Stanley Pacion A BIG BOOK OF MY OWN: August 2012

Thursday, August 30, 2012

WALTER GOMULKA

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WALTER GOMULKA*

I imagine the children hated to see him go.
What a Grandfather!
Talk. Talk. Talk.
They could skip their prayers.
He never forced them to eat.
He loved when they whispered secrets in his ear,
And as for his telling of fairy tales, no end!

*From his post, First Secretary of the Polish Communist Party, Gomulka ruled Russian occupied Poland from October 1956 to December 1970. I visited Poland during the Solidarity Period.Lyrics such as these were printed on slips of paper and then dropped by emptying bushels full off roofs and upper story windows. At times it felt like a snow storm of confetti poetry. I found this note in my chapbook. The poem's form is my own, though tt might have been one of those compositions, or a sentiments I read and copied out from somewhere else once upon a time and now so long ago.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

COUNT SLOBENDORF'S MISFORTUNE

COUNT SLOBENDORF’S MISFORTUNE

He was unable to recall

When he had last seen the words,

“I love you,” form upon her lips.

Yet he still had trouble facing the truth --

The woman had sought only his fortune,

His titles, home, and money.

Then one day he began to feel that time spent with her

The same as the thought of life sentence in prison.

Friday, August 24, 2012

CATULLUS POEM 58, An Adaptation of an Ancient Roman Love Poem

CATULLUS POEM 58,
An Adaptation of an Ancient Roman Love Poem

Johnny! It’s Lesbia*, our Lesbia,
The Lesbia, that girl Stanley loved,
Loved more than self and all he calls his own,
Now at the Great Hall, Chicago, Union Station,
Up and down the polished marble floors,
She goes high-heeled, black boots,
Sports a short skirt, and an open blouse.
Corn, she husks corn,
For every last one of them,
For any spoiled son of Lincoln with a dollar in his pocket.

*Lesbia was the name of Catullus’ lover, the woman to whom he addressed his poetry. Her real name was probably Clodia. He did not mean her name to designate any kind of sexual sexual preference.

Carmen 58 (in Latin by CATULLUS)

Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa.
illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam
plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes,
nunc in quadriviis et angiportis
glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes.

Monday, August 20, 2012

APOLOGY

APOLOGY

You know that I have had no desire to hurt.

Sorry things have become bad for us.

This turn in our history

May have been beyond power to control.

Although, if at an earlier time,

Had I not been personally blind,

The outcome might have been different.

Perhaps we would have been spared

The farewell neither of us really want,

Or even at this late date, seem ready to accept.

Please remember should I say it wrong,

Or not put the many differences,

Grown between us in proper light,

Or that I seem to neglect

Honest obligations, or other things

You feel are by all right your due,

Know I have no desire to hurt.

My pain may well equal yours.

And whatever poetic power,

Seemingly so easy at my command,

It may not be enough to comfort,

To mend our damaged hearts and bring

The balm requisite to heal the injury.

How careless deeds and angry words

Have torn apart our once joyous spirit!

Know that I have no desire to hurt.

I feel my pain may well surpass yours.

I desire the best for you,

And as you already know,

Best for you will be good for me.

What I say are but words, gossamer,

Without true weight in the material world.

Still I promise to assist, to work

On your behalf and pray you realize

The love you have had for me

Was not a love in vain.

Know I have no desire to hurt.

My pain may well surpass yours.

I plea you forgive my faults,

However difficult the task may prove.

Please, recognize my limitations.

This turn in our history

May have been beyond power to control.

Although, if at an earlier time,

Had I not been personally blind,

The outcome might have been different.

Perhaps we may have been spared

The farewell neither of us really wanted,

Or even at this late date, ready to accept.

This turn in our history

May have been beyond power to control.

Although, if at an earlier time,

Had I not been personally blind,

The outcome might have been different.

Perhaps we would have been spared

The farewell neither of us really want,

Or even at this late date, seem ready to accept.

Please remember should I say it wrong,

Or not put the many differences,

Grown between us in proper light,

Or that I seem to neglect

Honest obligations, or other things

You feel are by all right your due,

Know I have no desire to hurt.

My pain may well equal yours.

And whatever poetic power,

Seemingly so easy at my command,

It may not be enough to comfort,

To mend our damaged hearts and bring

The balm requisite to heal the injury.

