What Mad Pursuit

Two Poets: a fragment

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 08:43:57 -0500

Written in my third year of university in response to Kubla Khan

Two Poets: A fragment.

*****

Whilst in an alcohol induced stupor James Veitch claims to have been ‘visited’ by the ghosts of two English poets. He believes he heard several hours of conversation between them but, on waking, he was called away on business to ‘do a fry up’ and this, combined with his intense hangover and the sheer extent of his laziness, has made it impossible to recall anything but a fragment of the episode.

******

The fire crackled and kept the chill from the two men sitting beside it. Outside the wind could be heard howling, occasionally the windows shook and the door banged. One of the men sat on a small wicker chair. He was leaned forward, one hand on his knee, the other holding up a single sheet of paper from which he appeared to be reading with fierce concentration. His face was young, almost childish, yet he frowned with effort and this lined his face endowing him with sagacious grace. The only light to read by was that of the fire and this threw flickers of light and shadow onto the manuscript almost giving the impression it was burning before their eyes. The other man sat back in a rocking chair, he was young, too, and seemingly at peace but though his eyes watched his partner and contemporary with patience his naked foot tapped out a nervous, uneven beat quietly onto the stone floor. It was November 1797.

Coleridge’s mind twisted and turned. He examined Wordsworth’s face. He was running his eyes painfully slowly over the manuscript for what must have been the third time. Every so often he could see him mouthing words along with what he read, he caught them occasionally and could almost feel the naked heat emanating from them, words like ‘chasm,’ ‘vaulted’ ‘measureless.’ He knew this was a great piece of work, possibly his best. He waited patiently for his verdict. The fire crackled, the wind howled, the windows shook and the door banged. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Wordsworth looked up.

Wordsworth had just read the first ever manuscript of ‘Cubla Khan’. He had read it through several times, deconstructed it and constructed it again, done a rigorous if slightly paranoid search for irony and finally come to the rather unnerving conclusion that it was utter drivel. Furthermore it was clear to Wordsworth that Coleridge had gone utterly mad.

‘It came to me in my sleep’

‘Uh? ‘

“It came to me in my sleep. ‘

‘You were asleep when you wrote this poem ? ‘

‘Yeah.’

Wordsworth let this sink in.

‘That sort of, uh, explains a lot’

‘What?’

‘Come on Sam. It’s shite’

‘Fuck are you talking about man? It’s utter genius.’

‘Xannadu? Xannadu man ? ‘ Wordsworth’s voice got slightly high pitched when he was excited, ‘What the FUCK is Xannadu? ‘

‘Maaaaaan’ Coleridge sighed. This meant he was really pissed off.

‘I’ll read it again, alright? ‘

Wordsworth bowed his head to the manuscript and re-read ‘Cubla Khan’. He tried to manoeuvre it through the subjectivity trap then he tried shrouding the whole poem in Aristotle’s idea of hubris. Still nothing. He checked the meter, rhyme scheme, finally he searched for alliteration and assonance, desperate to find something of merit. He looked up and cocked his head to one side.

‘This bit’s, uh, nice. Here you say ‘Damsel with a dulcimer’

What?’ Coleridge was dumbfounded.

‘Well just that the um alliteration is really good on this bit, it’s really uh…’ Wordsworth gave up ‘Mate, I’m afraid it’s just bollocks’

‘Whatever man. It came to me in my sleep. It was sort of like given to me’

‘Given to you?’ Wordsworth regained his composure.

‘Uh huh. You wanna know where it came from man ? You wanna know? ‘

‘Uh, look…can we talk about this tomorrow. I’m really tired.‘ He didn’t like where this was going. ‘

‘It came ‘ Coleridge smiled serenely. ‘from God.’

Coleridge sank back in his chair and sighed with smug satisfaction. He knew this had fucked Wordsworth off royally.

‘Sam, we’ve known each other a long time haven’t we?’

‘Yeah man, like forever.’

