In our last post, we quoted from what is probably Yeats’ most quoted poem, ‘The Second Coming’, and we touched on the significance of the image of the falcon in the first line. In fact, ‘The Second Coming’ is one of the most quoted poems of the 20^th Century. Some readers may remember its appearance in ‘The Sopranos’. Anthony Junior, during an adolescent breakdown, hears the poem at the community college where he is taking lessons. He becomes preoccupied with the poem and its message, and wants to talk about its significance with anyone who will listen, including his more intelligent older sister, Meadow. Meadow rolls her eyes and corrects his pronunciation. The episode struck a chord with me (or rather, it made me cringe) because I had in my time been a troubled and slightly pretentious youth given to morbidity, and I had pronounced Yeats name like Anthony Junior did – ‘Yeets’, when it’s really ‘Yates’.

So, since everybody and their troubled little brother knows ‘The Second Coming’, let’s look at a lesser known Yeats poems.

He Reproves the Curlew

O Curlew, cry no more in the air,

Or only to the water in the West;

Because your crying brings to my mind

passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair

That was shaken out over my breast:

There is enough evil in the crying of wind.

Hang on, some of you are saying, we know your game. You think I’m always including poems about birds because I like to jabber on about birds. Well, maybe; but doesn’t a bit of background knowledge about birds help us understand the poem? What about that stuff about kites last post? See. You just have to trust me that when I go off on an ornithological tangent, it will in some way enrich your appreciation of the poem.

Right, so here’s a picture of a curlew I spotted during a trip to Belfast Lough a couple of years ago:

A rocky estuary is a good place to see the curlew: they spend the winter on the coasts. I see one quite often at Tynemouth when the tide is out and it comes to search for food on the Black Middens with turnstones and oystercatchers. I’ve seen one nesting by a stream in shrub land just off the river Aln where it meets the sea at Alnmouth – it was here I first heard the distinctive rising lament that makes it the subject of Yeats’ poem. They’re also found, especially in winter in hill and moor country – one swooped over my car once as I drove towards the Pennines near Lanchester, and hikers may recognize them as the bird on the logo of the Northumberland National Park. I’ve usually seen individuals rather than flocks, but I did see a flock last year – from a metro in fact – searching over the vast mudflats near Incheon in South Korea, a bleak and beautiful sight.

So now we’re familiar with the curlew, who is this ‘he’ in the poem? Does it matter? I suppose not – we can just as well appreciate the poem if the persona is anonymous, just a man who hears a curlew and is reminded unwillingly of his lost love. But the notes in my Penguin edition, tell me that the persona was originally meant to be Yeats’ ‘Red Hanrahan’, his reimagining of the 18^th Century peasant poet, Owen Roe O’ Sullivan (that is, Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin ) of County Kerry. Hanrahan – Ó Súilleabháin – would rather the curlew were quiet to leave him in the present, and not bring back the memories of a lost love, described in a quite sensuous image. We can imagine the poem to be set in an misty pastoral past in which men identified readily with the sights and sounds of the natural world, and the ‘evil in the wind’ is the fateful evil that ever abounds; or, as Yeats invites, we can locate it in a particular past, that of Ireland after the Jacobean wars when the plight of the Catholic Irish – particularly the Gaelic speakers displaced by Scots and English planters – was quite desperate. Either way, the poem deals with universal themes – lost love, regret and the impossible wish to forget them. The poem suggests that there is no escape from one’s human woes in the embrace of nature, that man will always find echoes of that which sorrows him wherever he turns his eyes and ears. This is an idea that Yeats had covered in more complex imagery in the poem ‘The Sorrow of Love’.

than the light that has flown;  eyes
worn out by dreams or from sitting

too close to the open window.
Now the cage door absent

mindedly left open teasing,
your wings, that  tremble

periodically as if they sense
the subtle changes in the flow

of air over wire,
becoming distracted. relax

then suddenly remembering.
You are a blind bird

singing louder , louder
than the coming storm

in the branches of the trees
gathering leaves into a spiraling

flight. while the record played
to make you sing  spins and spins

with its repeating pop of the last scratch -
while memory swirls around

your heavy throated body,
and you sing, you sing  in the dark.

of your heart.
a cut  reed

on the  wet bank
of a remembered sky.

the blue green swelling
of summer grapes

or of a rising sea -
here the faint line
in the margin

makes sense, more
sense than the silence
in the other room.

A seagull is pinned to an even greyer
sky making the difference
between us more difficult

to make out. She comes
home with a battered suit
case packed with stolen

constellations from above
the Sargasso Sea. He is not
impressed by her willingness

to exaggerate and worries
about all the lost migrations
and all the love letters

turned into innocent paper
boats that the tide now
returns; grown into such

beautiful shipwrecks.

