BLUE, THE JAPANESE FILM, AND YOU
“I painted a picture this summer. Grapes. A still life.” — English translation of Kirishima speaking to Endo, in Blue, as they attempt to reconcile
Kirishima asks herself, “How do I express my love?”
while learning how to paint a still life like Cezanne--
it happened one summer day, after she had been given
grapes by Endo, her colors good. “Omiyage,” Endo
had said, “A gift” when tendering it. “Budo no naka ni. . .”
“Grapes inside . . . “ Then “I couldn’t tell you I loved
someone else more than you.” By the sea Gomen nasai.
Yoi omoitsuki na, fortunate on both occasions, I believe--
Endo’s thoughtfulness, her timing, her gift for words.
Umai kangae o omoitsuku. Endo never . . . wanted
to hurt Kirishima, and Kirishima, for her part, understood,
found herself weeping—later. Trying to catch that late bus
to school, early, then late, at the end of the film—that straight
line of highway, those flat, wide spaces, expanses, the sea
shining behind them. They never . . . . —no real place
to escape to, for either girl—nevertheless, seen together,
they show us love accepts no substitutes, no, not art,
not anybody’s, Kirishima’s included, not her deep,
dark blues for grapes meeting the deep blue sea,
the horizon a slightly lighter blue, the trembling point
at which the artist starts to develop, feels life, pays attention.
Things happen, happenstance—artists aren’t born, they develop.
Ask Kirishima. “Endo wa sono mama de Endo da,” she says.
“Endo is Endo”, Kirishima finally decides. “Endo is Endo--
all she really needs to be.” And you. How about you? Are you?
KIRISHIMA, ENDO, LIVING THEIR LIVES: ANOTHER POEM ABOUT BLUE
“Endo da. Doko ni ittan da?” (“It’s Endo. Where is she going?”) — the character Kayako Kirishima in the Japanese film Blue speaking
to other schoolgirls during lunchtime on the school roof
A sequel would be a test—some ten years after . . .
Where “can” they be? Not “will where” here.
Kirishima has gone to art school, Endo staying put--
Did a society ever exist that didn’t legislate to discipline
and punish, to enforce, to control by force? Kirishima
and Endo’s feelings for one another aren’t unusual,
uncommon amongst Japanese schoolgirls—and elsewhere--
as love does not legislate according to culture and tradition.
Love just is, like us, who are. Endo is just Endo, just so.
What’s more, that’s more than good enough for Kirishima
though Endo is demeaned, ridiculed, made to think otherwise--
made to feel small, mean, worthless, violated. And she has been,
by everyone who is supposed to help her. Social beings. Social agency--
some of the other girls ostracize Endo at school until Kirishima steps in.
Kirishima watches. Thinks. Cares. All relationships differ, are test cases . . .
maybe Endo eventually marries; maybe Kirishima doesn’t; it doesn’t matter--
there have to be, have to have been millions of Japanese women like them.
Agency. Potential. Only so many paths, so many difficult choices—should
Kirishima want to badly enough, she will become an artist. She will develop,
thrive in loving relationships, paint what’s most real, most immediate to her,
her emotions—she will tremble like that blue horizon, brimming forth with life.
LISTEN, PLEASE, TO OUR HISTORY: ISEGORIA, HEMLOCK, HOW IT WAS DISPENSED IN ATHENS THEN, THEN A WARNING
“ ‘Isegoria’ [Greek] In ancient Athens the right of all free male citizens to speak in public settings and assemblies.” — James A. Herrick, History and Theory of Rhetoric
“In their personification of Peitho as a civic goddess of Persuasion, the Athenians recast not only their religion, but their mythology and history . . . [Aeschylus] said that death alone is impervious to Persuasion . . . There is no reference to Peitho as a divinity anywhere in Xenophon or in Plato . . . The Platonic contempt for persuasion and oratory as practiced in a democratic polity is summed up by Phaedrus in the dialog that bears his name: ‘I have heard’, he says, ‘that one who is to be an orator does not need to know what is really just, but what would seem just to the multitude who are
to pass judgment, and not what is really good or noble, but what will seem to be so . . . persuasion comes from what seems to be true, not from the truth.’ ” —I.F. Stone, The Trial of Socrates, On Peitho
“Since it happens that any given thing usually has good and bad consequences, another line of argument consists in using those consequences as a reason for urging that a thing should or should not be done . . .” — Aristotle, The Rhetoric, Book II, Chapter 23, “Lines of Positive Proofs”
Listen, please, to our history: “The equal right of expression”
had been lost, abandoned. The law abrogated. How then
were the men to defend themselves in public? Other laws?
