Becca Jensen
2 poems
**
Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah: The Chorus Sings for Mr. G. in Signs of Six
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
...................................................–The Book of Genesis
Our story—ours because of what we know—begins
with madness. With a mad king in a round
tower, who runs the halls with loss,
who some call God—
his crooked spine, his slant
walk: King of blind!—your eyes are wide.
Of course, this story bends far and wide
with lies. A lie to begin
in madness, to say this world slants
past sense. It does not! does not round
the truth and end in God.
And there is no such thing as loss!
Or rather everything in all is loss
so forgetting is no ruin, so loss and truth are wide
and run with God, behind the face of God!
And we must remember this—how our story begins:
A king in madness crowned round—round—
round—until loss of blinding arrows, fills his eyes aslant.
For before, all moved round, none did slant.
None did Past, none did God, none did Loss
but all took round in circles round
until God with claws in madness wide
stole time: made it lie, made it straight. Thus begins
—in blindness—us, and thus begins God.
Therefore: yes! to loss and yes! to God.
Yes! to our story of madness towers with slants
of sky and arrows. Yes! to past so we begin, begin
in loss—his loss, who is our loss—
Our crooked spine and lies of wide
that is but loss gone round.
Such we go in rounds, in rounds
of God is Mad, our Mad is God—
and all can say the truth is wide
and all can say our tower slants.
For we have eyes of blind of loss
and so we know how to begin.
Begin!—Round—as loss! round as exiles—
we don’t need God, that wide that slant—we!
can destroy ourselves.
**
Strophe: Much Turning of the Head from Side to Side
.....The problem with journeys is that sometimes you never come back. Therefore it is not so much a journey, as a long line of
forever. One event touches another with no particular accumulation, no returning gesture: a cypress folds into the ground; a
butterscotch lollipop smacks the air. This list is called the future, a truth many of us learn to maneuver around. For instance.
Here is your prospect slightly bent and in your pocket. Now that it is yours, you must rename it. Option 1: “The sailors at the
masthead ask, pointing their glasses to the horizon: Is there land or is there none? to which, if we are prophets, we make
answer ‘Yes’; if we are truthful we say ‘No.’” or Option 2: “The road is before us! / It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have
tried it well—be not detain’d!” The answer, true with all except absolutes, is it depends.
.....You will pick the latter if, like Whitman, you live in the present tense. In all probability, you will be a good person. You can
meet a sorrow in the eye and walk with it. You are Leopold Bloom: meaning you don’t exist. Pretending not to be himself in an
anonymous editorial: “Have you heard of this marvelous new author, Walt Whitman?” All the while his large naked body
strutting behind his shirt. And so the present, well intentioned as it may be, always disappears. Yet: “Mr. Joyce, I can
understand why the counterpart of your Stephen Dedalus should be a Jew, but why is he the son of a Hungarian?” “Because he
was.” Italo Svevo, who also didn’t exist, but Ettore Shmitz, his real name, did. He who wore the moustache Joyce gave to
Bloom.
.....Or, perhaps the former—and you are Virginia Woolf. You look toward the future and see the past; the present is not even a
minor concern. In other words: Faulkner’s Miss Coldfield who we will always find sitting the summer away in the house’s hottest
room with the windows closed and the blinds closed because this is what the past demands. “The only romance that George
Eliot allowed herself” said Woolf. Imagine living your entire life with that fog at your face. A body heavy with dust. Is it any
wonder you are not a good person? Are you surprised to learn you drag your brother down to the bottom of River Floss? For it
is unlikely that it was Tom Tulliver who would not let go.
.....Now all the good people are horrified. The best of you are even sad—here, take my strawberry handkerchief—it is a symbol
of my love for you. The problem with journeys is that sometimes you do come back, but your destination is gone. Good
people!, at the very least hope she remembers to look up at the sunlight slipping into the river. “To burn always with this hard,
gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is a success in life.” She says to her stone skirt, “like marbled eyes.”
**
return to sawbuck 4.1
**
Becca Jensen is a recent graduate from Washington University in Saint Louis’s M.F.A. program, where she currently serves as the third year fellow in poetry and teaches advanced creative writing to undergraduates. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Now Culture, Thermos, and Word for/Word.
