The Breaking Time

Poems for Friday: A History Without Suffering

Rainy Streets of London on a Quiet Night, by Eric Magnuson

After blasting Frank Zappa's Trouble Every Day this morning, I settled down and decided that this piece by E.A. Markham was better suited to the times at hand.

In this poem there is no suffering.

It spans hundreds of years and records

no deaths, connecting when it can,

those moments where people are healthy

 

and happy, content to be alive. A Chapter,

maybe a Volume, shorn of violence

consists of an adult reading aimlessly.

This line is the length of a full life

 

smuggled in while no one was plotting

against a neighbour, except in jest.

Then, after a gap, comes Nellie. She

is in a drought-fisted field

 

 with a hoe. This is her twelfth year

on the land, and today her back

doesn’t hurt. Catechisms of self-pity

and of murder have declared a day’s truce

 

in the Civil War within her. So today,

we can bring Nellie, content with herself,

with the world, into our History.

For a day. In the next generation

 

we find a suitable subject camping

near the border of a divided country:

for a while no one knows how near. For these

few lines she is ours. But how about

 

the lovers? you ask, the freshly-washed

body close to yours; sounds, smells, tastes;

anticipation of the young, the edited memory

of the rest of us? How about thoughts

 

higher than their thinkers?...Yes, yes.

Give them half a line and a mass of footnotes:

they have their own privileged history,

like inherited income beside our husbandry.

 

We bring our History up to date

in a city like London: someone’s just paid

the mortgage, is free of guilt

and not dying of cancer; and going

 

past the news-stand, doesn’t see a headline

advertising torture. This is all

recommended reading, but in small doses.

It shows you can avoid suffering, if you try.

Poems for Friday: Ulysses

I must apologize, readers, for the fact that I've let the last few Fridays go by without a poem here. Alfred Tennyson's Ulysses is an old favorite, to the extent I can't believe that I haven't posted this here before. It's old-school: long and word-rich in that way that leaves the reader stuffed, almost too much. But, hell, they're incredible words.

July's simmered over the landscape, from D.C. to Asheville. One might be forgiven for the bits of this poem that drift up, complete with a sense that younger days are long past, and the sword rusted more than any want to admit.

It little profits that an idle king, 

By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole 

Unequal laws unto a savage race, 

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink 

Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd 

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when 

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 

Vext the dim sea. I am become a name; 

For always roaming with a hungry heart 

Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men 

And manners, climates, councils, governments, 

Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,-- 

And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 

I am a part of all that I have met; 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades 

For ever and for ever when I move. 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life 

Were all too little, and of one to me 

Little remains; but every hour is saved 

>From that eternal silence, something more, 

A bringer of new things; and vile it were 

For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 

And this gray spirit yearning in desire 

To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 

to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,-- 

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill 

This labor, by slow prudence to make mild 

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 

Subdue them to the useful and the good. 

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 

Of common duties, decent not to fail 

In offices of tenderness, and pay 

Meet adoration to my household gods, 

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; 

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, 

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,-- 

That ever with a frolic welcome took 

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 

Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old; 

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil. 

Death closes all; but something ere the end, 

Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; 

The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep 

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends. 

'T is not too late to seek a newer world. 

Push off, and sitting well in order smite 

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

Of all the western stars, until I die. 

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; 

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 

We are not now that strength which in old days 

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,-- 

One equal temper of heroic hearts, 

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 

 

When did we stop looking at the stars?

Into the wild blue yonder

Last Friday, the space shuttle Atlantis broke Earth's gravity, headed for the international space station. It marked the last space shuttle launch.

While this is not the end of the space program, Atlantis' final journey marks a major point on a long, downward trajectory, not least for the 25,000 workers who will suffer directly from the program's end. These days, the government spends more on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan than on NASA.

Appropriately, today is the 42nd anniversary of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," the classic lament of a doomed astronaut:

Let's not get too altruistic here, either. The space program's heyday came about in large part because Americans and their government viewed it as part of a greater war against the USSR.

Still, NASA's zenith proved something: we can go to space. We can send people to space. The resources exist. The technology is there. Hell, at this point the technology is old.

The only remaining question is: do we want to? When people look out at their society and think "what do I want us to do?" is "go to space, and keep going" on the list?

Not for a long time. People can talk efficiency all they wish, but governments have proven perfectly capable of spending larger sums on far more questionable things (remember all that air conditioning?). The program's death marked a deeper turn.

Partly, the shift came from space travel's birth, tied to the Cold War and '50s hubris. By the era's end, people were, rightly, tired of the damn struggle, and anything associated with it. "Space Oddity" was one early marker, the increasing skepticism of science fiction another.

