Myth of Arrival

Really, if it weren't for Shelby, none of this would have happened …

Beethoven's "9th," Dvorak's "New Word," and Freddie Redd's soundtrack, "The Connection," have been on the stereo all night, endless looped playback. Shelby and I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, formatting the last touches my poetry so we could send it out into the void. We are dazed, blood-shot, happy it is Halloween; the last possible day to send out poetry in October.

It took us all weekend to beat a book into submission. The hardest part was the title. Actually, looking back, this really isn't a surprise. It took me hours and hours just to pick the colors for this website ("but everyone will see it and how perturbing if the colors make their eyes bleed?") Still, I wonder, why is that? I was cranking out sonnets over the weekend, but challenge me with a title that sums up the gist of the book and I worry into the pre-dawn light with a pen and paper and terrible titles like:

a
POC
a
LIPS

Yes! Even I wouldn't pick up a book titled like that and I've gone home with one of the worse translations of Jean Genet I've ever seen. If that wasn't embarrassing enough I thought I was on a roll with:

ASS
FIX
Y
ATE

Move over e.e. cummings! Finally we had a 60-page manuscript called, "WHEN THE WAVES TAKE ME" submitted to The APR/ Honickman First Book Prize in Poetry, Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, Truman State University Press – T. S. Eliot Prize and Elixir Press Poetry Book Awards. These were all contests that met the October 31st deadline. As for the endless November contests? That chaos starts tomorrow, my friends.

I also submitted three poems, CELLO, GAPE and SNAZZ to James Hearst Poetry Prize/ North American Review judged by super star Joy Harjo.

I would like to say I can now go back to bed. I'd like to say sleeping the next 16 hours away will get me back into the pink of things. Yes, but it is a mere 2 hours or so before work and dirty adult diapers don't change themselves, you know. Ah, the glories of nurse aiding. Every time I hear some academic flunky complain about their students or the drag it is having to give mid-terms since it gets in the way of their writing, I just laugh. To have students! To be able to give mid-terms! Oh frabjous day, kaloo, kalay.

"And I am a pretty/ piece of flesh, I am a pretty piece of flesh"; I got the news last night when I got home from work, the anthology is: "alive."¹ Yes, ISBN: 0595370594 is a reality. What, might you ask, is ISBN: 0595370594?

About six months ago a group of Lansing poets, Ruelaine Stokes, Sam Mills, Robert "Bibbit" Rentschler and I got together to put an anthology of our verse together. We had performed ten years earlier at Albion College as 4 Against the Wind and before we all shuffle off this mortal coil we thought some sort of book would be a good thing. After all, there are only a few remaining Lansing poets, and none under the same cover. Cue: iUniverse.

That was six months ago. We changed our name to 4 Against the Wall because Ruelaine pointed out "4 Against the Wind" sounds sort of like "4 Pissing in the Wind." Now that there is a book, however, there are several things that need to be addressed. For example, once you pull it up on BN.com, where is everyone else? I am the only one mentioned and my friend's names aren't even in the system. Plus, it doesn't say anywhere that this is actually poetry. That was sort of our selling point, or so I thought.²

But let's look on the bright side, at least they got my name spelled right!

In other news, I went over to Luscine's house, my Armenian translator, to work on The Drunken Boat today. She made many corrections, which just goes with the work. So I am presenting everything she feels is ready to see the light of day. My radio is screaming: "I feel so stupid, happy and dumb as I write this … ah, soundtracks that mimic the soul.

The Drunken Boat

Le Bateau Ivre

Հարբած Նավակը

1.
descending rivers of apathy I no longer felt the pull of the ferrymen caught and nailed naked to painted poles that howling Natives used for target practice.

comme je descendais des fleuves impassibles, je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles, les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.

իջնելով գետերն անզգայության ես այլևս չէի զգում ձգումը լաստավարվ՚ բռնվաժ և մերկռրեն մագլվաժ ներկված ձողերին, որ ոռնացող բնիկներն օգտագործում էին որպես թիրախ վարպետության:

2.
I did not care for other crews or cargoes carrying Flemish wheat or English cotton when my ferrymen could no longer haul me I forgot everything and drifted away into the ferocious undercurrent

j’étais insoucieux de tous les équipages, porteur de blés flamands ou de cotons anglais quand avec mes haleurs ont fini ces tapages Les Fleuves m’ont laissé descendre où je voulais.

ես չէի հոգում ուրիշ նավավազմերի կամ նավաբեռերի համար, որ կրում եին ֆլամանդական ցորեն կամ անգլիակամ բամբակ, երբ իմ լաստավարն այլևս չէր ձգում ինձ, ես մոռանում էի ամեն ինչ և քշվում էի հեռուն վայրենի ստորջրյա հոսանքով:

3.
last winter in the furious slap of the tide I was in more rapture than a child I ran and the unchained peninsulas never endured chaos more victorious than mine.

dans les clapotements furieux des marées, oi, l’autre hiver, plus sourd que les cerveaux d’enfants, je courus et les péninsules démarrées n’ont pas subi tohu-bohus plus triomphants.

