James - Nefertiti in the Flak Tower

To Christian WimanSigning CeremonyHotel Timeo, Taormina The lilac peak of Etna dribbles pink, Visibly seething in the politest way. The shallow vodka cocktails that we sink Here on the terrace at the close of day Are spreading numb delight as they go down. Their syrup mirrors the way lava flows: Its just a show, it might take over town, Sometimes the Cyclops, from his foxhole, throws Rocks at Ulysses. But regard the lake Of moonlight on the water, stretching east Almost to Italy. The love we make Tonight might be our last, but this, at least, Is one romantic setting, am I right? Cypresses draped in bougainvillea, The massed petunias, the soft, warm night, That streak of candy floss. And you, my star, Still walking the stone alleys with the grace Of forty years ago.

Dont laugh at me For saying dumb things. Just look at this place. Time was more friend to us than enemy, And soon enough this backdrop will go dark Again. The spill of neon cream will cool, The crater waiting years for the next spark Of inspiration, since the only rule Governing history is that it goes on: There is no rhythm of events, they just Succeed each other. Soon, we will be gone, And that volcano, if and when it must, Will flood the slope with lip-gloss brought to boil For other lovers who come here to spend One last, late, slap-up week in sun-tan oil, Their years together winding to an end. With any luck, theyll see what we have seen: Not just the picture postcard, but the splash Of fire, and know this flowering soil has been Made rich by an inheritance of ash.

Only because its violent to the core The world grows gardens. Out of earth we came, To earth we shall return. But first, one more Of these, delicious echoes of the flame That drives the long life all should have, yet few Are granted as we were. It wasnt fair? Of course it wasnt. But which of us knew, To start with, that the other would be there, One step away, for all the time it took To come this far and see a mountain cry Hot tears, as if our names, signed in the book Of marriage, were still burning in the sky? Monja Blanca The wild White Nun, rarest and loveliest Of all her kind, takes form in the green shade Deep in the forest. Streams of filtered light Are tapped, distilled, and lavishly expressed As petals.

Her sweet hunger is displayed By the labellum, set for bees in flight To land on. In her well, the viscin gleams: Mesmeric nectar, sticky stuff of dreams. This orchids sexual commerce is confined To flowers of her own class, and nothing less. And yet for humans she sends so sublime A sensual signal that it melts the mind. The hunters brave a poisoned wilderness To capture just a few blooms at a time, And even they, least sensitive of men, Will stand to look, and sigh, and look again, Dying of love for what does not love them. Transported to the world, her wiles inspire The same frustration in rich connoisseurs Who pay the price for nourishing the stem To keep the bloom fresh, as if their desire To live forever lived again through hers: But in a day she fades, though every fold Be duplicated in fine shades of gold.

Only where she was born, and only for One creature, will she give up everything Simply because she is adored; and he Must sacrifice himself. The Minotaur, Ugly, exhausted, has no gifts to bring Except his grief. She opens utterly To show how she can match his tears of pain. He drinks her in, and she him, like the rain. He sees her, then, at her most beautiful, And he would say so, could she give him speech: But he must end his life there, near his prize, Having been chosen, half man and half bull, To find the heaven that we never reach Though seeking it forever. Nothing buys Or keeps a revelation that was meant For eyes not ours and once seen is soon spent: For all our sakes she should be left alone, Guarded by legends of how men went mad Merely from tasting her, of monsters who Died from her kiss.

May this forbidden zone Be drawn for all time. If she ever had A hope to live, it lies in what we do To curb the longing she arouses. Let Her be. We are not ready for her yet, Because we have a mind to make her ours, And she belongs to nobodys idea Of the divine but hers. But that we know, Or would, if it were not among her powers Always across the miles to bring us near To where she thrives on shadows. Stage Door Rocket Science In the early evening, before I go on in Taunton, Im outside the stage door for a last gasp. Stage Door Rocket Science In the early evening, before I go on in Taunton, Im outside the stage door for a last gasp.

Two spires, one Norman, share the summer sky With a pale frayed tissue wisp of cirrostratus And the moon, chipped like the milky white glass marble I kept separate for a whole week and then ruined By using as a taw. I have never been here before, So where does this strong visual echo come from? Concentrate. Smoke harder. And then I get it: Cape Kennedy, the rocket park in the boondocks. A Redstone and a Jupiter stuck up Through clear blue air with a cloud scrap just like this one, And the moon in the same phase. The rockets, posing for the tourists gaze, Were the small-time ancestors of Saturn V, But so were these spires.

Its a longer story Than the thirty years I just felt shrink to nothing. Time to go in, get rigged with the lapel mike Its furry bobble like a soft black marble And feel the lectern shaking while I set Course for the Sea of Shadows. A Perfect Marketou plutost les chanter Recite your lines aloud, Ronsard advised, Or, even better, sing them. Common speech Held all the rhythmic measures that he prized In poetry. He had much more to teach, But first he taught that. Several poets paid Him heed.

The odd one even made the grade, Building a pretty castle on the beach. But on the whole its useless to point out That making the thing musical is part Of pinning down what you are on about. The voice leads to the craft, the craft to art: All this is patent to the gifted few Who know, before they can, what they must do To make the mind a spokesman for the heart. As for the million others, they are blessed: This is their age. Their slap-dash in demand From all who would take fright were thought expressed In ways that showed a hint of being planned, They may say anything, in any way. Why not? Why shouldnt they? Why wouldnt they? Nothing to study, nothing to understand.

And yet it could be that their flight from rhyme And reason is a technically precise Response to the confusion of a time When nothing, said once, merits hearing twice. It isnt that their deafness fails to match The chaos. Its the only thing they catch. No form, no pattern. Just the rolling dice Of idle talk. Always a blight before, It finds a place today, fulfills a need: As those who cannot write increase the store Of verses fit for those who cannot read, For those who can do both the field is clear To meet and trade their wares, the only fear That mutual benefit might look like greed.

It isnt, though. Its just the interchange Of showpiece and attention that has been There since the cave men took pains to arrange Pictures of deer and bison to be seen To best advantage in the flickering light. Our luck is to sell tickets on the night Only to those who might know what we mean, And they are drawn to us by love of sound. In the first instance, it is how we sing That brings them in. No mystery more profound Than how a melody soars from a string Of syllables, and yet this much we know: Ronsard was right to emphasise it so, Even in his day. Now, its everything: The language falls apart before our eyes, But what it once was echoes in our ears As poetry, whose gathered force defies Even the drift of our declining years.

A single lilting line, a single turn Of phrase: these always proved, at last we learn, Life cries for joy though it must end in tears.