"Fighting the commies" was never the whole reason, of course. Space exploration had real popular appeal for a long time, tapping into a primal grandeur, combined with humanity's explorational urge. But, forever tied to far-off dividends and the conflict that created it, the whole enterprise proved vulnerable to accusations that the only thing all that money created was "garbage floating in the sky," as Ursula LeGuin's infamously dismissed.

Defenders could even point to more immediate benefits, like the ridiculous amount of more down-to-earth devices spawned by space research. It didn't help. This is the kind of popular argument won in the heart, not the head.

The fact is, the populace at large decided space travel wasn't a priority. It lost its glamour, its war, its money and its support. There were other fears, other dangers. Everything that's followed, from the lack of cutting edge spacecraft to the shuttle's end, is all part of that downward spiral.

So here's the question: we decided to give up on space travel. What did we get instead?

Was it worth it?

Intermission, with riding crops (and singing)

I have a number of posts in the works, but reporting duties haven't proven kind this week, so the time to finish them isn't easy to come by.

In the meantime, here's Peter O'Toole singing "Dem Bones," from the sublimely strange 1972 movie The Ruling Class. Enjoy, and never trust an aristocrat.

Poems for Friday: With god on our side

This is definitely an intermission-tastic poem day, due to the pace of the work week. Bob Dylan's birthday was this Tuesday, and WNCW marked the occasion by playing covers of his work. Like Leonard Cohen, Dylan's poetic style has proved wonderfully infectious, with some of the covers exceeding the originals.

The one below, "With god on our side," by the Neville Brothers, is one of the best Dylan covers I've heard. The video is mediocre, the song superb. Happy Friday, everyone.

Poems for Friday: Campaign Speech

Poetry Daily featured this piece by Erika Meitner today. It is perfect enough to require no further introduction.

There are those who say we are up all night 
with the highway on. There are those who say 
we are as peripatetic as every red planet in orbit. 
But summer is always barefoot and adhesive, 
then wanders off in the most unattractive 
flip flops. Slip-slap. With something jammed 
between our toes like that, it's hard to feel inviolate.

There are those who say the Good News Gospel must be 
spread in schools. There are those who say this country 
is in the autumn of its time. But each and every one of us 
already learned in early grades to wind our breath through 
mangled versions of pilgrims' feet and Mary tunes 
on the recorder, no matter how many times we had to stop 
and suck our inhalers, yellow as caution tape.

There are those who say accidents like the Pinto 
are unavoidable. There are those who say we have lost 
our pride, and quality is no longer a way of life. 
But after midnight the radio plays a steady ocean 
of mariachi music and sad almost-cowboy songs. 
After midnight our ministering angels do what they want, 
whisper Ticonderoga pencil, certain poppies, or summer squash

to each head on the pillow of morning, each mouth 
slack with sleep. Nothing can travel faster than light. 
What are we going to do about it?

Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies

In case you were wondering, here's a chart. Larger version here.

According to some calculations, most seeming to stem from the fundamentalist preacher Harold Camping, this Saturday, May 21 is the Rapture. Among those who do not hold with this, the typical reaction seems to be "party!"

While predictions of imminent apocalypse have a long pedigree, and one not just confined to Christianity, the Rapture is a recent and mostly American invention, arising out of 18th century Puritanism.

Growing up in the rural part of the Bible Belt, where mainstream and open-minded denominations rubbed shoulders with the more esoteric fundamentalists, this idea in particular always struck me as among the strangest. I remember a particular religious bookstore with a bargain bin of apocalypses, containing predictions that Gorbachev, hippies, AIDS and computers, among others, were signs of an imminent end.

At one point, around 4th grade, I acquired the sort of fascination with the concept that only a child can muster. After taking down a Bible and skipping forward to Revelation, I decided that the world would end the next week, around 10:40 in the morning, during the language arts portion of class. I waited quietly at my desk, inwardly relieved when the appointed time arrived and my teacher was not devoured by serpent beasts. Or harlots, for that matter, who I assumed were some type of badass female supervillain.

Later, I understood the roots. Poverty and upheaval are key to the American story, creating fertile soil for visions — not just religious or Christian — of sudden triumph. It is a hard world, and those who endure long enough would dearly love for the sky to open in their favor, just once.

In best secular fashion, more and more people are getting in on the celebration, and NPR is even asking for a soundtrack. After all, in my lifetime, we've had the Bomb, homegrown terrorists, Y2K, foreign terrorists and economic strife. As long as I can remember, things far more real than Rapture have loomed.

But here we are, still alive, throwing a party. Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies.

Poems for Friday: Night at the Pavilion

Afghan police attached to the 101st Airborne Division gather before a night patrol. Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko, AP.