The Thirty, holed up in The Tholos, dispensed the laws--
hemlock and disappearances, more than one hundred men
disappeared every month. In that year, 1,500 Athenians
died, and thousands more—metics, slaves, dwellers of Piraeus.
Disappearances, doses of hemlock—that’s how they stifled dissent
and free speech. Harassment. Intimidation. Constant threats,
and carrying them out. A fatal dose of hemlock had been perfected--
dispense a quarter of an ounce at a time, a little less—it kills quickly.
Herbalists. Toxicologists. Whatever you want to call them . . .
All were at the government’s beck and call—read between my lines.
They had learned to skin, grind and sieve the plant, the poison then
becoming “particularly efficacious . . . terminal chemistry,” to quote
one chemist. Very soon after, the men were forced to drink it,
forced to die at home behind closed doors, denied proper burials.
Nightmare followed nightmare. News of Lysias prosecuting
Eratosthenes for the murder of his brother Polymarchus proved
hopeful at first, then all for naught. In the end, even Socrates
wasn’t spared—but only because of a change in government.
The democracy proved his doom. The advocate of “The one
who knows” didn’t know enough to shut his mouth. And so it goes.
There’s that old saying about not educating your children
to become wise, lest others despise them. Wisdom? Well . . .
Socrates spoke well in self-defense, in front of 500 judges,
swayed many, and nearly prevailed. Nearly. But he wanted
the dose. That’s the thing. He consciously chose it—his perversity.
The advocate of “The one who knows” could not countenance
democracy, ours, limited as it was to the few, to the propertied
and slave owners. And the thing is, the strife continued unabated,
pitted polis against polis, confederation against confederation,
aristocrats against democrats, until Philip took full advantage, prevailed,
sweeping down upon us from Pella, Macedon—and that was that!
(As Isocrates had warned, our inability to unite became our downfall.)
If only we knew then . . . Now, we live in complete subjugation.
A final warning—if you are listening well, following the thread
of my argument, you realize people really do get what they deserve
in governments, politicians included!.(It hurts me to say this.)
Take this hemlock or that! Chose one poison or another. It makes
little difference. Here, we have no choice—it’s Philip or chaos.
Our democracy has been sold out. “If you get to choose between
only two ”, a wise friend once said, “that isn’t democracy, freedom—
that’s illusion, sleight of hand. It’s leading us to believe--it’s peitho.”
LYSIAS REFLECTS ON HIS UNSUCCESSFUL PROSECUTION OF ERATOSTHENES FOR THE MURDER OF POLYMARCHUS, HIS BROTHER
“My father Cephalus was induced by Pericles to come to Athens, and lived here for thirty years, during which time neither he himself nor my brother
nor I took any part in legal proceedings . . . Under the democracy we lived without giving or receiving offense from anyone . . . [But] at a meeting of
The Thirty, Theognis and Peison made a statement that some of the metics [foreigners allowed to live and work in Athens] were disaffected, and they
saw this as an excellent pretext for action . . . They divided up the metics’ houses between them . . . I personally was giving a dinner party when they
called. They turned out my guests and handed me over to Peison . . .” — Lysias’s speech to the Athenian court in “Eratosthenes” (403 B.C.)
“That if a man had the power and the wish to do a thing, he has done it; for every one does do whatever he intends to do whenever he can do it,
there being nothing to stop him . . . for people as a rule do what they long to do, if they can; bad people through lack of self-control; good people,
because their hearts are set on good things.” — Aristotle, The Rhetoric, Book II, Chapter 19, “Of the Possible and Impossible”
“From 404 through to 403 BC, Athens was stifled in an endless nightmare . . . Citizens turned slaughterers to avoid their own messy deaths . . . A city of 100,000 Athenians plus 200,000 slaves had been reduced . . . to a core of 60,000 or so.” — Bettany Hughes, The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens, and the Search for the Good Life
Political conditions remain the same here--
the rich and powerful will have their way
by force—by force of action or force of law,
our homes raided, looted, then burned,
our wives and children sold into slavery,
the men killed, exiled or ransomed based
upon their wealth and influence—and all
because we are metics! All metics of Athens!
