We’ve become a banana republic there’s a big homeless encampment behind the Gates Foundation the economy is cratering due to the pandemic will everyone at some point finally have a health care system that doesn’t cause bankruptcy I still remember drinking a barium shake and watching the weirdness of my esophagus on a screen white and ghostly is there a soul different from the ego I saw John Mayall in the late 80s at Parker’s Ballroom on Aurora the pulsations were exquisite I dreamt that I was sleeping on a pile of snakes and yes I agree turkeys do look like dinosaurs. Robins like getting drunk on fermented berries I’m tempted to call an ornithological club. I like drinking beer by a bonfire hearing the slap & susurrus of the ocean surf the elegance of a French hotel a maple armoire near the bed the desire to die can feel quite natural like the flowering of a knucklebone I want an alpine carrot & an angora sweater emotions boiling over the bliss of ice cold water. I want to grow fat and live behind a fence no I don’t I’m joking I want to pack a basket of lightning in a red suitcase the last time we visited Snoqualmie Falls in 2015 there were no birds no insects no gastropods not even squirrels it was eerie it felt like we were surrounded by Hollywood props instead of a real forest. It got up to 121 in Lytton British Columbia and then a couple of days later it burned down if you want to visit this planet you might want to bring your own weather. The emptiness of Being can never be filled up by the fullness of Beings the only escape from this emptiness that remains is the incessant arranging of Beings in line with the constant possibility of an ordering that takes the form of a securing aimless activity I want to be reborn as a gypsy I think that might solve some issues. People have become disconnected from their own lives and their connection with the planet in which they live white lines guiding us into the night the actual meaning of the word ‘apocalypse’ is to reveal. We saw a big hydrangea today the flowers were huge and white life in many places remains robust and this was near an alley a breeze blows through these words can you feel it words excite hallucinations the wind has lost is balance I see strawberry jam on the chin of an elf soap is the slipperiness of Being on the margins of society there’s a dragon in a shot glass every elevator is a narrative ascending and descending I’m perplexed when someone says they don’t like autumn there’s so much transmundane phenomena waiting to be discovered a witch stuck to a telephone pole on a broom her black stockinged legs sticking out. Think of this is a theory of the universe based on sugar a pendulum on a postage stamp if we begin hiking toward the moon we may escape August’s apocalyptic gloom we may find the secret of time is just a leaky spout.
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4 comments:
Hello, Mr. Olson. I'm a fan. I bought your novel "Souls of Wind" and loved it. I also find your essays "LIGHTNING ON PAPER: Poetry Is the Drug of Choice" and "Dylan Goes Magenta" deeply inspiring.
I'd like to know if you have a favorite translation of Rimbaud's "The Drunken Boat." Lately I've been experiencing unpleasant emotions and dead-end thoughts. Memorizing and silently reciting long poems helps me. I favor Samuel Beckett's translation even though some lines, such as "More firmly bland than to children apples' firm pulp," seem a little scatty. If you've translated the poem yourself, I must read it! Thank you. I hope you are healthy and in good spirits.
Dear Anonymous, I'm very pleased to hear you enjoyed Souls of Wind and the two essays you've mentioned. I've been mostly partial to Wallace Fowlie's translation over the years; it's the most accurate with regard to the wildness of Rimbaud's images, and does a commendable job preserving the vocabulary and evocative flavor of the French language & the oceanic undulations of Rimbaud's alexandrines. One note about the haulers at the beginning of the poem: these were teams of men employed to pull the barges up and down rivers, trudging along paths along the banks. I see this as a crucial metaphor for the repressiveness and restrictions of western industrial society and its heavy emphasis on scientific rationalism. As the intoxication kicks in, the haulers disappear and the boat is freed to drift wherever the whims of the current take it, which proves to be the full delirium of the ocean.
Thanks for your brilliant response. I think you understand "The Drunken Boat" as much as any man alive. Its beauty and significance may be found in the glove compartment of your thumb. You should upload a series of lectures about it on YouTube, teach all who have a thirst for mind-expanding adventure and an opposable thumb how to hitch a ride aboard the Drunken Boat!
Great idea. The Drunken Boat would make a good title for a podcast, say one about Poetry and Intoxication, beginning with a discussion of Plato's Phaedrus. You could include discussions of poets associated with - for lack of a better term - altered states of consciousness: Rimbaud, of course, Charles Baudelaire (Les Paradis Artificiels), Rene Daumal, Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, and so on.
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