Jack Foley

Two new pairings: 'The Pretense of the Normal' and 'W.B. Yeats'

Portrait of Jack Foley by Mark Fisher.
Portrait of Jack Foley by Mark Fisher.

[Pairings is a sequence in which two (sometimes more) poems meet on the page in the way that persons might meet on the street. For the most part, they stand across the page from one another in the way that people stand across from one another as they speak. They have things in common and things that separate them. In many ways they illuminate each other. The “unit” in these pieces is not the individual poem but the meeting — sometimes the collision — of the poems. Cell phones destroy the formatting of Pairings so they need to be viewed on a computer screen. (J.F.)]

 

PAIRINGS 63: THE PRETENSE OF THE NORMAL

 

            Drowning in the waters of stupidity                                                           is there such a thing

            No lifeguard on duty                                                                                      as heart-provoking

            I listen again                                                                                                    or emotion-provoking

            Not to politicians but to poets                                                                      to go with

            Who can be as thoughtless as politicians                                                   thought-provoking?

            I think of Paul de Man

            Who made many mistakes in his life

            And who may be faulted on many counts

            But whose mind remained

            Quicksilver.

            No one who met him

            Failed to feel it.

            How does a mind like that

            Exist

            In this world

            Except by subterfuge, deceit, exile, cunning, charm, playacting,

            The pretense of the “normal.”

 

PAIRINGS 62: W. B. YEATS

 

                        w. b. yeats sought                                                             Gone at 73,

                        a foundation                                                                      Poet of Ireland,

                        in the ancient                                                                    Poet of the Other World,

                        stories                                                                                 Looking for its traces

                        of the peasantry                                                                In the Wind

                        for the new                                                                         Among the Reeds.

                        Irish                                                                                     None like him

                        Culture                                                                                For the passion                       

                        which he and lady gregory would create                      Of renunciation

                        and which would have the beauty                                  “O what a sweetness strayed

                        of the old time                                                                    To barren Thebaid”

                        when the men and women heard                                   “The foul rag and bone shop

                        “the sounds of above.”                                                      Of the heart” —

                        did they not reject                                                              Three books

                        the world?                                                                            Quote that line

                        eat your porridge, child                                                   And leave “foul” out —

                        or the fairies will take you                                               None like him

                        did the peasantry not say                                                  For the continual

                        in its beautiful                                                                      Recognition

                        myth making                                                                        That language

                        in its music                                                                           Always goes beyond itself —

                        in its deep                                                                             Innisfree

                        imagination                                                                          Haunted by the words

                        in its fear                                                                               Of a 3rd-century Neo Platonist —

                        what an ancient                                                                   The immense distance between

                        Mystic said,                                                                          This world

                        what Homer and Plato said                                              And that other

                        what Plotinus said                                                              From which

                        what Porphyry said                                                            The “voices” came.

                        what Spenser Shelley Blake said —                                 Love of the woman

                        what escaped the lips                                                         Love of the woman as Symbol

                        of the Unknowing                                                               The tragedy

                        in the deep time                                                                  That spirit

                        when the wor(l)d was spoken                                          Lodges itself

                        into being                                                                             In the mire

                                                                                                                        Of flesh

                                                                                                                        And that a woman

                                                                                                                        Must grow old —

                                                                                                                        Not “unity”

                                                                                                                        But the fierce knowledge

                                                                                                                        That all we have

                                                                                                                        Is the power to know

                                                                                                                        What we cannot be or emulate.

                                                                                                                        The swans

                                                                                                                        Leap up in the pool

                                                                                                                       And descend again, and leap again.

                                                                                                                        I love him for the clarity of his

                                                                                                                        Monumental, daring, unerring                                                                                                                                                 Vision. 

                                                                                                                        .

  

                                                                                                                     I have lived with him throughout my                                                                                                                                           life

                                                                                                                     Lived with the symbols

                                                                                                                     The magic that leapt about his table

                                                                                                                     Lived not where he walked

                                                                                                                     But where he thought

                                                                                                                     In that sky to which

                                                                                                                     Helena Blavatsky

                                                                                                                     Brought him:

                                                                                                                     Demon Est Deus Inversus

 

                                                                                                                        .

 

 

                                                                                                                     In the dark you entered in 1939,

                                                                                                                     Did Plato and Plotinus welcome                                                                                                                                               you?

 

                                                                                                                     Did your soul rise, a falcon in the air

                                                                                                                     Ignoring cries to bring it back to                                                                                                                                                earth?

 

                                                                                                                  Did Cúchulainn honor you, show                                                                                                                                               you the sword                        

                                                                                                                  That killed in battle frenzy the hound                                                                                                                         of Culann?

                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                  Did Emer soothe the wounds that                                                                                                                                                 ended you

                                                                                                                  And bind them deeply with a purple                                                                                                                                      cloak?

 

                                                                                                                  Did honeybees ignore you in that                                                                                                                                                 dark

                                                                                                                  Where wild swans flew and fire                                                                                                                                                sweetly burned?           

                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                   Did all the gyres end, did darkness                                                                                                                                                 sing?

                                                                                                                    Did you become a consecrated bone?

 

                                                                                                                        .

  

                                                                                                                    Nothing is true, dear love, nothing is                                                                                                                                             true.

  

                                                                                                                        .

  

                                                                                                                        Poet of Ireland

                                                                                                                        Poet of the Other

                                                                                                                                    World

 

 

[The pairings presented here are from Creative Death: An Octogenarian’s Wordshop, Jack Foley’s most recent book published 2022 by Igneus Press.]