Myth of Arrival

In the primordial mud of
existence, an exhumed doll,
a miraculated body soaked
with tears
– Michel Nedjar

I love me some myth! I had this dream last night of a classical Greek woman being judged in the underworld. This morning I began to think of the myth of Sappho, the 10th Muse, and what we really knew of her. How much recorded information is there? Which artists have tried to capture her? I had this dim memory I had seen a painting of Sappho by the English painter John Waterhouse, but then I remembered it was about the Narrisus myth instead. While looking, however, I stumbled on a website hosted by Dr. Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self Love, who has many, many observations about narcissists and burdens they pose for others (here I should make some witty comment about Tony Hoagland's new book, What Narcissism Means to Me, but I won't). There are many days when I feel I suffer from narcissism and then there are long periods of time when it doesn't even enter my head, so who really knows? However, in the website there was a section concerning narcissism and the artist that caught my eye. I quote part of it here:

A narcissist would find it difficult to enjoy the emotional content, message and context of a work of art. This is because narcissists lack empathy. They are unable to put themselves in other people's "shoes". They are like islands with all lines of communications cut, with giant mirrors in which the islanders are reflected.

Producing a work of art IS working to the benefit of mankind. Does a narcissistic artist INTEND to benefit mankind with his work? To this the answer is an unequivocal NO. The narcissist is interested ONLY in ONE thing: narcissistic supply. If he can obtain it by creating art — he will. It's simply another way of obtaining his drug. In most cases, he is not even emotionally involved in what he does.

What was interesting to me was the line, "producing a work of art IS working to the benefit of mankind." The more I thought about it the more I liked the statement, even if, I think, it argues against something I wrote yesterday (and I stand corrected on) concerning contemporaneous, instant, on the spot poetry. As long as we keep creating, pushing forward, there was no shame in doing whatever brought you bliss. Sort of like Sappho in the court of the dead, singing songs lost forever to us. Making the dead cry with such beauty. One day I too want to make the dead cry. I want to sing so even the boulders and trees draw near to hear my song.

Ah, Sappho, where are you, my friend, a body soaked with tears? Write soon, I miss you …

There are places where I will
never go to, Boston, say,
where no one ever lives
and if no one lives what's the point

of factories or tribes or tabloids?
Only night and lark symbolism
there is always that, sky lark:
blood of my tribe, let the tribe of
my blood come to an end down
around the waterfront and

factory and small hotel
where I shall meet you, sitting
by an open window, watching
men and women go about
their labors, we all labor over
so much, some tit of toy or

hardware or postage stamp,
I'd like a postage stamp of you,
turning to water, moving
into this familiar form,
I've always known, the one

I love. There are so many bodies
all dumb and wet from birth; clove-
hoofed men and men and men and
men and air-tangled women and
everyone hitting puberty

and those stupid calves you see
in documentaries; we turn now
to the calf and its membrane,
its veil, birthing veil, now
we breath. Now we lick

back wet hair, the green sap
of these things, gather the stick
limbs up, rise we shall rise
those first few terrible miles
coaxing you to move to be

a little more indivisible all
rubbery and new and smiling
you got to be smiling arms out
like so — so you can look back
and say for me,

all of this is for me.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Original Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.