[New-Poetry] Robert Bly ii

[Anny Ballardini]

A Dream of Suffocation

Accountants hover over the earth like helicopters,
Dropping bits of paper engraved with Hegel's name.
Badgers carry the papers on their fur
To their den, where the entire family dies in the night.

A chorus girl stands for hours behind her curtains
Looking out at the street.
In a window of a trucking service
There is a branch painted white.
A stuffed baby alligator grips that branch tightly
To keep away from the dry leaves on the floor.

The honeycomb at night has strange dreams:
Small black trains going round and round--
Old warships drowning in the raindrop.



taken from here: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/poetry2/bly_robert.html

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Graham 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views 
  Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2007 4:51 PM
  Subject: [New-Poetry] Robert Bly ii


  And one more from Bly.  I've noticed that Bly remains a fairly polarizing figure in American poetry, and reactions range from snorting dismissals to hero-worship--just as they did 30 years ago.  


  I suppose he didn't do his reputation among poets much good with the *Iron John* stuff, which made him famous & wealthy beyond what poets usually achieve, and gave him an even greater platform for his less conventional views.  But he's always been an original poet, spinning off ideas & metaphors at a wondrous clip, and though I'll never take part in a drum circle, I've always read his poems.  And I think he is one of our most fascinating editors of other poets' work.  



  But I haven't noticed a lot of discussion of his late work versus the earlier.  As far as I can see, he's getting stranger & more interesting with age.  





  The Buried Train

  Tell me about the train that people say got buried
  By the avalanche--was it snow?--It was
  In Colorado, and no one saw it happen.
  There was smoke from the engine curling up

  Lightly through fir tops, and the engine sounds.
  There were all those people reading--some
  From Thoreau, some from Henry Ward Beecher.
  And the engineer smoking and putting his head out.

  I wonder when that happened. Was it after
  High School, or was it the year we were two?
  We entered this narrow place, and we heard the sound
  Above us--the train couldn't move fast enough.

  It isn't clear what happened next. Are you and I
  Still sitting there in the train, waiting for the lights
  To go on? Or did the real train get really buried;
  So at night a ghost train comes out and keeps going...

   --Robert Bly.  The Nation.  October 1994.

  ========================================
  David Graham
  grahamd at ripon.edu


  Home Page:
  http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/About%20Me.html


  Poetry Library:
  http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
  ==========================================






  On Dec 23, 2007, at 8:43 AM, David Graham wrote:


    Hard to believe that the old rascal really is old.   Birthday today:  he's 81.  


    My Father At 85

    His large ears hear
    everything.
    A hermit wakes
    and sleeps
    in a hut underneath
    his gaunt cheeks.
    His eyes blue,
    alert, dis-
    appointed and suspicious
    complain
    I do not bring him
    the same sort of jokes
    the nurses do.
    He is a small bird
    waiting to be fed,
    mostly beak,
    an eagle or a vulture
    or the Pharoah's servant
    just before death.
    My arm on the bedrail
    rests there,
    relaxed, with new love.
    All I know of the Troubadours
    I bring
    to this bed.
    I do not want
    or need
    to be shamed
    by him 
    any longer.
    The general of shame
    has discharged him
    and left him in this
    small provincial
    Egyptian town.
    If I do not wish
    to shame him, then
    why not
    love him?
    His long hands,
    large, veined, capable,
    can still retain
    hold of what he wanted.
    But is that
    what he desired?
    Some powerful
    river of desire
    goes on flowing
    through him.
    He never phrased
    what he desired,
    and I am
    his son.

    -- Robert Bly.  Best American Poetry 1989, ed. Donald Hall.





    ========================================
    David Graham
    grahamd at ripon.edu


    Home Page:
    http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/About%20Me.html


    Poetry Library:
    http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
    ==========================================






    _______________________________________________
    New-Poetry mailing list
    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  New-Poetry mailing list
  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
  http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20071223/89685a78/attachment.html