30 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - A Night in the Lonesome October

Stupid April for only having 30 days.

It really ought to have 31, just to match A Night in the Lonesome October a little better. 

And after all, Ulalume gave the story its name. It’s only fair.

The parallels are baked in. Both the poem and the novel take place in a landscape shaped by grief, memory, and moonlight. Both are narrated in first-person by someone (or something) keeping secrets. Both rely on rhythm, atmosphere, and slow-building dread.

Poe’s narrator wanders through the haunted woods of October. Zelazny’s characters do the same, though their woods are filled with familiars, rituals, and the threat of something larger breaking through. Ulalume is dreamlike and mournful; Lonesome October is playful but melancholy underneath. They rhyme in tone, if not in structure.

It’s a perfect closing for April, even if the month doesn’t quite give us all the time we want. Cruelest month, indeed.

The skies they were ashen and sober;

      The leaves they were crispéd and sere—

      The leaves they were withering and sere;

It was night in the lonesome October

      Of my most immemorial year;

It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,

      In the misty mid region of Weir—

It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,

      In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,

      Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—

      Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.

These were days when my heart was volcanic

      As the scoriac rivers that roll—

      As the lavas that restlessly roll

Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek

      In the ultimate climes of the pole—

That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek

      In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,

      But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—

      Our memories were treacherous and sere—

For we knew not the month was October,

      And we marked not the night of the year—

      (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)

We noted not the dim lake of Auber—

      (Though once we had journeyed down here)—

We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,

      Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent

      And star-dials pointed to morn—

      As the star-dials hinted of morn—

At the end of our path a liquescent

      And nebulous lustre was born,

Out of which a miraculous crescent

      Arose with a duplicate horn—

Astarte's bediamonded crescent

      Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said—"She is warmer than Dian:

      She rolls through an ether of sighs—

      She revels in a region of sighs:

She has seen that the tears are not dry on

      These cheeks, where the worm never dies,

And has come past the stars of the Lion

      To point us the path to the skies—

      To the Lethean peace of the skies—

Come up, in despite of the Lion,

      To shine on us with her bright eyes—

Come up through the lair of the Lion,

      With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,

      Said—"Sadly this star I mistrust—

      Her pallor I strangely mistrust:—

Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger!

      Oh, fly!—let us fly!—for we must."

In terror she spoke, letting sink her

      Wings till they trailed in the dust—

In agony sobbed, letting sink her

      Plumes till they trailed in the dust—

      Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied—"This is nothing but dreaming:

      Let us on by this tremulous light!

      Let us bathe in this crystalline light!

Its Sybilic splendor is beaming

      With Hope and in Beauty to-night:—

      See!—it flickers up the sky through the night!

Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,

      And be sure it will lead us aright—

We safely may trust to a gleaming

      That cannot but guide us aright,

      Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,

      And tempted her out of her gloom—

      And conquered her scruples and gloom:

And we passed to the end of the vista,

      But were stopped by the door of a tomb—

      By the door of a legended tomb;

And I said—"What is written, sweet sister,

      On the door of this legended tomb?"

      She replied—"Ulalume—Ulalume—

      'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober

      As the leaves that were crispèd and sere—

      As the leaves that were withering and sere,

And I cried—"It was surely October

      On this very night of last year

      That I journeyed—I journeyed down here—

      That I brought a dread burden down here—

      On this night of all nights in the year,

      Oh, what demon has tempted me here?

Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber—

      This misty mid region of Weir—

Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber—

      In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

Said we, then—the two, then—"Ah, can it

      Have been that the woodlandish ghouls—

      The pitiful, the merciful ghouls—

To bar up our way and to ban it

      From the secret that lies in these wolds—

      From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds—

Had drawn up the spectre of a planet

      From the limbo of lunary souls—

This sinfully scintillant planet

      From the Hell of the planetary souls?"

29 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - Love is an Imaginary Number

This is one of the stories where the poem came first.

Love is an Imaginary Number isn't one of Zelazny's best known or most loved stories, but there is something about it that calls to me.

