Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 57 Winter Road

WINTER ROAD

Standing in a winter wind waiting for a late bus seemed a good time to write a poem one day- a good time to experiment with turning the moment into a metaphor.

WINTER ROAD

The wind-swept sun’s too weak to find

much from its rays as I, beside

              car-streams on grey road, stand around

to catch a late bus to another town.

At traffic lights some way away the cars

are smaller. Catching sun they turn

sun's western glow on metal, glass or chrome

to blazing flashes, dazzling stars.

The never-ending traffic river

as one voice growls- at moments over

I catch the cold, swift southern wind

creating whispers from the leaves

of small gum trees behind me here

before the gray fence hiding houses.

Across the road the bulldozed earth,

once fields for wallabies and horses,

is witness to the ceaseless building

of shopping centres and of dwellings-

a world of concrete and wrong trees.

Then sweeping further I can see

the skyline hills, still partly forest slope,

in bluish distance, giving me

a sensing of the wide world’s scope.

I have no views about this view-

the south-wind with its touch of ice,

the broad horizon’s haze of hills,

the endless traffic and torn earth,

the waiting by this winter road…

except it feels as sense of edges,

of being part and yet apart.

Perhaps my life is winter road.

As years creep on the young man’s gone

and ice is strewn upon my head.

And yet a road is still a road.

And I’m inclined to keep the thought

that there are ever ways to find,

in every place and every season,

a certain poetry of moments.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 56 The Prologue in Heaven

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN from Goethe's FAUST- new English version Mark Scrivener

 

The Prologue in Heaven is an essential part of the drama as written by Goethe. In it the Lord and Mephistopheles ("God" and the "Devil") strike up a wager over the soul of Faust. To start the Archangels come forth and recite verses praising God and creation. Note the reference to the "unheard" and spiritual harmony of the spheres that goes back to Pythagoras (see e.g. Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice-

There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.

Such harmony is in immortal souls,

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.).

Mephistopheles then appears and, as the spirit of negativity, delivers a negative and sarcastic version of human life on earth. The Lord disagrees and they argue over the fate of Faust. Note how heaven here appears a little like a Medieval court (somewhat like a King and Jester). Also in some respects Goethe sees Faust as an archetypal striving, post-medieval human being. The Lord maintains in an ambiguous statement that The human errs while yet it strives. And further notes that spirits like Mephistopheles are a spur to human development overcoming obstacles and they prevent humans loving unconditional rest.

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN

The Lord. The Heavenly Hosts. Later Mephistopheles. Three Archangels come forward.

RAPHAEL

In ways of old the sun sounds forth,
Where brother spheres as rivals sing,
Full-ending his pre-written course
With far-resounding thundering.
His aspect gives the angels might,
Though none may fathom his foundation.
Works, great beyond thought’s grasp, are bright
As on the first day of creation.

GABRIEL

And swiftly, swift beyond all grasping,
There spins the splendour of earth's light-
A paradise of brightness passing
To dark and shiver-filled, deep night.
And in broad streams up-foams the ocean
Upon the rocks' deep-founded base;
And rock and sea sweep on in motion
In planets' swift eternal race.

MICHAEL

And tempests roar in rivalry
From sea to land, from land to sea;
In fury forge wide chains that flare
With deepest working through the air.
There flashing desolations sear
The path before the thunder play;
Yet Lord, Your messengers revere
The gentle changes of Your day.

ALL THREE

This aspect gives the angels might,
While none may fathom Your foundation.
And all of Your high works are bright
As on the first day of creation.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Since You, O Lord, once again draw near
To ask how things are going down with us,
And since You used to like to see me, here
Am I where all Your household helpers fuss.
Please pardon, but I can't work high-worded styles,
Though all this circle mock and scoff.
I'm sure, my pathos would just make You laugh,
Had You not sworn off laughing this long while.
I've nothing grand to spout of sun and worlds,
I only see that humans plague themselves.
The world's small god is still the same, old way-
As deeply strange as on the dawn of its first day.
They'd lead a somewhat better life
If you'd withheld a seeming sheen of heaven's light.
They call it reason, merely using this
To be more bestial than any beast.
It seems, please pardon if it's impolite,
That his is that long-legged grasshopper's plight,
That tries to fly yet springs along
And in the grasses sings the same, old song.
Yet would he only lie within the grasses!
He pokes his nose in any poo he passes.

