The Beetle, the Bat, and the Pork-Pie Hat: A Fable of Yaddo

 Theodore Roethke

 Edna St. Vincent Millay

         I am a huge black beetle lying in a box of paper. I believe I may be an avatar of the late poet Theodore Roethke. This poet who now inhabits this room at the top of the Tower has just seen me. In a moment, when his astonishment has subsided, he will begin to wonder what to do with me. Meanwhile, I will wait and consider my identity — a problem that has not troubled me till now.

I am fairly sure Roethke was a poet, too, but I’m not sure how I know. I’m not sure I even “knew” at all until this new poet laid eyes upon me. Until then I was merely a beetle, crawling across the floor in the night, heading past all the strange furniture — a prie-dieu, a bust either of Venus or the Madonna, the bas-relief over the mantel: the central figure, a child dancing among musicians, has its head cocked at a very strange angle; the piece of frieze leaning against the wall, upon a cabinet. I cannot begin to describe the bed alcove within a gingerbread cathedral wall! If I am Roethke, then I have myself inhabited this room before, this room in a mansion now a retreat for writers, composers and artists of all kinds.

 

I never saw such a huge beetle before! How in hell did it ever get up on my desk, and why did it lie on my ream like that? Christ, that’s symbolic! I wonder it it’s Ted Roethke? They tell me this was his room up here at the top of this nineteenth century mausoleum, and it was Edna Millay’s and old Doc Williams’ too. If Roethke’s come back as a beetle, I wonder what they will show up as — a suicidal moth beating itself to death against my desk lamp, and a male mantis? Scalpel mandibles. I’m going to have to remember that line. Where in hell did I put my journal? There’s a wedge of d-CON under my chest of drawers — not very encouraging. Who’s trying to come back as a mouse, and why do they have it in for him?

 

He has not yet come to grips with the problem of my presence, but why should I be a problem to him? Why am I thinking this way? Roethke did not use such academic syntax and vocabulary. He wanted to be a beetle, so he tried to think like one. Is it possible I want to be Roethke, so I am thinking like an educated man? I shall have to give that some thought when I have found a dark place. At the moment, this desk lamp is blinding me. It is reflecting off the blank white paper on which I lie, so that the light arrives from all directions.

Now that nearly sounds like a Roethke line: “The light arrives from all directions.”

 

This is a strange place, a strange town. The first writer I met here wasn’t even at the mansion. I’d arrived too late for lunch, so I went downtown and — where the hell’s my journal? I wrote it all down…there it is, beside the beetle — “stopped for lunch at a delicatessen-bar. The father of the proprietor came in, sat down, and introduced himself. He’s an old man named Will Fyse. He showed me the manuscript of the autobiography he’s written — and then said he’d been a member of Murder Incorporated, a friend of the mobsters Lepke and Dutch Schultz. It was all in his book, and he has some publishers interested: I saw the letters."

The title of the book is Palms Raised to God Again, or something like that. About how he was brought up in religion till he joined the Mob in his ‘teens and then, after decades of mayhem, went back to being a god-fearing old lecher. I suppose I’ve got to do something about that beetle.

 

He’s thinking about me, I can feel it. I wonder if I can trust him not to do something vicious? I do not think he will crush me — too messy, but if he is insecure he may do it anyway. What parvenu poet would not wish to crush Roethke if he could? As I recall, I was a great bear of a man, and I died under suspicious circumstances while swimming. I do not recall those circumstances precisely — was it in a swimming pool? — but I recall the young woman. Perhaps that was another time — this beetle brain is not serving me very well. And to think I wanted to achieve this condition!

But the young woman — no, I do not, in fact, specifically recall her, but in my mind’s eye I do see a pool, and I see her breasts swim by the fish.

 

What the Christ was that? Jesus, I’m being dive-bombed by a bat! Must be Millay.

 

A bat! Alas, alas! But I’m too big for a bat to eat. I certainly hope.

 

Now what the hell am I supposed to do? A bat and a beetle. Now all I need is for William Carlos Williams to show up as a pork-pie hat! Look at the damned thing whipping around! Maybe the bat will eat the beetle. Where could she have come from? — oh, oh, I think I see it: there’s a little trap door up there over the gingerbread cathedral, the part that forms the entranceway from the stairs, and it’s open. Hell, how am I supposed to get up there in the middle of the night? I’ll have to climb up on the prie-dieu.

The goddam bat reminds me of that New York poetess who dresses up for every meal like she’s a petunia on her way to a funeral.

 

Well, at least he is not thinking of me at the moment, but Millay is. I feel the echoes of her sonar bouncing off my wing casings. If I had the proper ears I have no doubt I would hear them as well, shrill though they may be.

