Robert Lowell - For the Union Dead

I like it when I find a poetry book in a second hand book store and I flick through it to see if I like the poet’s style, and then I find a couple of poems singled out and hand written all over with pencil notes.  What that signals to me is somebody has gone to fair effort to do a detailed analysis either through formal study or out of personal interest.  Whatever, it gets my attention.  I’m suddenly curious to know what it is the person has written and whether I agree with it and if there is anything I can learn from the notes.  So I’ve picked up a Faber edition of poems by American poet, Robert Lowell – never read any of his work.  By this time, English literature students would be naming which of the poems were written all over in pencil – correct, Waking in the Blue; Memories of West Street and Lepke (both heavily marked up), and the one that I’ve placed among my favourite poems, For the Union Dead.  I was first drawn to the poem because it’s written in a simple language, easy to read, and the theme seemed to be on a military hero and the American civil war (love the military).  But then I wasn’t so sure – the present day (1960’s) mixed in with a history of Colonel Shaw; Boston being dug up (luxuriating car parks); advent of the space age and continued racial prejudice ………  I turn to the pencil notes but they don’t help any – interpretation of isolated lines and words, but no clue for the collective meaning.  The thing becomes like a rubik’s cube and I can’t put it down.  Being a great poem from a renowned poet there’s a lot of research available for this one, though I might add, none of it has convinced me that that was what Lowell was really on about when he wrote, For the Union Dead ……

For the Union Dead

‘Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam.’

(Robert Lowell 1917 - 1977)

 

The old South Boston Aquarium stands

in a Sahara of snow now.  Its broken windows are boarded.

The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.

The airy tanks are dry.

 

Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;

my hand tingled

to burst the bubbles

drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish.

 

My hand draws back.  I often sigh still

for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom

of the fish and reptile.  One morning last March,

I pressed against the new barbed and galvanized

 

fence on the Boston Common.  Behind their cage,

yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting

as they cropped up tons of mush and grass

to gouge their underworld garage.

 

Parking spaces luxuriate like civic

sandpiles in the heart of Boston.

A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders

braces the tingling Statehouse,

 

shaking over the excavations, as it faces Colonel Shaw

and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry

on St. Gaudens’ shaking Civil War relief,

propped by a plank splint against the garage’s earthquake.

 

Two months after marching through Boston,

half the regiment was dead;

at the dedication,

William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe.

 

Their monument sticks like a fishbone

In the city’s throat.

Its Colonel as lean

as a compass-needle.

 

He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,

a greyhound’s gentle tautness;

he seems to wince at pleasure,

and suffocate for privacy.

 

He is out of bounds now.  He rejoices in man’s lovely,

peculiar power to choose life and die –

when he leads his black soldiers to death,

he cannot bend his back.

 

On a thousand small town New England greens,

the old white churches hold their air

of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags

quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Republic.

 

The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier

grow slimmer and younger each year –

wasp-wasted, they doze over muskets

and muse through their sideburns …

 

Shaw’s father wanted no monument

except the ditch,

where his son’s body was thrown

and lost with his ‘niggers’.

 

The ditch is nearer.

There are no statues for the last war here;

on Boylston Street, a commercial photograph

shows Hiroshima boiling

 

over a Mosler Safe, the ‘Rock of Ages’

that survived the blast.  Space is nearer.

When I crouch to my television set,

the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.

 

Colonel Shaw

is riding on his bubble,

he waits

for the blessed break.

 

The Aquarium is gone,  Everywhere,

giant finned cars nose forward like fish;

a savage servility

slides by on grease.

The thing I’ve enjoyed in my affair with Lowell’s, For the Union Dead is the paths of study it has led me down.  And I don’t think you can really approach this poem without doing a lot of study.  I’ve found it beneficial to read about the 54^th Massachusetts Regiment; Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and his father; the battle of Fort Wagner; abolitionists; Gauden; William James and his dedication speech; Brahmin families and Boston society; what is a Mosler safe; civil rights movement in the 1960’s ……  But I’m still left with what is the true message in the poem.  It probably is as some analyses suggest, a swipe at Boston city politics at the time; a lament for the erosion of puritan values; a family history at odds with a changing world.  It does have a feeling of Mans’ spiritual progression which the poet perhaps believes is in a downward spiral.  I can’t leave it, and I go back to Robert Lowell himself.  He was for a time a Catholic convert – referred to by professor, Allen Tate as a ‘Catholic poet’ in his introduction to Lowell’s book, Land of Unlikeness (Wikipedia, Robert Lowell).  So that gets me thinking there are a couple of lines in this poem that make me think this is Lowell’s comment on the evolution of mankind.  I believe the third stanza line, I often sigh still for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom of the fish and reptile, is not nostalgia for a childhood memory, but is a reference to man’s primeval memory of having evolved from a fish/reptile form (kingdom of God).  I often sigh still – but man cannot remain, cannot go back, he must go on to fulfil purpose.  Then there is the line in stanza 10, “… man’s lovely, peculiar power to choose life and die – “.  God has given man free will (power to choose life), the thing that separates man from animals (fish, reptiles).  Man has the power to choose ‘life’ (spiritual life, eternal life as God offers).  But in his freedom to choose, man continually makes choices that lead to death (of mankind).  Lowell’s ancestor (Colonel Shaw) tried to uphold noble choice but in vain, for man’s prejudice and inhumanity still goes on.  Man chooses materialism and belief in technology and science (and dies).