How careless deeds and angry words

Have torn apart our once joyous spirit!

Saturday, August 18, 2012

A SONG FOR YOU, Etta

A SONG FOR YOU,

Etta

You are not mine to keep.

I may never possess you.

I just wish to take care of you for a while.

You have lived for years and years.

Yet your life, you, you seem to have awaited me,

I wonder the truth, could it be,

Had a sweet fortune intervened

And destined us to share a story,

A book composed along these self-same lines.

Have we a tale which sat out time?

What insistence had me copy words from its pages,

That I might make them known,

And have world to hear and then to see

How I feel as I read them for you?

That I may open my mouth boldly, I have voice.

Truly, the wonder of it, this love,

The remembrance of things past, between us,

The foretold promise of happy future, laid before us,

The mystery of this love, this love.

And within this moment, our time and place,

Think on it. The breath of it, its immensity, a bit count,

It surpasses the number of the sands upon the earth,

That within my grasp I have tools ready for me,

The instant reference to books and words,

To every kind of journal, to bins and bins of photos,

And into virtual flat drawers with all the world's maps,

Billions of libraries whose lights, like stars,

Pave a milky way across heaven.

Up and down the country roads,

Along this big ol’ city’s streets,

You have had some tears and smiles,

And your plenty share of dreams and wish come true.

Yearnings never go out of style.

Do you ever cry when you‘re alone

When I am not by your side?

Do you silently wait for me?

Sometimes a panic disturbs me.

I wonder how so much in common,

The lovely child of our affection, such hope and promise,

Its beauty abandoned, left to the luck of the roadside.

I must trust in God and believe that He may direct

Kindness from a stranger, someone to hold us once more.

I know you have had lucky breaks,

Found fair quota of goodly things.

You can not be blamed.

Sure many were my mistakes.

You have lived your life putting on a happy face,

A stiff upper lip when presented with adversity

I write this song so you might know,

Should you happen upon trouble,

Fall into times of fear and woe, or nightmare,

When past demons beset you,

If one day you loose your course,

Fail to find comfort or prospect of clear resolution,

You have this verse, my love for you,

And yet, even now so late in the day,

I cling to the expectation that you recall the hours,

I sat behind the wheel, and delivered you safely home.

You are not mine to keep.

I just take care of you for a while.

You have lived for years and years.

Yet your life, you, you seem to have awaited me,

I wonder the truth, could it be,

Had a sweet fortune intervened

And destined us to share a story,

A book composed along these self-same lines.

Monday, August 13, 2012

CATULLUS, POEM 85, Hate and Love*

I hate and I love,

You might ask, how do I explain it?

I do not know,

But I feel it happening and

It tears me apart.

*Original Translation, Stanley Pacion

Catullus, Carmen 85, Odi et Amo

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?

nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

BABE RUTH, Home Run Secret

BABE RUTH,

Home Run Secret

I pick a good one and sock it,

Get back to the dugout,

They ask me, what it was that I hit?

I tell them, I don’t know,

Except it looked good.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

COFFEE-HOUSE LOVE POEM

COFFEE-HOUSE LOVE POEM,

Early Sunday Evening Sorrow

Another early Sunday evening has arrived.

You, you are gone, abroad;

I sit here by myself and drink coffee.

Instead of us sharing our dinner together tonight,

I write verse about how much I miss you.

The notion, that adage about absence making

The heart grow fonder is nonsense,

To me, it amounts to no more than a hill of beans!*

I am no fonder, no fonder of you than I was

Ten minutes ago at the start of this poem.

I am no fonder of you today than yesterday,

Than last week, than weeks ago,

When you departed on business,

Left me in this big, old town, alone,

During that time, since then, my love,

My love for you has not grown even an iota.

Tonight I am simply sad.

I am lonely.

I feel terrible without you.

*A colloquial American expression as in “it ain’t worth a hill of beans”, Humphrey Bogart says it to Ingrid Bergman at the end of the film Casablanca, which brings the phrase into world-wide notice. “Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”.

Monday, August 6, 2012

NOW VOYAGER, A Dream Sequence

A Dream Sequence

Were I a gentleman true, gallant,

The kind of chap with plumage in his hat,

Whose cape readies for damsel's distress,

I would say let us end it now; you are

Too young or, even better put,

I am too old for love with a beauty your age.

