Poetics and Ruminations

Boo!

Image by Tomie dePaola

 

A GREAT GREY FANTASY

By Lewis Turco

 

No need to wound

the pride of witches

with dental pumpkins and

cardboard toots one autumnal

 eve each year. Why raise the wrath

of wraiths; why rile

the local spook

 

or banshee? Let them lie there

sucking the blood of dreams.

You stay indoors. If

your id needs its lid lifted, flick

a knob in your parlor. You’ll

hear electronic chains scrape

 

and rattle, see

shadows larrup

the Laramie trail and Mike

Hammer’s image pound dickens

out of rubber jaws. The

Great Gray Phantom rides

again. Or, I

 

should say, still: Halloween has

been perpetuual now

for several years.

I have been here

in my easy chair

a month myself, bewitched

(i.e., made stone) by the runes

 

incanted by fakirs

of Commerce,

greatest of nether lords.

Come, I’m bloodless and it’s what!

Halloween? October

already? Out, then,

out of coffins;

 

out on the porch for air,

zombies! The moon’s full. Sniff.

What’s that wail, werewolves?

No, that window,

and that one, look there,

everywhere one notes tubes

flickering, faces pasted

 

to squares of grey

glass and gas. The sound!

it’s weird: hooves (cloven?), shots,

songs, shrieks (this Is Your Life) — what

a devilish din. What

are those black masses

against the moon?

 

Whither bound? Gad, brooms! Goblins,

ghosts, wizards, ogres! What’s

that banner say? “MARS

OR BUST!” In I

go for a good view.

a Mobile Camera

Rocket’s up ahead of them.

 

Poem from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, xx:1, Jan. 1960, pp. 98-99. All rights reserved by Lewis Turco.

Image by Tomie di Paola, Copyright and all rights reserved by Tomie Di Paola, 2013.

 

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From THE HERO ENKIDU, "Canto III: Erech"

 

 

           I have just finished correcting what I hope is the final draft of my epic titled The Hero Enkidu which is written in Anglo-Saxon prosody with bobs and wheels (like Gawain and the Green Knight). The "Foreword," "Prologue," and "Canto One: Nimrod and Lilitu," are scheduled to be published in the Winter 2013 issue of Per Contra on-line. This is the first section of "Canto II: Erech" --

CANTO II: ERECH 

 

On their trek to Erech   Lilitu told

Enkidu the tale   of the city’s founding:

“In the second age   Isildur carried

Out of the ruins   of golden Númenor  

A great globe    made of stone.

Upon the stone    he etched an oath

And caused the great   King of the Mountains

To place his hand   upon the rock

And swear that he   would bear fealty,

To Isildur’s lineage   and to Erech when

Its temple and walls   were raised upon

The crown  of the hill.  Isildur built  

A ziggurat then,   the White Temple,   

And worshipped there   Anu and Inanna,   

Sky sovereigns.    But when the time

Came at last   to honor their oath,

The Men of the Mountains    would not fight

The wizard Sargon,    for they had worshipped

Him erewhile   in the Dark Years.

Isildur cursed them,    swore that they

Would never rest    till they had fulfilled

Their ancient oath.   Erech was desolate

When the Third Age   came to an end

Because the Terror   of the Sleepless Dead

Lay on the hill   and the White Temple.

Then Aragorn came,    arrived in Erech

To hold the army    of the undead

To their sworn word.   They obeyed this time

And helped Aragorn   defeat the Corsairs

Of Umbar at Pelargir.   After the battle

Aragorn released   the ghostly host

From their curse   and they went to rest.

                                             At last the mountain men

                                    were given their surcease.

                                             They could not remember when

                                    they last had lived in peace.

                                             They would not rise again.”

 

The Door

By Thom. Seawell

 

      Have you ever walked into a room with some purpose in mind, only to forget completely what that purpose was?

      Apparently the doors themselves are to blame for these strange memory lapses. Psychologists at the University of Notre Dame have discovered that passing through a doorway triggers what's known as an “event boundary” in the mind, separating one set of thoughts and memories from the  next. One’s brain files away the thoughts one had in the previous room and prepares a blank slate for the new locale.

     Thank goodness for studies like this -- It's not age that causdes such lapses, it's that damned door!

 

THE DOOR

On a sculpture by Ivan Albright

 

     There is a door

           made of faces

faces snakes and green moss

 

     which to enter is

           death or perhaps

life which to touch is

 

     to sense beyond the

           figures carved in

shades of flesh and emerald

 

     the Inhabitant at home

           in his dark

rooms his hours shadowed or

 

     lamptouched and that door

           must not be

attempted the moss disturbed nor

 

     the coiling lichen approached

           because once opened

the visitor must remain in

 

     that place among the

           Inhabitant's couches and

violets must be that man

 

     in his house cohabiting

           with the dark

wife her daughter or both.

 

By Lewis Turco 

From The Inhabitant, Poems by Lewis Turco, Prints by Thom. Seawell, Northampton: Despa Press, 1970. Out of print, but all poems from the series are collected in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007.

 

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1. Who invented the Affordable Care Act, erroneously called "Obamacare" primarily by Republicans? ANSWER: The Heritage Society, a conservative Republican organization. 2. Who instituted the prototype of the "Affordable Care Act"? ANSWER: George Romney, Republican Governor of Massachusetts, in that state where it was successful and is still in effect. 3. After Massachusetts, what legislature approved and passed into law The Affordable Care Act? ANSWER: The Congress of the United States of America. 4. During the last Presidential election, which candidate opposed The Affordable Care Act? ANSWER: The Republican candidate, George Romney. 5. Which candidate lost the election decisively? ANSWER: The Republican candidate, George Romney. 6. Who questioned the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act after the election? ANSWER: The Republican Party. 7. What branch of the Government declared the Affordable Care Act Constitutional? ANSWER: The conservative Republican Supreme Court of the United States of America. 8. What is the real objective of the Republican Party? ANSWER: To destroy by any means the administration and reputation of the current President because he is of mixed white and black race. 9. How far are they willing to go? ANSWER: We are about to find out.

A Week in Retirement

Claudette McFang and I left Dresden, Maine, yesterday at 9:20 a.m. and headed  out for our regular fall month in Oswego. New York. Jean stayed behind because  she caught our granddaughter Jessima's cold and was too sick to drive: she takes two days to my one. Claudette was very good in the car. I fixed her cage so she  could see me in the driver's seat, and she hardly protested all the way. It took  our regular eight hours to do the 500 miles. The trip was uneventful except for  the time when some moron in a pickup decided to cut me off. For a few minutes I thought how lucky I was NOT to have a gun in the car. I slept long and hard and woke up this morning in fair fettle. Claudette slept   on my belly part of the night, but she was too excited to get much sleep  herself. She prowled the house floor to attic most of the night. I have just gotten my computer set up and discovered that the Fall 2012 issue of  the fine on-line periodical Per Contra is up. It contains my poem titled "A Week  in Retirement," which I think some of you, if not most, will enjoy reading: http://www.percontra.net/issues/29/poetry/a-week-in-retirement/