Sunday Silly: You Can Call Me Zimmy

I've been negligent in my duties to give you a stupid/silly/fun poem on Saturdays, so here's my atonement for that oversight.


Let's talk about Bob Dylan.


Without going on a 10,000 word rampage about his demigod status, his personal mythology, his idiosyncrasies and peculiarities, his power and his weakness, his faith and his doubt, I'd just like to submit that for a man known as one of the greatest and most popular poets of the 21st-century, his poems are pretty terrible.


I feel about Bob like I feel about my siblings, or the country I grew up in, or my particular religious affiliation. Yeah, they're flawed, ridiculous, self-centered, incomprehensible or feeble to the view of outsiders, strange, difficult, and most likely disturbing.


But YOU don't get to tell me that.


But even so, we have to admit that among songwriters he has no peer. And among poets, he has far too many. Here's an example.

(Pointless Like a Witch)

Bob Dylan

trip into the light here abraham ... what about this boy of yours? & don't tell me that you just do what you're told i might not be hip to your sign language but i come in peace i seek knowledge. in exchange for some information, i will give you my fats domino records, some his an hers towel & your own private press secretary . . .come on. fall down here. my mind is blank. i've no hostility. my eyes are two used car lots. i will offer you a cup of urn cleaner - we can learn from each other/ just don't try & touch my kid


got too drunk last nite. musta drunk too much. woke up this morning with my mind on freedom & my head feeling like the inside of a prune ... am planning to lecture today on police brutality. come if you can get away. see you when you arrive. write me when you're coming


your friend,
homer the slut






And yes, the parenthetical title is his.


Here are all of his peculiar quirks laid bare - self-conscious mannerisms like his eccentric punctuation; sudden shifts in tone and subject that aspire to dada but can't quite get there from here; pop culture references thrown into the mix seemingly at random and for no good purpose; allusions to history, religion, myth, literature which all add up to a curiously tasteless mash that by comparison makes Esau's lentils the ambrosia of the gods.


See, now he's even got me doing it!


But compare that with the lyrics to the title track from his album "Highway 61 Revisited." (It's a lot funnier and more entertaining with the video playing.)

Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan

Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61”


Well Georgia Sam he had a bloody nose
Welfare Department they wouldn’t give him no clothes
He asked poor Howard where can I go
Howard said there’s only one place I know
Sam said tell me quick man I got to run
Ol’ Howard just pointed with his gun
And said that way down on Highway 61


Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red, white and blue shoestrings
And a thousand telephones that don’t ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son
And he said yes I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61


Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren’t right
My complexion she said is much too white
He said come here and step into the light, he says hmm you’re right
Let me tell the second mother this has been done
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61


Now the rovin’ gambler he was very bored
He was tryin’ to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61




It's got so many of the same qualities as the first poem, and it's even got some similar subject matter and tone. But for Dylan, form seems to be the thing that keeps him on track. It's all united by the rhyme and meter and especially the blues/pop format of verses linked by a final line that acts as a chorus.


Instead of rambling and nonsensical, these sudden shifts in subject matter seem to show that these characters and situations are all symptoms with the same cause that gets embodied in Highway 61. The allusions give it depth instead of side-tracking us, each reference throwing us into a new part of this world he's weaving. It's tight, structured, even while it keeps its loose, about-to-go-off-the-rails feel.


The poem just seems to be a self-referential masturbatory mess, while the song has a method in its madness. 


Now, I'm going to have to go off another time about the way in which music critics and especially academics who like to show off how hip they are try to teach songwriting or song appreciation. They strip it of melody, harmony, dynamics and then just say, "Now read this. Ain't it great?" It's not the way songs are written, it's not the way they're listened to, and it's not how we should be thinking about them.


But in this case, even if all you do is read the words on the page, you can see a luminescence that's entirely lacking in the poem. It kind of blows my mind that the man called the greatest living songwriter can also compose poems that are such a waste of time.


Moral of this story: “I like Fidel Castro and his beard.”

