Santa's Beard: Christmas popnugget

When I was just a yittle boy we had a copy of The Beach Boys' Christmas on tape cassette. As a certified (or certifiable) Brian Wilson/Beach Boys fan, I wore that tape out until it warbled.

There were several Brian Wilson originals on that album, the most famous of which is "Little Saint Nick." Only slightly less well known is "Santa's Beard", a brilliantly arranged popnugget about a guy taking his younger brother to see a department store Santa Claus. It's fun to imagine the lyric is autobiographical--Brian taking younger brother Denny to see "the man with all the toys".

The chord progression in the "I wanna see Santa Claus, the real, real Santa" run that opens the song and recurs, always blows me away. "Santa's Beard" is an exemplary exhibition of Brian's best Beach Boys vocal arrangements. Enjoy! And Merry Christmas!

First Snowfall - Gary Marks

Gary Marks' 1973 self-produced album GATHERING is a cult-classic at best, quietly respected at least, but is one of my top-twenty all-time favorite albums.

The album features a young John Scofield, pianist Michael Cochrane and vibraphonist David Samuels, supplying warm and shifting fusion accompaniment beneath Marks' acoustic guitar, which at times is an ethereal, start-stop timed rhythm guitar, and at others exhibits folksy finger-picked arrangements. All of that beneath Marks' experimental melodies and fantastic, poetic lyrics.

It's a record I really wish I had on vinyl--in fact the CD sounds like it was recorded from vinyl, bypassing a remastering of the original tapes. I may be wrong about that, but particularly on the track "Him Sometimes" you can hear the hisses and pops of an original LP.

Anyway, today was the first it's snowed in NYC, and I've been listening to Christmas music with Molly for days, so this song is doubly appropriate because it mentions Christmas--“Every November day is like Christmas. That's what you've been saying lately baby, and lately I agree."

Scofield-led climax beginning at minute 3:30 or so. Enjoy!

A Discourse on the Dead

I'll never forget William Carlos Williams' assessment of the state of American poetry in his great American long poem, Paterson--the brief and coldly gathered, "American poetry is a very easy subject to discuss, for the simple reason that it does not exist." Even if that actually carried a hopeful, albeit snarky tone when it was published in 1946 (though I doubt it), when I read it in the spring of 2007 in a castle situated on a promontory of glacial till, I couldn't help but read it in the contemporary context. The simple conviction of those few words seemed to completely expose the decrepit state of poetry as I found it then, and I've since repeated the line to myself and to others when the subject of "American poetry today" is broached, because basically I feel it's still true.

I'll be interested to read Ben Lerner's contribution, seeing as he's just been brought on to teach workshops and tutorials at my alma mater.

Of these first three contributors, I prefer the way Silliman slices it. Viva Neo-Modernism!

The City of 1950

Maybe the only thing better than the illustration is the acting title, "May Live to See". Few things please me more than fragmented and even slightly demented imaginings of time, past, present and future. And then there's "Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, / And time future contained in time past. / If all time is eternally present / All time is unredeemable."

A triumph of songwriting and pop production: Little Peggy March - I Will Follow Him

Found Books

What an amazing city! In the past two months I've picked up at least 18 abandoned books (worth reading) off Brooklyn sidewalks.

Check out this passage from yesterday's find, a study of the Metaphysical Poets and religious experience by Helen C. White:


Mysticism and Poetry

Poetry and mysticism have, to begin with, this in common, that both alike belong to the field of contemplation rather than of action. Both are concerned primarily with the recognition of pattern, of significance, ultimately of value, in the world about them and within them. As distinguished from the man of action, say, the contemplative is concerned not with the conquest of the external world but with the understanding of it. Not possession but appreciation is his goal. The poet does not wish to carry the sunset home in his hat but with the eyes of his body and his mind to seize upon it so that the memory of it will abide with him. The mystic does not think of his God as a faithful genie to answer the rubbing of some Aladdin's lamp of prayer. He does not pray that his God will do his will, but only that He will give him Himself that he may behold Him face to face. The hunger for God is the basic human hunger, so every mystic of every tradition agrees. "Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee," is the way Saint Augustine puts it. "Beauty is its own excuse for being," said the poet Emerson as he looked upon the woodland flower. But in each case the satisfaction of the hunger, the final justification of the experience, is to be found in the experience itself.

