Ode to Sebastian
SAMUEL BECKETT & W.B. YEATS (image by Barry Mullan)
I had the pleasure of participating in an Irish literary group for a couple of years led by Dr. Sebastian Knowles. We gathered in pubs, coffee shops, and houses to read Joyce, Yeats, Beckett, and others. It was wonderful. On a few occasions, we were tasked with creating some work in the style of these writers. The poems I present below were undoubtedly written in vain.
Once More Unto the Fecund Ditch (in the style of W.B. Yeats)
What is the world but a spot of ink,
A coal-black hole, mere complexities
Spiraling together, whole golden rings,
On needles of bone, lovers’ moonlit domes
Full of little fires and widening gyres,
Until the ceremony of innocence is drowned
He calls it death-in-life and life-in-death
Before me floats a hole, figure or ground
Ground more than figure, more whole than ground,
Image and action unpurged, at last, fresh holes beget
Spirits spent, out of folly into folly
Came and went, the wet tide of slow thighs
Hung, night-blue fruit beneath a golden bough
Now a bone, wave-whitened and dry,
Proves that I lie
Wants More Unto the Fecal Ditch (The Samuel Beckett Edit)
A —
What is the world
A — hole
A whole but for the —
Naught
Coal-black naught
Falling
The centre cannot holed
Full
At last
All must pass
Fresh holes
Baguette
All must pass —
God’s I view —
Till all strange away
Falling
Out of folly
In to folly
Slow thighs
The second came —
Went
Little death I call it
Third
Fourth too
Went
Is now
Remains
The fecal present
The blood-dimmed tide
Loosed and everywhere
Gaze blank
Darkness drops
Pitted sun
Stooooooooooool
What is the world
Void
A — void
Rid all but for the —
Caress!
The fruits of thy womb —
Jesus
Hanging still —
Still
A bone —
Night-blue fruit
Bone dry white
Emptying
Folly from all this
What is the world
A Small Piece to Bless Our Dinners (for Samuel)
Constipatience (No Matter, More Pressing)
Hail Mary full after Grace the lord is within thee
Thy doughy foetus! I say are thou not among women?
For Man begets what Man baguettes.
At last! All strange must pass what was is now remains
Blessed! The fruit of thy womb — Jesus, hanging still