Interlude on poetry: Then I exploded …

 

First of all, great things happened that havent’ got anything to do with anything but saved my year so far. Finally …

 

 There we go: “Cinema” opened again!!! (It was just “The Courier” which was an okay film, but I cannot tell how much I enjoyed it. I’d probably have enjoyed James Bond …)

AND I HAVE GOT UNCLCE VANYA ON DVD!!!

I know I’ve always secretly liked the virus, but now I own up to it because it made THIS possible! At first I was so damn pleased that we saw it just weeks before they had to close it down. Then I was thrilled about the film being made but thought: Fat chance I’d ever see it! Then I was elated about the reviews being so good – and really pissed off that I’d probably never see it because it was unlikely they would show it outside the UK, cinemas being closed anyway. But, I thought, they might put it somewhere to stream … I’d never EVER dared to dream they would make a DVD and couldn’t believe it when I saw it on Amazon. But of course I couldn’t order it – at first! I don’t remember being pissed off like this about anything EVER! Then, after a month or two, I COULD order it. Great happiness … though there was no date forthcoming when I might receive it, so I thought: probably never. And then, when it arrived after only a few weeks, I COULDN’T BELIEVE THAT I HAD IT!!! 

When I was watching the beginning, I was so pleased as it was so much better than in the theatre. Richard Armitage so enjoyed being in despair that I don’t think I ever saw the like. (I don’t think anybody could enjoy themselves half so much every evening for weeks on end!) Watching a bit further, though, I was unhappy that I didn’t remember anything about it and couldn’t say anymore why it had been so special. I can always see why I enjoy watching Toby Jones who just gets everything there is in a text out exactly, and it looks so casual. He is just one of these actors I know I never can appreciate enough who just get everything right without making a fuzz. I hope we’ll see more of him on the stage in the imminent future. Richard Armitage is going for the big emotions, successfully, although sometimes it appears a bit forced. But I missed the “chemistry” I had liked so much on the stage.  Yesterday I was watching again, and I still missed the kind of chemical reaction between these actors that was there in the theatre. I suppose this is what can only occur when you are doing it every evening on a stage. If it is still a living process, it would be different every evening, some things not working, new things happening. It’s exactly the kind of thing you cannot “preserve” that I liked most when I saw it on the stage. I saw magical moments though – some I remembered I had liked and some I had forgotten or that were new. And it’s still going on, of course – I’ll certainly make the most of it after all this! 

Turns out I got zero time for history – which I hope I only have to put off for a couple of weeks – but something “poetic” broke into my life and caused a minor explosion. Which kind of forced me to think about poetry again. I had been sorry to have given it up – for lack of time and energy. Except I made a brief start on Yates. I didn’t get far, but had a hunch about “The Second Coming”:

 

The Second Coming

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

 

I didn’t really like the poem – probably Yates is completely wrong for me, as almost all the poetry I tried. But I had a hunch that this poem might “happen” if I stood on top of a cliff and shouted it into the void. I will never know because there is no cliff anywhere close by, and I don’t climb mountaintops anymore – where there are usually too many people. I could try the top of my building - which would be silly! Anyway, me shouting? Probably wouldn’t convince even myself. But the thought gave me the idea that poems need something MORE, something I usually don’t have, for them to happen. Some kind of inner state that has to exist BEFOREHAND. Except …

… except when it already exists SOMEWHERE and I find it. What happened might appear a bit lunatic but it gave me a much clearer idea of what poetry might be good for. It serves me to GET INTO A STATE, or – if I already got into one – to NAVIGATE THAT STATE more efficiently. For getting more out of something I actually wanted to get into. Didn’t I say it’d sound lunatic? But from a historical point of view it doesn’t feel so unfamiliar: to reach a state of elated feelings and stay in it.  