All this happening in this Athens! This Athens!
This reign of terror is beyond description;
this Plato has the audacity to mention my name
in public in conjunction with his when writing
of the life of Socrates—his hero, not mine, after
his uncle Critias has had my brother murdered!
Critias, student of Socrates . . . One does not choose
one’s students, but . . . And for what? For a few
talents of gold, for nothing more than their greed.
I was fortunate to escape with my life, only later
to bring charges against Eratosthenes who, like
the other twenty-nine, would make lies truth,
the truth lies as to these killings by their thugs,
doing this in the name of law. Law? Tyrants’ law.
Militia law. Vigilante law. Who polices these tyrants?
No one save themselves. And no one to oppose them either--
their courts, their laws. What hope do we have then against
such men, such tyranny, these aristocrats? I presented evidence,
convincing in nature, followed by the testimony of witnesses--
then nothing. Absolutely nothing happened as a result!
If I stand alone in defense of the suffering of these victims--
my brother, his family—then I stand alone. Eratosthenes
helped to bring down our city, sanctioned these killings,
and now he walks freely the streets of Athens. Meanwhile,
why do innocent men done to death, my brother included,
have neither recourse, friends nor defenders while crowds
sing praises, eulogize The Thirty, attend their funerals
by the hundreds? Why admire tyrants? I have witnessed.
I will never forget that foreign garrison—those Spartans
perched upon the Acropolis who enforced their law.
SILENCE AND METAPHOR
—in memory of my friend William Bronk, and to honor the memory of his book of the same title: Silence and Metaphor (1975)
“Under the noise, silence is what we hear:
final, always, wherever. Silence is all.
Grass, I thought to keep you, would have stayed;
and you, trees, water, gone too.”
—William Bronk, from the epigraph to Silence and Metaphor
The tops of the trees sing in the breeze,
breezing right and left, a green choir
singing in the late afternoon sunshine.
“Articulate those final t’s, g’s and s’s”,
the trees, grasses and sun seem to say,
in a language that automobiles, buildings
and pavement can neither speak nor translate.
Neither can we, for them, such sounds.
The reeds rustle, blow in the wind,
but are as silent as men and women
who have secrets to keep— and no reed
is a man or a woman, fragile or otherwise,
now or ever. In sum, silence and metaphor
is all there is; is all we have. And nature?
It just is, as are we—the trees sing silently.
A SECOND POEM FOR ERIN, ON HER BIRTHDAY: THE SILENCE
"I don't know how to say it/needing a word with no sound" —George Oppen, "Two Romance Poems"
Erin, I don't know exactly what to say,
or how to say it, but may my love speak to you,
to that deepest, funniest, most indestructible part of you
that no one else can share. Ever.
You are inviolate. Wasn't it just last night
I wrote another poem for you? It was Christmas.
The snow was falling, and you read the thing
while lying on the livingroom couch.
You pronounced it good. It all keeps in memory.
In the silence. Nothing can measure up to it.
The silence waits, waits there, always wanting to be used.
My friend Bill once wrote a poem about wanting to keep everything --
the grass, the water, the trees too.
You know. he didn't want anything to change --
like everybody else. Finally, only the silence stayed.
Bill made me realize that the silence is the best place,
the best foil, the best opening and shelter.
It's where the first poem lives, and now this one.
The silence made me listen, and listen, and listen for you.
Not for sounds. Not for words. But for feelings.
It didn't say, it didn't say, it felt.
Then finally, almost magically, this poem came,
and spoke through me.
OPHELIA’S URGENT LAMENT FOR HAMLET
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments . . .”
—William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
“I did love you.”
—Hamlet speaking to Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s HAMLET
I would help you if I could.
You know this—I don’t have to tell you.
I love you despite everything.
It’s been a little hard for me
to believe it when I think about it.
And you. I didn’t know you four years ago,
and then, and then . . . It’s kind of funny
that this happened to us. My father and brother
are furious with me, and you too.
