Weltschmerz

  Today is one of those days that I am ovrwhelmed with the world's suffering. I began my day reading Dawn Goodwin's blog on the killing of school children in Connecticutt. I have been working on a poem about that horrific event. The images haunt me, as they have everybody with any humanity at all. I just finished writing another poem about the death of a hummingbird (which I found in our garage among Christmas decorations as I was decorating for the season). I buried the humingbird on the winter solstice. To add to all of that, My friend of forty years, Irene Lawrence, died on December 19th at the age of 88. She was cremated, and her ashes now reside in a beautiful cloissone urn. I am also working on a poem for her that I hope to read at her memorial service on the 19th. The poem is inspired by Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium." Byzantine artists used the cloissone technique, as did Chinese artists during the Ming Dynasty. I know that Irene would appreciate all of those connections.
  On top of all of those depressing events, I hit a squirrel this morning. I tried to avoid him as he ran in front of me, but to no avail. I hate that tiny "thump" that signifies the end of a life. His life is important too, and I hate that I ended it.
  Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the suffering around me. I know why Siddhartha left his old life and searched for answers under the Bodhi tree. I wish I could find that tree. I know that the place is unimportant: every place is the bodhi tree. I know that suffering is caused by desire, and that, ironically,  wanting to escape suffering is desire that just causes more suffering. I have no solutions. I will try to be exceptionally compassionate to all living beings and to relieve suffering where I can. Better to light one candle . . . . Peace be to all of you who take the time to read this.

Book review, This Is What It Smells Like

I have written this review for Cathy Adams' new novel. I hope people read her book.

This Is What It Smells Like

by Cathy Adams

A Review

               This recently published first novel by Cathy Adams is a delightful read, filled with the best traditions of Southern Gothic fiction. The novel’s quirky, interesting characters lead lives which run the gamut from wacky to profound.

               The protagonist Valentine must come to terms with her past and with her family when her estranged father Ray and his step son Luis return to North Carolina so that Ray can die there. Val’s mother Tess, a delightful free spirit, must deal with her ex-husband and their own past. Tess is the catalyst for some of the novel’s most interesting misadventures. Valentine must deal with a dying father, her father’s step son, and her wacky mother as she learns the secrets of her own past. As the title implies, Val is gifted with an unusual sense of smell which gives her unique insights into the personalities and emotions of those around her. Adams conveys this olfactory sense effectively, especially since our language has comparatively few words that relate to smells.

               The Southern Gothic elements of the book seem to reflect influences from William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Erskine Caldwell. the multiple first-person perspectives are reminiscent of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, though this novel is more accessible. The religious elements of the novel, especially those revolving around the Catholic Church, recall some of O’Connor’s fiction. And finally the delightfully macabre sense of humor may reflect the influence Caldwell’s novels such as Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre.

               Overall, This Is What It Smells Like is an entertaining and sometimes profound book. It will leave the reader with a thoughtful smile, wishing for more.

My New Novel's Prologue

This is an early draft of the prologue of my novel, Memoirs of a Capital Eye. The novel will be a fictionalized version of my life and philosophical journey.

Memoirs of a Capital Eye, a Novel

Robert C. Covel

PROLOGUE

            Our lives and our perspectives on the universe are controlled by a capital I.  The first-person singular personal pronoun is the only one granted the status of being a capital letter. That peculiar fact demonstrates our world view, as we place ourselves at the center of our cosmos. Psychologically, we are still living in a Ptolemaic universe, which may not be geocentric, but which is certainly egocentric.  Someone observed that each of us is the protagonist of our own story. We see ourselves as the epic hero engaging in the quest for self-determination and meaning. Writers in particular are exceptionally egotistical. As a group, we believe that not only are our perceptions of the world, our thoughts, feelings, and actions, worthy of being recorded in some form; but we also believe that other people wish to share in our lives, and that somehow we believe that our art will help others to make sense of their own lives.

            I think of the number of modern writers who use the personal perspective. Emerson’s emphasis on self-reliance, Thoreau’s account of his own sojourn at Walden, Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” Melville’s Ishmael narrator—the Romantics began the self-absorption that continues into the modern period.

            I at least am aware of the limitations of my point of view. I know that the very attempt to measure or perceive reality distorts what it purports to measure, like trying to measure a spider web with a ruler. There is no objective reality: there is only subjective interpretation of the fragile tissue of truth.

            I’m not sure when I first became aware of the uncertainty of life. Obviously that awareness preceded my learning about Heisenberg or chaos theory, and long before I had studied philosophy. I have viewed my childhood (like that of most children, at least those with some stability in their lives) was through the golden Edenic lens of innocence. My earliest memories (beginning from age four) are dominated by fragmented images of events, all of which seemed serene. I remember the small house (I could still remember the floor plan), and I can remember events that any child would regard as significant: Christmas trees and gifts, birthday parties, and television programs on the small black and white screen.

            My childish memories of my parents are snippets of sensory images: the smell of my mother’s perfume and the feel of her rabbit fur coat against my cheek; the taste of Beeman’s gum that my father brought home on payday and the feel of my father’s rough hands and the smell of his beery breath when he picked me up from the floor to toss me in the air.