I do love Milton's writing. When I started putting this list together, one of my favorite phrases in the English language came to mind: Awake, arise, or be forever fallen. That line alone might have been enough to get Paradise Lost on the list. It’s a rallying cry and a warning, all at once.

Zelazny draws from the same well. He calls on Loki and Lucifer to populate Love is an Imaginary Number with their metaphors. It’s a story about defiance and identity, about the masks we wear and the roles we’re handed. It’s brief, strange, and deliberately slippery.

Milton gives us a devil who chooses rebellion over submission. Zelazny gives us something less straightforward but just as sharp. The pairing works not because the story tries to match Paradise Lost in scope, but because it glances in the same direction and smiles.

He call'd so loud, that all the hollow Deep

Of Hell resounded. Princes, Potentates

Warriers, the Flowr of Heav'n, once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can sieze

Eternal spirits; or have ye chos'n this place

After the toyl of Battel to repose

Your wearied vertue, for the ease you find

To slumber here, as in the Vales of Heav'n?

Or in this abject posture have ye sworn

To adore the Conquerour?   who now beholds

Cherube and Seraph rowling in the Flood

With scatter'd Arms and Ensigns, till anon

His swift pursuers from Heav'n Gates discern

Th' advantage, and descending tread us down

Thus drooping, or with linked Thunderbolts

Transfix us to the bottom of this Gulfe.

Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n.

28 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - Donnerjack

If Eye of Cat is the story I don't like as much it deserves, then Donnerjack is its antithesis, my affection for it out of proportion (some would say) with its actual merit.

Those who say such things are wrong.

Today's poem is another by Emily Dickinson. 

The Distance That the Dead Have Gone reflects the themes of digital afterlife, separation, mourning, and blurred boundaries between the living and the dead that Donnerjack explores. I do love this book. The generational sweep of it gives it a more epic feel than I believe the originally intended trilogy would have had.

The distance that the dead have gone

Does not at first appear —

Their coming back seems possible

For many an ardent year.

And then, that we have followed them,

We more than half suspect,

So intimate have we become

With their dear retrospect.

27 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - The Courts of Chaos

 Moving right along. Footloose and fancy free. 

Today we have The Courts of Chaos. Specifically, the segment where Corwin traces his own pattern, remembering his time in Paris in 1905 and perhaps infusing it with some of his memories. 

 . . Cassis, and the smell of the chestnut blossoms. All along the Champs-Elysies the chestnuts were foaming white . . . 
    I remembered the play of the fountains in the Place de la Concorde. . . . And down the Rue de la Seine and along the quais, the smell of the old books, the smell of the river. . . . The smell of chestnut blossoms...
    Why should I suddenly remember 1905 and Paris on the shadow Earth, save that I was very happy that year and I might, reflexively, have sought an antidote for the present? Yes . . .
    White absinthe, Amer Picon, grenadine . . . Wild strawberries, with Creme d'Isigny . . . Chess at the Cafe de la Regence with actors from the Comedie Francaise, just across the way . . . The races at Chantilly . . . Evenings at the Boite a Fursy on the Rue Pigalle . . .. . . And, as the Pattern in Rebma had helped to restore my faded memories, so this one I was now striving to create stirred and elicited the smell of the chestnut trees, of the wagonloads of vegetables moving through the dawn toward the Hallos. . . . I was not in love with anyone in particular at the time, though there were many girls-Yvettes and Mimis and Simones, their faces merge-and it was spring in Paris, with Gipsy bands and cocktails at Louis'. . . . I remembered, and my heart leaped with a kind of Proustian joy while Time tolled about me like a bell. . . . And perhaps this was the reason for the recollection, for this joy seemed transmitted to my movements, informed my perceptions, empowered my will. . . .

Who to match with it? None other than Baudelaire!

Correspondences 

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.

Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,
Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.

II est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
— Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,

Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,
Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,
Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.

There are a number of English translations, but this is my preference.

