IN THE GLORIOUS DIVISION, A TALE OF THREE TEAMS

June 30, 2020 at 10:01 pm (Ben Mazer, Ezra Pound, Keats, Leonardo da Vinci, London Carriages, Longfellow, Lord Russell, Paul McCartney, T.S.Eliot)

Percy Bysshe Shelley lost poem to go public at University of ...

Shelley (9-5) pitches for the Florence Banners—the team to beat in the Glorious Division.

The Florence Banners are the glory of the Glorious Division. Look at their pitching staff: Dante, who throws fastballs with such ferocity, hitters are afraid to stand in against him; Shelley, who throws curve after delicate curve, as memorizing as a snake; Virgil, whose hard slider apparently comes from the underworld; Leonardo da Vinci, the lefty, whose mixture of speeds defies belief; and Boccaccio, who comes out of the bullpen like a cloud, a large dark one, which puts an end to everything. And everywhere you look, there is a Rossetti: Christina, William, Dante Gabriel, and in the middle of the lineup, John Keats, almost more Italian than English. And two modern spots of light: Ben Mazer and Glyn Maxwell.

But Keats only has four home runs for de Medici’s Banners—who are 35 and 29 and share first place with two other teams.

The Carriages of London, owned by Queen Victoria, are 35-29, and not exactly filled with the greatest of all time: pitchers William Hazlitt, Virginia Woolf, and Charles Lamb.  Hitters Elizabeth Barrett, Sylvia Plath and Paul McCartney.

Neither do the Dublin Laureates seem that scary. The rather pedantic Edmund Burke is 0-6 in his last 7 starts for Dublin. Their no. 2 starter, Thomas Peacock, has been replaced by Robert Louis Stevenson.  Their lineup features JK Rowling, Boris Pasternak and Oliver Goldsmith. But they, too, are 35 and 29.

The Laureates have won a host of one-run games, especially in the late innings—they get better as the game goes on, and don’t make mistakes in the field or on the base paths. Jonathan Swift joined the Laureates on May 1st, and with his command of 4 pitches and quiet confidence, now owns the best record in the league: 10-1. And don’t forget Livy. He is 8-1 in relief.

Andrew Marvell, the ace of the Carriages, is 10-2.  Charlotte Bronte is 3-1 and Charles Lamb is 3-0, in relief.  On the back of Marvell, the Carriages are doing the little things to win.  Virginia Woolf out-pitched John Stewart Mill in a marvelous 1-0 outing, helped by a bases-loaded, game-saving catch by Philip Larkin in right field. Tennyson’s two out, opposite field, looping, single off an impossible-to-hit-pitch brought in Paul McCartney, who had walked, and then was bunted over to second by Larkin, for the game-winner.

As for the other first place team, those awesome Banners, Virgil, 7-4, has arm tenderness, and will miss 3-4 weeks, Dante is only 6-6, and Boccaccio has been out-dueled a number of times in relief. Shelley has been a monster, logging 9 wins.

Tied for last are the Berlin Pistols—featuring Ezra Pound (demoted to the bullpen), pitching ace T.S. Eliot, and Ted Hughes (13 homers)—and the Devon Sun at 28-36.  Ralph Emerson is 4-3 in his last 8 starts for the Sun, and Lord Russell’s team has been powered by Wordsworth’s 9 homers in the Sun’s last 20 games.

William James has been the best starter for the Pistols at 8-4. T.S. Eliot beat Dante and the Banners 1-0, this week, tossing a one-hitter. The Banners are no longer alone in first, but every team in the Glorious Division will be gunning for them.

We caught up with Paul McCartney, shortstop and lead off hitter for the Carriages, after Andrew Marvell shut out the Sun in Devon.

Scarriet: Welcome to my interview, Paul.

Paul: Oh that sounds…ominous.

Scarriet: This won’t hurt a bit. I promise. Your team’s playing well, you won by a shutout today.

Paul: Oh Andrew Marvell, luv watching him pitch, you know? I have to remember I’m in the field playing the game, because, you know, you get mesmerized, kind of, watching him, do his thing… He’s so good!

Scarriet: Do you see John and George much?

Paul: Not really. They’re both in the what’s it called…the Peoples Division, right? Yeah George is with the Cobras in India…and John, with Yoko, is with the uh….Mist. They’re together, that’s nice. I chat with George…and John… on the phone, sometimes, you know, just say hello…

Scarriet: I did want to touch on the two English teams, the comparisons people have made between the Sun and the Carriages. You’ve heard the talk?

Paul: Oh yeah, when they were first getting this thing together, John told me, “Don’t play for the Sun, man! You belong on the Carriages.”

Scarriet: The Sun have a reputation for being that part of England that wants to rule the world, the British Empire, oppressing everyone…people compare the Sun to the Pistols…while the Carriages..

Paul: —are more like tea and biscuits and…mum. Yeah.  I mean, look, someone said Wordsworth—and Waldo Emerson, you know, they’re nice, and they play for the Sun, but those guys are bastards! (laughing)

Scarriet: Wordsworth did take someone out at second with a nasty slide last week, did you see that?  And Emerson throws at hitters quite a lot.