But let us face it!

No two-bit convention possesses me.

Long ago,

It was in the woods of Western Massachusetts,

I saw time tunnel down the trail before me.

I saw the nature of things,

The whirl into which all we know disappears.

And tonight faces of the dead startle me,

Yet I do not awake. I dream that

Family and friends float before me.

The calamity, death holds both young and old alike!

Darling, the air in my bedroom

It drops to the temperature of ice.

I envision my aunt, Helene, and see her

When she says to the child, who is me,

"Stanley! Go ahead! Touch her!"

My cousin, Barbara, lies in her coffin

Before the age of six; she was a year older than I.

I remember how stiff and cold her corpse felt.

My buddy, Burton, cut down well before prime.

Thought of him occupies my every day.

Revelry brings me to Joey who cried

"Whitney's dead!" And right there

On Fifth Avenue, opposite the Public Library,

He placed his gun on the glass of the showcase

Counter top. I was in the jewelry shop.

I dream a slip back to my former ways, the drinking life;

I could taste the whiskey shots, the beverage

Dispensed that afternoon, it was Johnnie Walker Black.

The haunting goes on;

More of the dead, they parade before me.

Omar, tall, dark, forgive me here for I know

No better than the honest truth, handsome,

The child, Spencer, my son's best friend,

My high-school sweethearts, Arlene and Lynn,

All taken, all unwitting emblems, as if to prove,

Life bears no promise of continuance.

Nightmare arms with disembodied hands,

Wag imaginary fingers

They seem to demand I pick up pen and write.

But before one dream ceases another appears.

The scene abruptly changes.

My fantasy goes from a somber, personal cast,

To new vision of vivid color and improbability.

My emotions are steady, yet I realize a rush of air

And that I am falling. I have fallen backwards

Into other, previous space and time.

The world before me, though a tableau

Seemingly breathing and alive, stays frozen.

It wants animation, nothing moves.

When I look, I see the birds of the air keep still --

Those who were eating did not eat,

And those who were conveying material to make nest,

Do not convey it. And, as I further study

The dream picture which enfolds

Right there in front of me,

I recognize that I am witness to

Low surf beaches and natural limestone harbors

With wharfs upon which anchor long ships,

Vessels whose hulIs sprout tall, center masts

Which themselves are rigged,

Tied to great, single, rectangular sails, dyed blood red.

And athwart these ships, from gar boards up,

Are planks, broad-axed-hewed, and each of the planks

Has paint a color its own,

And each plank appears nailed one upon the other,

The sides of those long ships are as,

The bands of rainbows, red, orange, yellow,

Green, blue, indigo and regal violet.

Color upon color runs the length of keels,

And a fierce dragon head in gold crowns the prows

Rudders are mounted at right, and within each craft

Upon rows and rows of chests sit oarsmen.

The ships are set to sail,

Yet the entire assembled host

Seems as if stuck in stone,

Itself as a painted sculpture done in high relief.

All motion suspended,

The waves have stopped, they break not.

What a night! It is,

It really is, what a remarkable night!

Never before have I beheld,

Have I seen such a Technicolor panorama.

My own closed world of family and friends,

Familiar events and their sad foreboding,

Now become historical vision with scenes

Rooted long-ago, displaying a physical geography,

A world which I had never visited,

Environs of which I had no familiarity.

My bedroom warms. And a seemingly true,

But sixth sense intimates Spring,

I bear witness to a prelude,

The dream carries me and I sense the long days,

The glory of Scandinavian summer awakens before me.

Light, bright, bright day dawns, and it thrills me.

I ready for adventure. I am happy;

I am exhilarated beyond normal human expectations.

And, then, suddenly, right before my eyes,

From within a quick, upward swirling, light gray smoke,

A bearded visage materializes.

The image takes me aback.

It is strange. It wears a helmet,

(The likes of which I had never before encountered)

A four-part, iron dome with a sharp spike atop,

A braided chain surrounds its eye sockets,

It gives a spectacle-like appearance to the visor.

Down the back of this spectre's neck,

Mounted from the edge of his helmet,

A chain-mail curtain falls

Directly to the shoulder of a thick, hide tunic.

A strap from ear guard to ear guard

Runs beneath his beard, holds his helmet in place.

