Myth of Arrival

I.
Press your mouth up to mine. These words displease
but its all we got. I am salt, blue mists
covering dune grass. Dunes are the junkie's
eyelashes. You are drunk. Our kiss consists
of your tongue in my mouth. Fat tongue that twists
in the wet air. Your mouth is a squandered
coast, a lone girl walking toward us. This tryst
is odd, you would never allow a third
to join us, another voice that yammered
your name. Yammering. Once I kissed the ghost
of a drowned girl. You are not her. No word
or kiss can bring her back. You, a bone coast
and I? Something simple you will forget,
like tar fog's chill or a love dog's regret.

II.
It is not this kiss that binds them here. Not
their lost bodies, you see, that is crucial
to keep them; to say, "if I had known what
it's like …" No kiss can fill them with lustful
warmth. I ran my tongue along each dreadful
gill. Kissed where the skin webbed the hand into
fin. Her breath gave off a girl-curd, carnal
stench. I licked right where the shark teeth bit through
her side. Where "ta'awah," the old Hebrew
word for lust, was cut before they threw her
overboard. It's not this kiss they want, you
see, but the breath that came with the rapture
when you said, "if I'd known what it's like, dear,
I'd have let you take me right now, right here."

III.
A plea heard, cut off, like mad. Guttural
distress out in the fog. Depraved, vulgar
raving. Someone in the grizzle-drizzle,
some thing, is out there, yowling out rapture
in long, garbled mouthfuls. Still, I shiver
each time she touches me. Passing through me
like ice. The way the dead always shudder
when they embrace us with blue lips milky
with lust. Perhaps death turns lust nakedly
urgent? You cry out like that, for drunken
release. I found her raving in the sea
fog, ghost of a girl, girl shark. As if one
chance is ever enough. As if, despite
her yowls, pleasure is as false as phosphite.

Here is the second sonnet is the series. I am not sure where this will all lead to but I am willing to go along with the ride. We shall see. My friend Kaho wrote about the name Same Shoujyo that it contained sweet sugar and deadly poison. True. Now all I need to do is find a smashing photo of the ghost girl and we shall be set to go.

I.
Press your mouth up to mine. These words displease
but its all we got. I am salt, blue mists
covering dune grass. Dunes are the junkie's
eyelashes. You are drunk. Our kiss consists
of your tongue in my mouth. Fat tongue that twists
in the wet air. Your mouth is a squandered
coast, a lone girl walking toward us. This tryst
is odd, you would never allow a third
to join us, another voice that yammered
your name. Yammering. Once I kissed the ghost
of a drowned girl. You are not her. No word
or kiss can bring her back. You, a bone coast
and I? Something simple you will forget,
like tar fog's chill or a love dog's regret.

II.
It is not this kiss that binds them here. Not
their lost bodies, you see, that is crucial
to keep them; to say, "if I had known what
it's like …" No kiss can fill them with lustful
warmth. I ran my tongue along each dreadful
gill. Kissed where the skin webbed the hand into
fin. Her breath gave off a girl-curd, carnal
stench. I licked right where the shark teeth bit through
her side. Where "ta'awah," the old Hebrew
word for lust, was cut before they threw her
overboard. It's not this kiss they want, you
see, but the breath that came with the rapture
when you said, "if I'd known what it's like, dear,
I'd have let you take me right now, right here."

I blogged a couple of days ago about writing a sonnet cycle about a Hawaiian Shark Goddess, Kane'ae, who became human to experience the joys of dancing. That sounded promising until it occured to me that stealing other people's religious beliefs simply to write a poem is bad, sad and likely to bring the anger of the gods down on me.

So no poems about Hawai'ian goddesses. Cheers!

I decided instead to change the name to Japanese, not any particular goddess, instead just the words Shark and Girl, in some combination. Originally I tried Wanizamekko but was quickly told that was wrong.

Hohojirozame is a Japanese term for the Great White Shark. Same or Zame also means shark I have been told.

Shojo, is a term for young girl, also Musume.

My friend Aoi suggested Same musume. My friend Miki suggested, Same shojo.

I have a little time, as you can see from the sonnet the shark girl is still a way off in the distance. She is blurry. We have time to figure out her name. We have time for anything.

Press your mouth upto mine. These words displease
but its all we got. I am salt, blue mists
covering dune grass. Dunes are the junkie's
eyelashes. You are drunk. Our kiss consists
of your tongue in my mouth. Fat tongue that twists
in the wet air. Your mouth is a squandered
coast, a lone girl walking toward us. This tryst
is odd, you would never allow a third
to join us, another voice that yammered
your name. Yammering. Once I kissed the ghost
of a drowned girl. You are not her. No word
or kiss can bring her back. You, a bone coast
and I? Something simple you will forget,
like tar fog's chill or a love dog's regret.

Since I started blogging in August of 2005 (so long ago) I have read countless posts arguing about what "the new" form of poetry shall be in the American art scene. This is where we apparently are putting our energies; not writing poetry but attempting to second-guess what will be new. We are in love with Ezra Pound's maxim, "Make it new," but once we have something new, instead of perfecting it, instead of mastering it, we drop it and hurry off to something else. While I am not calling for us to champion one style of poetry over another, ¹ I am calling for brilliance, discipline, consistency. After all, isn't all poetry about ecstasy? So who are you to tell us one form is not better than another? It's all praise, and it's all right. Indeed.

