Aidan wants 6 Power Rangers (November, 2014)
____________
February 15, 1959, John is born,
August 25, 1989, John dies, I
think it is the end, but somehow
I survive
February 15, 2010, Aidan is born,
my partner’s grandson, John has
returned, I surmise, giving me
manifest reason to have
remained alive
____________
we’re going to Buenos Aires for a
month next C***mas
plus my mom
I’ll keep you posted
Richard
__________
happy poems about February are not
easy to find, nor are poems by any
poet written for each month of the
year
but here are Algernon Charles
Swinburne‘s “January” and “February”
from his “A Year’s Carols“
January
Hail, January, that bearest here
On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,
Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,
Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.
Thy forehead braves the storm’s bent bow,
Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.
February
Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of mire and rime,
Before thy pale and fitful face
The shrill wind shifts the clouds apace
Through skies the morning scarce may climb.
Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears,
But lit with hopes that light the year’s.
March’ll have to wait
most of us have never even heard of
Swinburne, I actually thought he was
German, he’s not, he was English,
and decadent, apparently, like his
compatriots then, Dante Gabriel
Rossetti and Oscar Wilde, who
thought Swinburne, however, was
a sham
though he never received a Nobel prize,
he was nominated for one in literature
each year from 1903 to 1907, then
again in 1909
to Swinburne
Richard
“Facsimile of February:
Farmyard Scene with Peasants“
___________
if there are paintings about February,
there must be poems about February,
I thought, hence the following entry,
though preceded by a belated January,
or Janus, as it turns out, held back by
nothing other, surely, than the “fields
with snow”, the “frosts”, and the
fowl-filled “frozen fen”
both are from a very calendar of
poems by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, whom I’ve always
imagined tall, however
inappropriate, kind of like thinking
that because my name is Richard
I’m rich
it’s called, appropriately enough,
The Poet’s Calendar, just click
January
Janus am I; oldest of potentates;
Forward I look, and backward, and below
I count, as god of avenues and gates,
The years that through my portals come and go.
I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow;
I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,
My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.
February
I am lustration, and the sea is mine!
I wash the sands and headlands with my tide;
My brow is crowned with branches of the pine;
Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide.
By me all things unclean are purified,
By me the souls of men washed white again;
E’en the unlovely tombs of those who died
Without a dirge, I cleanse from every stain.
March will have to wait
Richard
psst: lustration is a purification, Janus, the
god with two faces, who can see
backwards and forwards, fen,
marshland
“February“
_______
rather than a pictorial representation of
February, more snow over a picturesque
village, February in “February“ is a
February of the mind, the mood, the
cocoon, the armchair, the paper, the cat
at the window watching penguins fly
or, extrapolating, watching pigs fly,
maybe
happy February
Richard
“Macbeth“ / Welser-Most, Zürich Opera
______________
Giuseppe Verdi’s “Macbeth” has everything
you’d ever want out of even the very best of
Shakespeare’s, but with also music, rich,
passionate, searing
in this production, Thomas Hampson is
every inch Macbeth, warrior, murderer,
king, to date my very favourite incarnation
his wife, Paoletta Marrocu, unknown till
now to me, is a sinuous virago, seductive,
maleficent, deadly, “all the perfumes of
Arabia will not sweeten” indeed “this
little hand”, Lady Macbeth usually steals
the show if she’s able, here she does it,
incontrovertibly, again
the witches, dependably weird, malicious,
are mesmerizing, wait for the ghoulish
“Unknown Powers” telling of Birnam
Wood, and prophesying that “none of
woman born / Shall” neither “harm
Macbeth”
chilling
brilliant
do not not watch
Richard
psst: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
________
friends have written
From: Penticton, B.C., Canada
Subject: Re: “January Sunshine” – Fern Coppedge
Sent: January-23-15 6:00:48 PM
To: me
Wood in the fireplace + scent of bread baking and casserole with onions, garlic, various vegetables, pie in the oven, reading a psychological thriller and wearing comfortable warm clothes. Cocooning…
Thank you for the picture
Have a very pleasant weekend
XX
Dorothy
From: Australia
Subject: Re: “January Sunshine” – Fern Coppedge
Date: January-23-15 6:08:41 PM
To: me
Thanks for this Richard
Now our January at the other side of the world is totally opposite. We have beaches to lie on, fires to fight, koalas to save, frackers to stop, flocks of birds to welcome home, festivals to dance in and the majesty of knowing that to live in this land is an unsurpassable gift.
