Poetics and Ruminations

To Smoke a Pipe

Reading some Faulkner articles one day in a 2002 issue of Pipes and Tobaccos, which is edited by Chuck Stanion, one of my former students, I was reminded of my own first purchase of a pipe and tobacco. One day when I was a kid my mother caught me in the bathroom of the parsonage smoking corn silk in a pipe I had hollowed out of a horse chestnut. I don’t recall what I used for a stem.

Mom May was quite upset, of course, and she tried to extract from me a promise that I’d never smoke again. I wasn’t willing to go that far; however, I promised her that I wouldn’t smoke until my sixteenth birthday, and I kept that promise. But on May 2, 1950 — my sixteenth natal celebration — I went down to Whelan’s drug store on the corner of Colony Street and West Main in Meriden, CT. I looked over their stock, selected a Yello-Bole that looked exactly like a horse chestnut, and a can of Holiday Pipe Tobacco.

After my purchase I went home, sat on the back stoop, filled my new pipe and lit it. I was puffing away when my mother opened the back door, saw what I was doing, and went back inside, closing the screen door quietly. That was it. She didn’t argue with me about it. I’d kept my promise, and that was all she could ask. A number of years later I wrote this poem which was originally titled “To Smoke a Pipe,” but that I changed in order to include it in my collection titled, The Compleat Melancholick:

Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem,

Download A Medicine for Melancholy

A MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY

Tobacco divine, rare, superexcellent Tobacco, which goes far beyond all their panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases. — Burton.

It ought to be a large old knot hole,
first of all, surrounded by most of the tree.
Black inside, as though Hell had poked
a smokestack out between your teeth.

Now, heave a wheeze downstem hard until
you've blown a beachful of igneous grains out
into the bowl's bayou. Knock them
onto your palm. Whistle them off

like a ruinous wind. The carpet
will thrive, grow lush as Virginia. Sit back.
Knuckle off the roof of your root
cellar where your tobacco, as

loamy as moss, masses and awaits
a spark's attack. Thumb up a balesworth; trammel
it down deep into the devil's
eye. Snatch up an eruption now

and spang! Puff a belly full of fumes.
Whoof! Off go angels and satyrs; clouds of them —
furry thighs and messes of wings
bearing you off like an orgy.

I no longer smoke, haven’t done so for decades, but I didn’t quit smoking a pipe because I had stopped enjoying it. In fact, I still have that original Yello-Bole, and many another of my old collection, including the carved brier of Romulus and Remus that I bought in Rome while my ship, the USS Hornet, was in Italy. Along the bottom of the bowl there was engraved the legend, “R-Roma,” a fine pun and one that reminds me to this day of the thing I liked best about smoking.

Not all my pipe purchases have been as successful as my first one was, however. On Friday, February 19, 2010, I received an e-mail message from William Becker, University Archivist of Cleveland State University, who loves to discover material and memorabilia of CSU’s predecessor Fenn College where I taught the first four years of my academic careeer, from 1960-1964. His message read, “Hello Prof. Turco, Do you think this fellow has a future as a wordsmith?” Attached was this letter:

All rights reserved. The poem is from "The Compleat Melancholick" in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007, ISBN 978-1-932842-19-5, jacketed cloth, $49.95; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, trade paperback, $32.95, 640 pages. ORDER FROM AMAZON.COM.

A Little Bit of Pizza

The Irish have stolen enough from the Italians! They even stole one of our best folk songs. Here are the original lyrics of “A Little Bit of Heaven”:

Sure a little bit of-a pizza fell
From outta da skies-a one day,
And-a nestled in-a da mozzarel’
So very far away.
And-a when-a da angels found it,
Sure, it was-a so provolon’,
They said-a, “Let’s leave it where it is,
It looks-a so macaron’.”
So they sprinkled it with-a Roman cheese
To make-a pasta fagiole,
That’s-a da only place you’ll-a find it,
No matta how you drool,
And dey dotted it wid-a spogliatell’
To make it-a salami,
A-and when they had it-a finish’, sure
They called it-a “Italy!”

The Lying Lions and the Liar

The Democrats swear with a roar
That they are against Bush’s War,
But then comes the squeak
They emit when they eke
Out the funds for the war they abhor.

A Tribute to Dean Martin

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie,
That's amore!
When your habit is strange and your custom deranged,
That's a more!
When an eel bites your hand and that's not what you planned,
That's a moray!
When your horse munches straw and stuffs bales down its maw,
That's some more hay!

When a Japanese knight wields his sword in a fight,
That's samurai!
When you ace your last test as you did all the rest,
That's one more "A"!
When you land on an isle and meet folk with a smile,
They're Maori!
Meet an old comic ham with the name "Amsterdam,"
That is Morey!

Take chocolate, mallow, graham, and swallow --
That's s'more, eh?
When Iago's friend's wife has been stabbed with a knife,
That's a Moor, eh?
When one's sheep go to graze in a field full of haze,
That's a moor, eh?
When your boat ties up fine with a hitch and a line,
That's a moor, hey?

When your name is Sir Thomas and you've fulfilled your promise,
That's a More, eh?
When the pattern's not clear, and you're not drenched with beer,
That's a moiré
When you have but two closets and your wife's is the largest,
That's armoire A!
When you'd like a good fight and get dressed like a knight,
That's armor, eh?

