Until yesterday I was unfamiliar with the work of Pablo Nerud. His poem, Tonight I can Write The Saddest Lines is beautiful and poignant. My only criticism (of the reading, not the poem) is the music which accompanies it, which, to my mind acts as a distraction to the reader.
For the reading please go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2zR7brOA3E
I am the shadow which follows hard on your heels late at night, hood covered face, feral eyes gleaming under the street lamps.
I am the teenager aimlessly hanging around decrepit shops, their windows plastered with ads for “massage”.
I am the 14-year-old child who asks you to buy cigarettes or alcohol on my behalf. You pretend not to hear as you hurry on by.
I am the single mother, yelling at my kids,my once pretty face lined with care.
I am the drug addled thief, householder’s beware.
I am the one the press like to blame, “Those feckless people, have they no shame?”
You fear or placate me. I am your shame. Stubborn, immovable the underclass is my name.
As I stood at the Customer Services counter, in the supermarket, the strains of that beautiful hymn, Abide With Me, played by the Salvation Army came wafting through the open door,
“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me. Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see—
O Thou who changest not, abide with me”.
One does not need to be religious (I am an agnostic) to appreciate the power of this wonderful music. As I listened the fragility of life was brought home to me. How, in the blink of an eye that life which is so precious to most of us can be snuffed out.
The message of Abide With Me is that death is inevitable and that Christians call on God in times of trouble “in life, in death” to abide with them. Yet there has, since the birth of story telling been tales of people wishing to avoid death. In Chaucer’s The Pardoners Tale, for example a group of revellers in Flanders incensed at the death of their friend swear vengeance against death. In their quest to destroy him the drunken revellers come across an old man and question him regarding where death can be found. The elderly man tells the men they will find death under a tree. On reaching the spot they discover a pile of treasure and forget all about death. The youngest of the group goes off to procure wine while his 2 friends remain behind to guard the treasure. While the youngest of the group is absent his friends determine to murder him on his return so as to secure the treasure for themselves. On his return they murder him and fall to drinking the wine he has procured. However their friend, wishing to retain the whole treasure has poisoned the wine and the 2 men die in agony.
In The Pardoners Tale all 3 men find death in the form of treasure which leads to their destruction. The revellers perhaps also meet death personified in the shape of the elderly man who directs them to the treasure. However as the elderly man is, himself seeking death some have argued that he is not, in fact death but simply an elderly man who is (as he himself says) in search of death.
The Pardoners Tale derides the notion that one can escape death. Any attempt to avoid “that fel sergeant death” is futile and may actually hasten his approach.
A school of thought known as Transhumanism has grown up which postulates that all human suffering and even death itself can be vanquished by the onward march of technological progress. If we can slow down and (eventually) switch off the gene which causes ageing it will be possible to extend life indefinitely they argue. Other Transhumanists place their faith in artificial intelligence. At some point in the future they contend it will be possible to download (or upload) one’s consciousness into artificial brains which, in time can be placed into new artificial bodies thereby enabling the individual to live on long after there biological brain has ceased to function. Some Transhumanists, for example the inventor Ray Kurzweil believe that people will be able to choose whether to continue their existence (after uploading) in either the real world or virtual reality (I.E. on the internet). Consequently the future invisioned by Transhumanists is one in which death ceases to exist or becomes an option which may be embraced (optionally) by a few Transhumanists in the new utopia.
Will The Pardoner or the Transhumanists have the last laugh I wonder?
In this world where nothing really exists, I kiss your cold, dead lips. Meaningless dalliance in this world of the dead, no words spoken, there is nothing to be said. Emotions stifled, frozen in ice, held in death’s stoney gripe.
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
Some 20 years ago my friend John gave me a tape of the REM album containing Losing My Religion. I still have the cassette somewhere although it ceased to play many moons since. Other than Losing My Religion, Night Swimming is probably my favourite REM track. The song talks of freedom, of lost youth and so much more, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGbZFBcO9Dk
I first came across Beloc’s poem while browsing through a book of poetry in the school library. I think that I first read “Matilda” in the Oxford Book Of English Verse, although it may have been another anthology. The endings of Beloc’s characters are often grizly as in the below poem and in Henry King who, it will be remembered expired as a consequence of eating string. Grizly though they undoubtedly are, we smile none the less at Beloc’s verses.
—
Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
Attempted to believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not she
Discovered this Infirmity.
For once, towards the Close of Day,
Matilda, growing tired of play,
And finding she was left to alone,
Went tiptoe to the telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid
Of London’s Nobel Fire-Brigade.
Within an hour the Gallant Band
Were pouring in on every hand,
From Putney, Hackney Downs and Bow,
With Courage high and Hearts a-glow
They galloped, roaring though the Town,
“Matilda’s House is Burning Down”
Inspired by British Cheers and Loud
Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,
They ran their ladders through a score
Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;
And took Peculiar Pains to Souse
The Pictures up and down the House,
Until Matilda’s Aunt succeeded
In showing them they were not needed
And even then she had to pay
To get the Men to go away! . . . . .
It happened that a few Weeks later
Here aunt was off to the Theatre
To see that Interesting Play
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.
She had refused to take her Niece
To hear this Entertaining Piece:
A Deprivation Just and Wise
To Punish her for Telling Lies.
That Night a Fire did break out-
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street-
(The rapidly increasing Heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence)-but it was all in vain!
For every time She shouted “Fire!”
They only answered “Little Liar!”
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were burned.
I came across Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, Adultery while leafing through “The New Poetry”, edited by Michael Hulse, David Kennedy and David Morley (Bloodaxe Books), yesterday evening. It is a powerful poem which speaks of the guilt and excitement of adultery, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cjLftgJuuM
What is it to be free?
Freedom is walking barefoot as dawn lights up the sky, damp grass underfoot, wild birds flying unconstrained above.
Freedom is speaking without fear of consequences, no glancing with trepidation over one’s shoulder.
Freedom is letting go,, being who you want to be, not the personification of the desires of others.
Freedom is the passionate kiss, love unbound.
Freedom is life, the opposite of death.
The Lie by Sir Walter Ralegh is one of my favourite poems. I first came across it on BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please many years ago and return to it often
—
Go, soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant.
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What’s good, and doth no good.
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.
Tell potentates, they live
Acting by others’ action;
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong but by a faction.
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.
Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate.
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending.
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust.
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.
Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honor how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favor how it falters.
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.
Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in overwiseness.
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.
Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is pretension;
Tell charity of coldness;
Tell law it is contention.
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.
Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay.
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming.
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.
Tell faith it’s fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood shakes off pity;
Tell virtue least preferreth.
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.
So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing—
Although to give the lie
Deserves no less than stabbing—
Stab at thee he that will,
No stab the soul can kill.
K Morris - Poet 