Great poem, and I’m once more amazed at the connection between Navy and Poetry – Robert Lowell’s father was a Commander in the US Navy (Robert Traill Spencer Lowell III).  His mum seems to have come from good stock too.

My link for this post is a poem I wrote a couple of years ago when I’m looking at all the turmoil and trouble in the world and I’m a lot like Robert Lowell, wondering where the hell are we headed!

2012.  The world is evolving, ever turning and evolving.  Mankind is evolving, ever learning and evolving.  And it hasn’t come far, and it’s got a long, long way to go.

I Don’t Understand

 

I see television news,

I see children, young children

on the streets in Syria

with hatred on their faces

clapping fervently for the downfall

of the country’s political ruling party.

 

I see African families, a man and a woman

fleeing the latest genocide famine,

escaping down some dirt track

they’ve reportedly been on

for the past two years,

but in which time

they’ve kept on copulating

giving birth to two little lives

now starving and disease driven in their arms.

 

I see men, fit men

on a normal work day

apparently not having to hold down jobs,

keep on top of a mortgage, nor

bring in food, pay bills, petrol, child-care

gathered in a town square,

all armed with modern automatic weapons

wasting bullets fired straight up to the sky.

 

 

Michael Dransfield - drugs and poetry

I had a mate, a better man than I am, lived opposite me at No. 57.  He died a little over twelve months ago now, still in his early fifties.  His name was Keith.  It was the way in which he lived during his youth that caught up and killed him prematurely, hepatitis and liver cancer.  Keith got involved with mind altering shit coming out of the drug culture of the late sixties, early seventies – weed, heroin, smack, psychedelic stuff.  As older dudes, he would come over to my place and have beers, and when the alcohol blurred suburban Sunday afternoon Keith would talk like he was stoned, or maybe I heard like we were both stoned.  If Keith ever wrote poetry I reckon he would have written like Michael Dransfield.  Dransfield was a promising young Australian poet from the same drug era who tragically died at just 24 years old.  In his short working life Michael Dransfield wrote hundreds of poems, published three or four books of poetry.  He lived as a full time poet (“in Australia, the ultimate sacrifice” – his words).  Critique comments on his work often ponder how great he might have become if he had lived, as compared to how good he was in his lifetime.  For me, Dransfield provides typical creativity, art, and insights that drugs and alcohol seem to inspire (Bukowski, for instance).  Can’t say I’ve ever tried to connect with substance and creativity myself – therefore the reason for ever remaining a cautious amateur.  Maybe one day, maybe ……
I usually provide only one poem in a post, but for Michael Dransfield I’ve selected three.  The first is titled, For Charles Blackman.  I’ve selected this poem and I like it because for me, it’s the rambling, short, sharp punctuated points, the inspiration from hazed mind; it’s the box of words tossed in the air to come down random and fall into place to form a poem; it’s the flickering figure slowed to projector feed, the disconnected, but connected thoughts.
The second poem I’ve selected from Dransfield is titled, Hands. This is a poem I keep coming back to.  It is an example of keen observation, interested observation, personal, intimate observation, observation of the figure, but also what lies behind the figure.  I’ve selected the third poem to try and give a representation of the many poignant and sad poems Michael wrote describing the drug scene.  The poem is titled, The bi kid.  This is what captured and took a promising poet.

For Charles Blackman

Michael Dransfield (1948 -1973)

 

by itself on

a grey embankment

with handfuls of grass

the telephone box

is very red.

presently while a

black kitten stalks

mysteriously through

hill weeds

a girl comes

in a blue dress.

the shape of

her legs in

black stockings

excels the sky.

she talks to

someone distant

perhaps

who has a white yacht

and takes her

often

on the green harbour

the wind filling

sails and her clothes

with the same

impulse.

