Poems from Planetary Motions

  

 I post primarily prose here, but this month I mark the publication of Planetary Motions by offering a poem from each of the book’s sections along with a few brief and, I trust, superfluous, comments.  For further information, see the listing on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Planetary-Motions-William-Seaton/dp/B08MS5KNJB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ASZSKJYZS5VG&dchild=1&keywords=planetary+motions&qid=1606054981&sprefix=planetary+mo%2Caps%2C214&sr=8-1

 

 

• 1.      Other Scenes

 

 

                        Dia de los Muertos

          On Dia de los Muertos some here choose

          to picnic with their loved ones by their graves,

          and some then strive with Gallo beer to kill

          mosquitoes of the mind that can draw blood.

          Out front a wobbly Rambo sheds his shirt

          and dares the other men to come and fight.

          In corners of red eyes I see bright tears.

          Thin dogs with hanging dugs pace back and forth.

          Their glance tells me there's nothing more to say.

 

 

This is Guatemala where Gallo is best-known as a beer (not wine) brand.  The nervous scroungy free-running dogs of developing countries well suggest the tone of life in poor neighborhoods.  In this setting the universal theme of mortality is colored by the traveler’s knowledge of pre-Columbian human sacrifice, brutal colonialism, and the barbaric violence of decades-long civil unrest. 

 

 

 

• 2.      Divagations

 

 

I hurtle through the light and dark by trees

that reach and strive indifferent to my course,

by rocks with memories back before the flood,

each facet marking some old painful break,

eruption, gash, reshuffle. Read there, see

tomorrow far more live and clear

than ever sortilege, astrology,

or hepatoscopy could claim: beat grass

and withered weeds, a sudden bird, and wind

that envies leaves of shrubs and, homeless, sighs. 

 

 

I meant to suggest that the most common sights are surely more beautiful, remarkable, and significant than divination or magic.  The scene before the eyes is always a gaze at the morphing flow of phenomena.  Sometimes even the wise wind sounds sad.

 

 

 

• 3.      Appetites

 

Feast

 

O be for me an oyster raw,

unfathomable: inside the shell

a lopped but answering tongue,

and be for me an onion soup,

so thick and savory-sweet.

O be for me a leg of lamb,

as rich and strong as scrubby hills,

and be for me a Brussels sprout,

compact and layered like a late quartet.

O surely you’re my bread

and fit me like inhaled air.

Do be for me tonight a custard flan

so melting to the tongue

               with caramel atop

it brings an end to words.

 

 

Or as Bessie Smith sang, “Give me lots of candy, honey, love is grand.”

 

 

• 4.      Songs

 

 

Yearly the killer bees yaw and romp

through the golden filigree of printemps.

Like opals and carbuncles dewy and light

that ravish the soul at the very first sight,

confusing their victims, occluding their might.

Soon their prey will sink in a swoon.

These oligolectic bees buzz up a tune

of garnet greens and things unseen,

a hermit’s eye, leanest of all the Essenes,

a hermit’s eye, leanest of all the Essenes.

 

 

My goal in these songs is to turn the focus from content to the melody of words, a quality often neglected in contemporary poetry.  I think of Keats describing Negative Capability, “without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”  In another letter he spoke of “the 'burden of the Mystery.'”  Just listen; no understanding needed.

 

 

 

• 5.      Momento Mori

 

 

Dead trees in the forked arms

of their fellows that followed,

knot-eyes wide with utter unbelief

like comrades in war unable

to believe their trench-mates gone.

The forest floor has generations

layered like old Troy, but back and back

to time’s get-go and each supports

the next till in the ultimate sub-basement

the elevator operator lifts one wry eye,

the door slides, the secret’s out

and all distinctions fade.

Then everything relaxes, all lets go,

no longer any gap from one to one,

the manic dance may pause --

so brief! -- between exhale/inhale,

before time’s arrow like

some god of locomotives,

blows a lonely whistle

and speeds on down the line

as though the terminus

               must hold that counter

where one can sit

               and ask one’s heart’s desire --

so well worth racing toward!

