Identities

Identities

David Landrum

Acknowledgments


Some of these poems have appeared in

The Barefoot Muse, Candelabrum,
Classical Outlook, For the Time Being,
Hellas, The Lamp-Post,
Measure, The New Formalist,
Prism, RE:AL, riverrun


Copyright © 2007 by David Landrum


Published by The New Formalist Press


Cover art: Self-Portrait in Furcoat by Albrecht Dürer


XHTML & CSS design by Leo Yankevich

Three Poems by Lady Night

1

It’s night again. My long black hair is down
Over my shoulders like a smooth silk gown.
To you, sweet love, I open up my thighs
And ask you, who behold me with your eyes,
"Is there one part of me you see this night
That is not lovely, bringing you delight?”

2

I did not tie my sash over my gown.
You called me to the window. The wind blew
And in its draft wide-open my skirts flew!
Blame the Spring wind, that tricky, wanton clown!

3

The bare tree branches tremble in the breeze,
So sharp and sudden as twilight descends.
And over me my lover softly bends.
And I am young and proud of my beauties.

Easter Seals Egg Hunt, 1967

Molly King asked me if I’d help her out.
“The kids are all in wheel chairs. I’ll be there.
You just show up and push them—it’s about
two hours worth of time to show you care.”

I came. The hunt was held at the Markland Mall.
The kids would point to eggs and we would race,
like rickshaw drivers at their beck and call,
and follow their instructions to the place.

I pushed, and they bent down to pluck the bright
shells dyed all colors. Molly said to me,
“These children break my heart.” And then, “Tonight,
why don’t you come and visit? We’ll have tea.”

That night, I learned the charity we do
is time well spent and well rewarded too.

A Note to John Keats

Much have I traveled in the realms of gold
and slept in alleyways and flophouses
on mean, unsavory streets. Much have I sailed,
waded through fens, climbed dunes, stood at buffets,
haunted abandoned factory stalls and sheds.
Much have I sampled fruit and tasted tea,
wondered at spider webs, stood in the rain,
listened to mermaid songs, explored sea caves,
climbed cliffs, walked sandy shores, crouched under rocks.
Much have I wandered labyrinths and lodged
with manticores, angels, hermaphrodites.
Much have I listened to the lonely child,
the forlorn lover, and the cast-off slave.
Much have I stumbled, much have I embraced.

Much have I known my fate will be like yours.
Much have I sought shelter, much have I mourned
anticipating when that hour comes.
Much have I seen, and much have I agreed
with what you said about a Grecian urn:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all
you know on earth, and all you need to know.
Much have I watched the sky and seen the sun,
the stars, Endymion’s moon, the drifted snow
late on Saint Agnes’ Eve. Much have I heard
the nightingale. Much have I read King Lear
and feared that I will wander in his dream.
Much have I dreaded I shall cease to be
and known things beautiful and things of joy.

Seascape by Edward Hopper

“Night Hawks” and “Sunday Morning” are the two
Paintings art critics (tour guides for the eye)
Will talk about. They’ll say that they’re shot through
With something simple to identify:
The numbing loneliness of modern life.
It’s not surprising, then, to come across
Hopper’s seascapes: lighthouse looming white
Above the frothy shoreline, rock and moss,
Wind-driven breakers, blue sky, beach and sand;
Yet in these scenes no children splash and play;
Lovers don’t stroll and whisper, hand in hand.
No one, it seems, was on the beach that day;
Nature is stark and barren as the town
On Sunday morning when the light pours down.

Remembering Colors

So Hardy said it all in “Neutral Tones”:
A gray sterility devours the green
Of love; the starving soil of winter owns
The landscape, frozen starkness comes to mean
The dying of affection you have seen,
This barren uselessness as we pretend
Those few grain from our former love we glean—
And in this frost you tell me it must end.
Once there were colors, and I can depend
On these for memories; the things you wore,
The auburn of your hair, the lovely blend
Of peach and ivory in your face, before
All color died; the brilliance of your eyes,
Warm, blue, and deeper than the summer skies.