Way out in a woods
far from a house or a barn..
near a stream with clear water
is  a small house with charm..
with walls  that are tattered
Roof weatherd and old
She is  a portrait
Of a Blessing to hold.
the nails old and rusted
Say  things unsaid there
and  the door to it’s shelter
Has much wear and tear..
I felt so lucky
to find in the trees…
a old house that was saying
“take my picture please!”

.

Mark McCawley has run Urban Graffiti for years as a magazine & now as a blog. Its aim is to celebrate transgressive, engaging, intense and otherwise liminal writers and their texts, music and visions of the universe. Here is one of my poems from a collaboration with Sydney Lancaster called NEST with a bio, photo and gorgeous picture his son Devin took. Allies like Mark are awesome.

I write this in response to a poem titled ‘Tell me your day’.  The first two lines have haunted me the last two weeks.  The poem is by JDub and can be found here:  ‘Tell me your day’ 

A currawong broke  
my heart from thin
branches.  Cur-loo.  I can’t resist
a suit so sharp.  The bush

warbler made me
walk closer to the toilet
block.  It was a long drop
for the hawk, who caught

a sunset field
mouse and lifted
my eyes to pray
thanks for all

the feathers.

I trudge along the beaten crescent beach,
impounded by gray granite headland walls
and cymbal-smashing dies irae waves,
past stinking heaps of purple mussel bones.
The tangled seaweed sinews snare my shoes.

          A memory
          of watching Perseid from here with her
                    recedes,
          a decrescendoing recessional.

A lighthouse wails a single French horn note.
Some ten tones up, a seabird imitates,
a matted gull on guano-crusted rock.
With depthless marble eyes he watches, blank,
not me, not sea, but nothing, everything,
and cracks the note apart atonally.

He’s not a raven, thrush, or nightingale;
his song is neither love, nor prophecy,
nor soulful fling, but empty piercing shrieks,
          of endless, apathetic sea,
a cacophonous anti-melody.

There’s nothing here but mildewed requiem.
I turn back to the cliff-hid path for home.

——————-

Update: This poem has been published in the Winter 2011 issue of Cirque, a literary journal for the Pacific North Rim. You can view and/or purchase Cirque online at www.cirquejournal.com.

Crow

Watchful eyes reveal more than intended;
a yellow intelligence, as if the sun had slept

a winter inside them. Engrossed, isolate,
their gaze slips to the impersonal things;

the bin lid’s useless flapping, the knot
at the top of the garbage bag.

Too late for them to turn to each other;
they have forgotten what it was like to live

in warmth and golden. One by one they abandon
the murder, signalling, signalling.

Throats swell and their voice inhabits the air
like smoke, making the eyes smart,

as the lunch bell rings and the sun
stirs slow coronas.

And on that day did
the throats of the first
birds who sang, bleed

just a little bit?
Was it on that same day
that joy was invented?

Or that flight became
the home of all those who sing?
Or did the first birds tremble

anxious because of what came
out from their small bodies
did they fear stopping

as if the world would
cease turning?
Or did they fly

higher and higher
singing louder and louder
till they fell back to earth
exhausted?

And was it on that day
that the first falling stars
came tumbling out

of the first evening sky
for all of us
to make

wishes upon?

the straw from a night
of dreaming burnt cornfields

and Crow. His arms wide
open like Jesus

and Crow returns with
the morning  and lands;

on his shoulders
singing Crow.

Lovecrow’s shoulders —
broad as broom stick

where Crow dances
back and forth singing.

What a sight!
Lovecrow and Crow.

Lovecrow says to Crow,
How about we trade

places, my Love?

And Crow laughs
Like crows do at those

in difficult predicaments.
She takes to the air.

and flies across the sun.
And Lovecrow unable

to cover his eyes
watches Crow leave again,

and when he closes his eyes,
sun and Crow remain.

Lovecrow and Crow, what a sight.

This poem exists because of a night 1 year ago today.

Five poems for Brooke Marie

“Raven was the one who brought light to the darkness”
Miwok Myth

One

My life is a letter home
caught in a dust devil

spinning wildly.
My hopes have been

mistreated by the waitress
with the bad hip

Our loves wear us
out till we are born

again in our
weariness —

that’s when
I saw you dancing

in the Laundromat
and called you out.

Two

If you open your dress
I will draw two ravens

on your breasts
and a 100 psalms

on your belly.
If you wear me

wear me passionate.
In the space where we

love, sparrows have nested.
The tide has risen;

how many stars
swirl at you feet?

Three

Your body is water
quivering from my breath

Your eyes are two roads
that ask to be traveled

Your hair hangs down
for me to climb back home

and I will weave new
mornings from the strands

Four

The moon
has stopped

to watch us,
and dangles

her feet above
the water where

we swim.
She rises

slowly above
us, looking back

while the night
gathers up the

dreams of all
those dreaming,

into bouquets
as we drift

half awake
half innocent,

our nakedness
a boat gently rocking.