That was close! One of her wings brushed me. Why couldn’t I have had the sense to be reincarnated as a giant iguana?

Look at her — all black dewlaps and gewgaws. Disgusting! How very literary.

But what is he doing, that petit poet? He seems to be climbing up on all that gingerbread! Oh, I see — the little trap door, but that’s not how she got in. Perhaps it is — she seems to be beating him about the ears. Does Millay want to get out?

 

Goddam it, buzz off there, Edna! Go eat Ted! I had enough crap from that other lady at breakfast. Do you know what she did the night of her reading? Stop flapping in my face, the trap door is closed and I’m getting down off this wickerwork before the whole mansion collapses. If you’re not going to eat Ted, then go hang upside-down from a rafter.

She blew me a kiss, that’s what she did! I went up to her after the reading and told her how much I admired the pun in that line of hers, “I pray to a genital god,” and she blew me a kiss! Nobody’s blown me a kiss since my rich aunt went back to Kansas by train.

But at breakfast she told me she’d made no pun, and my suggesting she had was “very disruptive.” Gave me what-for in front of all those people. Pissed me off no end, I can tell you — why in hell am I talking to a beetle and a bat? I’m getting as weird as everyone else around here. I meant there was an obvious pun on “gentle,” and I liked it — it really works! But she didn’t intend it. What kind of a poet is that — doesn’t even know what she’s written? I should’ve told her how much I loved the pun on, I’m prey to a genital gourd.

 

He appears to be in a frenzy, pacing up and down hissing and muttering. I can’t make out everything he is saying, but he is evidently speaking of someone other than Edna and me. Good enough! Perhaps I can get out of this box — oh, oh, I’d best not move: Edna is giving me the eye from up there on that rafter. Dear old Edna — Madonna of the Coleus.

 

And she’d no sooner done browbeating me than that other neurotic female on my left started in. Christ, taking beginners’ ballet lessons at fifty or so! One night we were at the coffee house downtown when the Joffrey dancers came sliding in, and I thought she’d pass out in her mousse. So I kidded her a little. What does she do? She waits till I’m bleeding, trying to pass things off politely with the poetess, then she says, “And if you ever say I’m starstruck over dancers again, I’ll take my fist and I’ll hit you right in the nose!”

Must be understudying Mickey Spillane and Nureyev at the same time.

If You spell “dewlaps and gewgaws” backwards, you get spalwed and swagweg.

 

 I heard that — and so did Edna: here she comes again. What made him say that ridiculous thing? It woke her up. He’s becoming very agitated. I didn’t used to think so, but now I hate men who are capable of boasts and violence!

Now what’s he doing? Good grief, he’s going after Edna with a pork-pie hat! Where did that come from? He’s got her! And where did he get that square of cardboard he’s slipped under the hat?

Oh, no, he’s looking at me! He’s picked up the top piece of bond with me still lying on it — no! Not that! Not in the hat with Edna!

It’s so dark after all that light. Edna, are you in here? No violence now, you beast!

What’s that noise? — his staple-gun! I saw it on the desk. He is stapling the cardboard to the brim — my god, we’ll never get out! Do I hear the window opening? What a peculiar, weightless feeling!

 

Now maybe I can get some work done — I’m too upset to go to bed. Let’s see, where was I? Oh, yeah:

 

A gingerbread cathedral wall.

Scalpel mandibles:

The light arrives from all directions.

Palms raised to God again.

Her breasts swim by the fish.

 

Dive-bombed by a bat!

Alas! Alas!

But I’m too big for a bat!

A bat and a beetle,

And a pork-pie hat.

 

Black dewlaps and gewgaws,

I’m prey to a genital gourd,

Madonna of the Coleus —

Spalwed and swagweg,

Beasts and violins....

 

Hey, not bad! I like that — sounds a bit like Roethke. Maybe if I keep writing like this they’ll let me come back here again.

Originally published in Syracuse Guide, No 27, November 1977, all rights reserved and copyright 2009 by Lewis Turco.

REMARKS

The beetle is Kafka.

"Light coming from all directions" is one of those wonderful lines that sounds fine to the ears like a good joke. Like Groucho's "I saw an elephant in my pajamas. What it was doing in my pajamas I'll never know."

John

 

Weird stuff, Lew Kafka! Have you been smoking funny little things with Edna again?

Rhina

I've been enjoying your blog, especially "The Beetle, the Bat, and the Pork-Pie Hat: A Fable of Yaddo" and "What It All Meant" which I found particularly brilliant, each line being perfect unto itself. I got a lot out of “Defining ‘Free Verse’” and "Karl Shapiro, the Fly on the Wall."

Alice