Nature's a fane where down each corridor

of living pillars, darkling whispers roll,

— a symbol-forest every pilgrim soul

must pierce, 'neath gazing eyes it knew before.

like echoes long that from afar rebound,

merged till one deep low shadowy note is born,

vast as the night or as the fires of morn,

sound calls to fragrance, colour calls to sound.

cool as an infant's brow some perfumes are,

softer than oboes, green as rainy leas;

others, corrupt, exultant, rich, unbar

wide infinities wherein we move at ease:

— musk, ambergris, frankincense, benjamin

chant all our soul or sense can revel in.

26 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - Deus Irae

Moving through the backlog.

Today, we have Deus Irae (among others, heh)

I mentioned in my review that I can take or leave the book, but I do love the cover art.

Scanned in from my 40 year-old paperback. Sorry for the image quality, guys

Tibor McMasters navigates a post-apocalyptic landscape full of ruinous weirdos on his pilgrimage to paint a mural of Carleton Lufteufel.

I chose God's Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I'm sure Philip Dick would have preferred something more German, but we can't always get what we want. But there is something perfect, something grand about those first two lines.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

25 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - Permafrost

I don't know if April is really the cruelest month, but it's certainly the busiest for me, just by the nature of my job. Consequently, I tend to fall behind on these projects later in the month. 

So let's see what we can do about correcting that.

Today's story is Permafrost, and it's another rare one where the poem came first. 

I do love Edna st. Vincent Millay. I'm reasonably certain that Snuff introduced me to to her writing when he paraphrased First Fig (My candle burns at both ends;/It will not last the night;/But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—/ It gives a lovely light!) when they set the baskets alight. I couldn't find a home for that one, but I like What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why

Permafrost is cold but not unfeeling, a kind of dormancy, or emotional hibernation. The characters live with loss and the awareness of everything that might have been but never will be.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

24 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month -Doorways in the sand

This is, in large part a concession to my wife who wanted this poem as part of this circle, though Whitman certainly deserves a spot due to Roadmarks.

Up today, Doorways in the Sand!

I had to bump a different Whitman piecem Song of Myself (paired with Bridge of Ashes ("I am large, I contain multitudes") to make room.

However, I think this deserves a spot. Fred's entire personality is a rejection of learned expertise in favor of lived, intuitive experience, just like the speaker in the poem.

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

23 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - Roadmarks

I thought this would be an easy one. Roadmarks. The Road Not Taken, right? Easy Peasy. (Though Baudelaire or Whitman also have their own claim. (Along with the Marquis de Sade, I now realize)

But the Road Not Taken has the bonus of winding up my friend Greg, Doctor of Mordred Studies, who hates Robert Frost for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me.

However, I began to noodle on it. I wasn't quite satisfied with that selection.  It was right in some ways, ("Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" is perfect for a Roadmarks poem) and it's not like I haven't taken the lazy or obvious route before, but I just kept looking until I found what I wanted to use.

Roads, by Edward Thomas, which was possibly the inspiration for the better known poem.

I love roads:
The goddesses that dwell
Far along invisible
Are my favorite gods.


Roads go on
While we forget, and are
Forgotten like a star
That shoots and is gone.


On this earth 'tis sure
We men have not made             
Anything that doth fade
So soon, so long endure:


The hill road wet with rain
In the sun would not gleam
Like a winding stream
If we trod it not again.

 
They are lonely
While we sleep, lonelier
For lack of the traveller
Who is now a dream only. 
                
From dawn's twilight
And all the clouds like sheep
On the mountains of sleep
They wind into the night.


The next turn may reveal
Heaven: upon the crest
The close pine clump, at rest
And black, may Hell conceal.
 
Often footsore, never
Yet of the road I weary,                  
Though long and steep and dreary,
As it winds on for ever.

 
Helen of the roads,
The mountain ways of Wales
And the Mabinogion tales,
Is one of the true gods,
 
Abiding in the trees,
The threes and fours so wise,
The larger companies,
That by the roadside be,


And beneath the rafter
Else uninhabited
Excepting by the dead;
And it is her laughter
 
At morn and night I hear
When the thrush cock sings
Bright irrelevant things,
And when the chanticleer


Calls back to their own night
Troops that make loneliness
With their light footsteps’ press,
As Helen’s own are light.