անցյալ ձմեռ մակընթացության կատաղի ապտակով ես ավելի զմայված էի քան երեխան, ես վազում էի և կապն արձակաժ թերակղզիները, երբեք չէին դիմադրում քաոսին ավելի հաղթականորեն քան ես:

1. Cue: Young Frankenstein music with Gene Wilder in background crying, "live, damn you! live!" [back]
2. Though I was smiling at the little sidebar that read: "Find Other Books by • Zachary Jean Chartkoff" … cool, I thought, I wonder what I've written? [back]

I love the word "dim." As in: "Faintly outlined; indistinct: a dim figure in the distance." Or: "Obscure to the mind or the senses: a dim recollection of the accident." My dim, dim past. Do you ever re-read notes you leave for yourself, notes you lose and months later re-discover?¹ Here is one I wrote concerning Washington DC restaurants, then forgot to post. It actually has a lot to do with dim-sum, apparently.

Thank you for your advise with A&J. I am always on the look out for yummy dim-sum, and I have had so much fun reading your blog late Sunday night/ early Monday morning, I didn't know which post to comment on.

Except I wrote this back in August. August, folks! All I need is an irrate thunder-spirit to stomp on my head and all will be well. Like the Baal or Baalim, the "various local fertility and nature gods of the ancient Semitic peoples considered to be false gods by the Hebrews," from which all our dim, modern religions spring. Speaking of which, according to Encyclopedia Mythica, Vishap is: "an evil Armenian thunder-spirit who tramples the crops in the shape of a camel or a donkey." Thus the blog title, thus the villanelle.

I love this dimness
in my throat; this song.
All my, "baalim-ness,"

rising. I, magus,
I have sung long;
I sing this dimness

the beast brings. Taurus
the Bull? No, a strong
fury, "baalim-ness."

Vishap, the faceless
ass? Vishap! What's wrong
to love this dimness,

all this furious
murk? Yes, these words throng
my throat, "baalim-ness"

of the fields. Chorus
we sing, we belong
to all this dimness,
all this, "baalim-ness."

1. Just like Zaphod burning his initials into his own brain so his dim self will know he's suppose to recall something important? [back]

All this translating gives me a heady feeling; as if I am gobbling on ballad mongering; omnivorous with Modernism and chewing up rhapsodism. There are several Armenian artists I would like to find on the Internet, not because I like to gab and blab over e-mail but that I am always curious if my translation sings … or just burns up on re-entry; Diana Der-Hovanessian; Peter Balakian; Araxy Tatoulian; Margarit Tadevosyan. If anyone knows how to contact them, please drop me a line. Or, for that matter, anyone in Paris, Marseilles, Lyon, and Nice who knows both languages wants to give a shout back, you might just make a new friend, an'ker. As they say thank you, shnor'hakal'utsoon.

Here is the second stanza from The Drunken Boat:

II.
I did not care for other crews or cargoes carrying Flemish wheat or English cotton when my ferrymen could no longer haul me I forgot everything and drifted away into the ferocious undercurrent

J’étais insoucieux de tous les équipages, porteur de blés flamands ou de cotons anglais quand avec mes haleurs ont fini ces tapages Les Fleuves m’ont laissé descendre où je voulais.

Ես չէի հոգում ուրիշ նավավազմերի կամ նավաբեռերի համար, որ կրում եին ֆլամանդական ցորեն կամ Անգլիակամ բամբակ, երբ իմ լաստավարն այլևս չէր ձգում ինձ, ես մոռանում էի ամեն ինչ և քշվում էի հեռուն վայրենի ստորջրյա հոսանքով:

Holy non-sequitur! I was wondering why I was getting so much sudden traffic on the ol' blog visitor-counter. I thought it had something to do with this evening's stupendous performances at the Creole, but then I realized that (a) I hadn't posted anything yet; and (b) Lansing isn't one of those swingadeadcatandhitapoetblogger kind of towns (if you get my drift, unless there's folks out there holding out on me? Oi vey, people!) No, it turns out that my little contest reference page got some notice from the fab-oo likes of Jeffery Bahr … and the blogosphere ripples forward! I'm putting the final touches on a manuscript this week, so once I get some breathing room I'll keep updating the Contest page as I find new information.

Speaking of congratulations to one and all, The Dead Poet Reading - 2005 was a blast! We had a strong turn out, with over a dozen performers of all stripes and death dates and every single one gave great performances. Shelby snapped this photo and the only two poets missing from the line up were: Sappho and Anonymous.

Channeled poets:

upper row, left to right; Rumi¹, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Allen Ginsberg, Shel Silverstein (as a Minimalist Ladybug), e.e. cummings, James Laughlin, Dylan Thomas and Jane Kenyon.

lower row, from left to right; Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Hafiz and Rosalia de Castro.

I was a bit worried about performing Rumi since my only source of Rumi-ness comes direct from Mr. Coleman Barks and his Georgian "Ahh want ta kiss ya" drawl. To distance myself, I went down to the local Halloween super store and found a beard. A beard, ladies and gentlemen, that looked a bit like some of Joe Piscopo's chest hair and a bit like a very disgruntled Scottish Terrier. It sat on my face in a manner that would make whatever came out of my mouth garbled and very funny in a non-Sufi, non-mystical sort of way. In the end it was "clean-shaven, young Rumi" that went on. I read: "This we have now is not imagination," part of "Moses met a Shepherd," and all of "Like This."

1. Or Professor Quirrel from the Harry Potter series, depending on which voice I use [back]