Delirium tremendum

LOVE’S KEY

The heavy water of Ezra Pound

subsuming the human tale

to his querulous high-pitch creel,

transmuted suddenly into profound

perilous melody.  The charismatic

author, shaken by acidic

lye.  Rattled to quick

bones – John Berryman at sick

bay (delirium tremendum, guy)

shriven to the marrow.

The prof who would harrow

Hell must round up his own high

insolence.  But personality,

like poetry, is excess

on the History Express –

a bit gratuitous (to a degree);

won’t fold logically into place

aboard the freight car

of any village explainer.

She’s obstinate.  You’re a disgrace.

Whence cometh all authority?

Thrones crumble, powers

tremble – the hour’s

getting late.  Some mild futurity

yodels an octave through a vise...

the bird’s a turtledove.

Love’s key to the sky-trove –

exalting the low, humbling the wise.

3.28.16

I went to visit the poet John Tagliabue in the hospital today. He's my ex-father-in-law, my children's grandfather. He dedicated his collected poems to them, along with his wife & daughters.

He's dying of cancer, in a great deal of pain. Tomorrow (probably) he goes into a "hospice" room in the hospital. It's a block down the street from where my children grew up.

You probably haven't heard of him. He's a very fine & dedicated American poet. He went to Columbia with Allen Ginsberg : he sort of lived out a parallel version of Ginsberg's dedication to Whitman's example.

He traveled all over the world & brought things back, in Whitman fashion, in his poems.

He's written many thousands of poems. A "Collected", published by the National Poetry Foundation, probably only skims the surface. He's written even more letters. He used to get up in the morning & write, & walk, & teach, & write. This short, excitable, Chaplinesque person (born in northern Italy, grew up in Jersey City) is a real spiritual & literary athlete. He comes from a talented & energetic clan - his cousin (another) John Tagliabue writes for the NY Times; his other cousin Paul is the retiring head of the NFL.

I will have more to say about this unusual poet. He asked me today if I remembered the poem he had written about his mother & father. I couldn't, but I'm looking for it now.