The Wine Seller Hasn’t Come

My jade jug’s down to sour green silk dregs—
            The old wine merchant—damn him—isn’t here!
The mountain flowers think he’s lost his legs
            And laugh at me. When once more he’s come near,
Things will improve: the cup will touch my lips.
            I’ll drink the evening down till sunset glows.
But now I wait alone on Time, who slips
            Too slowly by. You orioles who sing
Outside my house, return—for you should know
            I love your company, now, in the spring,
My drunken guests: birds, breeze, and flowers bright.
            This moment, what companionship’s more right?

We Three

Some wine, a flower garden, I alone
To pour the wine and drink it here, unknown.
I lift the cup aloft and I invite
The Moon to drink with me. To my delight,
She joins me—then my shadow makes us three!
Together we indulge in revelry.
The Moon drinks, and my shadow—what a laugh!—
Now imitates me down the moonlit path!
I dance, my shadow dances with me there.
Still sober, here a moment’s joy we share.
When drunk, we part as friends and say farewell
But make a promise none would dare to tell:
To meet again and drink another day,
Not long from now, beyond the Milky Way!

The Abandoned Chapel

Passing a snow-transfigured, wintertorn
Old chapel, once again I see them mourn:
Earth’s entropy, acidic, eating through;
Saints suffering in time’s dissolving dew.
Saint Stephen lacks a hand; his mantle’s cracked;
The martyr’s crown he holds is worn and blacked
With age. Gertrude the Virgin, split in two,
Inspires no more, half of her in a pew,
Half on a pedestal. And good Saint Clare—
The grey-eyed maiden gaze she used to wear
Is smoothed away by rough weather and wind.
Saint Christopher has fallen and no friend
Has stooped to lift him up. All these stare out
Into a frozen, the Winter’s rout
Of Summer’s fruitfulness, the vacant cold
And emptiness of unbelief twice bold.

Old Fences

Even a fence-row finally returns
to earth: the line sags down as if it yearns
to join the soil again; the brittle wire
and rotting posts bend in a downward gyre
and crumble, break, withering into mould,
rusting to ore again, and so enfold
themselves in soil till wildflowers arise
to mark the spot where Nature’s claimed her prize.

Cat and Mandolin

My cat (a tortoise-shell, white underneath)
Lies sleepily, stretched out upon a sheaf
Of music I laid by my mandolin
Upon a table. Sunlight pouring in
The windows makes her drowsy as she rests,
Notes of an old composer by her breast.
Her tail disturbs the silence lazily,
Brushing the mandolin, and sending free
Desultory notes into the languid air
Of afternoon—a lyric to compare
With that one Coleridge heard the wind-harp troll,
But far superior: the Oversoul
That moves creative thought with touches warm
Is incarnated better in this form.

Excoriation

She is angry, excoriates me because
I led her on (she says) forced her to play a
Barbie-like role, unreal, empty, contrived,
                    Disproportionate.

I am (she says) afraid of confrontation,
Full of irrelevant proverbs and sayings,
Exploitive and deceptive in the extreme,
                    A bungling mentor.

Remembering her come-on lines, I must pause,
Reflecting how, if I cite useless proverbs,
It takes two to tango—and tango we did,
                    A beautiful dance.

I remember the eagerness in her eyes
When we rendezvoused in secret places
And walked around and kissed in the hard, bitter
                    February cold,

How willingly she came to me in Milan,
Toledo, Canton, and, last, in Columbus—
Slept with me, planned our clandestine meetings,
                    Maintained secrecy.

Indignant, wounded, seething, hurt, self-righteous,
She overbears my defenses and confronts
Me like Laertes in the king’s presence: she’ll
                    Not be juggled with.

Yet I know however hard this rain lashes,
The storm will pass away. Soon the olive branch
Will come, dove-borne, our covenant affirmed with
                    a rainbow (her smile).