I believe Canada is as wonderful but with a cooler outlook.
From: Greece
Subject: Re: “January Sunshine” – Fern Coppedge
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 19:20:08 +0200
To: me
Actually this is very much like home for me. My new home that is. This is what my village sort of looked like about a month ago when we had a huge snow fall. The snow has slowly been melting since then and bits of red crumpled Marlboro cigarette packets and now yellowish Amstel cans are appearing. I wait for spring so they can be covered again this time in green.
Thanks again Richard.
Sent from my iPad
_______________
here from my picture window the
mountains are shrouded in cloud,
the rain, adamant yet gentle, has
been relentless the past few days,
though the clement temperature
has risen to a balmy 12, a weather
front wafting in from Hawaii
under my paisley umbrella soon
I’ll be off to read Shakespeare with
a friend, to add poetry to an
otherwise grey day, with only the
glow yet of cherry blossoms, like
radiant little rosy souls, prefiguring,
on the limbering branches of still
skeletal trees, the advent of an
already resurgent spring
Richard
psst: but what is January in the great
scheme of things, in the universe,
but an anthropomorphous
poeticization of, however
significant, a localized merely,
and only incidental there even,
condition, however global
January is, in other words, one’s
particular potential, I gather, for
poetry, what you make of it
which should apply, theoretically
of course, to everything
if you’ll allow me the extrapolation
________
it might be late in the month to send out
this evocation of January, nothing at all
like home, but full of its emotions, things
cropped up, discretion, reserve, the
considerations, if you’ll believe it, of a
writer, not to mention a poet, no matter
how glib, as well as the lethargy of
hibernation, dishes to wash, hackers
to counter, dinners out, less clement
weather, in other words, January
I promise February will show up on time
Richard
“The Cellist (Portrait of Upaupa Scheklud)“ (1894)
_______
what are you reading, Terry asked,
I’d been riffling through the pages
of a book I’d just finished, trying to
find a particular bit I wanted for
firm ground later in conversations
a man in Sarajevo during the siege,
July 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996,
the bit I’d been looking for, had seen
neighbours, 22 of them, killed when
a mortar from the surrounding hills
had, as they waited in line for a much
depleted market, a consequence of
the siege, obliterated them, arms,
feet everywhere, as well as the
wounded
the man, a cellist with a Sarajevo
symphony, probably its finest, had
resolved, in honour of the victims,
to come out to play each day, at
the very time, in the very place of
the atrocity, for 22 days, one for
each of the victims, despite being
each time in the very eye of a
sniper’s bullet, Albinoni’s haunting
Adagio, listen
he made it out eventually to Ireland,
it is later indicated
“The Cellist of Sarajevo“, I replied,
I’m taking it back to the library, I
needed to check some dates, I
write, I want to talk about it
I’ve been talking about walking in
beauty, I said, incorporating it into
one’s life, this man overcame his
fear of death so profoundly as to
deliver a very dirge, an act of
prodigious, even transcendental
meditation, to sit and play midst
the rubble and ashes of his friends
this tribute, how sound must’ve
been his conviction
walking in beauty, I said, it’s a
Navajo prayer
Wordsworth has a poem like that he
said, and recited it word for word
“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!”, he said
I was flabbergasted, I had only my
few lines of Shakespeare to compare
I’m Richard, I said
Terry, he retorted
I can’t talk now, I’m off, if you can
believe it, to read Shakespeare with
a friend, we’ll meet again, you’re easy
to spot, you’ve got no shoes, you’re
barefoot, my mom has talked about
you, you always say hello, she says,
she thinks you’re a nice man
Terry had his sandals in his hand,
he stood under his umbrella, I
hadn’t opened mine, he was trying
to shield me also from, for me, the
merely mist, not rain, despite a
rod stretched unhooked from his
otherwise sufficient cover from
the wet
can you remember my e-mail, he
offered, it’s easy
I wrote it on the battered flyleaf
of my Shakespeare
that’s a relic, he said
my International Collector’s Library,
I answered, that’s where I got my
literature when I was a boy, in my
little town of Timmins, an outpost,
I’d get a classic every month, each
bound distinctively, their gimmick
you could get money for that, he
suggested
not, like this, I said, it’s in tatters
I’ll tell my mom I talked to you, I said,
she’ll be delighted
Tony, right
Terry, he corrected
Richard, I said
Richard
later he thought I’d been Michael
Richard
psst: it turns out the poem is by Byron,
not Wordsworth, not surprising,from
this distance all the Romantic poets
sound alike, except for, of course,
the Brownings, an inconsequential
gaffe
______
it didn’t take long before I realized that
walking in beauty is not an exterior thing
but interior, it happens on the inside,
what there is to see out there is indifferent,
neutral, beauty is, indeed, in the eye of the
beholder
one graces the object, the situation, the
passing of time and space, with one’s
perspective, actually calling a thing
beautiful makes it so, making it so
defines who you are, so does not making
it so, succumbing to what life has to give
you instead of touching up the cracks,
beauty is the colour you paint the house
you live in, you choose the paint
Ahh, but there is beauty in those ‘grey bleak uninviting days’..at least in the eyes of this beholder. I think of it as shades of silver and blue. And like the song says, “where the sun always shines, there’s a desert below..” la la la.
