Michael McCLURE
This is a first muscular, gesture of what I am pleased to say will be an ongoing presentation of Michael McClure's work. Please check back from time to time to see new, unpublished poetry from McClure in these pages.
"The Dante Canto Illustration (4)" is a previously unpublished poem from one of McClure's 1986 notebooks. The next poem to appear will be the unpublished "A Vision Concerning Peyote," from a 1958 McClure notebook. While visiting McClure last summer, I had the good fortune of hearing him read "A Vision Concerning Peyote" aloud; it filled the room like an incantation and I'm honored to be say that this poem is forthcoming.
A bit of a word about where we stand in Dante's world might be in order to preface this installment of McClure's visionary work. Fitting, given the current state of political affairs, that we should open with the deceiver, Geryon.
Thus, "we know that the monster Geryon, guardian of the Eighth Circle, is the symbol of fraud. In classical mythology, he is represented as a giant having human form with three heads or three bodies. Dante's Geryon is also master of three natures: human, reptilian, and bestial." Ride with us along our fiery futures as McClure "past, present, and future sees."
We also know that McClure will not be changed into a spider for his masterful spinning of this new cloak onto Dante's classic form. Seen in silhouette here, the reader will recognize that he has achieved the task of modernization for this age and "makes it new." This first poem will resonate until the next appears.
We are now descending.
Larry Sawyer
THE DANTE CANTO ILLUSTRATION (4)
THUNDERINGTHUNDERINGTHUNDERINGSMASHING
SMASHINGROARINGCRASHINGHURLING DOWN IN ONE
GIGANTIC POURING FROM A CLIFF ABOVE IN BLACKNESS WE HEARD
THE SCARLET WATERFALL COME SUNDERING THICK AIR
LIKE A PUNK ROCK CONCERT IN A MADHOUSE OR ROCK AND ROLL
TURNED INTO AUDIAL GRANITE ON A METAL EAR !
IT
would
soon make
us deaf!
Then, gently, my leader Virgil
asked me for the knotted cord about my waist
it was the wire I'd thought to use to noose
the spotted leopard in the entryway. I took it off
as he told me and coiled it like a phone wire
in a pile of tiny loops. I gave it to him
and he took it and turned to his right
and tossed it outward over the abyss
where in my mind's eye, in the darkness, I imagined
that it hung momentarily and then shot straight down
to the depths. "Yeah! Yeah!" I thought,
"some bizarre and unimaginable, apparition will answer
that signal because Virgil's eyes are fixed downward
intently in that blackish-brown unending
molasses in that poisoned-sugar air."
But how careful one must be with those
who not only read reality in outward actions
but also look into the secrecy of thoughts.
"Soon you'll view," spoke Virgil, "why I wait
and what your sensorium is all trembling to paint
into an image."
Reader, what I say will
now amaze you like some
FOUL LIE
that I should shut in with
sealed lips. But I can't
keep quiet, and by the stanzas
of this comedymay they be immortal
I vow I saw something swimming
upward through that thick maze below,
A WEIRD SHAPE that would make
any knee tremble or breath catch
in scared amazement. It rose like
a beaver or a diver from a crusted wreck,
UPWARD SWIFTLY, ARCHED, BREAST FORWARD,
and arms drawn in.
Canto 17
"SEE THE MONSTER MONSTER MONSTER, WITH THE POINTED TAIL,
WHO CRASHES THROUGH THE SCARPS OF MOUNTAINS,
AND DRAGONLIKE SPLITS LANCES, SEE THIS THING
WHOSE TOXIN FILLS THE WORLD KNEEDEEP
AND BURIES SINCERE DREAMS IN WALLS OF TEARS!"
Thus stately Virgil shouted to me
and motioned the BEAST to come up to the ledge
at the rock's edge where we had passed.
Then that repellent , shudder-causing eidolon of FRAUD
drew
near
and slipped like a baby over the hot rock lip
but left his tail swinging in the abyss.
WHAT A FACE HE HAD! THE HIGHEST, CLEAREST BROW!
THE SWEETEST, MOST RADIANT
VISAGE THAT A MAN MIGHT HAVE!
He beamed with honesty and gentleness,
and mild modesty was pouring from his eyes.
All the rest of him was repugnantsea serpent
and chimera. His hands were taloned paws, all gleaming
black and shaggy with bear fur to his arm pits.