Sounion

Here, it is said, Aegeas flung his old,
tired body to the endless breakers’ roll
as, patiently, they smoothed out jagged stones,
grooming the shoreline—grave for his lost bones.

Above, a temple to Poseidon stands,
so well-preserved one might imagine hands
of sailors raised in worship, temple maids
(in virgin’s dresses, hair tied up in braids).

High on the cliffs, I see the breakers churn
against black stones—as undulations turn
the waters to a shade of burgundy,
I understand the phrase “the wine-dark sea”—

dark red, just like the house-wine we consumed
at a café a block from where we roomed.
We watched soccer, ate squid, then the bus ride
down to the site of Aegeas’ suicide.

Somewhere out here Lord Byron etched his name
(so we were told) in stone. We played a game:
whoever found it first, the rest would pay
for that one’s supper at the end of day.

We never found it, though God knows we tried.
The rock, pale, crumbly, thin and grey, could hide
one name and keep it in obscurity.
Aegeas wrote his name upon the sea.

The Book of Kells

The book of Kells, resplendent in design,
Ornate and ornamented, came to be
(Most likely) because there was much ennui
And boredom at the abbey. All the fine,
Minutely penciled, stylized gold-leaf line
And rubric letters curled fantastically
As unicorns or serpents from the sea,
Were drawn to fill the hours till compline.
The pages, dazzling, beautifully wrought,
Did better than the monks who wrote them out.
The book survived the Viking’s grim onslaught,
The monks did not. But their work leaves no doubt
Of how the ancient, plodding monkish race
Transfigured even boredom into grace.

Come Lesbia, Let Us Live and Love

Come, Lesbia, let us live and love—
Forget what sour moralists say!
The sun sets—but unlike the sun above,
We sink to earth, to silence and decay
And do not rise again with dawn and day.

So give me thousand kisses, and then more:
A hundred, then a thousand as before;
Another hundred—then, to keep in pace,
A thousand, and a hundred more! Embrace
With lips and bodies joined, till we forget
The numbers! And though fools and cuckolds sweat
(Envious of our wealth), we’ll let me curse
With evil eyes and guess what’s in our purse.

Eternal Aphrodite, Rainbow-Throned

Eternal Aphrodite, rainbow-throned,
You cunning child of Zeus, I pray, I plead:
Don’t let the love for which I’ve wept and groaned
Wither and break me. Come! My prayer heed!

Come down, if ever in my former days
You heard my far-off cries and, hearing, flew,
Leaving the sound of Zeus’ golden praise,
Faster than any mortal ever knew.

Swift sparrows, whirring, bore you through the air,
From heaven to darkened earth—then there they were!
And you, my blessed lady, kind and fair,
Smiling your immortal smile, asked my desire.

You wondered why I called on you again
And what it was my heart in madness craved:
“Who is it, Sappho? Whom now shall I send?
“Who’s wronged you now and made you swear and rave?

“If she you love so much has fled away,
“You know that soon she’ll be out chasing you!
“And if she scorns your gifts, there’ll come the day
“When she will offer gifts to your love due.

“And if she doesn’t love you at the first,
“Don’t worry! Soon she’ll find you’re her desire.
“She may not want you now, but soon she’ll burst
“And overflow, consumed with passion’s fire.”

So come to me, and free me! Heed my cry!
From stultifying sorrow, give me aid!
What I am seeking, grant, divine ally.
I wait here in your sacred apple glade.

Here in your temple, smells of frankincense
Mingle with apple blossom. Waters flow,
Cool and refreshing. Roses blossom, dense
And fragrant, and your calming breezes blow.

Here horses, strong with life, do not fear harm
And come to graze. Here drowsy sleep falls through
The shimmering leaves. Dear Cypris, pour with charm
Your nectar, pure and clear as morning dew,

Into these golden cups. From sacred Crete
Come to me, goddess fair, and let us meet.