Once aboard ship I heard a spiritual globe-trotter, famous for the catholicity and zest of his religious appreciation, tell a curious audience of American tourists about the almost miraculous energy and accomplishments of an Oriental mystic. It was at the height of our late prosperity when anything seemed possible to the aggressive disciple of the strenuous life, and it was frightening to see the intentness with which that audience listened to the speaker's suggestion of undreamed-of energies to be discovered in the mystic's contact with God. One of that audience at least was reminded of the enthusiasm with which Milton's fallen angels set about prospecting the burning fields of hell for gold and silver and precious stones. So the dupes of a power-maddened age listened with bated breath to this news of a super-source of power waiting to be tapped and exploited. Damming Niagara Falls to turn a wheel seemed a puny thing to the possibilities of this super-dynamo of God, and focusing the rays of the universal sun to roast an egg a triumph of the fitness of things.

RONATHON! A Reading from book IV of the Umapine Tetralogy, FRAM

The final installment of Ronald H. Bayes recordings: selections from FRAM.

RONATHON! A reading from book III of the Umapine Tetralogy

Ron Bayes reads selections from TOKYO ANNEX, the third book in the Umapine Tetralogy. These recordings are compiled from the audio production, RON BAYES' HIT POETRY, available through the St. Andrews Press.

RONATHON! A reading from book II of the Umapine Tetralogy

Ronald H. Bayes reads from PORPOISE, the second volume of the Umapine Tetralogy. This recording appears on his audio cd, RON BAYES' GREATEST HITS, available through the St. Andrews Press.

RONATHON! Selections from HISTORY OF THE TURTLE

Ronald H. Bayes reads selections from The History of the Turtle on his audio cd, RON BAYES' GREATEST HITS.

RONATHON! The Recordings: RON BAYES' HIT POETRY

For the grand finale of RONATHON! A CELEBRATION OF THE POETRY OF RONALD H. BAYES, I give you readings of some of his most popular work. These recordings are from the audio publication, Ron Bayes' Hit Poetry, available through the St. Andrews Press.


The first, Going South, features a picture of Ron with Black Mountain poet Robert Creeley, wife Bobbie, their children, and poet Larry Goodell in Placitas, NM, circa 1960.

RONATHON! GUISES: A CHAINSONG FOR THE MUSE

Ronald H. Bayes' GUISES: A CHAINSONG FOR THE MUSE, NEW & SELECTED POEMS 1970-1990, was published 1992 by Northern Lights Press. The title poem was lauded by Carolyn Kizer as "...one of the best poems Bayes has ever written." Here it is in full.



GUISES: A CHAINSONG FOR THE MUSE
--To Joshu

I.

I am here
the fourth time,
16 years to the day since the last
I discover by calendar (not plan)
in my room in the Esja Hotel, Reykjavik,
not even built then!
27 years since the first: & in the 26th
year thereof, the first time in your arms
through that dearest one of three
even then your surrogates.

We are each always in a different guise,
but in this guise I've not by odds
as long to live again, by half, where
you we know eternal.

You lower your eyes.
Beautiful!

The drumbeat of the rain.
The mountain across and
the bay half hidden.

          Joash was seven years old
          when he began to reign, and
          he reigned forty years in
          Jerusalem. His mother's name also
          was Zibiah of Beersheba.

          And Joash did that which was
          right in the sight of the Lord all
          the days of Jehoiada the priest.
          And Jehoiada took for him
          two wives; and he begat sons and
          daughters.

          And it came to pass that after this
          Joash was minded to repair
          the house of the Lord.

          All time is in time.
          All time is out of time.

The bay half hidden.
Beautiful!

II.

The child is going
back to

RONATHON! A BEAST IN VIEW

1985 saw the publication of Ronald H. Bayes' A BEAST IN VIEW: SELECTED SHORTER POEMS 1970-1980.

Black Mountaineer Joel Oppenheimer wrote,

"the poetry of ron bayes has always been rich, perceptive, witty, moving. "A Beast In View" keeps extending the limits he deals with while maintaining the strengths. in other words there's always more to tell me about that i need to hear. i'm jealous and delighted at how real language, puns, and "lit'ry" merge, touch, shy away from each other to make this good music."



