Dennis O’Driscoll is in the National Gallery at the moment
looking at the Titians with another Irish poet, and this one
is Seamus Heaney, who seems destined to be not only
the first Noble Laureate I’ve encountered but also, unless
Toni Morrison plops herself in my lap and ruffles my hair
and tells me how adorable I am, the last, and he, too, is as sweet
as he can be—“full of sermons-on-the-mount,” as Melville
said of Shakespeare, “and gentle, aye, almost as Jesus”—
and in this fashion do the three of us, the two genial
and self-assured Irish poets and the American one
begin to talk not of poetry or the weather but the circuses
they’d seen as boys, with Dennis saying that often the person
who tore tickets bore more than a passing resemblance
to the sword swallower, just as the lady on the tight wire
seemed very like the one who sold candy floss during
the interval, but when I ask them if their Irish circuses
featured side shows of the kind I saw in the American South,
they say, “No, no,” and when I say, “No Bearded Lady, then,
no Camel Girl, Human Unicorn, Three-Legged Boy?” they say,
“No, no, David, nothing like that,” which should be enough
of a signal to me to move on to Renaissance portraiture
or the fragile truce in Ireland or any of the hundred subjects
I could discuss with these kindly and learned gentlemen,
though my nervousness begins to play the part of the bullying
schoolmaster to the reluctant schoolboy that is my stupidity
yet who knows enough to stay in the wings and not butcher
the tune or the lines it hasn’t mastered, but no, no, the pedagogue
will have his way, and so I begin to babble about the clowns,
the elephants who were so sad and so incontinent,
the marvelous food—the kettle corn, elephant ears, funnel cakes, fried dill
pickles, and, best of all, the corn dog, than which there is no
delicacy more sublime—though mainly I’m banging on
about Backwards Man, the freak who frightened
me most, because he wore a ratty bathrobe and stood
in profile and began to speak in an awful voice
as he turned in a half circle from the ankles up, finally
facing in the opposite direction, even though his toes
still pointed forward. And when you’re a kid, when
everybody’s first question to you is, “What’re ya
going to be when ya grow up, young fella!” you can’t
help but wonder, What if I grow up to be Backwards
Man and spend my days contorting myself before
gaggles of horrified schoolchildren, standing there
with their stomachs sticking out and their buck teeth
and looking at you as though you’re some kind
of monster, which you are, though the worst thing
about you is that horrible voice, that drone of despair
into which all happiness vanishes, all light, joy,
beauty. And who will love the Backwards
Man that is you? Can you imagine having sex
if you’re backwards? Not that a certain contrapposto
isn’t desirable: why, just upstairs in this same
gallery is one of the most erotic paintings in the world,
Bronzino’s Allegory with Venus and Cupid,
in which little-boy Cupid is crouched slightly behind
yet twisting back toward the naked goddess whose
saucy nipple peeps between his splayed fingers,
and she seems as though she’s on the verge of slipping
her tongue into his mouth, and you can’t tell whether
he’s turning toward her with lust or away from her
in repugnance, because it’s his mother, for Christ’s
sake, although, for all that, this is the kissiest art work
any artist has ever produced, kissier by far than any
statue by Canova or Rodin, indeed, so kissy
that it makes me think of the poem by Catullus
in which he says, “Give me a thousand kisses,
then a hundred, / Then another thousand,
then a second hundred, / Then, constantly, another
thousand, then a hundred, / Then, when we will have
done that many thousands of times, / We will confuse
the count, so that we ourselves
don’t know.” Seamus Heaney says there are three kinds
of poetry: civic, public, and political, and of these,
I think I must be writing the first kind
and therefore am a civic poet, if not the kind that, say, Auden is,
going on about how people and cultures develop and interact
with each other as well as an uncaring
natural world, but another kind altogether. I’m the poet of circuses
but also art galleries and snacks. Really, though, I’d like to be
the poet of kindness and learning. Oh,
and kisses! And encounters, of course—chance encounters.
