BRAVO MR ROBERT! BIM BAM BOOM
—Till silenced, and ourselves brought halfway down
To Earth, by a couplet mild and gray as dawn:
ENOUGH UNI. YOU & I
HERE ALONE IN EMPTY SKY.
Mirabell? Nature’s very own now, free?
IS IT NOT INDEED A MIRACLE?
We wished for nothing better, certainly.
OLD & DEAR PUPILS, MY MOST LOVING THANKS.
NOW OFF & AWAY ON UNI’S FLANKS!
(With which, back to the void they whisk—
Cielo stellato of the asterisk.)
*
Woken—a bark? Night freshness and dazzle edging
The room’s pitch bright as day. Shutter flung wide,
In streams moonlight, her last quarter blazing
Inches above that wall of carbon mist
Made of the neighbors’. Whereupon the bedside
Tumbler brims and, the tallest story becoming
Swallowable, a mind-altering spansule,
This red, self-shuttered poverty and Heaven’s
Glittering oxygen tent as one conspire.
Dark dark the bogs do hark…Instreaming, overwhelming
Even as it pulls back, the skyward undertow
Leaves, throughout city and countryside, wherever
Somebody wakes and goes to his window, a glowing
Tide-pool dram of bliss, diminuendo,
The most (here JM topples back to sleep)
His outflung arms could hold.
AH WHAT A FETE
Sighs Wystan after breakfast—rendezvous
Set early, not to clash with Lesson Ten.
U MY DEARS SAW IT ALL, NOTHING FOR US
TO SPELL OUT GABR’S 4-D IMAGINATION
PUT TO (M) SHAME, BUT GENTLY, LOVINGLY
MICHAEL’S ILLUSIONS By 4-D you mean
Maria taking on Plato’s dimension—
BEYOND LIFE, HEAVEN, ART (OUR COMMON 3)
AND BOB STRAVINSKY’S, YES, AND DJ YEATS’.
THOSE TRUE MIRACLES OF YESTERDAY
MEASURED THE LEAP BETWEEN FETES 1 & 2
This was the Masque we’d all been waiting for!
& CENTERED PROPERLY UPON THE MONARCH
On Nature— TRUE, FROM ONE END OF THE SPYGLASS
And from the other? WHO MY DEARS BUT YOU!
MANKIND: ALL EYES IN HEAVEN FOCUSED ON
THE MORTAL, SACRED (& EXPENDABLE) THRONE
AND OH THE STAGECRAFT! SIMPLE SOLID JOY
Maria, are you still an Indian boy?
NO NO A MINIGLIMPSE OF THINGS TO COME
THEN BACK INTO THE SHAPE U KNOW ME BY
UNTIL U BREAK THE GLASS. AMONG THE BETTER
PARTIES, EH? THO MY CHAPS HERE SOMEWHAT VEXED
BY QM’S QUOTE ‘MISREADING’ OF THEIR TEXT.
I’D WARNED THEM: NOT TOO MANY FINE POINTS, SHE
WILL NOT WEAR GLASSES IN PUBLIC
BUT I MEAN!
MUFFING ON PURPOSE ROBERT’S HEAVENLY PUN:
‘GOOD DOCTOR, U’VE BROUGHT IN NO SCENTS?’ ALL DONE
NICELY IN THE NAIF TETRAMETER
OF A NURSERY PAGEANT. PITY. I admit
To having been up tinkering since dawn
With Yeats’s stanza, which came through a bit…
MR M, I MADE A HASH. YOU’VE MADE IT CLEAR.
THANK YOU. Oh please, Mr Yeats, you who have always
Been such a force in my life! WYSTAN, U HEAR?
MAITRE, I HAVE EVER HEARD
THE GOLDEN METER IN YOUR WORD,
AND KISS YR HAND (This with the straightest of faces
As Yeats withdraws into the palm’s oasis.)
DJ: They’re all on the side of life, then? YES
Gabriel had us frightened. HE IS GOD’S,
AT MOST INHERITING HIS MOTHER’S ONE
BLACK OR ‘RESISTANT’ GENE AS LIAISON
WITH THE CHAOTIC FORCES But in fact
Nature said Yes to man—the question’s settled.
SHE SAYS DEAR BOY EXACTLY WHAT SHE MEANS
LOOK IT UP “A last resounding Yes.”
LAST? The fête was ending. JM: Or
Because man won’t be hearing Yes much more?
AH SHE SETS MEANING SPINNING LIKE A COIN.
HEADS UP? You’re asking us? TIP SCALE TO YES
& ALL’S THE GLINT OF QUEEN M(AB)’S ALLEGRESSE.
