I wish you ...see the waves . . .fron the deck of Fang

[alice wellintown]

Broken, beaten, desolate, reaching from the dead to be taken up
they cry out, failing, failing! their cries rising
in waves still as the skillful yachts pass over.

The last two words of the poem, "passover" and the first word of this
excerpt, "Broken" struck me as Pynchonian: The Spilled world of Lot49,
the painting of the loom that fills Oedia's shades with tears and the
Spilled and Broken world, the distant fireworks passage much
discussed, the broken chain and tangled lines passage from M&D
(clearly Pynchon's anxiety of influence has reached its full
independent maturity in M&D, yet Melville's long hemp rope is ever
present in those tangled lines. And, while we are often reminded that
Pynchon once dreamed of writing and producing theater and film, he
also dreamed of writing poetry and surely must read lines and lines of
it. Paterson ...


On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 1:32 AM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> So I take it WCW wasn't a big America's Cup fan... (all it takes is
> $15 million and a dream, as Jeremy said on "Sports Night")
> - and maybe not such a big fan of capitalism either!
>
> strong poem, that - thanks, alice
>
> On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 8:30 PM, alice wellintown
> <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The Yachts
>>
>> contend in a sea which the land partly encloses
>> shielding them from the too-heavy blows
>> of an ungoverned ocean which when it chooses
>>
>> tortures the biggest hulls, the best man knows
>> to pit against its beatings, and sinks them pitilessly.
>> Mothlike in mists, scintillant in the minute
>>
>> brilliance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sails
>> they glide to the wind tossing green water
>> from their sharp prows while over them the crew crawls
>>
>> ant-like, solicitously grooming them, releasing,
>> making fast as they turn, lean far over and having
>> caught the wind again, side by side, head for the mark.
>>
>> In a well guarded arena of open water surrounded by
>> lesser and greater craft which, sycophant, lumbering
>> and flittering follow them, they appear youthful, rare
>>
>> as the light of a happy eye, live with the grace
>> of all that in the mind is feckless, free and
>> naturally to be desired. Now the sea which holds them
>>
>> is moody, lapping their glossy sides, as if feeling
>> for some slightest flaw but fails completely.
>> Today no race. Then the wind comes again. The yachts
>>
>> move, jockeying for a start, the signal is set and they
>> are off. Now the waves strike at them but they are too
>> well made, they slip through, though they take in canvas.
>>
>> Arms with hands grasping seek to clutch at the prows.
>> Bodies thrown recklessly in the way are cut aside.
>> It is a sea of faces about them in agony, in despair
>>
>> until the horror of the race dawns staggering the mind;
>> the whole sea become an entanglement of watery bodies
>> lost to the world bearing what they cannot hold. Broken,
>>
>> beaten, desolate, reaching from the dead to be taken up
>> they cry out, failing, failing! their cries rising
>> in waves still as the skillful yachts pass over.
>>
>>                William Carlos Williams
>>
>
>
>
> --
> --- "Bearing in mind that either I don't know
> or it'll be my ass if I tell you, what is it, man?" - Coy Harlingen
>