I’ve had to tell them almost everything--
I hide my true feelings, lie to them
about how I feel to protect myself.
I don’t think I have any other choice--
I do love you. Please understand:
I feel so conflicted about everything
that I suddenly burst out in tears
whenever I sense you are in danger,
whenever you take these risks for me,
sometimes even when I think about you.
I’m sorry. I love you. I don’t know what to do.
HORATIO, IF I KNOW MYSELF: HAMLET’S FIRST SOLILOQUY
“We must talk now. Fear
is fear. But we abandon one another.”
—George Oppen, “Leviathan”
Horatio, if I know myself--
this is how I greeted him
upon my return to Elsinore
following my father’s death--
my true friend well met.
There is more of ethics implied in this
statement than in any other I know:
“Horatio, you are my true friend,
and to know you is to know myself,
and vice-versa; and since we are one,
you will not betray me as Polonius, Claudius,
their adjutants, and my own mother did.”
There, there it is; all laid out, on the line--
to trust someone else as one trusts oneself
is the basis of all ethics. Ethics made simple.
And there I was, a serious student of religion,
one day to become king. Tell me, Horatio,
are such sentiments too naïve, too noble
for an earth-bound prince to believe?
OPHELIA’S URGENT LAMENT FOR HAMLET: HER SECOND SOLILOQUY
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments . . .”
--William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
“I did love you.”
--Hamlet speaking to Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet
I don’t know what to do . . .
when and if to contact you.
I really don’t—I don’t want to be
a part of this, the others, the king--
the king is behind everything--
went through your mother, behind
your, our backs to murder your father.
You know this! Awf—they say men
like the king die of shame in the woods,
but I’m afraid I won’t be, live to see it
unless I follow orders. What to do?
Please help me. Please . . . I think,
nay pray you understand my dilemma,
my conflicted feelings if you are, as they say,
a thinking man. You certainly have been
emotional around me. It’s your affection--
your feelings the day I betrayed you, returned
your sweet tenders! They put me up to it--
that dam/ned, fu—king king! Please believe,
this is not my doing. You wrote me a poem
once, just days ago, read by father to the king
and queen as they prepared to undo . . . . How
did it go? Please be patient. Let me remember--
a rehearsal here . . . Oh, yes! Truly--“To the celestial,
and my soul’s idol, the most beautiful Ophelia . . .
‘Doubt thou the stars are fire/ Doubt that the sun
doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar/ But never
doubt I love.’ . . .Thine evermore, most dear lady,
whilst this machine is to him, Hamlet”— Poet,
prince, scholar, man, too soon-to-be king killed?
Oh, yes, I love you, ever! Is that me speaking?
I would this self-talk, this debate be ended
for the day has dawned and I must go about
my business, and you yours. Oh, if our marriage
is to be of like minds, if it is to progress--
that you might hear me now! I wonder where
you are . . . and what was it you mentioned last time,
from Proverbs?—“not forsaking mercy and truth?
Write them on the tablet of my heart?” Pray--
I won’t . . . I mean I will. You said, “Meet in a week,
a fortnight at the latest—please go gentle”. But here
I am: the present dilemma times two—two times at
a crossroads with you. I hear your voice—I have
mine own, but how to use it? That’s . . . Take care.
DEEP WATER: THAT ONCE WAS . . . THESE ANDS REMEMBERED
“And I have lived so many lives . . .” —Nelly Furtado, “Try” You Tube music video
“Rusu no ma ni . . . ” (“In that absent space . . . ”) — Basho, my translation, from Japanese into English
Emotions of memory felt on the inside only--
our deepest wants build our deepest thoughts.
A close-up of two minutes, thirty seconds,
with music byThe Theorist—during one of her
finest performances, Nicole Kidman sits in the Met
barely listening to Die Walkure, barely able to contain
herself, her every emotion playing out across the screen:
“My husband dead? Or is he? I’m not sure what to believe,
who or why—Oh, these intrusive memories are truly upsetting.
Snow under foot, he jogged in the park that late winter afternoon,
the sky dressed in a darker shade of grey when he passed under
the foot bridge where they found him. It happened like that,
didn’t it? That’s what they said, and why would the police lie?”