IEDs

Watched "Hurt Locker" tonight and I think it's one of maybe 3 films about Iraq that manage not to preach or talk down to the audience (the others being "Jarhead" and "Three Kings" if we're being generous). 

Amid all the awards show hoopla, they didn't mention that the title of the Academy Award Winner for Best Picture of 2009 comes from a poem. Off the top of my head, this is maybe the 3rd film I know of to come from a poem. ("Man from Snowy River" and "Eugene Onegin" being the others.)


Here it is.

The Hurt Locker

Brian Turner

Nothing but the hurt left here.
Nothing but bullets and pain
and the bled out slumping
and all the fucks and goddamns
and Jesus Christs of the wounded.
Nothing left here but the hurt.


Believe it when you see it.
Believe it when a 12-year-old
rolls a grenade into the room.
Or when a sniper punches a hole
deep into someone’s skull.
Believe it when four men
step from a taxicab in Mosul
to shower the street in brass
and fire. Open the hurt locker
and see what there is of knives
and teeth. Open the hurt locker and learn
how rough men come hunting for souls.

The Fat Tire and Cabernet

mean that all I've got is a poem, no commentary tonight.

Ecclesiastes

Khaled Mattawa

The trick is that you're willing to help them. 
The rule is to sound like you're doing them a favor.


The rule is to create a commission system. 
The trick is to get their number.


The trick is to make it personal: 
No one in the world suffers like you.


The trick is that you're providing a service. 
The rule is to keep the conversation going.


The rule is their parents were foolish, 
their children are greedy or insane.


The rule is to make them feel they've come too late. 
The trick is that you're willing to make exceptions.


The rule is to assume their parents abused them. 
The trick is to sound like the one teacher they loved.


And when they say "too much," 
give them a plan.


And when they say "anger" or "rage" or "love," 
say "give me an example."


The rule is everyone is a gypsy now. 
Everyone is searching for his tribe.


The rule is you don't care if they ever find it. 
The trick is that they feel they can.

Something from Me

It's been a bit since I showed a poem of my own, may as well indulge my egotism. I'm going to post some very weak stuff of my own soon (just in the interest of full disclosure). But for now here's something recent I'm sort of fond of.

No Other Way

Matt Quarterman

I had to do what I did
to get where I got.
I can’t say that I’m proud of it.
Pride is not what it’s about.


It’s what I had to do,
it went where it willed.
It’s not that I had no choice.
Choosing is not what it’s about.


I had to go, and I did
get what was to be had.
You might think it’s what was meant to be.
But it’s not about fate.


The going and having,
the doing and getting
can’t be about anything
besides what they’re about.


There’s just no other way to put it.
There’s just no other way.




I think it's about the process of writing, but it could just as easily be about the process of living, too. There's an element of fate and an element of free will in everything, but you can't tell which is which until later. 


I also like making definitive statements about intangible, subjective topics.

The Dark Side of the Wild Blue Yonder

Here are two poems, both written by 20th-century male American poets about airborne warfare in World War II. But despite those two sets of similar circumstances, the poems themselves are world apart, both in their recognition and their characteristics. 

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

Randall Jarrell

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, 
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. 
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, 
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. 
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. 

The War in the Air 

Howard Nemerov

For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead,
Who rarely bothered coming home to die
But simply stayed away out there
In the clean war, the war in the air.


Seldom the ghosts come back bearing their tales
Of hitting the earth, the incompressible sea, 
But stayed up there in the relative wind,
Shades fading in the mind,


Who had no graves but only epitaphs
Where never so many spoke for never so few:
Per ardua, said the partisans of Mars,
Per aspera, to the stars.


That was the good war, the war we won
As if there was no death, for goodness's sake. 
With the help of the losers we left out there
In the air, in the empty air.






Although they both served in the Air Force, Nemerov was actually a pilot while Jarrell was a "celestial navigation tower operator," a title he considered the most poetic of all those in the military. Odd, then, that Jarrell's is the more graphic and the more sense-based poem, while Nemerov's is oddly detached and unsepcific.