THE LORD

You've nothing further but this strain?
Come you but ever to complain?
Is nothing on the earth now ever right by you?

MEPHISTOPHELES

No, Lord! I find it there, as ever, bad right through.
I feel so saddened by the wretched lives of men
That even I am loath to torment them.

THE LORD

Do you know Faust?

MEPHISTOPHELES

The doctor?

THE LORD

My servant.

MEPHISTOPHELES

In truth, his way of serving's strange enough!
That madcap's drink and food's not earthly stuff.
His ferment urges him afar.
He's half-aware of his own craziness.
From heaven he demands the highest stars
And from the earth all highest happiness.
Yet nothing, from both near and far,
Can calm deep trouble brewing in his breast.

THE LORD

If He but serves Me in confusion's night,
Soon I shall lead him into greater light.
The gardener knows, although the sapling's green,
In coming years the flower and fruit are seen.

MEPHISTOPHELES

What will you bet? You'll still lose him I say
As long as I may have your leave
To lead him gently down my way.

THE LORD

As long as he's on earth alive
You're not forbidden to go ahead.
The human errs while yet it strives.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Thanks there. For never towards the dead
Have I a bias, so to speak.
For most of all I love the full, fresh cheek.
If corpses call, I'm not at home that day.
A cat upon a mouse, that's how I play.

THE LORD

Very well. Then you may have your day.
So drag his spirit from its ancient spring
And lead, if you can seize and cling,
Off there upon your downward way.
Then stand ashamed when finally you say,
A good man, with a dim, impulsive force,
Is well aware of rightly-rising course.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Good. Fine. And little time I'll take,
No fear I'll lose this bet. And for my sake,
When I attain my aim, my stake,
You'll let my heart fill with triumphant might.
Dust he'll devour and with delight,
Just like my cousin, the famous snake.

THE LORD

There too you may appear as free.
Your type has never had My hate.
Of all the spirits that deny, for Me
The roguish knave is least of weight.
The human's doing all too lightly slips to dream
And soon loves unconditional rest. Therefore
I'm pleased to partner them with one who's sure
To work and goad, with active devil-scheme.

But you, true sons of God, delight
In rich and vibrant beauty's sight.
May-Coming-To-Being, that ever works and lives,
Encompass you with gracious bounds of love.
And what's afloat in shimmering sheen-creation
Hold fast with lasting contemplation.

THE HEAVENS CLOSE, THE ARCHANGELS SEPARATE

MEPHISTOPHELES (ALONE)

I like to see the Old One from time to time;
And take pains not to break with Him. From the level
Of such a Great Lord, it is rather fine
To speak so humanly with the very devil.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 55 From a Bus Stop

FROM A BUS STOP

A poem written looking back at Surfer's Paradise (Gold Coast Australia) from a distance. However it is not meant as a critique merely of that specific place but rather of a certain sort of urban development in general. That which is alluring from a distance often turns into something else on close inspection and I think that is fairly characteristic of "coca-cola" civilisation. 

FROM A BUS STOP

In east blue haze

skyscrapers raise

a ghost metropolis.

Pale blue- and yellow-gray,

set far away,

they seem great crystals grown on this

circumference of day.

Behind them clouds begin to bloom

through humid summer afternoon.

Their white curves brush

past straight-line shapes,

presaging rising storm, perhaps.

Ah, constructs of the abstract gaze,

high buildings of the busy life,

in tones of faded page and ash,

I own you paint some mineral paradise

unless, of course, I come up close,

then all turns into concrete and to trash.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 54 Late in the Night

LATE IN THE NIGHT

One of the great aspects of living in the country is that you get impressions from the natural world that are more or less lost or obscured in the city. On a clear night, for instance, it feels like you can gaze right into our galaxy- the cloudy light streams of the milky way. This poem was inspired by another sight - patterns of cloud over a summer night sky lit by the moon. The metre is composed of variants on the Choriamb ( STRESSED, unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED). For example - LATE in the NIGHT. 