looking at the Titians with another Irish poet, and this one
is Seamus Heaney, who seems destined to be not only
the first Noble Laureate I’ve encountered but also, unless
Toni Morrison plops herself in my lap and ruffles my hair
and tells me how adorable I am, the last, and he, too, is as sweet
as he can be—“full of sermons-on-the-mount,” as Melville
said of Shakespeare, “and gentle, aye, almost as Jesus”—
and in this fashion do the three of us, the two genial
and self-assured Irish poets and the American one
begin to talk not of poetry or the weather but the circuses
they’d seen as boys, with Dennis saying that often the person
who tore tickets bore more than a passing resemblance
to the sword swallower, just as the lady on the tight wire
seemed very like the one who sold candy floss during
the interval, but when I ask them if their Irish circuses
featured side shows of the kind I saw in the American South,
they say, “No, no,” and when I say, “No Bearded Lady, then,
no Camel Girl, Human Unicorn, Three-Legged Boy?” they say,
“No, no, David, nothing like that,” which should be enough
of a signal to me to move on to Renaissance portraiture
or the fragile truce in Ireland or any of the hundred subjects
I could discuss with these kindly and learned gentlemen,
though my nervousness begins to play the part of the bullying
schoolmaster to the reluctant schoolboy that is my stupidity
yet who knows enough to stay in the wings and not butcher
the tune or the lines it hasn’t mastered, but no, no, the pedagogue
will have his way, and so I begin to babble about the clowns,
the elephants who were so sad and so incontinent,
the marvelous food—the kettle corn, elephant ears, funnel cakes, fried dill
pickles, and, best of all, the corn dog, than which there is no
delicacy more sublime—though mainly I’m banging on
about Backwards Man, the freak who frightened
me most, because he wore a ratty bathrobe and stood
in profile and began to speak in an awful voice
as he turned in a half circle from the ankles up, finally
facing in the opposite direction, even though his toes
still pointed forward. And when you’re a kid, when
everybody’s first question to you is, “What’re ya
going to be when ya grow up, young fella!” you can’t
help but wonder, What if I grow up to be Backwards
Man and spend my days contorting myself before
gaggles of horrified schoolchildren, standing there
with their stomachs sticking out and their buck teeth
and looking at you as though you’re some kind
of monster, which you are, though the worst thing
about you is that horrible voice, that drone of despair
into which all happiness vanishes, all light, joy,
beauty. And who will love the Backwards
Man that is you? Can you imagine having sex
if you’re backwards? Not that a certain contrapposto
isn’t desirable: why, just upstairs in this same
gallery is one of the most erotic paintings in the world,
Bronzino’s Allegory with Venus and Cupid,
in which little-boy Cupid is crouched slightly behind
yet twisting back toward the naked goddess whose
saucy nipple peeps between his splayed fingers,
and she seems as though she’s on the verge of slipping
her tongue into his mouth, and you can’t tell whether
he’s turning toward her with lust or away from her
in repugnance, because it’s his mother, for Christ’s
sake, although, for all that, this is the kissiest art work
any artist has ever produced, kissier by far than any
statue by Canova or Rodin, indeed, so kissy
that it makes me think of the poem by Catullus
in which he says, “Give me a thousand kisses,
then a hundred, / Then another thousand,
then a second hundred, / Then, constantly, another
thousand, then a hundred, / Then, when we will have
done that many thousands of times, / We will confuse
the count, so that we ourselves
don’t know.” Seamus Heaney says there are three kinds
of poetry: civic, public, and political, and of these,
I think I must be writing the first kind
and therefore am a civic poet, if not the kind that, say, Auden is,
going on about how people and cultures develop and interact
with each other as well as an uncaring
natural world, but another kind altogether. I’m the poet of circuses
but also art galleries and snacks. Really, though, I’d like to be
the poet of kindness and learning. Oh,
and kisses! And encounters, of course—chance encounters.
( David Kirby (Poet) )
www.ChordsAZ.com