**
Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah: The Chorus Sings for Mr. G. in Signs of Six
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
...................................................–The Book of Genesis
Our story—ours because of what we know—begins
with madness. With a mad king in a round
tower, who runs the halls with loss,
who some call God—
his crooked spine, his slant
walk: King of blind!—your eyes are wide.
Of course, this story bends far and wide
with lies. A lie to begin
in madness, to say this world slants
past sense. It does not! does not round
the truth and end in God.
And there is no such thing as loss!
Or rather everything in all is loss
so forgetting is no ruin, so loss and truth are wide
and run with God, behind the face of God!
And we must remember this—how our story begins:
A king in madness crowned round—round—
round—until loss of blinding arrows, fills his eyes aslant.
For before, all moved round, none did slant.
None did Past, none did God, none did Loss
but all took round in circles round
until God with claws in madness wide
stole time: made it lie, made it straight. Thus begins
—in blindness—us, and thus begins God.
Therefore: yes! to loss and yes! to God.
Yes! to our story of madness towers with slants
of sky and arrows. Yes! to past so we begin, begin
in loss—his loss, who is our loss—
Our crooked spine and lies of wide
that is but loss gone round.
Such we go in rounds, in rounds
of God is Mad, our Mad is God—
and all can say the truth is wide
and all can say our tower slants.
For we have eyes of blind of loss
and so we know how to begin.
Begin!—Round—as loss! round as exiles—
we don’t need God, that wide that slant—we!
can destroy ourselves.
**
Strophe: Much Turning of the Head from Side to Side
.....The problem with journeys is that sometimes you never come back. Therefore it is not so much a journey, as a long line of
forever. One event touches another with no particular accumulation, no returning gesture: a cypress folds into the ground; a
butterscotch lollipop smacks the air. This list is called the future, a truth many of us learn to maneuver around. For instance.
Here is your prospect slightly bent and in your pocket. Now that it is yours, you must rename it. Option 1: “The sailors at the
masthead ask, pointing their glasses to the horizon: Is there land or is there none? to which, if we are prophets, we make
answer ‘Yes’; if we are truthful we say ‘No.’” or Option 2: “The road is before us! / It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have
tried it well—be not detain’d!” The answer, true with all except absolutes, is it depends.
.....You will pick the latter if, like Whitman, you live in the present tense. In all probability, you will be a good person. You can
meet a sorrow in the eye and walk with it. You are Leopold Bloom: meaning you don’t exist. Pretending not to be himself in an
anonymous editorial: “Have you heard of this marvelous new author, Walt Whitman?” All the while his large naked body
strutting behind his shirt. And so the present, well intentioned as it may be, always disappears. Yet: “Mr. Joyce, I can
understand why the counterpart of your Stephen Dedalus should be a Jew, but why is he the son of a Hungarian?” “Because he
was.” Italo Svevo, who also didn’t exist, but Ettore Shmitz, his real name, did. He who wore the moustache Joyce gave to
Bloom.
.....Or, perhaps the former—and you are Virginia Woolf. You look toward the future and see the past; the present is not even a
minor concern. In other words: Faulkner’s Miss Coldfield who we will always find sitting the summer away in the house’s hottest
room with the windows closed and the blinds closed because this is what the past demands. “The only romance that George
Eliot allowed herself” said Woolf. Imagine living your entire life with that fog at your face. A body heavy with dust. Is it any
wonder you are not a good person? Are you surprised to learn you drag your brother down to the bottom of River Floss? For it
is unlikely that it was Tom Tulliver who would not let go.
.....Now all the good people are horrified. The best of you are even sad—here, take my strawberry handkerchief—it is a symbol
of my love for you. The problem with journeys is that sometimes you do come back, but your destination is gone. Good
people!, at the very least hope she remembers to look up at the sunlight slipping into the river. “To burn always with this hard,
gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is a success in life.” She says to her stone skirt, “like marbled eyes.”
**
return to sawbuck 4.1
**
Becca Jensen is a recent graduate from Washington University in Saint Louis’s M.F.A. program, where she currently serves as the third year fellow in poetry and teaches advanced creative writing to undergraduates. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Now Culture, Thermos, and Word for/Word.
Labels: 4.1, becca jensen, spring 2010
