Personae and scene: Vergil and Dante,

somewhere in the mid-region of Hell.

       ~~~

Notes and Commentary

Marguerite Steinheil (née Japy) was from a well-to-do Huguenot family in the territory of Belfort. Unhappily married to an older man, she lived in the swirl of parties, dances, and literary-artistic salons that characterized Parisian high society in the 1890s. She had numerous male admirers, and is reputed to have been intimate with many prominent men. A young, high-spirited woman with an impishly petite beauty, Marguerite seems to have had an electric effect on otherwise self-controlled males. In 1917, when she was nearly fifty, she managed to snag a wealthy English aristocrat, the sixth Baron Abinger, as her new husband.

 

Of course there is no absolute proof that President Faure actually died during sexual activity with Madame Steinheil.  In her self-exculpatory autobiography Marguerite insists that although she did come to the Palais de l’Elysée on February 16 at the President’s urgent request, and that she did visit him and spend time alone with him, she departed before he was fatally stricken. Madame Steinheil’s book is well worth reading (My Memoirs, London: Eveleigh Nash, 1912) even if one cannot be sure of her veracity.  The book is an absorbing account of French life during La Belle Epoque, and it also makes very clear that Félix Faure was totally infatuated with the lively and lovely Marguerite.  

 

The best accounts of Félix Faure’s death and of Marguerite’s possible involvement are in French. They are René Tavernier’s Madame Steinheil, Ange ou Démon (1976); Armand Lanoux’s Madame Steinheil ou la Connaissance du Président (1983); and Pierre Darmon’s Marguerite Steinheil, Ingénue Criminelle? (1996). The following notes are solely to clarify some of what might be the more abstruse references in the poem. 

 

He called (line 1):  Faure telephoned Madame Steinheil several times on February 16, inviting her to visit him. 

 

Le salon bleu (line 2): One of the private chambers at Faure’s residence of state.  

 

the Palace (line 5):  Palais de l’Elysée, the official seat of government in Paris.

 

la plus grosse légume (line 13): “The biggest vegetable,” French slang for “the most important personage.”

 

one special favor (line 27):  A coy circumlocution for oral sex.

 

The Russian treaty (line 32):  Faure’s government had confirmed the fateful mutual defense pact with Czarist Russia in 1897, an agreement that would drag France into World War I.

 

colonies (line 32): Faure was interested in establishing a stronger French colonial presence in Africa. The Fashoda incident (which nearly brought France and Britain to war) occurred on his watch.

 

Dreyfus (line 33):  Alfred Dreyfus, a French officer accused of spying. His trial had torn France apart, and was still a flashpoint of controversy in 1899. Faure had refused to review the case.

 

stays (line 43):  A foundation garment for women, similar to a corset or a brassiere.

 

Some sort of plot (line 59): Steinheil was in fact subsequently accused of murdering Faure by anti- Dreyfusards.

 

a priest (line 69): It is said that when a priest arrived to give Extreme Unction to the President, he asked one of the servants the following: Le Président a-t-il encore sa connaissance? The servant replied: Non, elle vient de sortir par l’escalier de service.

 

my husband (line 79):   The painter Adolphe Steinheil, a man much older than Marguerite. He tolerated her many infidelities.

 

Paolo and Francesca (line 82):  The two adulterous lovers in the fifth canto of Dante’s Inferno. They had been caught having intercourse by Francesca’s husband, and were killed by him. Dante places them in the second circle of hell, which is reserved for the sins of carnal lust.

 

Dear Félix (line 85):  From this line on, the poem becomes an apostrophe to the absent Félix Faure.

 

soixante-neuf (line 88): A somewhat more elaborate sexual act, which would require mutual disrobing.

 

Marianne (line 93): Popular nickname for the French republic, personified as a young girl.

 

apoplexy (line 96):  Faure’s death was politely ascribed to apoplexie foudroyante (“thundering apoplexy”) by the attendant physicians.

 

 

Rhoda has a rounded bottom
(Not too many females got ’em).
Men who pass say “Get a loada
That caboose!” when they see Rhoda.

Rhoda’s buns show perfect motion,
Undulating like the ocean.
Just as men love Scotch and soda
They love that butt on Rear-Meat Rhoda.

Indeed, it’s really quite uncanny
How that plump and rotund fanny
Prompts the average guy to explode a
Love-burst when he gets near Rhoda.

Lord, that tush sure brings her treasure—
Males splurge in sheer delight and pleasure.
To be near that behind, they tote a
Slew of gifts when dating Rhoda.

Rhoda’s ass can be a magnet—
It draws men in just like a dragnet.
Back in high school, guys all showed a
Tendency to drift towards Rhoda.

Other girls? Their hopes were blighted
Since their derrières were slighted.
But when it came to rump, they hoed a
Smaller row than Rear-Meat Rhoda.

I’m not kidding. She’s a cutie
With that hot, curvaceous booty—
The cardinals in the Roman Rota
Would turn and stare if they saw Rhoda.

Ladies with a lousy heinie
(Thin and flat, or pinched and tiny)
Were enraged, and tried to vote a
Resolution banning Rhoda

But they never were successful;
The males all longed to see a dressful
Of those hips. And that’s my coda
To this riff on Rear-Meat Rhoda.