Five

breathe in
breathe out

now be still
with me

my love.
let our —

faces pressed
together

be the evidence
of all the beautiful

things to come,
so that in

our gaze
fate will

be helpless
and the birds

I have drawn
on your two

perfect breasts
will abandon

the ground,
forever.

roads to here.

How did we…

How did I end

up on this side

of the river?

Were we once migrating

       birds and did we get lost

in the shift of

constellations?

Or was it simply

a longing for the fire

                under the skin

       that set our house to smoke?

a flight of swallows, startled
that woke me?

I rub two sticks together to
conjure you around a ring

of stones to tell our story
to the last of the morning

stars that lean against the trees,
bending the branches, to hear,

while the fading moon
floats on the river.

I hear them whispering
and it makes me colder.

So I find a spark
in the beak of a raven

take a flame from that day
we laughed so hard while making

         love  -
            and build a small fire

                that I set on the water
I watch it float down river,

       setting the morning on fire.

There is no more whispering.

                         to keep me company.

I give them
        a house drawn on rain

give them the gift
                   of a wound

to carry

                   far away

                        to the home I once

                                                       dreamt of.

I draw ravens to keep me company.

.

click the link I will draw two ravens to read the poem.  Also check the video reading of the same poem. Video

.

.

.

To purchase the journal click here.

A space has opened; not
a wound – but a field

of wheat, yellow ocean,
golden sea – our bodies a ship.

In the distance three red flags
beat wildly in the wind.

Our furious kisses become
two white sails pushing us on.

When we love -
King David writes another psalm

and King Solomon
another song, while we collect certain

tendernesses from each other eyes
- like rations for a long journey,

for all the severe days, that will follow

and for the journey to the innocent
cities that we dream, that we have

drawn gently on each other’s
bruised bodies.

to love you-
that’s why

while you
were
sleeping

I’ve sewn a roller
coaster

into the hem
of your dress -

Was it
all that

whoosh -ing &
scream-
ing

while you
walked

that gave me

away?

Why do you sigh, love?
She asks.

Because I thought I had
misplaced my home on
an outbound train.

“Sometimes it is good to be wrong.”

Because the letter you have
written, though written in the
language of beating wings
Hasn’t told me anything.

a little later
under a yellow buzzing
street light

Why do you sigh, love?
she asks.

Because I left my heart with a
flock of ravens under a freeway
over pass during a thunderstorm

Because your two brown eyes
have found me at last
in the gentle gesture of wheat

We stand in silence on the bow
of a ship. She leans against me,

Why do you sigh, love?

Because there was a woman
sitting at a table, making shadow
plays against a wall and all
the world came to watch the
gentle movements of her hands.

Because tomorrow you will
leave taking only one thing
from me

to remember.

The quiet boat that brought us
is finally sleeping –the oars too

have sprouted tender leaves, green
blue church bells ring just above

the water, just for us, in an flooded
church so far away; as time ticks

off the names from her hidden lists.

There, can you see?

two herons —necks entwined
on a branch above out boat –flared

by operas? Operas of so many sighs and bees
 gathering light from dewy stamens,

gathering silences that have fallen
from our lips and that moment

when you and I were once held
by the river’s slow story telling.

The beekeeper wakes

his bees with a gentle

humming, with the clock

in the honey, with a gentle

call of clovers

from inside

of himself.

The bees rub off

the golden sleep.

Awake and dressed

they take to the air, clumsily

the beekeeper

and his bees

into the bone white

light.

.
.
.
.
.
First Draft.

The beekeeper

wakes his bees

with a gentle

humming

from inside

of himself

wakes his

bees with

the child’s

open mouth

of wonder part of him.

Awake and

dressed

they take

to the air,

clumsily

the beekeeper

and his bees

into the bone

white light.

I concede myself
to you and to the cult
of your two hands

and your two lips,
of your cruel hips
and the constellations

between them — those
rough stars of never
forgetting and the always

longing for the taste
of your body. My twilight
dreams of loving you, I do

not excuse—my brilliant
object, my rampage
of prayers. Here in the dark

curve of my longing, where
my love for you invents
innumerable cities whose populations

are taken to be drunk
as if by kissing and each landing
is lit by a red lanterns

These cities where houses
with closed eyes remember
our loving with even

more prayers of doors
and windows left open,
welcoming everything

in — always remembering the emancipated
loves of memory, that walk with heads up,
towards the sun

singing.

Chris Leibow “I Will Draw Two Ravens”
Jun 20th

As Kundera wrote, “When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.” The poet Chirs Leibow is in love with someone here. The series of lyric loveliness here is infinite, all so crisply defined. And then set free. The phrasing does not work here, it plays.

With a voice as smoky as a Lower East Side dive, Chris Leibow has a vagabond heart. How he has not been more discovered and appreciated mystifies me