February 7: Mortality, Arthur Rimbaud, "Being Beauteous"

I can't say much about this poem, except that it moves me deeply.  Maybe because of my father's situation.  Maybe because I'm tired.  Maybe because I've been thinking about mortality a lot.

Saint Marty is feeling a little fractured tonight.

Being Beauteous

by:  Arthur Rimbaud

Against a fall of snow, a Being Beauiful, and very tall.
Whistlings of death and circles of faint music
Make this adored body, swelling and trembling
Like a specter, rise...
Black and scarlet gashes burst in the gleaming flesh.
The true colors of life grow dark,
Shimmering and sperate
In the scaffolding, around the Vision.

Shiverings mutter and rise,
And the furious taste of these effects is charged
With deadly whistlings and the raucous music
That the world, far behind us, hurls at our mother of beauty...
She retreats, she rises up...
Oh! Our bones have put on new flesh, for love.

Oh ash-white face

Oh tousled hair

O crystal arms!

On this cannot I mean to destroy myself
In a swirling of trees and soft air!

February 6: Poet of the Week, Arthur Rimbaud, "The Seekers of Lice"

Okay, I have to say this:  I am in love with Arthur Rimbaud and his poems.  I don't know why.  Recently, I have been reading a Rimbaud biography, sort of digesting his life and words.  He sort of fills some empty part of my heart at the moment.

This poem is good a example of why I love him.  It's strange and heartbreaking and lovely.  Two sisters taking care of their little brother, picking lice out of his hair.  Probably something that was done quite frequently in Rimbaud's days.  Not so much any more.

Saint Marty wants everybody to love Rimbaud as much as he does.

The Seekers of Lice

by:  Arthur Rimbaud

When the boy’s head, full of raw torment,
Longs for hazy dreams to swarm in white,
Two charming older sisters come to his bed
With slender fingers and silvery nails.

They sit him at a casement window, thrown
Open on a mass of flowers basking in blue air,
And run the fine, intimidating witchcraft
Of their  fingers through his dew-dank hair.

He listens to their diffident, sing-song breath,
Smelling of elongated honey off the rose,
Broken now and then by a hiss: saliva sucked
Back from the lip, or a longing to be kissed.

He hears their dark eyelashes start in the sweet-
Smelling silence and, through his grey listlessness,
The crackle of small lice dying, beneath
The imperious nails of their soft, electric fingers.

The wine of Torpor wells up in him then
— Near on trance, a harmonica-sigh —
And in their slow caress he feels
The endless ebb and flow of a desire to cry.

June 24: Don't Like Christians, Arthur Rimbaud, "People in Church"

I have a confession:  sometimes, I don't like Christians very much.

There are people who walk around, claim to be devout Christians, go to church every Sunday, and make a great show of praying.  That's not enough.  Those things aren't the test of a real Christian.  A real Christian does things that make the world a better place.  If a person is hurting, a real Christian stops and listens to that person, hugs her, offers something more than prayer (although prayer is important--don't get me wrong).

Don't tell me you're a Christian if you haven't done something nice for another human being this week.  Don't tell me you're a Christian if you saw somebody begging on a street corner and walked right by, eyes down.  Don't tell me you're a Christian if you're in favor of people not having decent healthcare.  You're not a Christian then.  I think Jesus called people like that a "brood of vipers."

If this post makes you angry, maybe you need to go and volunteer at a homeless shelter.

Saint Marty isn't a perfect Christian, but at least he tries, dammit.

People in Church

by:  Arthur Rimbaud

Penned between oaken pews,
in corners of the church which their breath stinkingly warms,
all their eyes on the chancel dripping with gold,
and the choir with its twenty pairs of jaws bawling pious hymns;

Sniffing the odour of wax if it were the odour of bread,
happy, ad humbled like beaten dogs,
the Poor offer up to God, the Lord and Master,
their ridiculous stubborn oremuses.

For the women it is very pleasant to wear the benches smooth;
after the six black days on which God has made them suffer.
They nurse, swaddled in strange-looking shawls,
creatures like children who weep as if they would die.

Their unwashed breasts hanging out, these eaters of soup,
with a prayer in their eyes, but never praying,
watch a group of hoydens wickedly
showing off with hats all out of shape.

Outside is the cold, and hunger - and a man on the booze.
All right. There's another hour to go; afterwards, nameless ills! -
Meanwhile all around an assortment of old
dewlapped women whimpers, snuffles, and whispers:

These are distracted persons and the epileptics from whom,
yesterday, you turned away at street crossings;
there too are the blind who are led by a dog into courtyards,
poring their noses into old-fashioned missals. -

And all of them, dribbling a stupid groveling faith,
recite their unending complaint to Jesus who is dreaming up there,
yellow from the livid stained glass window,
far above thin rascals and wicked potbellies,
far from the smell of meat and mouldy fabric,
and the exhausted somber farce of repulsive gestures -
and as the prayer flowers in choice expressions,
and the mysteries take on more emphatic tones, from the aisles,
where the sun is dying, trite folds of silk and green smiles,
the ladies of the better quarters of the town - oh Jesus! -
the sufferers from complaints of the liver,
make their long yellow fingers kiss the holy water in the stoups.

June 23: In Defense of Poor People, Arthur Rimbaud, "The Poor Man Dreams"

Well, I want to say something in defense of poor people tonight.