 

           LATE IN THE NIGHT

Late in the night

     I woke, feeling restless.

Outside the half moon

      gleamed low in the west,

washing its white light

       over the scattered

clouds which were patterned

      like the vast ceiling

on a baroque

      dome dimly spreading

over pale stars.

Trees were dark shapes,

      silent and cool.

Hills were black waves,

      still in their slow

ages-old flow.

And the small frogs

      chirped in a chorus,

recalling brief rain.

Earth breathed a dewy

     breath as it rested

in beauty and night,

       moon-bathed, a yin

to summer-fierce light.

And faintly a soft breeze

      whispered in passing-

this is the quiet

        blessing on life.

Moments of loneliness,

       in silence and loveliness,

with beauty like music

      that flows through the skin,

are gifts from All-Spirit

     to the spirit within.

          

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 53 Prelude in the Theatre

PRELUDE IN THE THEATRE

Goethe modelled his Prelude in the Theatre from Faust on a rather similar prelude that he read (in German translation) from the great Indian play Shakuntala. It is not directly about the play Faust but more about theatre in general. The three characters have different concerns on this subject. As such it could easily be applied to contemporary film-makers, for instance. The Director is concerned largely about success and pleasing the audience. The comic actor is concerned with being provided with a role he can shine in, whereas the poet (or poetic dramatist) is concerned with "art for art's sake" and suspects popular taste of veering towards vulgarity.

PRELUDE IN THE THEATRE
Director. Theatre Poet. Comic Actor.

DIRECTOR

You both who have so often stood by me
In trials of need and trouble’s sting,
What hopes for this, our venturing
Have you this time in Germany?
Great is my wish to please the multitude,
Especially since they live and let us live.
The posts are in, the seats are set up true,
And all look to a feast from what we give.
They sit already with their eyebrows raised;
Relaxed there now, they'd like to be amazed.
I know what reconciles the people, yet
I've never felt in such a tricky spot.
I know they're not accustomed to the best;
Although it's true they've read a frightful lot.
How shall we act so all is fresh and new,
With meaning's depth and yet so pleasing too?
For frankly I like seeing crowds stream in,
Surge towards our booth, and press into the place,
With powerful, repeating labouring,
On past the narrow portal way of grace.
In bright day, even earlier than four,
Up to the ticket box they fight and kick,
And as for bread, in famine, at the baker's door,
To get a ticket almost break a neck.
Only the poet works this wonder way
On many different folk; friend, do it today!

POET

Don't speak of that most motley mass to me,
For at the very sight our spirits fly.
Keep surging crowds concealed, that contrary
Of our will leads us to the whirlpool's eye.
No, bring me to a corner of calm heaven,
The only place a poet's joy will blossom,
Where love and friendship nurture and create,
With godlike hand, the blessings on the heart.
What's issued from our heart's own deeper powers,
And shyly stammered on our lips in quiet,
A failure or perhaps success of ours,
Is swallowed up by one wild moment's might.
It often goes for years before it flowers,
Appearing in its finished form. The light
Of glitter's born but for the moment's stages;
What's genuine's preserved for coming ages.

COMIC ACTOR

Don't give that coming ages stuff to me.
If all I talked of was posterity
Who'd give the present world its fun?
It wants it and it will have it too.
The presence of a good, stout lad, look you,
Is something too, when all is done.
He who's at home, imparting all with ease,
Won't be a victim of the people's whim.
He wants a great, big circle please,
So he's more certain of impressing them.
Let it be good, your best in perfect fashion.
Let's have imagination, with all its chorus,
The understanding, reason, feeling, passion-
But mind! Don't leave out folly for us!

DIRECTOR

Have plenty happening especially.
You come to look and you love most to see.
Spin out so many things before their eyes
That all the audience can gape amazed.
You'll win a wide appeal, that treasured prize,
And you'll be loved and highly praised.
You only master mass by mass, my friend.
Each seeks what suits them in the end.
He who brings much, brings many some good touch;
And home they go, quite pleased by such.
You give a piece, so let it be in pieces!
With such a stew fair fortune never ceases.
It's easy to think up and easy to present.
What use would be the whole that you'd invent?
The public picks it all to pieces finally.