Charles Blackman is a famous Australian artist (getting on in age) who was prominent around Michael Dransfield’s time.  If you are familiar with any of Blackman’s painting style then you will instantly recognise it in this poem.  In fact I reckon you could read the poem, immerse yourself a little, and then be shown a random selection of paintings from various artists and you would easily find yourself saying, “Yes, that’s the Blackman”!  I can picture Michael having just discovered this particular painting and the artist, Charles Blackman, and he’s blown away by what it speaks, the colours sensual vibration, what it is, what it is, the emotions, touched, movement, expressions of …….  I’ve tried to identify the particular painting that Michael is referring to in the poem, but I haven’t found it yet.  I know from published interviews that Blackman did drawings of a telephone box around 1952/53 following a time in the UK and then incorporated it into paintings some 15 years later.  That does put it in Michael Dransfield’s time – early 1960’s.

Hands

Michael Dransfield (1948 -1973)

 

they are like sparrows, her small

hands, darting about, making empty

gestures in the air

when she touches the keyboard

notes drop like insects at the end of autumn

 

his nervous hands dangle, nothing to

hold, reach for someone who passes,

who does not stop, and the claws return

with a thread caught in them

 

she sits bulkily on a dwarfed

chair, and in the sweating

hugeness of her fingers,

even a goblet disappears

 

they stand in a corner

they think they are in love

many drinks have drained into them

she leans on a wall as he caresses her

his hands as busy as maggots on a dead bird

 

the host, with his

remora wife,

shakes hands with their departing guests.

he is neither large nor old.

his handshake leaves an impression of both.

dry weightless touching

as the wind would feel

in curtains of loose skin

I love how Dransfield taps the thoughts and emotion he obviously experiences as he observes each different encounter of people’s hands, “as busy as maggots on a dead bird”!  Oh yeah!  ‘Remora’ in the last verse – a sucker fish, an obstruction, an impediment …….

The bi kid

Michael Dransfield (1948 -1973)

 

paul the bi kid

wants a hand to shoot some

up in his jugular

nothing wrong with his arms

but he’s after a flash

 

you’ll get it paul

with citric acid added

for a base

 

a 25 gauge pick

a ripped off ‘fit

a stolen spoon & my candle

 

john from upstairs is here

his kidneys are clapped out he’s been

pissing blood

 

leave them to their own

mainly literary devices

 

i don’t believe in violence

the pigs were here today

to freak out john

they’re coming every day

the rot’s set in

and the depressive silence

My link to Dransfield is via a couple of short poems I wrote as a memory and tribute to Keith – the messed up days, the craziness of simply living not to be anything but to live.  If only it didn’t need drugs.

2010.   My friend Keith’s planned quite a few spiritual escapes (just you and me) over a few beers on a week-end.  Luckily none of them have come off.

Didg

 

you and me

should go up to Arnhem Land

and go with the fella

out in the bush

and get our own didg’s,

one each

from the hollowed out trees,

we’ll stay out there

until we find the right didg,

we might get circumcised

and get scars on our bodies

and all that good stuff.

2011.  This one’s for my ex-friend Keith who sometimes didn’t know when to give.

Forgotten Already

 

some people got to have it all,

be it fame,

fortune, popularity,

knowledge, information, gossip,

friends,

and they don’t really care,

or try to understand,

how much more,

you might be in need of it,

than them

                                                              J. O. White

Cyril Tawney - Thats what its like In the Navy

An annual event that celebrates the passage of my years is ANZAC day – 25^th April.  Together with birthdays and Christmas and Easter, Australia day, Queen’s birthday and that day in October where we get a long weekend but I don’t know what for.  However, it is this time in April with the weather turning mild that I recall Navy days, put the medals on and meet up with shipmates that I haven’t seen for a year – and will not see for another year – thank god, what with all the drinking!  And strangely, we never involve our families, except sometimes there might be a son or daughter proudly invited because we’re proud of them or want them to be proud of us, as we spin the same old yarns of military madness.  We served, and through this ANZAC tradition, honour all those other poor bastards who got wheeled around by the military system.  That’s what it’s like on ANZAC day which we recently celebrated.  And that’s why I’ve chosen the lyrics to a Cyril Tawney song for this post, That’s what it’s Like in the Navy.  Cyril Tawney was a UK folk singer, did time in the RN and knew what it was about.

That’s What It’s Like In The Navy

(Cyril Tawney 1930 -2005)

 

That’s what it’s like in the Navy.