Ozymandias III

I met a guy in a library who said:
The old poets thought some purpose could be found
in living in America. I’ve read
their statements that just walking on this ground
had some transcendent meaning. Whitman thought
that kind of thing. Longfellow thought it too.
But, Jesus God, what kind of madness brought
such notions on? I thought that sort of view
died with the Pilgrim Fathers and fell down
like Saddam’s statue. Nothing in this soil
is mystical; no magic’s to be found
in the air we breathe. Only a poet’s toil
would try to weave mythologies of grace
and tie the sacred to a given place.

The Feast Day

of St. Vitalis (January 11)

Vitalis, ancient hermit-saint, would pay
harlots to come and tempt him in his bed.
They never did prevail. And on his day,
in merry England, prostitutes were led
down muddy streets, a long parade of whores,
and forced to perform a penance in the cold.
Feet bare, wrapped in a sheet, placed at the doors
of Churches, hair untied, they’d stand and hold
a candle in the January snow
for hours, abject, shivering, displayed
so all the godly, goodly folk would know
the shame and sin inherent in their trade.

Their abjectness was largely a disguise.
That snowy penance helped them advertise.

At Rocky’s Bar

That Sunday I had come to play the blues
at the open mic, but they had switched the night.
I sat there on the barstool sipping booze.

“It got moved up to Wednesday” was the news
the bartender passed on, his voice contrite.
That Sunday I had come to play the blues.

As whisky soothed my ego’s little bruise,
a pretty woman plopped down on my right.
I sat there on the barstool sipping booze.

She asked me if I’d ever read Ted Hughes.
Not answering her would be impolite.
That Sunday I had come to play the blues.

She’d just seen Sylvia. It had suffused
her mind with anger at the poor girl’s plight.
I sat there on the barstool sipping booze.

“I like his poetry,” I said. “Hers I excuse.”
She left, indignant, stomping out of sight.
That Sunday I had come to play the blues.
I sat there on the barstool sipping booze.

Convent Cats

Part of it was practical, no doubt:
you had to have a cat to kill the mice
inside the convent. However devout
and tenderhearted, women will think twice
of tolerating vermin. Yet there’s more
to explain why dogs or birds were not allowed
but cats permitted past the cloister door,
amid those virgin women, triple-vowed.
Cats might go out at night to rut and screw,
but how deeply or how greatly involved
with sin, they could trot innocent into
those corridors of chastity, absolved,
self-pardoned of crimes done the night before,
and rub their backs against the vestry door.

Face to Face With My Lover

on Danito’s Anniversary

Monks recite sutras for their dead sensei.
Their modulated voices dip and sway.
That afternoon, I fuck you, and I can’t
Help smile: your sweet moans mock their measured chant.

Cats

Lovers, fervent, and scholars, austere,
Both choose (when seasons pass and they are old
And are confined at home) cats, soft, demure,
To sit with them and share their hearth’s warm fold.

Cats are like lovers, and like scholars too.
They prowl and lurk, sometimes as if they dread
An unseen thing; and yet their pride is true:
They won’t bow down to hell or to the dead.

They sit, sphinx-like, silent, as if they knew
All wisdom and all mystery. They seem
To sleep awake in an eternal dream.

They move with rhythmic steps, and when they do,
Magical sparks of gold flash from their thighs
And stars illuminate their sleepy eyes.

About the author

David W. Landrum teaches English and Creative Writing at Cornerstone University, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has published poems in numerous magazines and journals, including The Formalist, The New Formalist, Measure, The Lyric, Iambs & Trochees. His Ph.D. dissertation dealt with the religious poetry of Robert Herrick. His literary criticism has also appeared in many literary journals, Twentieth-Century Literature, Studies in Philology, and Mosaic among them. Landrum resides with his family and his cat, Tigris. He is active in the local poetry community, attends local readings, participates in a weekly poetry slam and open mic and also performs locally as a guitarist.