Now all roads lead to France
And heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead
Returning lightly dance:
 
Whatever the road bring
To me or take from me,
They keep me company
With their pattering,


Crowding the solitude
Of the loops over the downs,
Hushing the roar of towns
and their brief multitude.

22 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - The Force That Through the Circuit Drives the Current

Here's a story that I haven't even reviewed yet. Zelazny himself didn't like it and I'm kind of surprised it ever saw the light of day. It's the predecessor to Hangman but not quite there. An interesting, mostly forgettable footnote, if not for the outstanding title.

It's also maybe the only story for this month where the poem came first. The selection is, of course, The force that through the green fuse drives the flower by Dylan Thomas. Thematically, not the best match, but how could I pass up the chance to pair them together?

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

21 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - The Graveyard Heart

I tend to use my copy of the Collected Stories as a my go-to reference for the shorter works. I have dozens (hundreds?) of Zelazny paperbacks scattered across various bookshelves, but I always know where my Collected Stories are. 

Second dinosaur head on the right and then straight on 'til morning

Plus, the books well-indexed, cleanly organized and comprehensively annotated. They're nice to hold too. So I went to my copy when I needed to look up The Graveyard Heart. The thing was, I couldn't remember what volume it was in. I figured it would be quicker to thumb through the volumes than to check, so that's what I did, starting with Volume 2: Power & Light, and working my way up. I got all the way to volume 4 before I decided to loop around to the first book and there it was. 

It's such a mature story. I thought it came later in his career. 

My original intent had been to pull some of Unger's poetry to serve as the poetry for this book, which is of course Zelazny's own poetry, which he had pulled and adapted from his own writing.  It is, I admit, a little strange to have none of Roger Zelazny's poetry in what I trumpet as "Roger Zelazny Poetry Month". However, the thing is, I like to include a link to the poem I'm referencing and there aren't many examples of his poetry online. And I liked the idea less the more I thought about it. It just seemed like cleverness for its own sake.

So, instead, I have gone with Love After Love by Derek Walcott. I think it represents Moore's calculus in reinventing himself to join the Set and woo Leota. 

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

20 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - Isle of the Dead

Today we have Isle of the Dead.  I like Francis Sandow, in part because he breaks away from the Zelazny archetype. He's an avatar of Shimbo of Darktree Tower, part scaredy-cat, part demigod, but he's also an old man, out of time,  who survived long past the time of his birth.

Thus, we match the story with When You Are Old, by William Butler Yeats. Short work, but lovely, and fitting, I think.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

19 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - He Who Shapes

Running out of time on this holiday weekend (I'm a bad blogger, I know) so I'm posting this as a placeholder until I learn better time management.

Update: Hurray, I'm back! And minimally diligent! 

Today (I know, yesterday) we're doing He Who Shapes.  

Beautiful story, with Charles Render, he who shapes (or the Dream Master, if you like) assisting his patients through lucid dream. Elaine Shallot comes to him for aid and he is unable to resist the challenge.

Can I really use anything but The Lady of Shallot for this story? 

Part I

On either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

And thro' the field the road runs by

       To many-tower'd Camelot;

The yellow-leaved waterlily

The green-sheathed daffodilly

Tremble in the water chilly

       Round about Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens shiver.

The sunbeam showers break and quiver

In the stream that runneth ever

By the island in the river

       Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers

Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle imbowers

       The Lady of Shalott.

Underneath the bearded barley,

The reaper, reaping late and early,

Hears her ever chanting cheerly,

Like an angel, singing clearly,

       O'er the stream of Camelot.

Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,

Beneath the moon, the reaper weary

Listening whispers, ' 'Tis the fairy,

       Lady of Shalott.'

The little isle is all inrail'd

With a rose-fence, and overtrail'd

With roses: by the marge unhail'd

The shallop flitteth silken sail'd,

       Skimming down to Camelot.

A pearl garland winds her head:

She leaneth on a velvet bed,

Full royally apparelled,

       The Lady of Shalott.

Part II

No time hath she to sport and play:

A charmed web she weaves alway.

A curse is on her, if she stay

Her weaving, either night or day,

       To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be;

Therefore she weaveth steadily,

Therefore no other care hath she,

       The Lady of Shalott.