—for George Good, with best wishes

Are poems entertainment? Well, let’s see—
They’re that and more. At least it seems to me
That poems are composed by those who long
To please their own dear selves. And if the song
Should prove delightful to some other folk
Why, so much for the better. But the joke
Is modernism simply won’t permit
Poets to write their verse as they see fit.
We’re shackled, bound, and muzzled; gagged and tied
Like wretched galley slaves who must abide
By prim, restrictive, arbitrary rules
Laid down by Amy Lowell and those fools
In 1912 or thereabouts to plague
A poet who’s not cryptic, arch, and vague.
That’s the real source of poison. That’s the thing
The gutless types at West Chester can’t bring
Themselves to mention, much less talk about,
For modernism still has lots of clout
And it’s perceived as risky to discuss
How the movement chokes and stifles us.
Oh no—we can’t say modernism’s bad!
H.L. Hix or Gioia might get mad.
We can’t contest the fiat of Ez Pound—
Not we poor humble rhymesters on the ground.

We cannot make our meter smooth as glass—
Hugh Kenner will rise up and bite our ass.
We must not ever notice (if we’re able)
The rotting corpse upon the kitchen table.
The formalistas of the present day
Are like good Germans, ready to obey
Whatever trendy Führer’s an der Macht—
Otherwise they’re shunned or snubbed or sacked.
And so they sit in sheep-like silence, cowed,
Lest they offend consensus and the crowd.
The lemmings in the workshops are afraid
They might not get a fellowship—or laid.

Tradition? Sure, it ought to be upheld,
But not encased in concrete, frozen, jelled.
No one today writes verse like Donne or Pope—
Some change is natural. But I surely hope
We recognize tradition as a chain
Linking us to a past that we maintain
Is still part of our current work, alive
With dynamism, like a buzzing hive
Where unseen sweetness rests in hidden combs
Like treasures safe in our ancestral homes.
Tradition is an arsenal of stuff:
Majestic, middling, or just flimsy fluff
Ready and waiting for the man who needs it,
And our own work augments and swells and feeds it.
Those jerks like T.E. Hulme and Madox Ford
Were desperate to destroy tradition’s hoard,
And Eliot, who should have known much better,
Went along with them, aider and abettor
Until he changed his mind—but far too late:
The modernists had long since left the gate.
It’s freedom that tradition gives us, friends—
The freedom to pursue poetic ends
Without some stupid academic ass
Telling us that we’re not allowed to pass
The boundaries that the modernists have set
(Like sharp chevaux de frise aux baïonnettes)
For what they call “a proper modern poem.”
Tradition lets us tell ’em off, and show ’em
We can write in the manner we deem best
Using whatever words and forms suggest
Themselves to us as helpful as we write.
And as for modernists, well they can bite
The Big One, as we say here in Noo Yawk.
Let ’em all go to West Chester and squawk.
The rest of us will follow the traditions
Uncowed by Amy, Ez, and their conditions.

That’s my indictment of the current stench—
I’m glad we have Scalia on the bench.

King Henri II of France was accidentally killed in 1559 during a festive tournament when he was lanced in the eye by Gabriel Montgomery, seigneur de Lorges, a member of his Garde Ecossaise.  A young Italian nobleman named Luigi Corbinelli witnessed the event, and was so profoundly moved by it that he renounced the world and joined the Jesuit order.

The swirling pomp of ceremony, gold
And ermine, banners blazoned in vermilion—
Heraldic pennants waving in the sun
Float high above the lists and the pavilions.

The wedding day of France’s royal daughter
Has packed Parisian streets with festive throngs,
While clanking weapons and the thrum of lutes
Contend with trumpets, bells, and brazen gongs.

The king is flushed, ebullient, in his prime—
A monarch at the pinnacle of pride.
His every gesture summons from the crowd
A roar of hoarse approval.  Then there rides

Montgomery to the joust.  His face is masked
In gleaming steel; he holds his ribboned lance
Level and ready for the playful tilt.
The lords and commons cheer as horses prance.

The Scotsman’s lance-tip glances off the shield
King Henri holds at some ill-fated angle
And drives right through his visor.  In one pass
The king is dead, his brains a bloody tangle.

A shock runs through the city, and then France,
Where death has entered like a silent thief.
A young Italian noble who had come
To take part in this wedding-turned-to-grief

Is stricken to the core.  He cannot sleep.
All food is tasteless, every pleasure nil.
He thinks of Henri, vigorous and fit,
Dead for a silly, momentary thrill.

Returning home to Florence, he then deeds
All rights in his estate to a relation,
Presents himself to the Ignatian Order.
When asked, he gives this simple explanation:

“I saw King Henri speared straight through his mask
Of iron, by another masked in steel.
And at that moment I saw through the sham
Of life, and how it hides us from the Real.

We think our vizards tempered, well-wrought, proof—
But they are brittle masks that cannot blunt
The thrust that sends us down to that cold realm
For which life is a flimsy, pasteboard front.
 

Suicide Bomber

A jacket packed with gelignite sewn in
With carpet nails, ball bearings, shards of glass—
Two detonator caps and striking pin
Taped to his back, and wired up to pass
Beneath his groin, while resting in his pocket
A simple circuit switch awaits his thumb.
Around his neck, he wears a golden locket
That holds a sacred text of life to come.

He thinks of peoples, nations, tribes, and races—
Those networks of identity and rage:
The fallen friends, the unavenged, whose faces
Gaze and applaud as if he were on stage.

And yet it’s he who triggers—all alone—
The flame-red sunburst of his blood and bone.
 

Time Capsule

We filled it with the icons of this age:
A cellphone, condoms, iPod, and a beeper;
Viagra, vitamins, a sample page
Of cable TV listings, and the cheaper
Sort of costume jewelry.  As for print,
A copy of the Sunday New York Times;
And just to give posterity a hint
Of grittiness, a list of all the crimes
Committed in the course of this past year;
The names of several starlets and their diets;
An advertisement for our home-brewed beer
And CDs of the latest urban riots.

So down it went, to wait for resurrection,
When how we lived shall come up for inspection.