did one want me; no. 299 But wanted me to take one? yes. 300 And should I have kissed one? no. 301 That is, embraced one first 302 And holding closely one, then kissed one? yes. 303 Angry against things' iron I ring 304 Recalcitrant prod and kick. 305 Oh, Baedekera Schonberg, you here 306 dreaming of the relentlessness of motion 307 As usual, 308 One or two dead in the process what does it matter. 309 Our God immortal such Life as is our God, 310 Bei dein Zauber, by tlly magic I embrace thee, 311 Open Sesame, Ali Baba, I, thy firefly, little errant star, call here, 312 By thy magic I embrace thee. / 313 0 my son Sun, my son, my son Sun! would God 314 I had died for thee, 0 Sun, my son, my son! 19  t '11 I 1 T~ cei~ life era! fin\ VOl, Zu ma ';01 tra~ Ca~ .• well colli . ! . , \ "Z~ wn, / liar . I . non wh\ wor exe poe phi tra po 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 :'(' I have not forgotten you, mothel; It is a lie-Aus meinen grossen leiden mach ich die kleinen lieder, Rather they are joy, against nothingness joy- By the wrack we shall sing our Sun-song Under our feet will crawl The shadows of dead worlds, We shall open our arms wide, Call out of pure might- Sun, you great Sun, our Comrade, From eternity to eternity we remain true to you, A myriad years we have been, Myriad upon myriad shall be. How wide our arms are, How strong, A myriad years we have been, Myriad upon myriad shall be. 20