His back and chest, and his reptile right and left,
were set out in small round shields
with gleaming yellow glue between them
such as one can see at the corners of the lips
of madmen.
No Iranian or Pakistani ever made a rug
with so many traceries and shades as his scaled skin
nor did Arachne, herself, while weaving
loom such vibrantthough still repulsive
stuff.
Like small slender boats along the river
beached upon the gravel but partly in the lapping
pale green water, or as the badger
found in the hungry German's lands
stands above his shadow waiting for his prey
within its hole, in that way, this horror
came to poise
upon the rocky circle's lip that kept
the smoking sand from falling to the pit below.
His tail writhed and twitched
IN
THE
VOID
and he skirled the scorpion tip
high in dark air above us!
My leader said, "Now we'll swerve here and march
to confront that dripping fetid dinosaur
who's hovering there with his bright face toward us!"
So we went the few steps to our right,
walking on the rim, avoiding simmering sand
and particles of fire that splashed
like milk.
When we were before the creature, with his odor
like a blast within a blast, I saw men nearby
sitting on the ledge above the void.
My master Virgil said, "So you may be able
to comprehend this circle, go and look and talk
to thembut briefly. Right now I'll
talk to this monster and make him give us
the use of his shoulders."
So I walked on by myself
around the teetering edge of the
Seventh Circle's lip. Men sat like sorrowing
beggars with melting snowfields gushing
from their eyes. They moved their hands
uselessly in semaphores of pain to keep
away the burning gases, as dogs in misery
push at their noses and claw at the bites
of fleas and horseflies.
The visages of these shades were new to me
though sometimes I saw them clearly
in the raining drifting fire
and blistering soot. Each of them had
a stomacher, or sack, or pectoral, around his neck.
One pouch was yellow with the blue emblem of a lion.
Another had a pouch scarlet as gore,
with a goose lined on it that shone
in the random flames like white butter.
One ghost
with a blue pregnant cow
on his bag, stopped me with his voice:
"WHAT
ARE YOU
DOING
IN THIS CAVE OF PAIN?
GET
OUT
WHILE YOU'RE ALIVE!
MY
PAL
VITALIO
will soon be here
at my left! I'm
from Padua but these Florentines deafen me
by crying out: 'Move over for the kingly knight who's coming
with three eagle beaks upon his bag!' "
Then he twisted up his face and stuck out his blue
and purple swollen tongue like a cow
that licks its nose.
Remembering Virgil had told me to hurry
I turned back to him
and found him seated on the rump
of that horrific Geryon.
"BE BRAVE," said Virgil, "we're going down.
This monster is our stairs to the next circle.
Sit in front of me and I'll be between
you and the lashing scorpion tail."
The thought gave me the shakes as if I had
malarial fever and was standing by
a block of ice with nails turned blue,
but Virgil shamed me and I sat on the filthy shoulders.
I lost my voice or I would have whispered,
"Master, clutch me tight!"
Virgil, just as he had saved me before,
reached out and clasped me
in his engendering arms, shouting, "GERYON,
BEAST OF FRAUD, GO ON! Descend in long circles !
Be careful with the special freight
You're carrying! Watch out!"
THEN LIKE A LITTLE SAILING SHIP PULLING OUT,
the beast slipped backward cautiously.
When he was free of the cliff rim
he rolled swiftly over in a loop
so that his rear was where his chest
had been before, and he straightened
out his tail like a LAMPREY,
then swept up clouds of air
in his brawny taloned paws.
NEVER
HAVE
I
BEEN MORE SCARED
there was only dark air and stench
AND SPACE
around me!
And his scales and fur!
I thought of Phaeton setting fire
to his Father's skies
and Icarus watching the melting wax
that held the feathers to his hands
and thighs!
Down the monster swam in huge slow giant circles.
I could only sense descent by the side drafts.
To our right the scarlet cataract was crashing
with its thundering roar. Looking
down into the pit I was overwhelmed
by distant flames and piercing
cries of agony! I was shaking
and I huddled up with fright
because now I saw, through the descending wheeling
all the clustered ghosts in pain
around on every side.
"Damn, she's settling!" The weary falconer cries
when the gerfalcon heavily puts down
in disappointment when no heron
is in sight.
Round and round the falcon goes in endless rings
toward the marshy field. There she
stands sullen and aloof.
In that way, Geryon took us to the strata
at the cliff base, but when we stepped off
away he shottwanged like one single powered note
from a bass guitar.