In this case it is funny – at least for me – how I got into this state because it was the ESC and the European (Football) Championship. I didn’t watch either of them. I listened to the second half of England – Germany, and every time I heard the big stadium noise I literally felt my blood pressure rise just because of the THOUGHT of thousands of people jumping up and shouting into each other’s faces. I was actually relieved when England chucked “us” out – I think they helped us check the pandemic.

The ESC is of no importance to me either, but my sister told me she watched with her family, and she and her daughter fell in love with Maneskin. I listened to their winning song and was instantly sucked in. These guys ARE good! I looked for more and downloaded a number of their songs. Then the European Championship came along, and “our” goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer, created ripples through Europe by wearing a rainbow-coloured bandage on the playing field right after Viktor Orban had passed his homophobic law. Ripples that, in my opinion, became a bit of a tsunami when they reached the political level. 😝 I totally loved that. Somebody had to TELL Viktor Orban that we hate HIM, not the people he hates because, from his point of view, they are “different” - even though he won’t care. Now “everybody” was suddenly proud of being different!😉 (I always had a soft spot for goalkeepers but had never much liked Manuel Neuer, maybe just because he looks like a 6 foot 3 baby. Now this has changed!)

As I was already listening to Maneskin when that happened, in retrospect it was obvious why one of their songs grew on me: “Vengo dalla luna”

In this context there is something important I became aware of dealing with poetry but never looked into properly. Most of the poetry I “use” comes into my life “naturally” through pop songs. As I wrote, I have really read very few poems in my life but – like “everybody” else – am constantly exposed to poetry when I am listening to pop music. (Maneskin isn’t really pop, though, not in my book, even though they won the ESC. It is basically Italian hard rock which I secretly like. At least at one point I downloaded songs by Guida and, I think, one or two by Eros Ramazotti - which is certainly embarrassing. Maneskin are totally not!). 

“Vengo dalla luna” is a really good example why dealing with songs theoretically is a complex and complicated matter – whereas, in practice, it is totally not. I just hear the song and it fits my mood – or creates one I like. And this is mostly due to the music, I am little interested in the lyrics. I usually never look any of it up even though I usually understand very little – even when they are in English. If I do, I usually find that I got the meaning completely wrong. As a rule, it isn’t necessary at all to understand the text to make the most of a song. (I have a theory that I find German pop songs so embarrassing because I understand the text.) Nonetheless, they would be a completely different kind of text without the lyrics. All this is more than a bit impenetrable to me, but it does make sense, given the circumstances, though I understood next to nothing, that I got “Vengo dalla luna” right from the beginning.

I knew this, of course, only after I had translated it. I had to, “Google” having failed miserably at the task. And it was really good for the process of prolonging and navigating the state I had wanted to get into, to DO something with the song instead of just listening to it. Something that took hours, if not days. I wrecked my brain doing it, but the prospect of getting the better of Google made me competitive. This time I beat the bastard! (Predominantly.)

 

Io vengo, io vengo ... dalla luna che il cielo vi attraversa

I come from the moon that crosses the sky

e trovo inopportune la paura per una cultura diversa

And find the fear of a diverse culture inappropriate

che su di me riversa la sua follia perversa

Which immerses me in its perverse craziness

ed arriva al punto che quando mi vede sterza

And comes to the point that it sees me steer

e vuole mettermi sotto ‘sto signorotto

And wants to put me under control of this squire

che si va vanto del santo attaccato sul cruscotto

Who is proud of the saint attached to his dashboard

e non ha capito que sono disposto, man

And doesn’t get it that I accept, man

a stare sotto, man,

to submit, man

forse nemenno quando fotto, yeah, man

only when I am fucking, yeah, man

 

Ma torna al tuo paese, sei diverso

But go back to your country, you are different

È impossibile, vengo dall’universo

It’s impossible, I come from the universe

perchè la rotta ho perso 

Because I lost my way

Che vuoi che ti dica,

What do you want to hear

amico, tu sei nato qui

my friend, you are born here 

perché qui ti ha partorito und fica

because you have been popped out (here)

 