She lives with little joy or fear.

Over the water, running near,

The sheepbell tinkles in her ear.

Before her hangs a mirror clear,

       Reflecting tower'd Camelot.

And as the mazy web she whirls,

She sees the surly village churls,

And the red cloaks of market girls

       Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,

An abbot on an ambling pad,

Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,

Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,

       Goes by to tower'd Camelot:

And sometimes thro' the mirror blue

The knights come riding two and two:

She hath no loyal knight and true,

       The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror's magic sights,

For often thro' the silent nights

A funeral, with plumes and lights

       And music, came from Camelot:

Or when the moon was overhead

Came two young lovers lately wed;

'I am half sick of shadows,' said

       The Lady of Shalott.

Part III

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,

He rode between the barley-sheaves,

The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,

And flam'd upon the brazen greaves

       Of bold Sir Lancelot.

A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd

To a lady in his shield,

That sparkled on the yellow field,

       Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,

Like to some branch of stars we see

Hung in the golden Galaxy.

The bridle bells rang merrily

       As he rode down from Camelot:

And from his blazon'd baldric slung

A mighty silver bugle hung,

And as he rode his armour rung,

       Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather

Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,

The helmet and the helmet-feather

Burn'd like one burning flame together,

       As he rode down from Camelot.

As often thro' the purple night,

Below the starry clusters bright,

Some bearded meteor, trailing light,

       Moves over green Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;

On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;

From underneath his helmet flow'd

His coal-black curls as on he rode,

       As he rode down from Camelot.

From the bank and from the river

He flash'd into the crystal mirror,

'Tirra lirra, tirra lirra:'

       Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom

She made three paces thro' the room

She saw the water-flower bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

       She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

'The curse is come upon me,' cried

       The Lady of Shalott.

Part IV

In the stormy east-wind straining,

The pale yellow woods were waning,

The broad stream in his banks complaining,

Heavily the low sky raining

       Over tower'd Camelot;

Outside the isle a shallow boat

Beneath a willow lay afloat,

Below the carven stern she wrote,

       The Lady of Shalott.

A cloudwhite crown of pearl she dight,

All raimented in snowy white

That loosely flew (her zone in sight

Clasp'd with one blinding diamond bright)

       Her wide eyes fix'd on Camelot,

Though the squally east-wind keenly

Blew, with folded arms serenely

By the water stood the queenly

       Lady of Shalott.

With a steady stony glance—

Like some bold seer in a trance,

Beholding all his own mischance,

Mute, with a glassy countenance—

       She look'd down to Camelot.

It was the closing of the day:

She loos'd the chain, and down she lay;

The broad stream bore her far away,

       The Lady of Shalott.

As when to sailors while they roam,

By creeks and outfalls far from home,

Rising and dropping with the foam,

From dying swans wild warblings come,

       Blown shoreward; so to Camelot

Still as the boathead wound along

The willowy hills and fields among,

They heard her chanting her deathsong,

       The Lady of Shalott.

A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy,

She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,

Till her eyes were darken'd wholly,

And her smooth face sharpen'd slowly,

       Turn'd to tower'd Camelot:

For ere she reach'd upon the tide

The first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

       The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,

By garden wall and gallery,

A pale, pale corpse she floated by,

Deadcold, between the houses high,

       Dead into tower'd Camelot.

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

To the planked wharfage came:

Below the stern they read her name,

       The Lady of Shalott.

They cross'd themselves, their stars they blest,

Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest.

There lay a parchment on her breast,

That puzzled more than all the rest,

       The wellfed wits at Camelot.

'The web was woven curiously,

The charm is broken utterly,

Draw near and fear not,—this is I,

       The Lady of Shalott.'

18 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai

 

Today we have 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai, one of the great stories of Zelazny's final years. In it, Mari returns to Japan from a time in America for a final encounter with her husband, who has undergone a digital apotheosis. She uses a series of Hokusai's prints to map her journey, though, as Chris Kovacs points out, the route she took would have been extraordinarily circuitous and impractical. 

Hey! Hokusai is another Halloween baby! He can party with me and Keats!