Once again, a poem by Du Fu seemed appropriate. He's one of the rare poets who lived through the beginning of a Dark Age, in the form of the An Lushan rebellion. While observers in the West tend to focus on "what if the Roman Empire had never fell" type of scenarios, Rome was clearly unsustainable long before its final catastrophes. The Tang dynasty, on the other hand, was still in its heterodox heyday when the rebellion occurred. By its end, the official population had declined by 36 million people.

"Night at the Pavilion" is from the later period of Du's life, and, beautifully humane, it bears the hallmarks of long weariness with tumult.

At year's end, yin and yang hurry the shortened day,
At sky's end, frost and snow clear the frozen night.
Fifth watch: the drum and horn sound out mournful and strong,
Three gorges: the river of stars casts its trembling shadow.
Countryside cries from a thousand homes hearing news of the fighting,
Barbaric songs here and there rise from fishers and woodsmen.
Sleeping Dragon and Leaping Horse both ended in yellow dirt;
Waiting for news of worldly affairs brings me useless grief.

Poems for Friday: Bourbon

Add for Ancient Age, 1961

It's long past time to return to this old Friday tradition (poetry, but if you want to add bourbon and firearms, have at).The superb Southern poet R.T. Smith has this story, fresh in any age, best accompanied with ice and a bit of bite.

My father was hooked on one brand, Ancient Age, 
always in pints, perhaps to stow snug in the glove box 
with the pearl-handled pistol, and likely to prove 
he was a moderate man, and he would tell stories 
of his partner Earl Thatcher, a devotee of excess, 
intolerance and wrath, who'd slip away from dinner 
to take a piss but slink back to the room, sneak a sip 
from my father's bottle and add water to hide his habit, 
but Earl was a steady liar who never in his life solved 
a single crime, to hear my father tell it, an improvident 
soul prone to nocturnal misdemeanors himself, a bald 
rascal who ran with underage women and ate Chinese 
straight from the white box with sticks, an imposter 
who didn't know a six-cylinder from a V-eight. 
He shortcutted the Miranda recitation, might slap 
a suspect in private and believed the cuffs' teeth were 
meant to maim. They both liked their evening drink, 
however, and would sit before the TV, sound down 
to a whisper and compare notes, plan the next day's 
interviews and crime scene searches. It was arson 
they were hired to unravel, usually by half-wits 
eager for the insurance, and I've seen many pictures 
of the pair in charred ruins, their coveralls streaked 
with soot, remnants of an oily rag lifted on a stick 
or pointing at scorched remains of some poor fool 
who didn't know his craft and chose the wrong 
accelerant or was overcome by smoke. They both 
smoked Camels, and Earl was portly, a smooth man 
who liked his sleep and told crude farmer's daughter 
jokes when he wasn't bragging, while my father 
held himself to one jigger's worth an evening 
and stripped to his skivvies to enjoy his routine fifty 
push-ups before retiring. Earl got fired, of course, 
and my father laughed at the ways he tried to justify 
his misdeeds, especially in expense account matters, 
but years later Dad confessed he missed the game 
of jockeying to see who'd leave the tip or rush 
into a firebug's house first, weapons at the ready, 
and then he would go back to the kitchen cabinet 
and pour a second dash of Ancient Age and prepare 
to reminisce until he'd circle back around 
to the ever-present pity that it was Earl who 
told me about the darker methods of law officers 
and who took me to the range with ample rounds 
to fire at human silhouettes until I could deliver 
a tight group in the kill zone, at which point I'd 
swear with all of Earl's extravagant cursing art, 
praising the rascal who taught me how to breathe 
and squeeze the trigger and shoot for the heart.

John Murray Spear builds a Machine God

Over at Coilhouse, I've got a piece on the relatively obscure John Murray Spear, a middle-aged pastor who decided to build, well, you see the title:

Ah, the 1800s were a simpler time. Before that whole Civil War mess, America was in the throes of the Second Great Awakening, with the Northeast so thoroughly scorched by religious fervor that a swath of New York was dubbed “the Burned-over district.”

Amidst this, Spiritualism was all the rage, too, so it didn’t initially attract much notice when John Murray Spear, a middle-aged Universalist pastor in Massachusetts, claimed to be receiving messages from dead men. Sure, it was somewhat strange that instead of talking to a deceased relative for comfort, he claimed that a “Band of Electricizers” made up of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and others, had chosen him to bring a messiah into the world. But, in a twist fitting a new era, this savior was a machine, one that would, Spear relayed, “revolutionize the world and raise mankind to an exalted level of spiritual development.”

Those who already knew anything of the man might have figured he had simply snapped. Spear’s outspoken views on abolition and women’s rights, among other topics, led a number of churches to drive him out, and, in 1844, after a particularly vigorous denunciation of slavery, he was beaten and left for dead in Maine.

He recovered, and, in 1851, with the Electricizers’ plans dancing in his head, quit the ministry. Two years later, he began his work on the machine, with a result stranger than fiction.