POET

You do not feel how awful such a trade can be!
How little pure artists are pleased by such!
Fine Mister Blotch-it-up, I see
Already that's your standard touch.

DIRECTOR

Well, such reproaches do not injure me.
Men thinking to work effectively
Must hold the best tools for the task.
Recall you're splitting softwood. Look, I ask-
For whom is it you really write?
Sheer boredom drives one out tonight,
One's full from overflowing food that day,
And what's the worst yet, many might
Have come from reading what the papers say.
Preoccupied, as to a masquerade, they press,
Each winged by merest curiosity.
The ladies show their jewelled beauty to the best,
Performing for us here for free.
What do you dream on your poetic height?
Why do full houses gladden you?
Peer closely at your patrons here tonight-
Half cold, half crude. When our play's through,
One hopes for card play and yet another chooses
A wild night on a wench's breast. So please explain,
Why do you plague the gracious muses,
You poor mad fools, for such an aim?
I tell you give us more and always, always more,
And you will never miss the bull's eye then.
Just try to mystify all men,
To satisfy them's hard, that's sure-
What's got you now? Creative ecstasy or pain?

POET

Push off and find yourself another slave!
For should a poet see what nature gave,
His highest right, the human right, be bent
To sinful waste to suit your role?
How does he sway each single soul?
How does he conquer every element?
Does not his inward harmony sound out
A unison that wraps the world into his heart?
And if the thread of Nature, ever-long,
Is forced on the impassive-turning spindle,
If crowds, discordant, of all beings ring
Through one another, a tiresome jangle,
Who parts the stream of uniform creation,
So livingly, in rhythm's flow? Who's he
Who calls each thing to universal consecration
And makes it pulse in splendid harmony?
Who lets the storm rage in a passion's power?
Who fills the evening glow with earnest thoughts?
And who will strew each beautiful spring flower
Upon the path his loved one walks?
Who plaits the plain, green leaves into a wreath,
A crown, for merit of all sorts to show it?
Who binds and guards Olympus from beneath?
The human power revealed within the poet.

COMIC ACTOR

Then use these fine, fair powers to aid
And carry on your poet's trade
Just like a love affair is carried out.
By chance you 're near. You're moved. You hang about.
And time by time you're drawn in by degrees.
Your bliss first grows, then you compete to please.
At first you're charmed and then love's pains advance-
And, before you know it, it's a real romance.
Let's have this in the piece we're giving.
Just catch hold of full human living.
Though lived by all, it's only known by few.
Wherever you grab hold it interests you.
Kaleidoscopic scenes with little clarity,
Much error, a spark of full reality;
Yes, that's the way the best drink's brewed,
That makes the whole world feel refreshed, renewed.
For then the fairest flower of the youth
Come see the play and hear its revelation.
Then every tender soul imbibes, in truth,
Melancholy nourishment from your creation.
For as now this, now that emotion's stirred,
All see their inner feelings in your words.
The young are still prepared to laugh and weep all night;
They still crave verve, enjoy illusion on the stage.
For those who've finished growing, nothing's right.
The grateful ones are still of growing age.

POET

So give to me those times once more
When I was growing still; when from within
Full-crowding songs, new-born, would pour
As from an ever-flowing spring.
It seemed a mist still veiled the world.
A bud still promised miracle.
I plucked the thousand flowers which filled
All valleys with sweet, rich profusion.
I'd nothing, yet I was fulfilled:
My urge for truth, joy of illusion.
Give me those drives yet unrestrained,
The deep and anguished happiness,
The force of hate, love's power and bliss.
Oh, give me back my youthful days!

COMIC ACTOR

But youth, good friend, is what is needed most
When foes beset you in a fight;
When on your neck a loving host
Of women hang in sheer delight;
When in fast race, afar you glance
The hard-earned goal, the wreath's in view;
When after wild and whirling dance
You feast and drink whole nights. But you
We need to pluck familiar tone
Upon the strings with fiery grace,
|With beautiful digressions roam,
Concluding at your chosen place.
For that's your role, old sirs, today,
For we don't venerate you any less.
For age won't make us childish, as some say,
It finds what still is truly child in us.