            Perhaps my first intimation of insecurity of life is the memory of the day of our move from Pittsburgh to Marienville. I have some small image of eating cereal from a bowl with the picture of the Sugar Crisp bear on the side. The memory includes stacks of cardboard boxes filling the kitchen around me. Perhaps I was aware, on some juvenile level, of the transience of human life. Or that may be just the projection of the adult memory.  

While I cannot not recall the actual emigration to the new house in Marienville, I do recall standing in the new empty house, aware of the darkness and cold as we entered the living room. Perhaps the darkness and cold were omens of my new life, though at that moment I was probably only aware of the physical discomfort and the immediate anxiety attached to the new environment. Such juvenile memories from so long ago are completely unreliable, clouded as they are when filtered through the events that occur afterwards. The eye of memory does not see clearly or objectively, after all.

Zombie-pocalypse

   It is the season of haunting, the season of terrors. All across the country, people adopt disguises in attempt to make themselves unrecognizable. They show up on our doorsteps with their hands out. They make dire threats and terrifying noises, alternated with begging in order to fill their pockets with goodies. We are held hostage in our own homes by these dark creatures that besiege us with their shrieks, threats, and demands.
   Yes, it is that most dreaded, terrifying season. It is the season of elections. Politicians span across the land like hordes of zombies. Their emotional threats and promises and their irrational arguments will steal our brains, if we allow them. Each candidate wears a mask of patriotic, benign, compassionate generosity, as each adopts a tone of sincere rationality. And each candidate depicts his opponent as a rabid, voracious creature intent on the destruction of everything we hold dear: our lifestyle, our economy, and our form of government, not to mention the desecration  of every dearly held value from the sanctity of life and family to the method of determining the NCAA football standings. According to each candidate, his opponent threatens the very bread and circuses on which we depend. If we are to avoid the Zombie-pocalypse, we must give them candy, in the form of votes and tax money. We must give one candidate treats in order to avoid the tricks of the demonic opponent (or so each would have us believe).
   So, on the morning after the election, when the politicians have retreated to Washington like spirits returning to graves when the cock crows, we are left with empty candy bowls and perhaps empty skulls (to go along with the empty promises).
   The winners chortle and celebrate, while the losers retreat to glower and lick their wounds as they plot revenge. The sun rises over the land. Those of us who have not surrendered our brains to the political zombies shake our heads in consternation as the cycle begins anew.
   And in graveyards across the country, we can hear the faint sound of whirling and perhaps a low moaning from the graves of the forefathers who started our experiment in democracy.

The Aging Satyr

I haven't posted anything here in some time. I am posting my latest poem. I would appreciate any response, suggestions, etc. I'll be interested in what people say.

The Aging Satyr

The image in the mirror contemplates

the kindly eyes, serene benignant smile.

The physiognomy reflects a mind

controlled by thoughtful structured intellect.

Behind the careful civilized façade

an alter ego lurks with leering eyes.

The satyr’s nostrils flare, inhale,

entranced by  wafts

of flowers’ fertile musk.

The pendulous flesh of fruit

that droops from languid vines

delights the lolling tongue.

The slurps of heady wine,

 juice of rounded ruby grapes,

               intoxicate and slake his burning thirst.

Nymphs frolic, innocent,

                              curved limbs of porcelain

flow to the flute’s enchanting call

               like Krishna’s milkmaids dancing.

The satyr leers and smiles

               at plies and pirouettes,

the flash of nubile flesh.

Their impromptu choreography

arouses memories

of lust

more ember heat than flame.

The dancing done, the graceful nymphs depart

like fading notes of music on the breeze.

The wistful wanton satyr sighs and turns

to the restraints of intellect that bind.

Perhaps constraints of thought that form the walls

of his confinement, shelter more than jail,

the consolation of philosophy.

As aging soothes the itch along the nerves

and appetites become a memory,

contentment’s mellow solace may replace

the rage of lust, voracity of flesh.

The satyr gazes out from smiling eyes:

the longing smolders, bittersweet, within.

Robert C. Covel

15 October 2012

The Grass Can Wait

I decided that, instead of a blog, I would publish my most recent poem here. I hope to get some reactions.

The Grass Can Wait

Sitting in my Lazy Boy

cold drink beading the glass,

notebook in hand,

a poem in my head.

Outside, the Georgia summer blaze,

hazy, hot, and humid,

the Zoysia sod, a verdant carpet

luxuriates, and thrives, beneath the sun.

With empty tank and bag,

the hungry mower waits to graze the grass.

Meanwhile, my images take root

and grow toward the light of consciousness.

Words and lines sprout

beneath the gleaning pen,

planted in rows across the page.

The choice to mow or write,

dilemma to resolve,

to harvest grass or poems:

the grass can wait.

Another good gray poet

contemplating spears of grass,

retired and loafing at my ease,

I watch the seasons ebb and flow

through changing states, the rise and fall of grass

that falls and springs

beneath my boot soles.

As inspirations spring,

turn into poems across the years,

vegetation sprouts, life from life.

I contemplate the empty page

and my own passing days.

I know that, outside, the grass grows.  

Meanwhile, the grass can wait.

Robert C. Covel

3 September 2012