‘And I’ve always been there for you haven’t I ? I mean remember the time a few weeks ago when you couldn’t get any smack you called me up and I got my mate who knows someone, remember? Well, listen, you’ve got to stop going on about God.’

‘Blake says ..’

‘I don’t give a FLYING FUCK about Blake.’

‘Well I think it’s my greatest achievement yet’

‘Listen to this, let’s have a look at it shall we?’ Wordsworth quoted, ‘Five miles meandering with a mazy motion / Through wood and dale the sacred river ran’….well?’

‘Well ..what? ‘

‘What’s all that about ? Sacred rivers? Mazy motion? Wait, were you on opium when you wrote this ?

‘Maybe’ Coleridge said coyly.

‘Jesus. Fuck. ‘

‘I’ll show it to Byron. He’ll like it.’

‘That’s if he gets your dick out of his mouth long enough to tell you’ .

Taken with Instagram

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:42:10 -0400

Taken with Instagram

Hello old friend (Taken with Instagram)

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 09:05:05 -0400

Hello old friend (Taken with Instagram)

That moment ...

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:16:00 -0400

… in Animal House where Shout comes on seems to me to crystallise the very best parts of youth; the fact that it’s a toga party, that other fraternity’s would never understand, that the song is pretty much two chords and one word. Watching the scene is both celebratory and melancholic; the chaotic and carefree abandon is something one can only gaze upon from a distance of years and experience; thus the fact that Animal House does such a good job of putting us in the midst of these friends is simultaneously delicious and torturous.

20 years from now they might not be friends, they certainly won’t look upon each other with the same wide eyes, their schemes will be done, their wild surmise just a memory. But, for now, they dance.

"I cannot help feeling there is something essentially wrong about love. Friends may quarrel or drift..."

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 19:17:55 -0400

““I cannot help feeling there is something essentially wrong about love. Friends may quarrel or drift apart, close relations too, but there is not this pang, this pathos, this fatality which clings to love. Friendship never has that doomed look. Why, what is the matter? I have not stopped loving you, but because I cannot go on kissing your dim dear face, we must part, we must part. Why is it so? What is this mysterious exclusiveness? One may have a thousand friends, but only one love-mate. Harems have nothing to do with this matter: I am speaking of dance, not gymnastics. Or can one imagine a tremendous Turk loving every one of his four hundred wives as I love you? For if I say ‘two’ I have started to count and there is no end to it. There is only one real number: One. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity.””

- V, The Real Live of Sebastian Knight, Vladimir Nabokov

I got tired of waiting for Blur’s version so I put some...

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 12:49:42 -0400

I got tired of waiting for Blur’s version so I put some instrumentals on top of Damon’s beautiful piano version.

I tried to be subtle and just add to the flavour. No idea what Blur will do but this certainly makes it a bit meatier for us to listen to.

Update: Westway has been released. Beautiful. Go listn on itunes.

Photo

Wed, 02 May 2012 11:23:17 -0400

"It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy"

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 09:30:42 -0400

“It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy”

- Steve Jobs

Living in the centre of London; I feel revitalised. Things...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 03:47:34 -0400

Living in the centre of London; I feel revitalised. Things aren’t so dormant anymore.

On a boeing (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:56:30 -0500

On a boeing (Taken with instagram)

Sigh. (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:00:25 -0500

Sigh. (Taken with instagram)

Taken with instagram

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:43:51 -0500

Taken with instagram

The rehearsal room (Taken with instagram)

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:37:52 -0500

The rehearsal room (Taken with instagram)

Taken with instagram

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:39:07 -0500

Taken with instagram

Rehearsal. St Paul’s Church (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:30:59 -0500

Rehearsal. St Paul’s Church (Taken with instagram)

Taken with instagram

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:55:51 -0500

Taken with instagram

"Roger, I had a very disturbing dream last night. In this dream I found myself making love to a..."