          GEOGRAPHIES OF THE MORAL BRUTE

Lawyer: Look, she's left hairpins all over the floor again.
Officer: So he has discovered the hairpins too.
                               --Strindberg: "A Dream Play"

I. (Northern Virginal)

"Kiss me
til I bleed,"
she said.

I did.
She bled.

II. (Southern Virginal)

She pled
"Hump me
til ah faint."

Ah trahd.
Ah kaint.

III. (Universal Virginal)

Our only health
is our disease?

Heaven help us to the
Sulpha, please.




          THAT DAY IN THE SHADOW OF APOLLO

Yukio, you in the garden were

RONATHON! The Umapine Tetralogy: FRAM

The final installment in Ron Bayes' Umapine Tetralogy is FRAM (Pynyon Press, 1979).


PASSUS I

          Riddled,
          We are all changed
          & our loves changed too,
          but we are not.

          Kilter,
          coulter,
          plough & furrow.
          I riddle you so.



PASSUS X

          1.

          Ten at night:
          "The bundle heart, he said.
          Was he asleep?

          2.

          "When the hats come down," he said.
          Was I awake?
          It was 4 a.m. when I could see the watch.



PASSUS XI

          Wild one tucked into my arm,
          I know who wins,
          I know who wins.

          This dance-athon,
          this

RONATHON! The Umapine Tetralogy: TOKYO ANNEX

The third book in Ronald H. Bayes' Umapine Tetralogy is TOKYO ANNEX (St. Andrews Press, 1977).


PASSUS 11

"Only one teacher ever had much interest in me
before, when I was a student @ the academy
in Albuquerque & was just a tough
ornery little bastard. He thought I had some
ideas," sd Les Porter
on our way to the Pendleton airport.
"He was a young poet, too, I
don't remember his name,
I
wonder if he made it."

BY ANY CHANCE HAVE ONE EYE? "Yes."
WEAR A BEARD? "Yes."


1957-8
1964-Now.                (...7 days later, Creeley

RONATHON! The Umapine Tetralogy: PORPOISE

The second book in Ronald H. Bayes' Umapine Tetralogy is PORPOISE. The following are excerpts preceded by the book's epigraph.


Black snout of a porpoise
          where Lycabs had been,
Fish scales on the oarsmen.
          And I worship.
I have seen what I have seen.
         --E.P.
         Canto II


1st PORPOISE: THIRD BOOK

            Pensive student sitting before your desk,
wondering just what there is to risk,
taking the risk of your hide for granted,
if wise, point your myopic eyes up.
The cutting down to size time does is ours
in time. Forget the reason and forget the rhyme.
Time's now.

******************

"B. GRATZ BROWN! B. GRATZ BROWN!
EVERYBODY LOVES B. GRATZ BROWN!"

If Brown won't take it we will have to try to win through
with Wevley Edwards & Darlington Hoopes, I suppose.

TUNE IN AGAIN TOMORROW & SEE IF THERE IS
HOPE: IF THE HASS FACTION, RECONCILED TO
SLIM HASS' NET WEIGHT, NO SPRINGS, WILL JOIN
AGAIN WITH DARLINGTON, DESPITE THE HERNIA
GAINED WHEN THE COFFIN SHIFTED. "B. GRATZ
BROWN! B. GRATZ BROWN!"

RONATHON! Day 4, The Umapine Tetralogy: The History of the Turtle

In the late 1960's Ronald H. Bayes began work on a series of books that would eventually be known as his Umapine Tetralogy. The books are, like Ezra Pound's Cantos, a lengthy discursive poem in sections.

RONATHON! The Casketmaker

For the third installment of my tribute to Ronald H. Bayes, poems from Ron's most popular volume: The Casketmaker: Selected Shorter Poems 1960-1970. The poems in this collection demonstrate the controlled verse of a poet who "keens the spirit" to let the autobiographical seep into the mystical, and allow the power of Yeats' "thin places" to activate the landscapes of Western Oregon, Iceland, Japan, and North Carolina. Many of these poems also appeared later in one book of a series called Poets Greatest Hits edited by Jennifer Bosveld.