When you're Christopher C. and you sail out to sea,
That's a mare!
When you're Jesus H. C. and you want a mommy,
That's a Mary!
When you've paid for her favors but desire never wavers,
That's some whore, hey?
When you buy her a ring and you'd just like to sing,
That's to marry!

The Hillsdale Epistles Revisited

August 2, 1964

Prof. Arnold Tew
Department of English
Fenn College
Cleveland, Ohio

Dear Arnold,

Well, how are things back there at Old Swampy College? We're starting to settle in here at Hillsdale, and it should be a real experience next month when school opens. It's pretty hot here right now, but not half as hot as in Cleveland, I bet. At least we've got grass and trees and a big front yard now. Man, are we glad to be out of that crummy third-floor apartment. Hillsdale College has given us a big seven-room house right on the campus — no more driving ten miles down the freeway for this kid! Nothing but squirrels here (we've got a black walnut tree right out in the front yard)!

The guy who lived here before us asked me how come I got special treatment on the house. When I said I didn't know I had, he asked me my name. I told him and he said, "Oh, the new celebrity!" Dig that, me a celebrity! He told me the College had been wanting a poet on campus for a long time...and I'm it! Quite a different attitude from Fenn, eh wot? But that's all water over the dam. Here we are in our Midwestern Valhalla, at a neat little liberal arts college, and I'll be having real students with backgrounds for a change. Give our best to everybody. Jean and Melora send their love to Sheila and the girls.

Best,

Lew

P. S. You know what the graduating class here painted on the front stairs of Central Hall (with its big old wickerwork Victorian tower)? "The world's never-closing door / Is open to the class of '64." That sounds a little funny to me. Oh, well.

The Petraeus Report: The Lie He's Bound to Roll Out

Back on May 10th I posted this limerick. It's time to post it again:

The man on the ground is Petraeus,
A soldier who may not dismay us
Until, with a sigh,
He rolls out the lie
He’s bound to roll out to betray us.

Lost Faith

Theresa the wonderful nun
Believed in the Father, the Son —
But what was a Ghost
More holy than most?
A Mother was needed, not none.

Case in Hand

Cast: Priest
Demon
Chorus I (female)
Chorus II (male)
Hula Dancer
The Four S’s: Spite
Sprite
Splice
Spice
Bright Coin
Voice

Scene: Someplace, perhaps Limbo. The above group is standing in various positions and attitudes on a bare stage. They are all more or less grouped together excepting the Voice, which is invisible. The Priest is apparaently trying to conduct a service, but no one is paying much attention to him. The two choruses are assembled to either side of the stage.

Priest: Hail Mary...,

Chorus I: Our Father...,

Priest: Mother of God —

Chorus II: Which art in Heaven?

Demon (aside): For the nonce they’ve struck
a most unfortunately unhappy medium.

Hula (gyrating): Larrup, larrup —
thus it goes, thus and so:
up around-about
and in between....

Priest: Blessed art thou among women!

Sprite (coming to attention): Right you are, Padre-o!

Spite: Yes, he’s hit it.

Splice: He’s struck it, all right.

Spice: Hit it again, Padre-O —
put a little more JIVE into it
this time, though.

Priest (flustered): Blessed is the fruit
of thy womb....

Spite: Fruit of her womb?

Splice: Fruit of whose womb?

Spice: Womb, womb,
rhymes with doom.

Sprite: Whom shall I say has called
whose womb home?

Bright Coin (screaming): Well, I’ll tell the world
whose doom was sealed in the womb!

Four S’s: Well?

Choruses: Well?

Demon & Priest: WELL?

Bright coin (spinning on its edge): Yours.

A Review by Matthew J. Spireng

The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court 1953-2004, Scottsdale: StarCloudPress.com, 2004, 460 pp., ISBN 1-932842-00-4 jacketed cloth, $49.95; quality paperback, ISBN 1-932842-01-2, $26.95.

Make no mistake, The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court 1953-2004, is no small book. As the title makes clear, Lewis Turco has been composing — and I use the word with every intention because Turco does not just write poems, he composes — poetry for over fifty years, not, it turns out, only as Lewis Turco, who has surely been prolific, but also as Wesli Court, and as Wesli Court writing contemporary versions of English translations of Medieval poems. So it’s no wonder The Collected Lyrics comes in at well over 400 pages.

But those who like their poetry books short should not be discouraged. They can jump in anywhere, read as many or as few poems as they like at a time; doubtless they will be entertained. Turco is a master of the language and a lover of wordplay.

One might visit the bordello, or the section titled Bordello, for a view of the johns who come to visit, like “Hank Fedder,” who begins in describing his wife, “she’s a good woman, the neighbors say. And she is, I guess. She’s sure no bawd, / and that’s God’s truth.”

Or one might dip into A Book of Proverbs where in “Jack’s Madsong” Jack concludes, “At last we know what it is, / This thing that we call living — / it’s a trudge up a mount, / A swig at a fount, / And a slide down the cliffside raving.”

Soon even those who like their poetry books short will find themselves reading more.

This is a book full of rhythm and rhyme, a book that moves the reader to form the words with the lips, the tongue, the mouth. It is almost impossible to read it silently. But who, hearing a fine song, can help but want to sing along?

Originally published in The Hollins Critic, Vol. XLIV, No. 3, June 2007, pp. 13-14; copyright © 2007 by Hollins University, All rights reserved.