DIRECTOR

Enough exchange of chat and banter;
Let's finally see deeds. Each one
Turns compliments upon the other,
When something useful could be done.
What use is talk of moods? Refrain,
And you will never find the mood inspired.
Now if you're poets, as you claim,
Command the poetry desired.
You know just what we need, don't you?
To slurp down some high, potent brew.
So start the mix and don't delay!
Tomorrow you won't do what you don't do today.
We should not let an hour slip by.
The resolute will bravely grasp
The possibilities before they fly;
And hold them by the slightest tuft,
Then work on further for they must.

You know that on our German stage
Each one tries what he likes- feel free.
And so today, for me, don't save
On stage effects and scenery.
So use the great and little heaven's light,
Squander the stars; there's no lack at all
Of water, fire, rocky wall
And birds and beasts for your delight.
So pace out on the narrow house of board
All that creation can afford
And with deliberate speed, range well
From heaven through the world to hell.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 52 Spell of Life

SPELL OF LIFE

This poem was originally published in the NSW School Magazine. Writing with effective simplicity for a wider range of audience in terms of age (that is, for younger readers as well as others) differs from the allusive and ambiguous methods of a lot of "modern" poetry. While the content is explicit there can be a subtle metaphoric content as well. Life, for instance, as this poem suggests has to be imagined in time, it is a sort of "magic' in time and this makes the cycle of a plant a suggestive metaphor for many other types of life "cycles".

SPELL OF LIFE

The seed lies in the silent dark.

Sun, soil and water light life's spark.

And from the seed there lifts a shoot.

The shoot develops stem and root.

The stem unfolds its first, small leaves.

They drink the light, they breathe the breeze.

Roots cling to earth, absorb the rain;

Support the stem's unfolding frame.

The leaves rise tall, spread on the air;

And finally begin buds there.

And from the buds out-spiral flowers

With scent and hue: bee-pleasing powers.

And as the chance and season suit,

The fertile flowers become the fruit.

The fruit grows ripe and falls to earth...

But in the fruit seeds come to birth.

The fruit is final of life's deeds-

But in earth's silence lie the seeds.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 51 Dedication from Goethe's Faust

DEDICATION FROM GOETHE'S FAUST

This poem is my translation of the dedication to Goethe's Faust. Goethe wrote it at the time he was revising and adding to his fragmentary version that was written in his youth. Thus he was reminded of lost time and friends from many years ago and the poem is like an ode to times past in a person's life. It is in the iambic metre and very similar in form to the odes of other romantic poets (like Keats for example). Translating verse poses many issues as a simply literal version (that in itself is usually impossible anyway in metre and rhyme) loses all the "poetry" of the original so it is necessary to try to "re-create" the feeling of the original as well as its sense as far as possible.

DEDICATION

after the German of Goethe

You near once more, you floating forms, who passed
My troubled view in early days’ confusion.
Oh, should I try this time to hold you fast?
Now shall my heart still draw towards that illusion?
You crowd on me! Then you may rule my gaze.
Oh, how you rise around from mist and haze.
My heart feels stirred, as in far younger days,
By magic breath surrounding your lost ways.

You bring with you the scenes of joyful times,
And many long-loved shades rise in my view;
And like an old, half-fading tale I find
First love and friendship both spring up with you.
My pain grows fresh and it laments anew
The labyrinthine, erring course of life,
And names the good- those whom false fortune’s flight
Stole from fair hours to vanish from my sight.

They do not hear the songs that follow on,
Those souls to whom I sang my first. Today
The friendly troop is long dispersed and gone;
First echoing response has died away.
My song now rings out to an unknown throng;
Their very cheers just bring my heart dismay.
Of those my song once pleased all those not dead
Are distant, scattered through the world instead.

I’m seized by long-unwonted yearning here
For that serene and earnest spirit-land.
My moving song floats murmuring, like clear,
Aeolian harp strings touched by the wind’s light hand.
I tremble, tear is following on tear.
My stern, strict heart grows soft. From where I stand,
What I possess seems far away from me,
And what has vanished becomes reality.