LEAN TOWARD NO, & NO AMOUNT OF SKILL
WILL KEEP HER IMPS LOCKED UP IN GABRIEL’S SCHOOL.
We do the judging? Everyone? INDEED
2 LINES HER MAJESTY REFUSED TO READ:
‘NOW LET US BANISH GLOOMY DREAMS
FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH MOST LIKELY SEEMS’
REST NOW ENFANTS TODAY YOU ARE TO BE
EXTRAORDINARILY FAVORED How do we dress?
I THINK WHITE WD BE NICE LAST NIGHT’S INSTREAMING
VISIT A DIM FORETASTE That moonlit hour,
Maman, what rapture! YOU JM LEANED BACK
SURRENDERING TO US YOU DJ AROSE
& THREW ON COVERS DJ: I felt cold!
CALL US IN 2 DAYS WE MAY HAVE A FEW
CLARIFYING AFTERTHOUGHTS ADIEU
The Last Lessons: 10
The Greenhouse. DJ and JM alone.
No pulsing zeroes, no ascent. The vast
Black spaces of this lesson’s counterpart
Are not invoked. Or else our cup contains them,
Soberly springing, at a touch, to life:
MY SON MICHAEL LIT UP YOUR MINDS MY SON
GABRIEL TURNED THEM TO THE DARK FORCE WE
CONTAIN POET FROM THIS MAKE A V WORK
GIVING BOTH PAUSE AND HOPE TO THIS FIGURE
I SEE EMBLAZONED HERE
YES to NO to A to Z to YES
(Quincunx where ghosts of Five and Twelve perambulate)
The cup…crosses itself? Inscribes a stark
Twinbladed axe
Upon the block, sideways? Is it the mark
That cancels, or the letter-writer’s kiss?
The X
Of the illiterate?
Fulcrum and consort to our willowy &?
The space of a slow breath indrawn,
Simplicity itself, it waits and then goes on,
Taking us like children by the hand:
MY UPRIGHT MAN
FULL OF TIME HE STRUGGLES TO HOLD IT BACK
AND CREATE FOR ME A PARADISE I
IN MY OWN UPSTRETCHED ARMS WILL SHOW CRYING
SEE BROTHERS WE HAVE HELD IT BACK SEE SEE
I AND MINE BROTHERS IN OUR DAY SURVIVE
Drifting to the outer limit. Gone.
*
First things first. Down from the Pantheon
Yesterday’s Speaker and His Twin descended,
He with His proven innocence, and She
With Her rich wardrobe of ideas and motives.
ENFANT ONE HATES TO BOAST BUT IT’S TOP DRAWER:
‘YES PET, YOU’RE OF THE OLDEST FAMILY
ALL WRIT DOWN IN THE DOOMSDAY BOOK’ Yet here
In their New World, this branch at least, these two
Have fallen on hard times. Their Mayflower
Long run wild, they bend to the poor lamplight,
Her deft hands full of mending, His roughened ones
Forming letters which the flame, tipped blue
As if with cold, breathes fitful life into:
I’ve found work, we get on, Sister keeps house.
Stay well, and please do not abandon us…
ALAS ENFANT THERE’S NO DECEIVING U
Or you. Did nothing in our lessons come
As a surprise? MY VISION OF THE VEG WORLD,
WYSTAN’S OF EARTH’S CORE, GEORGIE’S OF THE CHILL
FRONTIERS OF ANTIMATTER THESE WERE ‘FIELDS’
ONLY RECENTLY DECLASSIFIED.
TILL NOW NOT EVEN THE 5 HAVE HAD SUCH TRAINING
AS WE CHAPS GOT THEN MIRABELL’S MISTAKES!
Some we’ve corrected. Poor thing, were there others?
WHEN HE ASSIGNS (BOOK 5) NO ACCIDENT
TO A GALACTIC LEVEL? MAMAN BIT HER TONGUE
TO KEEP FROM SILENCING THAT BATTY BIRD
How do we know he was wrong? BECAUSE U HEARD
OF POOR GOD’S PAIN & CONSTERNATION WHEN
HIS FIRST 2 CREATURES WENT AWRY Still, couldn’t
Some Clause more comprehensive than God B’s
Have dictated those “accidents”? YOU SEE?
WE SCRIBES WILL WRITE IT AS IT IS, MARIA!
She answers from her highest horse: U THINK?
HAH! IF MY MOTHER WERE HERE U’D RUN OUT OF INK!
Friction made the first thin consommé
Of all we know. Soon it was time for lunch.
Between an often absent or abstracted
(In mid-depression) father and still young
Mother’s wronged air of commonsense the child sat.