Today I am looking for a story. You see, I like stories. Some might call it narrative, I call it interesting. Fragmentation has its place, but it is also an unholy mess at times, since it seems to be the plaything of those suffering from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). For example, for the classical music lovers out there, give me Bach's Fugue in D minor over Debussy's La Mer, Rossini's L'italiana en Algeria over Strauss' Salome, any day. Or, for those who that makes no sense to, I'll take Bob Dylan over Brian Eno. Narrative, dramatic, lyrical versus nebulous, ambient, obscure. It is my own personal quirk, but still, I like to see where I am going.

With that in mind, I think I am going to start a sonnet sequence. I want adventure and I want it in the old Spencerian style: abab bcbc cdcd ee. What, you ask, is a sonnet sequence? Ripping a page (yes, ripping) from my Benét's here is a quick definition:

Sonnet Sequence. A collection of sonnets in which there is a discernible, if only vaguely, narrative or psychological development. The effect is like stanzas in a long poem, but each sonnet retains its own force and independence. In Petrarch's Rime (Verses), the [groundbreaker] of most European and English sequences, the sonnets … are the chief vehicles of the story of the poet's love for Laura. Outstanding examples in English include Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, Spencer's Amoretti (1595), and the Dark Lady sonnets of Shakespeare.²

Now we need someone to write about. A character worthy of a bel canto, that is, a beautiful song. Byron began his epic poem Don Juan with the words: I want a hero, an uncommon want,/ when every year and month sends forth a new one. We seem to be in a similar age. Heroic figures are all around us and yet how many inspire us to do anything? Besides Ghandi and Billie Holiday, I mean?

One of the things you might or might not know about me is that I am shark crazy. Seriously, where some might look and see a fish, I see beauty. Where some might hear the theme song of Jaws I hear the swimming strokes of gods. I love sharks and I think that is where we shall start. With a shark. Not just any shark, either. We shall start with Kane'ae; the little silver-red shark that transformed herself into a human in order to experience the joys of dancing. Kane'ae the Dancer. Kane'ae the Hunter. Kane-ae in our modern age.

1. I cannot think of a better Artistic Manifesto or a better way of summing up the "debate" over which poetic forms we should or should not use than with the Jalal-e-Din Rumi story of Moses and the Shepherd. In it, Moses comes upon a man praying in a way he finds offensive and tells him off. The shepherd repented and tore his clothes and sighed and wandered into the desert. A sudden revelation came then to Moses. God's voice: "You have separated me from one of my own. Did you come as a Prophet to unite, or to sever? I have given each being a separate and unique way of seeing and knowing and saying that knowledge. What seems wrong for you is right for him. What is poisonous to one is honey to someone else. Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship, these mean nothing to me. I am apart from all that. Ways of worshipping are not to be ranked as better or worse than one another. Hindus do Hindu things. the Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do. It's all praise, and it's all right. It's not me that's glorified in acts of worship. It's the worshipers! I don't hear the words they say. I look inside at the humility. That broken-open lowliness is the reality, not the language! Forget phraseology. I want burning, burning. from: Barks, Coleman (ed.) The Essential Rumi San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco (1995) page, 166. [back]
2. Benét's reader's encyclopedia. New York: Harper & Row (1987) page 916. [back]

Tess recently wrote me with this question: How do you choose the poems you translate? Or rather, why choose this one?

To be honest, Tess, it really comes down to poems I've either read in translations and thought, "hmmm … that is sort of interesting I wonder what it was like in the original?" or stumbling upon a poem that just blows the top of my head off and thinking, "wait until I share this with my friends … in English!"

Baudelaire's Don Juan aux enfers is an example of the first. I love Mozart's Don Giovanni and at some point probably tried to find as many Don Juan poems as possible. I recall reading Roy Campbell's 1952 translation and thinking, "those are some really outdated words in this poem." For example, in the first stanza Baudelaire writes:

Un sombre mendiant, l'oeil fier comme Antisthène,
D'un bras vengeur et fort saisit chaque aviron.

Campbell translated that as: Proud as Antisthenes, a surly knave/ With vengeful arms laid hold of either oar. Now, I know that Campbell used the term knave because he rhymed it with subterranean wave. Still, it sounded cluncky to my ears. I tried: Charon, gruff in Antisthenes' manner,/ then pulled with vengeful arms on his long oars. I was rhyming manner with underground river. These small differences are, to me, what keeps a poem fresh.

But who is right? I would say any translation that brings forth the "spirit" of the poem is successful. For some readers Campbell's choice of words will strike the right cords. For other, I hope, mine or another translator's.

There is another reason I picked this poem. I wanted to wrap up the three or four poems of Baudelaire's I liked before I stop my translations for good; you see, am growing to loath the man! His sexism! His racism! His poem: Une nuit que j'étais près d'une affreuse Juive … which gets translated by Jacques LeClercq as: One night I lay, a hideous Jewess at my side … (1958) to which I have been musing about for a while. I even started my own response with: Baudelaire, I was that Jew, you bastard … but, no …

… No. I understand Baudelaire was no better or worse than many other poets. He wa a product of his time and place so picking on him when T.S. Eliot and Charles Bukowski go free does not seem fair. In short, I have boxed up all my Baudelaire books and sent them off to my local Goodwill shop. Someone, somewhere, might find more pleasure from the poems than I did.

I hope that answers your question, Tess. Cheers!