a friend writes, who’s chosen her paint,
turned grey into silver and blue
today my paint smells like chicken
roasting in the oven, in garlic and
ginger, with soya sauce, breadcrumbs
and butter
also fresh laundry
also still not being out of my pyjamas
thanks, Lynne
Richard
“Orchard in Blossom (Plum Trees)“ (1888)
__________
walking in beauty must be a conscious
thing, you don’t wake up doing it in the
morning unless you train yourself to
for the past few days I’ve incorporated
the prayer, am intending to learn it
through, not just its kernel, however
itself highly inspirational
In beauty I walk.
With beauty before me I walk.
With beauty behind me I walk.
With beauty around me I walk
With beauty above me I walk.
With beauty below me I walk
In beauty all is made whole.
In beauty all is restored.
In my youth I am aware of it, and
In old age I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail.
In beauty it is begun.
In beauty it is ended.
during the past several days the weather
has been grey, bleak, uninviting, there
was beauty only in the candles I lit, the
pyjamas I never took off, and, truth be
told, the chicken I broiled with soya
sauce, lemon juice and honey, with
baby carrots to dip, and carrot cake to
top it all off, with lots of icing
nor do I ever run out of wine
what’s not beautiful about that, I needed
to conclude after all those days moping,
feeling sorry for myself
I said the same to a friend today over
lunch, at presently the best restaurant
in Vancouver, there she sat poised,
dripping in grace, a tailored olive
jacket, an ochre pendant with a light
brown scarf wrapped loosely around
her neck, stretched towards me with
just the right amount of both discretion
and attention, presenting her Mona Lisa
smile, as she’d herself called it
she had crossed her defunct great love
inadvertently somewhere, his jaw had
dropped, she had smiled that mysterious
smile, she told me, and slipped beyond
his ken
should I go to Australia, she asked,
where her nephew’s daughter is
getting married, it’s hot, it’s humid,
it’s a long trip, I could die on the
way
every time I go downtown, I think I
might not make it, I retorted, but I do,
and I don’t
when was the last time you saw your
nephew, I asked
four or five years ago, she replied
you love him, he loves you, he would
be so honoured, I said, and if you die
on the way he’ll still be honoured,
they all will
this is how you walk in beauty, I said,
you latch onto the poem as it passes,
they’re fleeting, be they ever so many,
we let them go by, they would’ve been
our memories, instead of our default
position, where you could die anyway
today I left home, I said, saw my first
cherry blossoms of the season, midst
the gnarled van Gogh branches of the
other trees lining both sides of the
street, emerald moss growing already
along their trunks
a woman selling wares mouthing the
words to Billy Holiday’s “God Bless
the Child” so that I thought she’d
been the one singing
beside her someone selling wooden
marionettes he was dangling, grinning,
trying to look enchanting in his Charlie
Chaplin clothes, looking more like
Ebenezer Scrooge, a wolf in sheep’s
clothing
but a cover of “You, You’re Driving
Me Crazy“ I sent Apollo, my Sun God,
for ukulele, megaphone, and of course
voice, inspired me more than anything
else today, I continued, turned my
frustration into poetry, how not to
mope, he’s been gone since before
C***mas, much too long
beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in
beauty all is made whole
to walking in beauty, we toasted
Richard
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