Rose with hose

Some of you dear dauntless readers may be wondering - whence the curious title Stubborn Grew?  That's an easy one.  We're still in the first chapter of the poem, called "Shakespeare's Head" (- name of Providence building, remember?  It's the "headache of a rational animal" - recall I was reading Aristotle's Poetics at the time, which is an analysis of tragic dramatic poetry.  Thus the poet plays an antic-tragic Hamlet living in a hamlet.)

"Stubborn grew" is part of the last line in the first section below.  "The rose", of course, is love, & poetry, & all... it's also "Little Rhody"...

This was one of the first sections of the poem written.  James Ravlin was my maternal uncle, father of Juliet.  A handsome, rakish raconteur - something Irish in him from both sides of family.  A Navy vet of WW2, served on a battleship in the Pacific.  Worked as lawyer in Louisville, KY for the cigarette companies.  Married, divorced, drank, & later in life lived with Agnes Eisenberger, across the street from Lincoln Center.  Agnes was a musical agent, originally from Vienna, for such figures as flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, et al.

On Dec. 7, 1971 (Pearl Harbor Day), his daughter Juliet jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was his birthday.

6

                in memoriam James N. Ravlin, 1912-1997

Light quick mosquitoes speed flitter

and slide at latter-day angle easily 

mounting every corniced ingle 

and fuming, spuming, better, better and better.

Mosquitoes there were in Saskatchewan, 

where you were born, between 

Granddad's grain

elevators, Grandma's steel-eyed span.

Those clever, clever lips hovered

in camel smoke

like a Cheshire hookah, smiled. 

And tumbled out an accent stranger

and stranger. What flute

troubled earth to bear him?

The bare tongue-footed ague of him?

The sweet-eyed flourish, the high note

of his Viennese liner?  Where now, 

sailor man, handsome PT-boat boy-o? 

He sleeps in his long canoe.  He is 

scattered. . . a late Minnesota snow.

Unmoored from the height of land, 

drifting from Lawrentian divide, 

blueberry, pine, air-filled

cliff, the taste of iron.

The cherry trees and the dogwood 

bloom now in this sinner-town.

Pale green sprays tender

over the graveyard.

Soon come the clever mosquitoes,

the new swarms.  I inch along.

A snail, with prairie on my tongue. 

Hesitant, grieving, stubborn grew, the rose.

7

The story begins when the rose turns to clay.

Slippery, niggling, the clay wriggled, sly and monotonous.

And the little hamlet followed, semi-conscious,

not saying what to do, either, nor doing what to say.

The rose inched off into the deep, so murmurous, 

and the Prince – well, the Prince did a lie burial 

off the stern end of the prow. . . So mercurial, 

that one! – like a cow-catcher off a caboose.

Quite realistic it was, too.  The waves were majestic 

purple mountains, and he went down and down, 

without a line, without an inkling –

it was a swoon sans the usual royal encaustum (to make it stick).

That quick-fingered ingle of his made such an impression 

he didn't dare exhale–inhaling was out of the question –

so he simply inched his way across that little island,

eyes closed, swimming like a swami, sorely moribund.

And lurking here and there for the entrance underwater. 

The truth was it was sub rosa–so they slay, 

anyway – that's the tragedy;

he was probably pretty prodigal, and definitely fatter,

they all agreed.  Well, it was nice knowing him.

Let's go have a wake-me-up.

These triple plays are all made up,

they seem to me. We inched our way around the scrim

and got out of there before the heavy snow fell.

Good night, dear diary.

Good night. Good night, lady.

Good knight – please save me! I've been playing like hell!

Where did we see that one?  Turn it off.

The couch inched down toward the muddy river, slowly,

slowly.  What sort of shofar blows so melancholy? 

The wind. . . inhale.  The wind plays rough.

8

            in memoriam Juliet Ravlin, 1952-1972

She was light on her feet,

came like somebody's pickpocket, 

a reedy bulb in a clay socket, 

springing complete

from the seasoned forehead.

She was light, she was twenty-two

just-once, and so were you;

and then she was wed,

or dead, or had – and Hamlet 

went mad. . .

He was still an undergrad 

up there on the hill, collegiate,

collecting himself for the big leap 

just as she took to the air;

she wasn't anywhere,

and he became – a creep.

She was his Golden Gate, 

everybody remarked; 

his life was parked 

there, checkmate.

Little they knew it was his birthday. 

Sail on, boy-o, toward Cuba;

these black squares from Yoruba 

yoo-hoo the voodoo.  The king must die.

Or so they said.  Hamlet's a masquerade, 

said Felix.  Drive any street,

you're bound to meet.

You're bound.  To meet.  And.  Fade.

So the woods came to the dunce, the forest 

became the aptest stern mast, and

Hamlet became himself.  Understand?

The end.  The grim wonder was all for the best.