I wish I’d never joined

For a sailor mother dear,

I’ve seen some places in my time

But nothing like this here,

The girls won’t let us court ‘em

And the canteen’s out of beer,

And that’s what it’s like in the Navy.

 

They covered us with honours

Praises far from feint,

They showered us with medals

‘Gainst which we’ve no complaint,

But we’d rather that our Jimmy

Hadn’t covered us with paint,

And that’s what it’s like in the Navy.

 

And when we started rolling

We rolled an awful lot,

Some people lost their balance

Or their dinner on the spot,

But the whole of bloody two mess

Went and lost their sodden tot,

And that’s what it’s like in the Navy.

 

There were tough guys in the Navy

When Francis banged his drum

And chaps like Hawkin’s chewed up glass

Instead of chewing gum,

But even they weren’t tough enough

To drink Maltese water in their rum,

And that’s what it’s like in the Navy.

 

That’s what it’s like in the Navy ……

 

Cyril would have been good value at one of our ANZAC day reunions.  This little ditty reminds us that through all the tedium, the hardship, the struggle …. there’s humour that binds us – that’s what it was like in the Navy.

A challenge I set myself each year is to have at least one poem written for the boys on ANZAC day.  This year I wrote a poem called, Weekly Running, and I include it as a link to Cyril Tawney’s Navy song.  When I first set out to write about Jervis Bay and time spent on naval exercises, I thought I would write something with good old Navy humour, sort of like how Cyril and Shep Woolley do it.  However, as I reflected on days and weeks spent at sea going nowhere, it wasn’t humour that came to me.  The feelings I felt were those of the endless routine, of loneliness, boredom and of wasted time ………… while others were out in the world enjoying city lights and family life, we were Weekly Running.  And that’s also what it’s like in the Navy!

2013.  Jervis Bay, south of Sydney is the home to the Royal Australian Navy’s naval college.  The seas off Jervis Bay also serve as the fleet exercise area.  There wouldn’t be a sailor who hasn’t spent numerous days flopping around off Jervis Bay or anchored inside her clear waters.  It is such a part of life that the place is simply referred to as ‘JB’.  There are no port facilities in Jervis Bay, so with the fleet based in Sydney, ships working up or on exercise have to sail, spend a week or two down in JB and then return to Sydney to replenish.  This sailing and returning to Sydney routine is known as ‘weekly running’.

Weekly Running

 

Call the hands away from their weekend dreams,

Our boilers gauge a full head of steam,

Pack a steaming kit, plant a fare-well kiss,

And say good-bye to the missus,

For the refit’s done and not much fun,

Now they’ve got us weekly running,

A running, running, running,

We’re J.B. weekly running.

 

Send duty watch aft to single up lines,

Our shore power’s dead yet one more time,

Strike the jackstay staff, fold the Ensign neat,

And stow it away for the week

For a ship at sea is where it should be,

So they’ve sent us out this morning,

A morning, morning, morning,

We sail each Monday morning.

 

Give three short blasts on the ship’s siren,

Close up our special sea duty-men,

Slip the gang-way plank, clear the harbor heads

And find again the old sea legs,

For the props can turn at half astern

Now they’ve signaled we are sailing,

A sailing, sailing, sailing,

To J.B. we are sailing.

 

Follow up reports from the D.SOT crews,

Our guns run out on re-coil blue,

Don your anti-flash, call the fall of shot,

And rapid load the gun-bay hoist,

For the rifling’s cold and our ammo’s old,

Yet they’ve cleared us for a firing,

A firing, firing, firing,

On the Beecroft range we’re firing.

 

Place the upper decks out of bounds,

Our scuppers run the green seas down,

Make the lashings tight, take an extra bight,

And stow gear loose sculling about,

For the weathers rough and the seas are up,

Now we’re off J. B. and rolling,

A rolling, rolling, rolling,

We’re sick of bloody rolling.

 

Get shipside grey from the bosun store,

Our anchor’s dropped to the ocean floor,

Watch the greenies dib, the dustmen dab,

And stewards polish with a cleaning rag,

For rust stains weep in a wasted week,

Now we paint and we are moaning,

A moaning, moaning, moaning,

We’re in J.B. and moaning.

 

Chuck an extra homeward bounder on,

Our Navvi will think his charts are wrong,

Gallop up the coast, steer a steady line,

And be on the buoy at knock-off time,

For in state three, condition Yankee,

They would not make us standby,

A standby, standby, standby,

Bloody hell, we’re duty ship and standby!

                                                                                                      J.O. White