I'd like to continue by reading two more of these poems.
The next one is a sort of ballad.
It's not too portentous to call it such.
I'd label it a existential ballad.
It's derived from a piece of prose
I was reading by Rainer Maria Rilke--
I was reading him in English because I
have no German-- in which Rilke described how a lady was
sitting at a table with her chin cupped in their hands
like this with her elbows on the table.
And Rilke described how she's is deep in thought,
and that someone eventually called her name out loud,
and she, too abruptly, he wrote, moved her head,
leaving her face in her hands.
And this German expressionist image
was one that excited me at the time.
And indeed, I wrote a number of poems using the face
as a sort of emblem to talk about such matters
as identity and choice.
And this is one such.
"The heads around the table disagree.
Some say hang him from the gallows tree.
Some say high and some say low.
To swing, swing, swing, when the free winds blow.
I wanted to be myself no more, so I screwed up the face
that I always wore.
I pulled out the nails one by one--
I'd have given that face to anyone.
For those vile features were hardly mine.
To wear another face is a spiritual crime.
Why, imagine the night when I would
wed to kiss with wrong lips in the bridal bed.
But now the crowd screams loud in mockery,
oh, string him up from the gallows tree.
Silence, the judge commands, or I'll clear the court.
To hang a man up is not a sport--
though some say high and some say low to swing,
swing, swing, when the free winds blow.
Prisoner, allow me once more to ask--
what did you do with your own pure mask?
I told you, your honor, I threw it away.
It was only made of skin-colored clay.
A face is a man, a bald juryman cried, for one face lost,
another man dies.
Gentlemen, this citizen we daren't acquit until we
know what he did with it.
It was only a face your honor that I lost.
How much can such a sad thing cost?
A mask is a lifetime, my bad man.
To replace such a gift, nobody can.
Consider the case of that jovial swan who took a god's face off
to put a bird's face on, and Leda
swooning by the sight of the sea,
and the swan's eyes closed in lechery.
No, no, your honor.
My aim was just.
I did what every true man would.
Quiet, prisoner.
Why, I remember a priest remark that he picked up
a dog face in the dark.
Then he got as drunk as a man can be
and barked at God in blasphemy.
It was a human face, sir, I cast away.
For that offense, do I have to pay?
The heads around the table disagree.
Some say hang him from the gallows tree.
Some say high and some say low to swing, swing, swing,
when the free winds blow.
At the back of the courtroom quietly stand his father
and mother hand-in-hand.
They can't understand the point of this case
or why he discarded his own dear face.
It's not my face, father, he had said.
I don't want to die in a strange, wrong bed.
Look in the mirror, mother, stare in deep.
Is that mask your own, yours to keep?
The mirror is oblong, the clock is round.
All our wax faces go underground.
Once, I built a bridge right into myself
to ransack my soul for invisible wealth,
and, afterwards, I tore off my mask
because I found not the person I thought I was.
With the wrong mask, another man's life I live--
I must seek my own face, find my own grave.
The heads around the table disagree,
some say hang him from the gallows tree.
Some say high and some say low to swing, swing, swing,
when the free winds blow.
I'll sum up, the severe judge moans, showing
the white of his knucklebones.
What is a face but the thing that you see,
the symbol and fate of identity?
How would we recognize each from each--
a dog from a man--
which face on a leash?
And when tears fall where no face is,
will the tears will be mine or will they be his?
To select hot coal or gold, no man
is free, each choice being determined by identity.
But exchange your face: then what you choose
is gained, like love, by what you lose.
Now you twelve jurymen please retire.
Put your right hand in ice and your left in fire.
A hole where the face was frightens us and a man who
can choose is dangerous.
So what is your verdict going to be,
should he be hung from a gallows tree?
Oh some say high and some say low to swing, swing, swing,
when the free winds blow."
Thank you.
That's encouraging.
Terrible thing about clapping after a poem
is if I don't hear it after the next one, I'll think,
oh, you don't like that one.