The third and last. If he would never quite
Outgrow the hobby horse and dragon kite
Left by the first two, one lukewarm noodle
Prefigured no less a spiral nebula
Of further outs. Piano practice, books…
A woman speaking French had joined their sunstruck
Looking-glass table. Fuels of the cup
Lowered to her lips were swallowed up.
The child blinked. All would now be free to shatter,
Change or die. Tight-wound exposures lay
Awaiting trial, whose development
Might set a mirror flowing in reverse
Forty years, fifty, past the flailing seed
To incoherence, blackout—the small witness
Having after all held nothing back?
HUSH ENFANT FOR NO MAN’S MIND CAN REACH
BEYOND THAT HIM & HER THEIR SEPARATION
REMAINS UNTHINKABLE. WE ARE CONFINED
BY THE PINK CARNATION, THE FERN FIDDLEHEAD
& THESE BREATHMISTED PANES OF HUMAN SPEECH
That was the summer my par— YR PARALLELS
DIVERGE PRECISELY HERE I from the I
Who shook those bars, who burned to testify
At the divorce. Scales flashing, bandage loosened,
Pitiless gaze shining forth—ah cover it
While time allows, in decent prejudice!
Mine’s for the happy ending. Weren’t the endings
Always happy in books? Barbarity
To serve uncooked one’s bloody tranche de vie…
Later, if the hero couldn’t smile,
Reader and author could; one called it style.
Poetic justice, if you like. A spell
Which in mid-sentence, turning iron to sunlight—
Where were we? SAFE AS YET IN THE IMMORTAL CELL
*
The Sermon at Ephesus
Bright, empty days. Then DJ thinks to wonder:
Was it as Plato that you joined our tour
Of Ephesus? U GUESSED! & GAVE A LIVELY
SYMPOSIUM, EH WYSTAN?
QUITE SPLENDID Its theme?
TIME PASSING AS O GO AHEAD THEN
‘AH
CHILDREN OF THE GREAT GODDESS (I SAID) EVEN
THESE BREASTS WILL RUN DRY. PREPARE TO WEAN
YRSELVES OF THE FATAL DELUSION OF ALLPROVIDING
HEAVEN. MAN MUST PROVIDE (HERE JM MISSES
A STEP NO LONGER THERE) YES, MAN ALONE
MUST UNDERSTAND THAT VANISHED MARBLE TREAD
GIVES WAY IN TIME TO THE STEEP & SOLITARY
PATH OF MIND’ & THEN AS (IN OUR TIME WARP)
THEY BOOED, WE FLED IN YR TAXI! And JM’s fall,
A leak of pain? A warning from the black
Transmission case? A PLUS
It sounds as though you—
INDEED (the answer comes before he asks)
WE OF THE 5 ARE PARCELED INTO MORE
THAN ONE LIFE AT A TIME OUR ENERGIES
CONCENTRATE WITHIN THE PRINCIPAL LIFE
BUT EACH LEAST POWER IS USED. THE NEXT RM:
STRAVINSKY POWDER, A HALF CUP A TEASPOON
OF MOZART DOLLOP OF VERDI THESE AS U KNOW,
ASPECTS OF HOMER BUT AN OVERFLOW
UNNEEDED BY OUR MAN IN EAST BERLIN.
THUS THE MELODIC SENSE REFINED IN LIVE
ALEMBICS THRU THE CENTURIES WILL GO
LARGELY TO RM. MAMAN IN HER NEW LIFE
TAKES ON ALL PLATO’S POWER TO SEE INTO
& MAKE SENSE OF THE COSMOS. WHAT MOST DREW
HIS PUPILS (CHARM? PERSUASION?) GOES HOWEVER
INTO VARIOUS DRAB POLITICOS
NEEDING A HELPING HAND OUT OF THE CAVE.
The way you listened, Maria, seemed to hear
Words unspoken—all that charm was yours!
AH WELL SAY JUST A DAB BEHIND EACH EAR?
MY CABLE POINTS Your ears? DJ WITHOUT
SOMEONE TO TAKE IN I’D HAVE TAKEN OFF.
WE OF THE 5 ARE NEVER NEVER ALONE:
THEY DROP IN WITHOUT TELEPHONING FIRST!
POOR MITSOTAKI I’D LEAVE BED & SIMPLY
TRAIPSE INTO A ROOM FOR 2 DAYS? 3?
OR DINNER PARTIES LIKE A FAIRYTALE
THE ENTIRE TABLE PUT TO SLEEP BUT ME
AND WHY? BECAUSE QM WANTED TO CHAT
My naps at Sounion…MANY WAS THE BLUE
UNCLOUDED DAY ENFANT WE SPOKE OF YOU
*
Appearances
Another week, JM: But have we missed
The point? If there are none, why so insist—?