In che saresti migliore

How does this make you better, 

fammi il favore compare

do me a favour, godfather,

Qui non c’è affare 

che tu possa meritare 

sei confinato, ma nel tuo stato mentale

who are not confined in some sort of transaction (…?) but in your mental state

Io sono lunatico e pratico dove cazzo mi pare

I am lunatic and practical where the fuck I want to be

 

Io non sono nero, io non sono bianco

I am not black, I am not white

Io non sons attivo, io non sono stanco

I am not active, I am not spent

Io no provengo da nazione alcuna

I don’t come from any nation

Io, si, io vengo dalla luna

(oh) yeah, I come from the moon

Io non sono sano, io non sono pazzo

I am not sane, I am not crazy

Io non sono vero, io non sono falso,

I am not true, I am not false

Io non ti porto jella ne fortuna 

I'll bring you neither bad luck nor good luck

Io, si, ti porto sulla luna

(Oh) yes, I bring you to the moon

Io vengo dalla luna …

I come from the moon …

 

Ce l’hai con me perché ti fotto il lavoro

Are you angry with me because I fucked up the work

perché ti fotto la macchina, o ti fotto la tipa sotto la luna 

because I fucked up the machine, or because I fucked your girl under the moon   

Cosa vuoi che sia poi non è colpa mia 

(???) it’s not my fault

se la tua donna di cognome fa Pompilio come Numa

if your wife (calls you?) Pompilius like Numa

Dici che sono brutto

You say that I am an ugly guy

che puzzo come un ratto

who stinks like a rat 

ma sei un coatto

but you are a redneck 

e soprattutto non sei Paul Newman

and anyway you are not Paul Newman   

Non mi prende che di striscio la tua fiction e piscio

(Don’t hold me responsible for grinding?) your fiction and pissing   

sul tuo show che fila liscio

on your show that goes smoothly

come il Truman

like the Truman   

Ho nostalgia della mia luna leggera

I feel nostalgic for my easygoing moon 

Ricordo una sera, le stelle d'una bandiera

I rembember an evening, the stars on a flag

ma era una speranza

but it was a hope

era una frontiera

it was a frontier(?)

era la primavera di una nuova era

it was the spring of a new era   

era

It was

(Stupido ti riempiamo di ninnoli da subito

in cambio del tuo stato di libero suddito)

(Stupidly from now on we are filling you with knick-knack as a substitution for your state of free citizen)

No! è una proposta inopportuna

No! this is an inappropriate proposition

Tieniti la terra uomo, io voglio la luna   

You can keep the human world, I want the moon

Io non sono nero ...   

I am not black …

Io, si, ti porto sulla luna   

yeah, I bring you to the moon   

Io vengo dalla luna ...

I come from the moon ...

 

Non è stato facile per me trovarmi qui, ospite inatteso

t isn’t easy for me to be here, unexpected guest that I am

peso indesiderato arreso

I give in to the undesirable weight   

complici satelliti che riflettono un benessere artificiale

(of?) pandering stallites that are reflecting an artificial well-being

luna sotto la quale parlare d'amore

(a?) moon under which (to?) speak of love   

Scaldati in casa davanti al tuo televisore

Get hot in your home in front of your television   

La verità della tua mentalità è che la fiction sia meglio della vita reale

The truth about your attitude is that fiction might be better than real life

che invece è imprevedibile e non è frutto

which is unpredictable and not the fruit

di qualcosa già scritto 

of something already written

su un libro che hai già letto tutto

in a book which you have already read

 

Ma io io io no io io io, io vengo (vengo) dalla luna

but I … I come from the moon

 

 

Wikipedia: Pompilius Numa supposedly was the second king of Rome who was fond of imposing rules on public life, as, for example on the priestesses of Vesta who had to live chaste and wear uniform clothes. (Never heard of him. Being Italian, “Mâneskin” probably encountered him at school and – surprisingly! - didn’t like him very much 😁.) 

So far I only described what happened, I will probably want to draw some conclusions ...