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:41:59 -0500

“Roger, I had a very disturbing dream last night. In this dream I found myself making love to a strange man. Only I’m having trouble you see, because he’s old… and dying… and he smells bad, and I find him repulsive. But then he tells me that everything is erotic, that everything is sexual. You know what I mean? He tells me that even old flesh is erotic flesh. That disease is the love of two alien kinds of creatures for each other. That even dying is an act of eroticism. That talking is sexual. That breathing is sexual. That even to physically exist is sexual. And I believe him, and we make love beautifully.”

- Lynn Lowry, Shivers, David Cronenberg

I want at least six.

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 09:06:13 -0500

I want at least six.

"This will smart, my poor love. Our picnic is finished; the dark road is bumpy and the smallest child..."

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:18:04 -0500

““This will smart, my poor love. Our picnic is finished; the dark road is bumpy and the smallest child in the car is about to be sick. A cheap fool would tell you: you must be brave. But then, anything I might tell you in the way of support or consolation is sure to be milk-puddingy – you know what I mean. You always knew what I meant. The life with you was lovely – and when I say lovely, I mean doves and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink ‘v’ in the middle and the way your tongue curved up to the long, lingering ‘l’. Our life together was alliterative, and when I think of all the little things which will die now that we cannot share them, I feel as if we were dead too. And perhaps we are. You see, the greater our happiness was, the hazier its edges grew, as if its outlines were melting, and now it has disolved altogether. I have not stopped loving you; but something is dead in me, and I cannot see you in the mist… This is all poetry. I am lying to you. Lily-livered. There can be nothing more cowardly than a poet beating about the bush. I think you have guessed how things stand: the damned formula of „another woman”. I am desperately unhappy with her – here is one thing which is true. And I think there is nothing much more to be said about that side of the business.
I cannot help feeling there is something essentially wrong about love. Friends may quarrel or drift apart, close relations too, but there is not this pang, this pathos, this fatality which clings to love. Friendship never has that doomed look. Why, what is the matter? I have not stopped loving you, but because I cannot go on kissing your dim dear face, we must part, we must part. Why is it so? What is this mysterious exclusiveness? One may have a thousand friends, but only one love-mate. Harems have nothing to do with this matter: I am speaking of dance, not gymnastics. Or can one imagine a tremendous Turk loving every one of his four hundred wives as I love you? For if I say „two” I have started to count and there is no end to it. There is only one real number: One. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity.
Good-bye, my poor love. I shall never forget you and never replace you. It would be absurd of me to try and persuade you that you were the pure love, and that this other passion is but a comedy of the flesh. All is flesh and all is purity. But one thing is certain: I have been happy with you and now I am miserable with another. And so life will go on. I shall joke with the chaps at the office and enjoy my dinners (until I get dyspepsia), and read novels, and write verse, and keep an eye on the stocks – and generally behave as I have always behaved. But that does not mean that I shall be happy without you… Every small thing which will remind me of you – the look of disapproval about the furniture in the rooms where you have patted cushions and spoken to the poker, every small thing which we have descried together – will always seem to me one half of a shell, one half of a penny, with the other half kept by you. Good-bye. Go away, go away. Don’t write. Marry Charlie or any other good man with a pipe in his teeth. Forget me now, but remember me afterwards, when the bitter part is forgotten. This blot is not due to a tear. My fountain-pen has broken down and I am using a filthy pen in this filthy hotel room. The heat is terrific and I have not been able to clinch the business I was supposed to bring „to a satisfactory close”, as that ass Mortimer says. I think you have got a book or two of mine – but that is not really important. Please, don’t write. L.””

- From my second favourite Nabokov novel; ‘The Real Life of Sebastian Knight.’ A letter excerpt from a fictional novel inside a fictional novel inside a novel of fiction. Sigh. Beautiful.

Someone buy me a first edition please.

Spotted written on the wall at Abbey Road studios.

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 06:07:21 -0400

Spotted written on the wall at Abbey Road studios.