08.15.03 - 5:40 p.m.

Two more Kevin McMaster poems, to go with the one from yesterday. On reflection, it's really quite too bad that he doesn't have a book of poetry published, because I would definitely buy one. There are little things I don't like about each poem (sometime in the middle, they feel too forced) but they're just delightful to read.

Campfire, Lignum

The world shone in letters, Lucretius believed:
in firewood (lignis) was hidden (ignis) fire. Whatever
kindles your tinder. His mater flirted with matter
for that matter. Linguistics, logistics - two sticks
perhaps one shouldn't rub together - but if,
on a night like this, by firelight and stars, one hears
the pater in the local patter, whose pattern
would that be? Father time, mother tongue,
we will be true to you in our fashion:
our fashion is to read what we choose to read.
A possible good in the bonfire - not the bone -
faint flag in the conflagration - not the blaze.
All things are fire, flame's said to have tongues,
our dignity and ignorance, our signatures.

Did Lucretius really believe that? I don't know. I don't quite get the connection. Lucretius was an Epicurean and a materialist and an atomist, and he believed in the truths of the senses and he didn't like the conventions of love and sex and he did not believe in divine intervention in the world or a divine plan for the world. Did he say something about linguistics? I don't know.

I don't know because I never ready On the Nature of the Universe beyond a few flits here and there. I had a copy of it, though. White and purple, smooth paper, the old cool paper from nice paperbacks of the 1950s and 1960s that feels like chilled silk beneath your hands.

I picked it up at Trans-Allegheny Bookstore on Capitol Street in Charleston. I think Trans-Allegheny has since gone the way of the buffalo, at least in Charleston. Taylor Books - which had new books, and a pretty good selection, along with espresso - did 'em in. Trans-Allegheny still has a store in Parkersburg, though I've never been there.

In high school, Trans-Allegheny was one of my favorite places. They actually didn't have a great selection and/or variety of anything specific - like most used bookstores it was very catch as catch can - but what they did have was incredibly cheap, and that was the draw. I could pick up poetry chapbooks for a dollar or two, maybe three, and philosophy/religion etc. for the same, or perhaps even less money. I remember buying On the Nature of the Universe there, and I meant to read it, but I didn't do any more than dabble in the book. As impressed by it as I was, I couldn't get into it. Mostly, I liked the way it looked on my "good" book shelf, where I displayed the books I thought revealed my sensitivity and brilliance, my inquiring mind, my... something.

Or at least my desire for such. I can guarantee that no one except for me was ever impressed by that bookshelf, but I was impressed, and would spend time rearranging the volumes to present the most harmonious appearance. I wanted - I wanted someone to notice what books I read, and then notice me, perhaps I thought the patina of those volumes would rub off on me, or that knowledge that I had "read" those books would illuminate me in a bright and honeyed light. I wanted to be transparent, easily bruised, but resiliant and somehow breathtaking, and I associated beauty as much with those books as with anything else. When I arranged them, I was always thinking of how someone else would perceive me based on them: teenage arrogance skewed in a strange direction.

So, the poem: I've decided that the first two lines are too clever by half. I really start to like the piece right here:

but if, / on a night like this, by firelight and stars, one hears
the pater in the local patter, whose pattern
would that be? Father time, mother tongue,
we will be true to you in our fashion:
our fashion is to read what we choose to read.

I like shifting alliteration of pater patter pattern because I love the shifting meaning mirroring the shifting sound. Father time/mother tongue: again, the rhythm of the syllables themselves and the juxtaposition of the two tired clich�s in the poem give them a nice, strange new flavor. And: our fashion is to do whatever we want, basically. Hee. I like that. And I can't explain why since I'm going home.