 

 

In what I like to think is a reinforcement of theme, several of the images here are fading from the general imagination.  The locomotive had more powerful associations in the era of steam, and elevator operators are now rare birds, building a muted strain of nostalgia into the story. 

 

 

• 6.      Lama Swine Toil

 

 

The Lama’s Parable of the Not-OK Corral              

              

He walked the dusty, sun-baked streets of a town

on the far frontier of metaphysics.

His faithful Indian companion whispered sutras in his ear.

The townspeople hustled off to shelter behind the nearest

received ideas.

The tumbleweeds blew, and the buzzards cried out wise

suggestions,

but he never heard and just stared straight ahead.

At the street’s opposite end, walking slowly toward him, was his

enemy,

his brother, his mirror-image.

(And the town’s pretty schoolmarm walked an identical street

at that very moment, facing a Doppelgänger of her own,

her foot like his poised seeking the next step,

and neither could help it at all.)

The sweat dripped down his cheek.

The Avidya Boys, he knew, were crouching in doorways,

leaning from second-story windows,

and the gang from the Hungry Ghost Ranch,

covered him from every angle.

The clock ticked on toward the highest of high noons

when time, that old codger, will expire, as did Gabby Hayes in

1969. 

Suddenly he heard from behind the voice of the cosmos, deep

and unmistakable,

“Drop your ego on the ground right there, I’ve got you

covered.”

And he knew the jig was finally up.

 

 

 

Another apocalyptic anticipation like the last, here employing the “Old West” set that once proved hospitable to many of this country’s myths, a redeemed Spahn Movie Ranch of the mind, maybe, artificial, playful and beneficent. 

 

 

• 7.      Translations

 

 

Horace, Odes I, 11

 

Don’t ask, Leukonoe, it is taboo to know

what fate I’ve got and what’s awaiting you.

Forget the Tarot reader. It is best to tough

it out. Know Jupiter may give us many years

or this may be the last we see the Tuscan sea

come break against the rocks. Be wise; strain wine;

don’t hold great long-term hopes. We talk and jealous time

runs on. Just seize this day, think nothing of the next.

 

It is almost the last shred of the once-sizable fund of Horatian maxims that all educated European people used to carry about – carpe diem.  Ecclesiastes said the same.  Horace is one of the greatest of poets, though I fear he loses a very great deal in translation.

 

 

Creel

     In the 1970s the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad between Chihuahua and Los Mochis (called the Chepe) had been completed for only a few years. Its route passes through the high peaks of northern Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental where even roads had not penetrated before. The Tarahumara, celebrated by Artaud in the ‘30s for their veneration of peyote and by many for their long-distance running had learned to sell their crafts at the Divisadero train stop on the Continental Divide, others had contracted to receive visitors curious to step into their huts in small tour groups, and big hotels had already been built in the Barranca del Cobre itself, but Creel was still a dusty frontier town with unpaved roads used primarily by horses. The only souvenirs were available at the church’s mission office. I would like to think the traditional value of sharing or kórima will survive the construction of the airport now planned for Creel.
     In the days before online research could provide the prospective visitor with information about even rather remote locations, one wandered. After a short time, it became clear that here, as in much of Africa, there was no middle ground between the humblest hotel and the grandest. Somewhere off in the valley, amid verdant growth only a short distance from this chilly height, were world-class hotels, offering amenities which aspired at least to equal those available in world capitals. And here in town?
     Upon asking “¿Dónde hay un hotel barato?” someone pointed us toward the Hotel Gomez, inconspicuous with only a crudely painted sign a few inches high above the door. Barato it was. The place had a dozen or so rooms off a main corridor on two floors. It was midwinter in the mountains and decidedly chilly. The room was dark, and the bed, over many years of faithful service, had developed a decided declivity in the center. Out back was an outhouse for all to use in common, thoughtfully provided with three holes in close proximity, so its users might discuss the day’s events while making themselves comfortable there. After dark, this convenience was pitch black. We found it necessary to wear clothing to sleep as the thin blankets, even when doubled by those in the wardrobe, were insufficient.
     In the morning the two Franklin-type woodstoves in the corridor were burning hot, but not so hot as to prevent the Tarahumara men lounging on either side from resting their bare feet directly on the iron. They had inch-thick calluses, doubtless from going barefoot on the rocky mountainsides, and I feared at any moment the smell of cooking flesh might rise.