Personally, I love both poems. Certainly, the first is better known, taught in high schools all over the country, where girls tend to be repulsed by the imagery while boys are gripped by the gore and testosterone. (Although high school guys tend to forget that the actual experiences are far more "Five O'Clock High" than "Top Gun.")


I enjoy the terse, cynical force of the "Ball Turret Gunner" and the aloof, delicate remoteness of "The War in the Air." I appreciate that both poets could approach the same subject and find some truth and humanity in the horror, while finding such diametrically opposed means to the same end.

All About Amanda Palmer's Boyfriend

One of the advantages of doing this blog is that in addition to old chestnuts I also stumble across some new items of interest. Here's one courtesy of Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) and his Twitter feed. In some ways it's kind of reminiscent of Sylvia Plath's "Transformations" with its echoes of fairy tales and mythos, as well as plenty of the imagery and tone in Gaiman's novels ("American Gods", "Anansi Boys") and especially his graphic novels like "Sandman."

Instructions

Neil Gaiman

Touch the wooden gate in the wall you never
saw before.
Say "please" before you open the latch,
go through,
walk down the path.
A red metal imp hangs from the green-painted
front door,
as a knocker,
do not touch it; it will bite your fingers.
Walk through the house. Take nothing. Eat
nothing.
However, if any creature tells you that it hungers,
feed it.
If it tells you that it is dirty,
clean it.
If it cries to you that it hurts,
if you can,
ease its pain.


From the back garden you will be able to see the
wild wood.
The deep well you walk past leads to Winter's
realm;
there is another land at the bottom of it.
If you turn around here,
you can walk back, safely;
you will lose no face. I will think no less of you.


Once through the garden you will be in the
wood.
The trees are old. Eyes peer from the under-
growth.
Beneath a twisted oak sits an old woman. She
may ask for something;
give it to her. She
will point the way to the castle.
Inside it are three princesses.
Do not trust the youngest. Walk on.
In the clearing beyond the castle the twelve
months sit about a fire,
warming their feet, exchanging tales.
They may do favors for you, if you are polite.
You may pick strawberries in December's frost.
Trust the wolves, but do not tell them where
you are going.
The river can be crossed by the ferry. The ferry-
man will take you.
(The answer to his question is this:
If he hands the oar to his passenger, he will be free to
leave the boat.
Only tell him this from a safe distance.)


If an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe.
Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that
witches are often betrayed by their appetites;
dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always;
hearts can be well-hidden,
and you betray them with your tongue.


Do not be jealous of your sister.
Know that diamonds and roses
are as uncomfortable when they tumble from
one's lips as toads and frogs:
colder, too, and sharper, and they cut.


Remember your name.
Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found.
Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped
to help you in their turn.
Trust dreams.
Trust your heart, and trust your story.
When you come back, return the way you came.
Favors will be returned, debts will be repaid.
Do not forget your manners.
Do not look back.
Ride the wise eagle (you shall not fall).
Ride the silver fish (you will not drown).
Ride the grey wolf (hold tightly to his fur).


There is a worm at the heart of the tower; that is
why it will not stand.


When you reach the little house, the place your
journey started,
you will recognize it, although it will seem
much smaller than you remember.
Walk up the path, and through the garden gate
you never saw before but once.
And then go home. Or make a home.
And rest.

Monday Suck: This Is Getting to Be a Pain

This blog is quickly coming to seem more trouble than it's worth. I'm 2 behind now. Crap. Well, here's something for tonight. My favorite part? "It's transformed, miracle-like."

Put your hands up real easy-like and ain't nobody gonna get hurt...

God Bless Our Home 

Perry Tanksley 

You can purchase a house,
A home you cannot buy,
And the reason is obvious
If a person asks why.
A house is built of wood,
A home is built of love.
A house from earth arises.
A home comes from above.
People draw plans for houses.
A home is planned by Christ.
A house is very costly.
A home cannot be priced.
Where love and kindness dwell
A house of wood and stone
Is transformed, miracle-like,
By Christ into a home.