Ideally, I would have a haibun for this story, which is a prosimetrum, (hey, new word for Josh!) a combination of poetry and prose. Here's the thing, though. 

I barely know Western poetry well enough to match poems to stories. I wouldn't know where to begin with haibun.

So we're going to go with Basho's final haiku and hope it serves.

旅に病んで夢は枯野をかけ廻る
tabi ni yande / yume wa kareno wo / kake meguru
falling sick on a journey / my dream goes wandering / on a withered field

17 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - Home is the Hangman

Whew! Just under the wire! Today’s story is Home is the Hangman, one of Zelazny’s finest novellas. best of the Legion stories. 

A deep space exploration robot returns for revenge.

This is another poem where I'm confident I got it right. Or at least, didn't get it wrong. 

The Tyger, by William Blake. He got bumped for Creatures of Light and Darkness but he's finally having his moment.

It's one of the best known poems in the English language. Even people who don't like poetry know it. 

I think it fits, because it asks What does that nature of a thing say about the one who created it?

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat.

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp.

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

16 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - The Changing Land

I plan these things out ahead of time. For the longest time, I had the Waste Lands as the poem for The Changing Land, but I just couldn't make it work. Eventually I decided there wasn't much of a connection between them; I was just hung up on the similarity between the names. 

And yeah, I'll admit, some of the connections are a bit tenuous and I've probably done worse but I had to draw a line somewhere and that was it.

I decided on Poe's The Haunted Palace. I have a couple placeholders and days that aren't yet assigned, but I'm probably not going to match a poem to The Black Throne. I just didn't like it enough and there are only so many days in a month. 

I think it's a good match, though. It captures that eerie intersection of grandeur, madness, and ruin that defines The Changing Land. There was a time when things were otherwise, and the echoes can still be heard in places, but the world has moved on and those times will never return. 

In the greenest of our valleys

By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace—

Radiant palace—reared its head.

In the monarch Thought’s dominion,

It stood there!

Never seraph spread a pinion

Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

On its roof did float and flow

(This—all this—was in the olden

Time long ago)

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

A wingèd odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,

Through two luminous windows, saw

Spirits moving musically

To a lute’s well-tunèd law,

Round about a throne where, sitting,

Porphyrogene!

In state his glory well befitting,

The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing

And sparkling evermore,

A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty

Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch’s high estate;

(Ah, let us mourn!—for never morrow

Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)

And round about his home the glory

That blushed and bloomed

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,

Through the red-litten windows see

Vast forms that move fantastically

To a discordant melody;

While, like a ghastly rapid river,

Through the pale door

A hideous throng rush out forever,

And laugh—but smile no more.

15 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - The Guns of Avalon

I do love The Guns of Avalon. My favorite of the Amber books. So many excellent scenes, memorable characters, quotable lines.

I could go in so many different directions. Something from Tennyson would be great, but I've drawn from that well a bit too often.

So...how about fellow Halloween baby John Keats. The poem is La Belle Dame sans Merci.

I even get to use a Waterhouse painting for the post!

This one!

The poem reminds me of a specific moment, near the end of the story.

It was a monochromatic sight, save for the flames. A woman, all in white, black hair hanging loose, down to her waist, was bound to one of those dark trees, smoldering branches heaped around her feet. Half a dozen hairy, albino men, almost completely naked and continuing the process of undressing as they moved, shuffled about, muttering and chuckling, poking at the woman and the fire with sticks that they carried and clutching at their loins repeatedly. The flames were high enough now to singe the woman's garments, causing them to smolder. Her long dress was sufficiently torn and disarrayed so that I could see she possessed a lovely, voluptuous form, though the smoke wrapped her in such a manner that I was unable to see her face.

    I rushed forward, entering the area of the black road, leaping over the long, twining grasses, and charged into the group, beheading the nearest man and running another through before they knew I was upon them. The others turned and flailed at me with their sticks, shouting as they swung them.

    Grayswandir ate off big chunks of them, until they fell apart and were silent. Their juices were black. 

    I turned, holding my breath, and kicked away the front of the fire. Then I moved in close to the lady and cut her bonds. She fell into my arms, sobbing.