     Later in the day as gentle rain fell, we passed a cantina from which the sound of guitar music could be heard.  I entered alone as women did not patronize such establishments.  Though it was yet morning, the place was full of men taking a break from field work due to the weather.  The guitarist sang with a soulful melancholy as eloquent to my ears as to those of his listening comrades.  It was only after I had asked for a beer that I realized the other patrons in this chilly space were drinking glasses of tequila from an unlabeled gallon jug topped with hot water from a kettle.

     I heard no Spanish, only the indigenous language.  Suddenly a customer pulled a handgun tucked holsterless into his pants and exuberantly fired a shot through the ceiling.  No one else seemed alarmed at his high spirits.  But after a bit, one drinker, perhaps an ill-tempered or unstable man, began making aggressive comments which, of course, I could not understand, to me.  His fellows sought to distract him and he settled back in his seat a bit unsteadily.  I decided to withdraw in spite of the haunting melodies of the musician.  
     It was nearly New Year’s Eve, and we saw notices for a Gran Baile with live music. We mentioned our interest in attending to one local in a restaurant, and she cautioned us, “You can’t go. There will be so much drinking. Too crazy.” When a second informant told us the same thing with evidently kind intentions, we decided not to go. We were, after all, traveling with our preschool daughter.

     Once we were simply admiring the view when a local woman on horseback rode up and asked if the little one might enjoy a ride.  We had hardly responded when she scooped her up and galloped off, causing our surprised child to cry out.  The woman, who had meant to be friendly, turned back and returned our daughter to us on the ground.  
     She loved walking with us on the footpaths that extended out from Creel in every direction. Now and then we would pass a dwelling, sometimes literally a cave, often built into a sheltered spot with stone, sometimes free-standing. Clare, not yet four years old, would run merrily ahead to see whether the residents had any children. The native people here, no less than Mexicans in general, adore children, so she made an instant and natural bond between us and the locals. The parents may have been startled and disarmed by our sudden appearance, but the young children made differences dissolve.
     The trip up from Los Mochis had been glorious – it is rightly rated by many one of the grandest train trips in the world. Completing its less spectacular eastern portion to Chihuahua, we saw the Tarahumara sitting on the city streets, selling their wares, as Mennonite men, those unlikely Germanic campesinos, strode past, and, in those days, Pancho Villa’s widow still appeared to tell tourists about the bullet-riddled black 1919 Dodge Roadster in which her husband had been killed.

Poems Composed in Mexico

Boca de Tomatlan 

From this cove the hills 

swell up like old tumors, 

straining with luxuriance, 

tense with heat and damp 

 and pain of constant overreaching. 

An iguana with a bad conscience 

dashes down a tree and vanishes. 

A bright orange flower offers 

to sell herself to tourists. 

A pelican bobs like a buoy. 

Its ancient eyes assure 

all who happen here, 

“Have no fear. I, too, 

am your heart’s likeness.” 

 Guaymas 

Desert sun rains stillness over skulls and sentiment. 

Heat falls resigned on cactus sage and slow as teeth. 

On dry hills things scamper, run from themselves, 

scaly feet push off hot earth, thoughts dance 

    like water beads in a frying pan. 

Sun's glance blasts the bay, earth's abdomen rips open 

revealing salt water fish savor sweets fine as filigree glass 

but tender to the tongue when they embrace 

and differences dissolve. 