I thought about her face early this morning, then about you,
alive and well, your lying ways, and still no word. Nothing.
“Can we talk? No, I have no time. You always did before.
Why not now? I’m too busy. Sure . . . You’re still my friend.
I am? Let’s stay in touch . . . I’m . . . I don’t know what else
to say except I need to talk now, more than ever, and you,
your . . . Not now? And still friends? Well, it feels like . . . .
Shit, I know you—you don’t want to understand; you’re you.”
I write, say this in your absence—into the bathroom mirror,
my meditation on your not being here, anywhere for me:
“Anata wa imasen. Koko. Soko. Asoko. Dokodemo. Itsudemo.”
After sleep, looking at my face again in the mirror, I thought
again how difficult it was looking at hers at the Met where
she was searching,struggling in deep water, her life seeping out,
trying to reach for him as I try to reach for you now, hers an attempt
to rediscover a life she had had . . . –(“a life she had had.” I’ve
always been partial to the past perfect tense.) I never had her
sort of life though, though once I thought it was possible.
That’s memory though . . . a double-edged sword—a source
of strength and weakness. I don’t know why I think about you,
those places, times. And even then, you’re a surrogate of sorts--
and still, I let you have this power over me. Those other memories . . .
These ands remembered. I wish I could tell this story more
straightforwardly, more . . . but what good would it do?
Exactly how many lives do we lead? Count—how many?
A FEW THINGS ARE REAL THOUGH
February 10, 2006; April 3, 2012; revised Saturday morning,
March 29, 2014 at 11:42 a.m.
“the wild deer startle, and stare out”
--George Oppen, “Psalm”
Living is never real enough.
We are needy, complex,
invent ethics to live by--
this nation, that god, these heroes
rising up into which heavens?
Likewise, all the invented terms
rise up in whirlwinds of rhetoric,
the misnomers fluid and interchangeable,
all the convincing terms finally unconvincing
despite our strongest wants and needs.
You can be seduced by an idea,
by certain combinations of words,
and you can believe any or all of them--
as you please—but believing won’t make
them so, or you any worthier. A few things
are real though: the grass, the trees, the sunlight--
your eyes, mine, the cells of which we are composed.
These few things sustain us. We breath the air;
blood circulates in our veins; we respond to
one another; we are, and are happy for awhile.
IPHIGENIA’S GHOST REFLECTS ON HER LOSS
“It’s Greece for which I must sacrifice you . . .”
--Agamemnon speaking to his daughter Iphigenia in Euripide’s Iphigenia in Aulis
I was betrayed, put to death in Aulis for what?
For favorable winds in an army’s sails, a father’s honor?
His sense of duty? Masculine pride on the inside?
Just as mother had suspected, the whole story proved a lie!
Cut off from myself, hopeless, isolated, ashamed, what was I to do?
Protest further in my own voice? No, my father’s--
I spoke brave words to serve a male order, subordinated myself
in the struggle for power. I became, in their words, a shining example
for all Greek women to follow—“the woman who set Greece free.”
Me? This the rationale for my sacrifice? Muthos. Myth. Story.
Faded glory—only an image to hold onto following my loss.
THE MURDER OF RACHEL CORRIE
The Israeli bulldozer ran over Rachel Corrie
as if she was a rag doll, crushed her, turned
her body into a mass of bloody rubbish,
rolled over her a second time, in reverse,
to make sure, get the job done—the blade
lowered to crush her head and neck, skull
and trunk if it hadn’t at the first pass—Rachel’s
flesh, bones, hair—what was left of her—lay
quivering there—quivering—her blood and bone
fragments scattered everywhere—telling her story.
(Rachel Corrie was an American, antiwar activist killed in Gaza in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer driver while peacefully protesting the demolition of Arab homes. She is an inspiration to peace activists around the world, and a ship that provides food and medical relief to displaced persons has been renamed “The Rachel Corrie” to honor her memory.)
FIVE POEMS: LOVE AND INTIMACY IN AMERICA
#1 FOR KIM, I DON'T KNOW HOW
November 25, 1999
"What am I to you?--
Silence and quiet, passion and truth"
You are a woman; I am a man.
We are the same one; we are different ones.
