It is the pain, it is the pain
endures.
Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through.
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through.
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
What later purge from this deep toxin cures?
What kindness now could the old salve renew?
It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
The infection slept (custom or changes inures)
And when pain's secondary phase was due
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
How safe I felt, whom memory assures,
Rich that your grace safely by heart I knew.
It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
My stare drank deep beauty that still allures.
My heart pumps yet the poison draught of you.
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
You are still kind whom the same shape immures.
Kind and beyond adieu. We miss our cue.
It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
In college I heard Empson give a reading. He introduced this one by saying "My friend Dylan Thomas always referred to this as my good poem." The emphasis on "good" implied that Thomas found the adjective helpful in distinguishing this one from the rest of Empson's output.
ReplyDeleteThis bit of self-effacement made it hard to dislike the man. Empson gave oddly incantatory readings of this and other poems, with unexpected emphases that made it sound like he might be speaking an unfamiliar Balkan dialect.
I wish I'd seen Empson read, but I only discovered him over the past couple of years and I was so foggy during most of college that the experience might have gone by me. I think he's a terrific poet and writer and one who makes me want to keep on reading and try to discover other things he has written. I do love this one. Readings are so odd anyway. It's been years since I've attended one, but you can listen to all sorts of readings on the web and they bring all back all the unexpected emphases you mention. I think I might like to attend readings, which must occur all the time at the local colleges and universities, but it's hard to find the time and positive energy at the moment. (Which is too bad; one always seems to have time to hunt around to see what is in the refrigerator and going to a poetry reading sounds healthier.) I just worked with a west coast lawyer who is a poet, which I found encouraging. I discovered this by accident and I think I'll chat with her about that this week. So far all of our communication has been work-related emails. Curtis
ReplyDeleteI like his poems too. Where ought one to begin with the prose? Seven Types of Ambiguity? A great title, so good you barely need to read the book. Used to see it on Harry Goldgar's book shelf.
ReplyDeleteI can't say I go to readings any more. Most of them are bad and diminish the poems. Edward
Field (trained as an actor, which helps, and a person of great charm) and Phil Levine are the two best I have heard. Not so good were Robert Lowell, Stanley Kunitz (unpretentious, at least), W. S. Merwin (looked great), Anthony Hecht (plummiest English accent I ever heard).
In high school I heard Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Although his poetry does not interest me he gave good value live. Were you there?
I was at the Ferlinghetti reading and thought he was great live. It was a forum made for his personality and his poems sounded best in that setting. At The Gunnery I remember going to a poetry reading at Simon's Rock where I believe Anne Waldman read (she's good live too) and Charles Simic also. I fell asleep during Simic and I remember him glaring at me when I woke up, which was embarrassing. The funny thing is I once fell asleep in a down-front row at a Blue Oyster Cult concert in college. I think both rooms were overheated, actually. I've enjoyed listening to recordings of W.H. Auden reading and a couple of years ago when we were already living down here I happened to tune by what turned out to be the Swarthmore College station during show changeover time and heard Victoria by The Kinks segue into a T.S. Eliot recitation, which I thought was mesmerizing and gave me a brief optimistic lift, which has since passed. ALL sorts of things to do tomorrow. Curtis
ReplyDelete