October 17, 2009

Mist of frost on the picture window. Cold tea. Dark before morning. Moved the Christmas cacti off the porch last night in anticipation of the first skirmish of winter.

DJ and TD and I went to see Bright Star, the movie about, or at least featuring, Keats. It was leisurely, but also delicious, the portrayal of the poet plausible, if not as Cockney as one expected. Fanny Brawne gets better than she deserved. The film got my spirit moving over the face of poetry again. The making of poetry was so nearly effortless (or, I should say, so much a delight) that I never anticipated that the life of poetry would be so hard. There is in fact no “life of poetry” except for those who are very lucky and dwell in very special circumstance– which one was and one did when one was a graduate student, but never after. Keats and Brown lived that life for but a moment in the film. Poetry is surrounded by enemies, some of ignorance or indifference, some of actual malice. The local poetry scene wears before the community a face that has little to do with poetry, but rather professionalism and public relations. This may not be damaging to Apollo himself, but it is to his votaries. It is like the man who sells motorcars on TV getting credit for the invention itself. Poetry’s enemies are subtle and unexpected. Some poets are, the way some parents seem to be in that game mainly to destroy their children. The New Yorker magazine is a subtle and sinister enemy. printing poems that are all but unreadable for coyness, in-group allusiveness, emotional remoteness and the impenetrable self-satisfaction which comes, sometimes, to intellectuals who think they are artists. Those who can no longer love or feel poetry try to destroy it by asserting, in the Cadillac of venues, that it can no longer be loved or felt. I suppose the word “inspiration” would be greeted with hysterical laughter in the rooms where these pieces are concocted and chosen.

J has his stuff packed up and sitting in boxes in the studio, waiting to take flight. I tried to paint yesterday, but could not in the face of that sad witness. Maybe it is well I never married. Would I constantly be taking things as signals and ambushes which were not meant that way? Or would I be oblivious to signals and ambushes until my partner, wild to secure my attention, turned to total war? Does anyone who forms an attachment or a relationship anticipate the veering to the Byzantine, or assume, as I always do, that things will be clear sailing as long as there are honest hearts at the helm? I’m making too much of this. In a week I will be resettled and glad for the space. The mood at the studio is hurt and tender and distracted because of J’s precipitous move, everyone making allusions and stopping short of saying what they mean, unsure of what I know about the situation, of what J wanted me to know. It’s a soap opera. I never watch that, even when I’m in the midst of it.

Still, I was there last night to hear music for the harpsichord, recorder, and viol da gamba. The Flood is perfect for that, a resonant, and surprisingly warm, box of stone. Stared at this boy for his beauty, then met him, hearing about his organic gardens and what you need to grow vegetables all winter long, and how he is teaching himself the Music of the West little by little, and did I really like what I heard, Bach and Haydn and Marcello, or was I there, like him, to consume experience?

Went to the Blue Spiral to see Daniel Nevin’s new exhibit. He has left the figurative language behind which allowed him too easy access to sentimentality. His new paintings are organically abstract, and magnificent. The awakening slap of the Muse interposed between now and his previous show.

Took advantage of a breath in the rains to plant lilies, allium, iris, transplant things that were in the shade or made homeless by the plumbers. Somehow there was less dirt to put back in the trenches than there was to take out, so I am left with clear and deepening canyons in my yard. As a landscape feature they are not without interest.

DJ showed me his tile-shedding bathroom wall, unable to let me recover even a week after emotional and financial ruin by the last disaster. I sigh into an empty room.

Evening: J said we should meet this morning at the studio and go for coffee. I was there from 9 to 4. Alone. But I did get most of my office moved off the mezzanine and into the studio. It will save me $3000 a year. I am trying to be thrilled over that.