BOB?
YES MARIA?
LEAVE YR AQUARELLE
& SEE WHAT YOU CAN TELL
APPEARANCES…
The cup considers. HMM Steps back a pace.
LET ME RECONSTRUCT MY ‘DEATH’ FOR YOU
After more thought, I HEARD A VOICE ‘HE’S GONE’
AND LOOKED DOWN AT MY OLD FRIEND: MEAT & BONE.
LOOKED UP: THE SKY! ALL STARS! NO FEELINGS. FAINT
UNCONNECTED DAUBS OF THOUGHT LIKE PAINT
WERE FORMING ME AS IMAGE IN MY MIND.
‘ROBERT, REMEMBER THIS, REMEMBER THAT’
THE THOUGHTS SAID TILL THEY SMOOTHED INTO A SOLE
UNBROKEN ONE: ‘THAT LIFE IS OVER, LEAVE IT.’
BY THEN THE IMAGE OF MY SELF WAS WHOLE,
THE STARS INVISIBLE —where Self itself
Had blacked out Heaven? BACKING OF A MIRROR?
IN MY CASE, THANKS TO YOU THE GENERAL BLACK
TURNED INTO A (M) MAFIA LIMOUSINE
A Black Maria! NO ONE ACTUALLY
BUT AT THE WHEEL A POWER NOTHING IMPEDES,
BRINGING ME TO YOU NEXT I STEPPED BAREASS
THRU SAND & WATER OF YR MIRROR GLASS
& SURFACED WHERE 2 OLD & 3 NEW CHUMS
WELCOMED ME, SKINS GLISTENING WITH LIGHT
NO BRUSH COULD EVER RENDER
NOW THIS LIGHT
HAS BEEN (SAID WYSTAN) CONSTANT IN YOUR FIELD
FROM THE MOMENT MICHAEL’S HERALD CAME TO YOU
Ephraim spoke of his light as revealing
The souls who gathered round us to each other;
But that was Ephraim whistling in the dark.
OR SOMEONE ELSE STOOD BY YOU EVEN THEN
WITH A LAMP But who—Plato? YOU’RE ASKING ME?
MUCH HERE IS PURE AND SIMPLE MYSTERY.
DOWN AT THE HEDGE WE DO NOT SEE EACH OTHER,
ONLY HERE & WHERE YOU DUG FOR FACTS,
THE BATWORLD’S MINESHAFT, WAS OF COURSE PITCH BLACK
BUT FOR YOUR PEACOCK’S APPARITION OR
SOME FEEBLE WATTAGE BEAMING FROM YOU 4.
THOSE WERE THE LONE ‘WHISTLERS’ IN THAT DARK
BUT THIS LIGHT? HMM IT’S LIKE A STAR WE ENTER
TO FIND OURSELVES. IF IT’S THE LIGHT OF LOVE
ALL ELSE IS HEDGING Robert, but—you’ve lit
Our blind spot up! That blacking-out’s the screen
Of self which forms between God and His creature,
A numb, a numbered starlessness all eyes,
All ego, singularity, dark gullet,
Palate, palazzo braced, impervious
To wintry tidings of its own collapse?
SENSATIONALLY PHRASED BUT, WELL, PERHAPS.
MY PRESENT THEORY IS THAT PARADISE
ON EARTH WILL FLOOD EACH EMPTY PIGEONHOLE
OF THE BUREAUCRACY WITH RADIANCE
Stop, we must pack for Venice! And friends already
Plead for no more big speeches in small caps.
DEAR J WE LEARN HERE NOT TO TRUST A LIVING SOUL
DJ: Is that you, Robert? May I say
You sound so changed. No baby talk, no gossip.
OOPS HAS THE GREAT RESTORER OVERDONE IT?
No, you know what I mean. I DO THE VARNISH
STRIPPED AWAY & THE WILD OATS I SOWED
EATEN BY UNI Comforting for us
That you stay put while others hit the road,
But why? THE WORLD NOT READY FOR ME YET?
How long before you’re born? HMM You don’t know?
ONE MOMENT AH YES, MAJESTY ‘MR ROBERT
(A VOICE JUST BREATHED) ELEVEN MONTHS TO GO’
SIRS? ARE WE GOING OFF TO SEA?
Yes, Uni, where the lake-dwellers once settled,
A wonderland not underwater yet.
One of our anchor points. You’ll meet DK,
The Changing Light at Sandover Page 50