Poor people deserve the right to be happy and healthy.  Those two commodities should not be reserved for people with money and power.  If I'm sick, I should receive care.  If I'm hungry, I should be fed.  If I'm naked, I should be clothed.  If I'm grieving, I should be comforted.  Sound familiar?

Saint Marty is just giving you some beattitude tonight.

The Poor Man Dreams

by:  Arthur Rimbaud

Perhaps an Evening awaits me
when I shall drink in peace in some old Town,
and die the happier: since I am patient!
If my pain submits, if I ever have any gold,
shall I choose the North or the Country of Vines? …
- Oh! It is shameful to dream - since it is pure loss!
And if I become once more the old traveler,
never can the green inn be open to me again.

June 22: Really Tired, Arthur Rimbaud, "Evening Prayer"

I am really tired this evening after a long week of grading and writing and planning.

I tend to stay up very late at night, and I always get up early in the morning.  That's my life.  Now, getting to bed close to midnight and rising at 4:45 a.m. tends to wear a person down after a while.  After a few weeks, I usually have to just go to bed and sleep for a very long time.

I'm reaching that point, I think.  Maybe not tonight or tomorrow.  Soon.

Saint Marty has a little prayer from Rimbaud for tonight.

Evening Prayer

by:  Arthur Rimbaud

I spend my life sitting - like an angel
in the hands of a barber - a deeply fluted beer mug
in my fist, belly and neck curved,
a Gambier pipe in my teeth, under the air
swelling with impalpable veils of smoke.

Like the warm excrements in an old dovecote,
a thousand dreams burn softly inside me,
and at times my sad heart is like sap-wood bled
on by the dark yellow gold of its sweats.

Then, when I have carefully swallowed my dreams,
I turn, having drunk thirty or forty tankards,
and gather myself together to relieve bitter need:
As sweetly as the Saviour of Hyssops
and of Cedar I piss towards dark skies,
very high and very far;
and receive the approval of the great heliotropes.

June 21: Summer Solstice, Arthur Rimbaud, "The Sun Has Wept Rose"

So, it is the summer solstice in the Western Hemisphere.  The longest day of the year.  I went for a walk with my wife this afternoon.  It was gorgeous and blue, with clouds that looked like they belonged in an oil landscape.

I love this day.  The promise of light until late in the evening.  It makes me want to stay awake forever.  Write.  Sing.  Draw.  Go for a run.  When I was younger, I used to call winter my favorite season of the year.  Now, it's summer.  I think that transition happens with age.

Saint Marty has a poem tonight that makes him think of the summer solstice.

The Sun Has Wept Rose

by:  Arthur Rimbaud

The sun has wept rose in the shell of your ears,
The world has rolled white from your back,
Your thighs:
The sea has stained rust at the crimson of your breasts,
And Man had bled black at your sovereign side.

June 20: Daughter's Life, Arthur Rimbaud, "Young Couple"

I don't generally write about my daughter's life.  Her personal ups and downs.  Her loves.  I try to leave her privacy private.  Sure, I talk about her dance recitals.  Her grades.  My hopes and dreams for her.  Aside from that, I leave her alone in my writing.  I learned that from a conversation I once had with Sharon Olds.

So, tonight, I have a poem that sort of reminds me of my daughter.  Let's leave it at that.

Saint Marty is happy that his daughter is happy.

Young Couple

by:  Arthur Rimbaud

The room is open to the turquoise blue sky;
no room here: boxes and bins!
Outside the wall is overgrown with birthwort
where the brownies' gums buzz.

How truly there are the plots of genii -
this expense and this foolish untidiness!
It is the African fairy who supplies
the mulberry and the hairnets in the corners.

Several, cross godmothers [dressed] in skirts of light,
go into the cupboards, and stay there!
The people of the house are out,
they are not serious, and nothing gets done.

The bridegroom has the wind which cheats him
during his absence, here, all the time.
Even some water sprites, mischievous,
come in to wander about among the spheres under the bed.

At night, beloved oh! The honeymoon will gather their smiles
and fill the sky with a thousand copper diadems.
Then they will have to deal with the crafty rat. -
As long as no ghastly will O;
the wisp comes, like a gunshot, after vespers, -
O holy white Spirits of Bethlehem, charm,
rather than that, the blueness of their window!

June 19: Poet of the Week, Arthur Rimbaud, "Dawn"

The Poet of the Week is Arthur Rimbaud.  Just because his poems are gorgeous and passionate and sexy.

Sort of like Saint Marty.

Dawn

by:  Arthur Rimbaud

I have kissed the summer dawn. Before the palaces, nothing moved. The water lay dead. Battalions of shadows still kept the forest road.

I walked, walking warm and vital breath, While stones watched, and wings rose soundlessly.

My first adventure, in a path already gleaming With a clear pale light, Was a flower who told me its name.

I laughted at the blond Wasserfall That threw its hair across the pines: On the silvered summit, I came upon the goddess.

Then one by one, I lifted her veils. In the long walk, waving my arms.

Across the meadow, where I betrayed her to the cock. In the heart of town she fled among the steeples and domes, And I hunted her, scrambling like a beggar on marble wharves.

Above the road, near a thicket of laurel, I caught her in her gathered veils, And smelled the scent of her immense body. Dawn and the child fell together at the bottom of the wood.

When I awoke, it was noon.