Your limitations are yours; mine are mine.
Yours are mine; mine yours; this much is evident.
Evidently, we share finally only the limitlessness of death:
that limit. To be with, then without.
Yesterday, you asked me, "Is 'without' two words?"
"Only one," I replied. "Only one."
I don't know how to end this poem without you.
#2 ABOUT INTIMACY, THE LITTLE THINGS, AND WORDS LEFT UNSPOKEN
April 2, 2005; 1 a.m.
"Lay your whisper on my pillow."
"Don't get mad
to me tomorrow,"
I whisper back.
"Don't get mad
even the littlest things
as our knees touch,
our thumbs touch
then slowly explore
and small curves
of our fingers
as we drift off
#3 THINKING, LISTENING, TOUCHING
April 2, 2005; 4 a.m.
"It's been good/don't ruin it"
"Talking too much
"Thanks," I whisper.
"I mean it."
caress the hair
behind my ear
of your palm
you turn over
we drift off
#4 NOTHIN' GIRLS, BROKEN BOYS: AMERICA 2005
April 2, 2005; 7:05 a.m.
" 'cause I'm nothin' girl . . . and you're broken boy"
"slow down my love . . . you're confusing me"
"They kill the dream of America"
After you shower,
and leave by seven,
I lie in bed
"Yes, it's absolutely
about being with,
then without you;
and not about
independence and freedom;
self and autonomy;
eagerly studying anatomy);
no, not these problems
disguised as lies,
told in school,
at home, everywhere
we go, alibis of
the present consumer-rich,
' What can I sell you today
to service tomorrow?'
That's what we're about
when its really about
in America in 2005,
in that sense,
how we do and don't,
how we do and don't,
and how we adapt
it's a devil's bargain
as its always been.
I know, I know
this chaffare, this chapfare,
this trading journey
of bantering words
and bandying wits;
still, it chafes,
it rubs raw
like an old mare
sore in the shanks
sold at auction--
cuts of meat.
We're cuts of meat
and glues that don't hold together.
We use use, utilize,
spend more, own less
to describe the controls
of our daily lives:
To go about
your day is
to go about
I bloody well know.
But know this:
who we are
to be nice boys
and nice girls
who wear nice smiles
for referring to you
as . . .. I meant--
Just exactly what did you mean?
We break, we bend,
we fabricate, we mend,
we fabricate again, make things,
words, emotions, ourselves
as we mouth anxious
' keepin' busy,'
' busy takin' care of business,'
' busy schedule,'
' busy agenda,'
' busy meeting,'
' busy persons,'
' busy flights,'
' busy vips tonight'---
I knew my brother
once, before takeoff;
I said, ' Good-bye, Mike!
I love you, Mike!'
and you waved good-bye
from your window seat forever--
I tell you,
you can let me off
this f-ing flight
at the first layover
' False Paradise'
in burning blue light.
' J' taime!
I can imagine
saying ' I love you!'
in almost any
in America in 2005.
How many careless lovers
will say, ' I love you'
and not mean it
in the next
New York minute?"
Imagine, all this
just after you left--
"passion, truth, shadows"
lies and alibis,
and now a singer singing
about "bein' full of doubt,"
and "you be nice,
and I'll be nice,"
but "someone's gonna
pay the price"
on the radio
as I lay me:
keep me nice
take me twice
get me nice things
suck the marrow
from my life
rend my body
sell by soul
but keep me nice
take me twice
get me nice things
and I'll be nice
before I go
I'll say, "I love you"
but won't mean it
they kill the dream
and the singers sing
but no one
the streets, the backstreets
of broken boys
and nothin' girls---
Kim, who do
I speak to
if not you
as I stumble
over these stories
begun three hundred
as we look back
three hundred years
at that broken promise
they named America?
#5 PROMISES, CATCHES IN THE THROAT
April 18, 2005; 1 a.m.
"There's this catch in my throat
and I just swallow hard"
--Mary Chapin Carpenter
"Don't get mad
at me tomorrow,"
I whisper back.
But tell me
comes over here,
become a woman,
and means so much?
"I guess I
to be anything
more than me."
"And you love
You--" My throat
catches at the sound
of your reply,
and I know
this is love--
you touch me
in every way.