He says, "Action! Please!"

At once, as though my dream a set-scene

Belonging to some kind of cinematic construct,

At once I hear birds of the air singing,

And those who were eating, eat,

And those who were conveying material to nest,

Now fly about and convey it.

The shipyard has come to life, the din already terrific.

On horizon's plane I hear low thunder.

I see the spray of waves sparkle in the daylight.

I wonder do I sleep or do I wake?

Yet the dream continues.

The ancient director's voice commands my mind's eye.

Though he speaks in a hoarse, low register,

I clearly hear him.

"Today", the ghostly presence says,

"Before I appeared in vision to you,

A fierce fit seized my brain, and I took my sword

And smashed it mightily against this stone.”

He points to a boulder of height and dimension.

“Our men had trundled it from the moraine.”

He directs my dream to gaze upon one side of the rock,

A polished surface which bears an engraved writing.

“These inscribed characters,” he states,

“Intend to memorialize the deeds of my life."

Then, wordlessly he hands me a leather roll to unfurl.

It is a runic manuscript and though

The writing, the script olden, it is Norse,

In my dream I could read it!

"My Darling Brunet," the salutation goes,

"I am your countryman, a remote ancestor,

I tell you true, and whether you believe me or not,

Or how you choose to act,

The matter rests entirely with you.

Nonetheless I urge you. Harken!"

I am startled.

While I sleep an apparition has made me privy

To an ancient correspondence by which, it seems,

He means directly to address you.

He salutes you as his, “My Darling, Brunet,” and says,

"Death has deprived me of ability to speak.

The poet’s verse, the dream

It communicates to you, is channel,

I need this vehicle, my ghost employs it.

The words you see serve as an intermediary,

His copying them out is the medium between us.

The letter goes on and it reads,

"You have been witness to the hurried activity
That animates the point of embarkation,

Note anticipation of mere material success,

How it dwarfs more noble human endeavor.

In getting and spending we lay waste our power.

I know of what I speak: the business these ships,

The sails the poet describes that he had seen before him,

"The business the ships portend had been mine.

"And now voyager, you, as we once before you,

Pursue the world to bring it to your feet,

You seek new riches and hope

To bring them home to dazzle compatriots.

"Yet, whatever the greatness now awaits you.

Yours can not compare to ours, to our accomplishment.”

The reverie continued with me reading the ancient text.

The leather roll in my hands,

Wondrously I unfurl it.

The phantom's countenance appears on guard,

His vigilance insures that I not awake,

That I remain under his command and proceed

To dream and tell his letter's story.

The document sounds aloud as I mouth it.

"Forgive the invidious note. Still mull it over;

Allow me this moment. Imagine it!

"The joy! We sat well in order

And smote the sounding furrows,

And sailed into the sunrise

We headed toward the baths of the morning stars.

"And when we landed, we crossed a vast,

Unnamed landmass between Europe and Asia,

Harnessed captives to forge the rivers,

Fought numberless skirmishes,

We used native allies to establish posts for trade.

"And while we traveled we besought Odin,

"Oh Father! Oh Father of Fathers! Oh Allfather!

Soak us in the blood of enemies, and let its

Stench increase our fury. Help us to violence!

Oh Great God guide us to murder,

Death to any who would dare to, who might defy us!

"The greater bloody smell that filled our nostrils,

The more the madness drove us to fight and conquer.

"And when we lit the funeral pyres,

Made from the ships of our current travel,

And burned the bodies of our fallen comrades

Into the heaven that awaits the warrior,

Our hair became matted thick,

We were crowned with the ash of the departed.

In the smoke from those fires

We breathed in the spirits of heroic conquest.

"We were men of prayer and momentous belief,

Utterly we turned our will and

We turned our lives over to care of Father.

"And I ask, again, how may yours compare to ours,

How may your enterprise

Compare to our conquest of the East?

"We founded Kiev, established the thrones

That became the Royal house of a great nation.

"All the way from the soil of Stora Alvaret,

We had sailed, we traveled land, river and sea,

Until we crossed the Bosporus,

Where we battled foes on the plains outside Byzantium,

Our work was in the employ of oriental Emperors.

"We had conquered a vast expanse of land

We ruled from Baltic to Black Sea.

"And when we returned to homeland shores

We had ships which were filled with slaves and honey,

And were heaped with all variety of fruit.

