OLD MASTERS

For T.T.

Behind the curtain on Christmas Eve my mother’s voice merges with Bishop’s: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master / so many things seem filled with the intent / to be lost that their loss is no disaster.” Mother’s voice is as soft as the softest rain: “Watch now, how men will lose their one chance to kiss the alabaster of my face.” Widows and lesbian lovers “Lose something every day. Accept the fluster / of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. / The art of losing isn't hard to master.” “— Is she at home or not,” the horny men ask, but hers is not the task to answer to the charge of forgery and fidelity in life and in disaster. “I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, / some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. / I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.” The sounds get intense, and men’s excitement turns into a disaster. “This is a disaster,” they all shout. “Every year the same thing. It’s Christmas for Christ’s sake, indulge our lust, for once, and be a sport.” But “No,” she says, with Echo as her partner, practicing the art of losing even faster, one art which I am made to see as she refers once more to some disaster: “ — Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture / I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident / the art of losing's not too hard to master / though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.” “I’m listening,” I say, “But if it is as if it looks like it, like a disaster, then why do I have to write it, when those intended for, this writing of disaster, go back to eating, or opening their windows, disgruntled so by their fail to muster, or is it master, you?” “— Don’t move,” I say, “I’m painting you as implacable. Me, as lightness of touch on your lips, so that the one you’re waiting for will come at last. At last."

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Comments

Bent said…
What a melange of Blanche and Blanchot, with a Bishop's Finger thrown in. You should dedicate it to Mama Ana and Mistress Hendrikje instead of the Audi TT...
Camelia said…
So, what you mean to say is that I should dedicate it to MM, mothers and mistresses, but you see, I like the idea that this particular mother that the poem is dedicated to is a characterless character, which, in this context here, means that as no one knows her, one can mistake her for a fast car - as you did - or something else entirely. For isn't misreading precisely that which can counter loss, which writing itself is, so that there will always be space for re-appropriations and reprises? Mistress Hendrickje herself was a master at this, getting the pearls that she wanted the way she did it. Her space was round.
Søren said…
Fantastic poem, Camelia! I simply love the echo of Bishop's poem in yours, the merging of the voice of your mother with the voice of Bishop's poet-speaker, and, last but not least, your concluding response to your mother's response to 'the art of losing'. But why is it now that the writing of disaster (WRITE it!) will turn out to be nothing but disaster - irrespective of whether an audience exists to attend to it or not? Because, yes, because writing is loss, loss, loss, even in its very disastrous attempt to compensate for loss. Writing is a founder of religions and hence a source of community (cf. the etymology of the word 'religion'), but it is also the medium that we enjoy and suffer as part of our solitude (cf. Fats Waller: "I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter/And make believe it came from you"). Bloody hell!!

PS. Apropos of the reference to 'eating' in the poem: the reference suddenly makes me realize that your poet-speaker appears to refrain from eating anything but words, as opposed to the the addressee of the poem, who not only returns to plain food consumption, but also to opening windows in order to give the house a proper airing. A very delicate moment in the poem: the poet eats words and regurgitates words, while someone else consumes food and produces flatulence ("All that is solid melts into air" (K. Marx)), so that windows must be opened (a hell of a stinker!). All of which gives me the chance to ask you: how is your diet coming along? carrots only, right?! or are you simply beyond even such a frugal consumption of food?
Camelia said…
Søren, you hit a nerve. As I anticipate going to Tromsø, I fantasize about becoming a light beam, an orange one, the color of carrots, as part of the marvelous aurora borealis. It's all about reduction. Mother was a good teacher and a master in reduction, and I've always been fascinated by her idea of how much one can reduce, things and oneself, so that the only thing that remains is a light touch. She thought that I was better at it than she was, and maybe she was right. I'll be thinking about this in the Arctic - the thought of what remains besides the obsessiveness with what might come.
Bent said…
In that case you could go with the traditional NN as the dedicatee, or if you insist on roundness, OO.

XOXOX
Bent

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