    It was only then that I noticed her face-or, rather, her lack of one. She wore a full, ivory mask, oval and curving, featureless, save for two tiny rectangular grilles for her eyes.

    I drew her away from the smoke and the gore. She clung to me, breathing heavily, thrusting her entire body against me. After what seemed an appropriate period of time, I attempted to disentangle myself. But she would not release me, and she was surprisingly strong.

    "It is all right now," I said, or something equally trite and apt, but she did not reply.

    She kept shifting her grip upon my body, with rough caressing movements and a rather disconcerting effect. Her desirability was enhanced, from instant to instant. I found myself stroking her hair, and the rest of her as well.

    "It is all right now," I repeated. "Who are you? Why were they burning you? Who were they?" 

    But she did not reply. She had stopped sobbing, but her breathing was still heavy, although in a different way.

    "Why do you wear this mask?"

    I reached for it and she jerked her head back.

    This did not seem especially important, though. While some cold, logical part of me knew that the passion was irrational, I was as powerless as the gods of the Epicureans. I wanted her and I was ready to have her.

    Then I heard Ganelon cry out my name and I tried to turn in that direction.

    But she restrained me. I was amazed at her strength.

    "Child of Amber," came her half-familiar voice. "We owe you this for what you have given us, and we will have all of you now."

And the poem:

 O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

       Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

       And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

       So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

       And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

       With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

       Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

       Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

       And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

       And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

       And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,

       And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

       A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

       And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

       ‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,

       And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

       With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

       And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dreamt

       On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

       Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci

       Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

       With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

       On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

       Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

       And no birds sing.

14 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - Jack of Shadows

 I do love Jack of Shadows, especially this cover.

But, as with yesterday's installment, This Immortal, I don't like the title overmuch. (And now that I look more closely, I don't care for the kerning on his first name).

But still, there is something magical about it. I love the energy, the ideas. Jack is a monster, but it's understandable how he became one. And the darkside is a dream logic madhouse, but still believable and consistent within that framework.

"I am Jack of Shadows!" he cried out. "Lord of Shadow Guard! I am Shadowjack, the thief who walks in silence and in shadows! I was beheaded in Igles and rose again from the Dung Pits of Glyve. I drank the blood of a vampire and ate a stone. I am the breaker of the Compact. I am he who forged a name in the Red Book of Ells. I am the prisoner in the jewel. I duped the Lord of High Dudgeon once, and I will return for vengeance upon him. I am the enemy of my enemies. Come take me, filth, if you love the Lord of Bats or despise me, for I have named myself Jack of Shadows!"

Quilian's face showed puzzlement at this outburst, and though he opened his mouth and tried to speak, his words were drowned out by the other's cries.

Then the window shattered, the candle died, and the Borshin sprang into the room.

And what better poem to give a voice to that dream logic than Coleridge's Kubla Khan? 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

   Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

   The shadow of the dome of pleasure

   Floated midway on the waves;

   Where was heard the mingled measure

   From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

   A damsel with a dulcimer

   In a vision once I saw:

   It was an Abyssinian maid

   And on her dulcimer she played,

   Singing of Mount Abora.

   Could I revive within me

   Her symphony and song,

   To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

13 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - And Call Me Conrad

Today's story is ...And Call me Conrad. I didn't read it until I had already read the rest of Zelazny's better known works. It's silly, but "This Immortal" (which was the version that was most available when I first became a fan in the late 80s/early 90s) seemed like such bad, boring, generic title.

And, you know what? I stand by that. Brilliant book, deserving of every award it received but that title is so...dull. It doesn't do the story justice at all.

So let's at least find a poem worthy of Conrad.

How about Ode to the West Wind, by my second favorite Percy, and my second favorite Shelley? Aside from drawing on Greek myth, it’s a poem about transformation, destruction, and wild renewal. About voices carried through storms and buried things rising up again. Which is exactly what Conrad is, and what Earth becomes under his care: wounded, yes, but still worth saving. Still capable of blooming.

I

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

II

Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread

On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith's height,

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou

For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed

Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What if my leaves are falling like its own!

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?