“We brought women to the North,

Awesome beauties of the East were ours.

“We stole the horses of the Hungarians and the Czechs.

“Our ships returned laden with pelts, fur, which we

And our people used to win our great fight against winter.

"We had returned home rich beyond measure.

“No one need tell me how great the events,

How the gravestone script commemorates

The immortality of your ancestors’ deeds and mine.

"Yet nothing matches the warmth, the memory,

My dear wife’s body lay in bed, her sleeping next to me.

"And now, so many years ago, I remember

I happened upon my wife while she lifted

Our son to seat him on the front plank

Of an oxcart tied to a post at the front of our home.

"I must convey that there is

More lasting memory and real worth for me

In the way dappled sunlight

Had illuminated my son's head

Than is upon all the runes in the homeland today.

"Our paths emerge but for a while

Then close forever within a dream.

"Time cuts us a length so short only the moment

May be cherished, all else, vanity.

And once we recognize the transitory,

The fleetingness of all we savor,

We may seize the instant and know treasure.

"I am a phantom. My victories mean nothing.

"Were I only able to spend

An hour more in bed with my beloved,

Could I once more bear living witness

To sun’s light across tree tops at height of day.

"If only it possible to play, to tumble,

To crawl along with my toddler son,

Were we to have opportunity for our knees

And our hands to be upon this earth once more.

"Goodbye! Sweet woman, Goodbye!

"Farewell! Farewell! Remember me!"

He vanishes. His voice and face are gone.

The runic, leather manuscript,

His letter with its seemingly magic unfurling,

The record of the glory and the moral of his story,

I attempt to continue my grasp,

To keep in my hands on the record's handles,

But it has disappeared, I hold nothing.

I flounder. I try to rouse myself.

I am anxious to remember the dream vision's sequence,

The words and the phrases of its message,

Fearful that the coming dawn,

That daylight would deprive me,

Blot out the details of my night-time experience.

Yet though I try to shake myself awake,

So to get to pen and table, and write,

I am engulfed, again,

A drowsy numbness guarantees, forces my sleep.

And at this moment the dream scape has turned green.

The color now before me matches the hue,

The verdant, the summer green of those

Preserves of forest that stretch

For mile upon mile along the River Deplanes,

The green equals the shade of the woods,

The same shade as the leaves of trees,

Which circle the cemetery stone,

The burial ground of the Chippewa Chief

Whose bravery saved the pale skins at Fort Dearborn.

The green is the summer color surrounding the burial plot,

The Indian Burial Ground where I played in my youth.

And out from behind this world of green, voices,

Voices, which I hear, but do not see, they declare,

"Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly.

"Time chases upon our heels,

Before long it quickens its pace to furious gallop.

All earthly stores succumb to this onslaught.

In a wisp, as with the language of our monuments,

We cease, and we are remembered no more."

And now -- over and against this flood of green --

A white, spectral chorus appears.

And from amongst the ensemble

A single, ghost figure steps to the fore, and says,

"I am here to repeat ancient wisdom:

"We care not; who cares what the joyless say?

They should get lost, all of them!

"Once our tiny, brief light is pinched out,

There be no night, like that everlasting night,

When earth, it replaces heaven.

"So let’s kiss, and let’s kiss again.

Let’s kiss a thousand times, and, then,

Let’s do it all over again, those kisses.

"How many? How many? How many?

How many, you say?

"Let’s not number our kisses.

There are people with evil eyes,

Workers of black magic,

Who would wish to bewitch us.

"They should not know how many."

Stanley Pacion A BIG BOOK OF MY OWN

Thursday, August 30, 2012

WALTER GOMULKA

Saturday, August 25, 2012

COUNT SLOBENDORF'S MISFORTUNE

Friday, August 24, 2012

CATULLUS POEM 58, An Adaptation of an Ancient Roman Love Poem

Monday, August 20, 2012

APOLOGY

Saturday, August 18, 2012

A SONG FOR YOU, Etta

Monday, August 13, 2012

CATULLUS, POEM 85, Hate and Love*

Sunday, August 12, 2012

BABE RUTH, Home Run Secret

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

COFFEE-HOUSE LOVE POEM

Monday, August 6, 2012

NOW VOYAGER, A Dream Sequence

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