Piledriver sun stamps a goldfoil nimbus about the brows 

of shoeless bootblacks there. 

 Hotel sin Nombre 

Dust on old shoe streets 

    like mortician's rouge; 

dust on deserted hillsides 

    like mushroom spores 

        dormant for millenia. 

No. 191A behind the cathedral -- 

grand entrance to a courtyard in ruins, 

one side only standing whole. 

Thick jagged walls shattered in shock 

at encroaching construction -- office cells -- 

an elephant on its knees in sight of gleaming glass -- 

revealing twenty foot high ceilings, 

antique dressers, 

cupboards spilling out of the rooms 

into hallways rich with murals, 

and flooring through which sight was clear two flights down! 

The torn court was full of plants; 

in the center an entire tree 

    brilliant with birdsong; 

masses of volcanic rock along the walls, 

dark wood cases with bones, shells, trash, 

    all cunningly and randomly arranged 

        as testimony of all orders. 

Books, too, bound in leather, some: 

    Dante, Wilkie Collins, medical texts, 

"The store used them," the hotelero looks up, 

"the store that was up front -- 

    they added in them -- 

         bananas, beans, oranges, you know" -- 

sigh ripples widen at the back of his skull's wall -- 

"ten years I'm here, and now it's going . . . " 

He returns to the booklet in his lap 

where Superman, bursting down a wall, 

lands again upon his feet. 

The sea a profound green 

     which deep inside 

         reflects beyond tomorrow; 

it reaches out 

     again and then again 

         toward its old love, the moon, 

then spends itself in foam 

     upon the shore where crabs 

         without memory skitter blind. 

Bahia de Banderas 

One day we will 

no longer sit like lords 

on this bright beach 

for long before the engine’s gone 

from these incessant waves, 

before sun’s glint on sea 

has faded and blinked out, 

before the arms of this broad bay 

have wearied and collapsed, 

and earth and air and water mixed 

into some nameless stuff, 

I see succeeding grandees 

make this spot their throne. 

Sunset Going Down Slow 

Sunset clouds -- 

strewn purple sand 

out of focus in forgetfulness -- 

poised on a ridgepole 

between underside's doubt 

and the march-time of the sinking sun. 

This twilight sheds a benediction 

even on averted eyes. 

It tempers the air, 

and shows the middle way. 

The hills, which once thrust out and up 

proud flames, have baked and worn 

and battered to caricature's profiles 

of old intent. Purposes laid bare at last: 

one threadbare hip with vertical striations 

like dry longing lost or apple wrinkles; 

chances budding now anew 

 in small and sudden cacti 

and furtive bushes. Another like goat horns 

sour against supporting earth 

envies the sky's deep frivolity 

it can't afford, rolls unbalanced between, 

 a weighted die, 

    most red-souled of the lot, 

        weeping blood. 

Men’s Clubhouse in Chihuahua 

Bar San Juan 

unlike the barebones Tarahumara mountain cantina in Creel 

     (with weeping ceiling and soulful song to touch the heart direct) 

is a real city longhouse cavern 

with tricky frosted mirrors to avert the enemy 

or surprise the sudden self, 

neons winking hypnotism through the dark, 

and a bouncing band of trumpets, violins, guitars, 

with one saving trickster spirit bass 

running contraries behind. 

But the eikons! on the walls! 

 * Playboy pinups and

 * heads of long-defeated deer grim under hemispheres of light 

 * prick and balls shaped bread hanging on the wall so proud and 

 * if that were not enough, a penis bottle opener (hardwood-carved) 

 * and a framed print with its 1940's Saturday Evening Post epiphany 

    hunters hanging out in camp, no thought of game, 

    must drop their beers and grab their guns, 

    when the deer or reality walks right in. 

No such danger here: 

all around the room embraces 

smoke the blab of business ass-slapping 

raucous noise rising to meet the music 

and a boy sits 

in the thick 

courtyard 

window 

with a Coke 

leaning in 

as far as he possibly can.