THE CASKETMAKER

Because it pleases me I turn to you
this lightless hour, and ask a reassurance
that cannot be there, although you touch me
and respect a smile of which I'm half ashamed.

The time is mine and selfishly I share
the sudden flash, sheet lightning of my
mind, unapt to start a fire or cause a
rain, denote direction sure enough to take;

And you can see my clutching--like a sea
anemone poked with a stick, neither in defense
nor aggression out of will: I build,
I drive, I turn to you again. Admire the nail.



FOR A FRIEND WHO WALKED GIRDERS

I fumble at the weaving of a garland for you
with whom a certain grace
of understanding came late,
at the right time, out of place.
Regardless of the calendar
the fumble-fingered man I was
and am; note how the things
pop out of place in eye, in fact--
but string and color, stalk and
vine of mine I wind, now, briefly
together for you, in grief,
this way, for at least one last time
and at least one first.

That I have never seen a finer
love than yours, or hurt more deep
makes me confess the mystery.
And now I think illogically about
your summer with the bridges,
rivets caught death-high, in air,
knowing time lines extend some things.
Some things stand out because
they should,
because they must.

Eyes sometimes come alive in paintings
where there are only almond whites,
clocks stop when the dead love
or want to touch us; when the dead love
the living and when we reciprocate.
And sometimes through such doors
in spite of our desire, loved ones
insist on entering. Then we can only
touch and hope; make hope a garland,
hope touch will suffice and we can
--will be allowed to--take
a world at a time.



COMMANDS

Go away.
I think I love you.
I have a rock to roll up a hill.
Go away.
I love you.
It is essential.



NATIONAL POETRY DAY: 1965

Jarrell,
you're dead today.
I who have also
inscribed against death
stand in public
and stream tears,
and I'm supposed to read,
coherently, later today,
in Fort Smith, Arkansas,
about the good of the poetic mind--
and poetry.
But you won't leave my mind long enough.

You're gone
and Creeley was at last
with us in my home
last week, warmly alive,
wise, keen, brilliant.
In turn, we were
at Vancouver together
when word came
Roethke
has been found dead
in the water...
in the water.
Jarrell
Jarrell
Jarrell



FIRST LETTER

"Language has not the power to speak what
love indites: / The soul lies buried in the
ink that writes." --John Clare

My Dear, how to begin this,
your being so far away and
time being so strange;
that what I love in you
is for its own dear sake,
this you know now.
Yet we are wise enough
to know love's pledges
turn lies often through Time and
not Intention.
What can we do but touch
tangibles and abstractions given,
memory of ocean,
memory of mountain,
rings,
pictures, photographs.
Words.
Recall that difficult parting,
tears (as your sobbing the last,
deep night awakened me
to what I hadn't known).
This, these simplicities;
whatever else may come,
your smile the counterpoint
to what I'd lost.

RONATHON! KING OF AUGUST

Ron Bayes has done translations from the Japanese. The following appeared in KING OF AUGUST (The Curveship Press, 1975).


THE SEA GROANED
(Chiyoko Terayama)

Clock becomes sea.

Starts to strike,
becomes dry cosmos.

To begin with, the falling petals of cosmos.
And the violent keys split
to the second. Mechanical cut ear.

Sea motionless.
Time broken.

Again the
sea groaned
in the show-window.

(with Nobuaki Sumomogi)

REMORSE

My mentor, Ronald H. Bayes, is retiring. He leaves behind a legacy of over forty years in service to the St. Andrews community. The following poem appeared first in KING OF AUGUST published by Curveship Press (1975), and reappeared in GUISES: A CHAINSONG FOR THE MUSE published by The St. Andrews Press (1992).


SAMVIZKUBIT
(Remorse)

Hands
grow out of my head,

Pull
my eyelids back.

You are gone.
I built the wrack.

I turned the wheel,
smiled as your bones cracked.

Hands
grow out of my head.

Dearest!
Dearest!

I, day after night
cannot close my eyes.

Day after night jut
the jaw, the teeth toward death.

Hands grow out
of my head and

I cannot close my eyes
(day after night),

Their fingers refuse
to allow it.

You are gone.
No assuagement.