A Carousing Tunnel is Forged

This started out as a different poem, one I have recently re-worked. The "original" is called Why We Need Verse and follows the more structured first one below. I'd have to look for the exact quote but it was Bukowski who said that those who have to ask what the creative process is for penning poetry shouldn't be allowed to write it, or something - I'm para/just plain wrong-phrasing. Well, typically OTT arrogant Bukowski, but I do agree in many ways. One of the reasons I like him, of course, is that his writing is so very simple and unfettered. so, my point with these poems forms part of a common one for me: Cutting through the mind-numbing, uber-irritating stuff of everyday life, which is often the reason I write. Similarly, my own everyday inarticulacy is countered when I write a poem, though of course it's a classic case of I know what I mean. But because the context is so different, the content is too? Something like that. Maybe I mean that because it's lah-de-dah poetry, people give you more of a pass on the unintelligibility.

I love the word carouse, and would like to extend a nod to my Uncle David, with whom I associate the verb if not the action. Tongue in cheek, as ever, he was visiting me in Prague for one of his endless international conferences, and referred to the carousing that had gone on the previous night amongst him and the other elderly academics. Er, yeah, OK.

Bukowski's point, I guess, was that a true poet's words just flow unstoppably, there is no need for
editing, perhaps? Well that's one interpretation. I often just sit and the words do trip out onto the page/ screen and sometimes I leave it at that, raw material. But polishing and scaffolding are good too - A bit of legwork never hurt anyone, right.

As long as I'm quoting "Beatnik" generation poets or "Beat Poets" or whatever (I'm afraid I think the inverted commas are necessary because I suspect neither poet I'm mentioning would warm to being labelled), let me reference another moment I like. Ginsberg (Yes, I'm predictable) in the Dylan DVD No Direction Home (Yes, again), in describing the creative process, blahs a bit about what one does then adds in an offhand way Then you call it poetry later. Amen, and I would like to think that could be applied in other creative situations in life, whatever they may be. Hm, perhaps I could be like Damien Hirst et al and make a huge mess then dress up in a pretentious way and call it art. Yes, I think I will. Who's with me.


There is Nothing High About Art


In this hair-splitting world, arena

of back-pedalling splutter, rising

above is not the priority, over-under,

over-analysing paralysis must be

burrowed beneath, the mediocre

dallying detritus must be, for it is

foreground, over-ground, beneath

which a carousing tunnel is forged.

Seedy is always where it starts

slewing its sewery way to the crest

the volcanic peaks of beaconsville

furtive, subverting, versed in the ways

sped on by days of sucked-out life,

fomenting, strung-out, laid-out

slabbed, hung on a hook, fleshed

many a half-baked truth to the dozen


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Why we need verse

Sucking the life out of everything

Take the fun out

Over analyser

Splitter of hairs

I like you a lot

I love you a bit

I’m not in love with you

Splutter, back-pedal, spit, stutter

See because it’s not this it’s that- Well,

It is a bit of that, just – What I mean is-

People;

People think we need verse because it’s art,

High art even, it rises above

Prefer to think of it as under, not over:

Burrowing beneath, furtively and subversively

Rebellion, fomenting in the sewers, seedy is always where it starts,

Strung out, laid out, too much wine and song,

Carousing its way to the volcanic peaks of beaconsville

So, you see poetry

Is just quicker, that’s all.