ARRIVAL AT THE WALDORF
Home from Guatemala, back at the Waldorf.
This arrival in the wild country of the soul,
All approaches gone, being completely there,
Where the wild poem is a substitute
For the woman one loves or ought to love
Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day! Since 2002, poets have been celebrating a day when we can carry a poem, or just a few lines of verse, around in our pockets and share them with friends or leave scraps of them lying around on park benches, restaurant tables or even bathroom sinks like the nerdy litterbugs we are. I have a problem with this day though. Remember the line from Jaws, "We're gonna need a bigger boat?" Well, I need bigger pockets. And a lot more of 'em.
Truth be told, I don't carry poems around anywhere but in my head, and even then only a few. I've inherited this tendency from my father, 6'4" hunter/Bassmaster/ties-his-own-flies-to-flyfish/Texan. But after a glass of whiskey or two, he might just regale you with "The Cremation of Sam McGee," all 13 stanzas of it, give or take a few. It is a mystical event to behold.
More truth be told, I didn't even know about Poem in Your Pocket Day until That Neil Guy sent me an update on Facebook. What kind of poet am I? Oh, the same kind that, many years ago, road in the Houston Art Car parade with Neil and a bunch of our good friends in a Trailer Full O' Poets, all of us on a flat-bed reading aloud to the crowd from separately chosen books of verse. Neil read poems from Warmed by Love by Leonard Nimoy (and you thought he was just Spock. Ha!) featuring that classic, "Old Fashioned Spaceman." ("Rocket ships / Are exciting / But so are roses / On a birthday" ). I chose to shout him down from the trailer with the greatest hits of Rod McKuen because I was in my deeply ironic phase (compared to my somewhat ironic phase now). There were many of us hollerin' poetry to the crowd who looked alternately perplexed and delighted. C'mon people. You can't take your poetry too seriously.
But sometimes you can't help it. Sometimes you're at IHOP and he just doesn't love you anymore. It was 100 years ago, I was living in Texas, and I was tormented. I loved Mr. Wonderful more than Mr. Wonderful loved me. I needed to study for a modern poetry class, so I took my books and wounded heart out to breakfast. There among the Belgian waffles and that blessed brown coffee carafe I stumbled quite accidentally upon a little known poem by Wallace Stevens called "Arrival at the Waldorf." Mr. Wonderful frequently traveled to Guatemala, so the first line of the poem (see above) immediately caught my eye. By line 2, I was hooked. "The wild country of the soul...." Aw hell yeah. Line 3: Stevens ain't messin' around. This isn't about approaching, saying the right thing, wearing the right tie, obeying the correct dictates. The wild country of the soul demands pure being, just being there.
Take a breath. Take a bite of Belgian waffle. Gulp coffee. Carry on.
Stanza 2: "Where the wild poem is a substitute/" And here the line enjambs, that is, it breaks and carries over to the next line. Ya gotta pause a second. So the first time I read this, I thought, "Ok, I like the idea of a wild poem. Nothin' wrong with that. It's probably a substitute for something crappy like the IRS 1040 Long Form. Or broccoli. But noooooo. The wild poems subs in for the woman one loves...or OUGHT TO LOVE. Oh how this thrilled my younger self.
Still does.
I'll take a page outta James Joyce to defend my answer on this one. We all love a wild poem whether that is a good song our a fancy bridge we're building or a skyscraper we're designing or a meal we're cooking. Our "art," our "work" is incredibly important and sustaining. You get no argument from me. But as the man who wrote Ulysses and Finnegans Wake knew, the ultimate answer, if you must settle on one, is the courageous, heart-rending physicality of Molly's "Yes."
So I memorized that poem sitting there in the iHOP and have carried it with me ever since. There's more to it than I've printed here. Its last line, "after that alien, point-blank, green and actual Guatemala" brings me back to earth every time I veer to far into my own head.
Other poems in my pocket? I need a bigger boat. Lines from poets swirl in my memory:
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
lady through whose profound and fragile lips
the sweet small clumsy feet of April came
into the ragged meadow of my soul
I ate the day
Deliberately, that its tang
Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.
Deliberately, that its tang
Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.
ing of the heart,
the old, sore heart, the battered, foundered, faithful heart, snorting again,
stamping in its stall.
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
...determined to save the only life you could save.
It is Margaret you mourn for.
Come up to me, love,
Out of the river, or I will
Come down to you.
Kathy, this is the worst time of day, nearing five, gloom
ubiquitous as harm, work shifts changing. And our lives
are on the line. Until we die our lives are on the mend.
I’ll drive home when I finish this, over the pass that’s closed
to all but a few, that to us was always open, good days
years ago when our bodies were in motion and the road rolled out
below us like our days. Call me again when the tears build
big inside you, because you were my lover and you matter,
ubiquitous as harm, work shifts changing. And our lives
are on the line. Until we die our lives are on the mend.
I’ll drive home when I finish this, over the pass that’s closed
to all but a few, that to us was always open, good days
years ago when our bodies were in motion and the road rolled out
below us like our days. Call me again when the tears build
big inside you, because you were my lover and you matter,
++++++
These are only a few of mine. Do you have a few you carry around, too?