Paul: Oh I could never write like them! They’re great.  But, there’s not a lot of comfortable, human stuff in their writings, really…look at “English Traits” by Emerson…the English race and how it rules the world!  John tipped me off on that one, Emerson, watch out for that cat…and I dunno, what can you say against Wordsworth?  Daffodils. I love that one. I never could read the long stuff, though…he’s not one I could have a pint with…too stuffy for my taste…

Scarriet: What’s the biggest difference between the Scarriet Poetry Baseball League and rock music?

Paul: Drugs. (laughing)  There’s no drugs in Scarriet Poetry Baseball. Queen Victoria would never… Seriously, you really have to be in top form all the time to compete with these great writers…everything is on the line all the time…big crowds…you can’t slip up….

Scarriet: Does that bother you?

Paul: (nervous laughter) Not really. No, I quite enjoy it, actually. I never depended on drugs to write my songs. It’s just a matter of freedom and relaxation sometimes, you know, I’m not advocating anything, except a little freedom, and I understand everything has a time and a place. It’s all good, really. I’m enjoying myself doing this.

Scarriet: You’ve played well—even hitting home runs from the lead off spot, and the Carriages are tied for first. Congratulations.

Paul: Thanks. Yes. Batting first is not easy. The first time up, especially. But I use it to judge how the pitcher is doing that day, and I’ll tell my teammates—“watch out guys, he’s throwing hard today, or…this is what his strategy seems to be…”

Scarriet: Communication.  Yes, and you steal bases… I don’t think anyone realized how athletic you are…

Paul: Music is very physical. People don’t realize that.  And poetry, or music…you don’t just write it with your mind… the body is the mind…it’s a lot of it, really…but uh…yeah…I enjoy it…the fresh air…the competition…the company is nice…

Scarriet: We’re so glad you could talk to us, Paul. And we’re happy to hear Scarriet Poetry Baseball agrees with you!

Paul: Thanks.

Scarriet: Good luck the rest of the year!

Paul: You, too.  Bye now.

 

 

 

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THE BEAUTIFUL READERS

June 30, 2020 at 2:16 am (Uncategorized)

Image result for beautiful woman reading a book in painting

I can understand why women

Who are beautiful read. It’s a slow

And dignified process, reading.

The mistakes detailed on page twenty five

May, or may not, come back to haunt the heroine

On page two hundred and fifty five.

The perfume inside the pages lingers.

With each turn of the page, a little sigh.

If you can write what does not offend

Women, as the individual, or the group—

If you please both the singular and the mass, your writing

Succeeds. It doesn’t need to be exciting;

The experience is more than the sum of its parts:

Being in the world, apart from the world;

The waiting for the sad and intricate story

To soothe the sad and intricate hearts.

 

 

 

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CEILINGS TUMBLE AS EMPEROR DIVISION RACE TIGHTENS

June 28, 2020 at 2:22 pm (Anne Sexton, Arthur Schopenhauer, Fellini, giacomo leopardi, Joyce Kilmer, Mary Angela Douglas, Napoleon Bonaparte, Oscar Wilde, Poetry Baseball, W.H.Auden, Wolfgang Mozart)

Philadelphia is "Wilde" about Oscar | PhillyVoice

Oscar Wilde: 4-0 with a shutout in last 4 starts to help the surging Goths.

The Rome Ceilings are still in first.  But barely.  After dominating the Emperor Division in the first two months of the season, their starters have forgotten how to win.

The Ceilings have lost 12 of their last 16.

Giacomo Leopardi had the kind of day which gives even greatness pause; it was when the Rimini Broadcasters flew into Rome to face the Ceilings—a 31-17 club beginning an 8 game home stand. The visiting Leopardi tossed a one-hitter and hit a home run, and out-dueled John Milton, 1-0.

Apparently, this brilliant performance by Leopardi knocked the Ceilings into a spin.

Since then, Milton has not won, John Dryden has not won and missed a start (Octavio Paz lost in his place), Ludovico Ariosto (who earlier won 6 straight) has not won, and Saint Augustine has not won.

The Ceilings have never been lower.

General manager Pope Julius II waved his hand when asked what was wrong.

“Nothing.”

Manager Richelieu practically spat his response.

“We’re good.”

Meanwhile, the Paris Goths exploded, going 12-4, as the Ceilings went 4-12, and we now have a race in the Emperor Division.

The Ceilings were hoping to break things wide open—as they appeared almost invincible in the early part of the season. But all it takes is a stumble (you start to lose those 3-2 contests instead of winning them) and another team gets hot.

The Goths of Charles X have made their run at home, in Paris, a beautiful park near the Seine, including a series against the Broadcasters in which Leopardi pitched well again, blanking the Goths for 8 2/3 innings—but Johann Wolfgang von Goethe answered with 9 shutout innings of his own, and Sophocles’ walk-off grand slam off George Orwell, the Broadcasters’ new hope, in the bottom of the ninth gave the Goths a 4-0 victory. Arthur Schopenhauer, the Goths manager, chortled afterward, “Sophocles is the ultimate goth—even more than Goethe!”

George Orwell, burned by Sophocles, has returned to the bullpen for the eccentric and highly individual Broadcasters with starter Samuel Taylor Coleridge now healthy—and who appears to be throwing the ball harder than ever; a good sign. And Jacques Lacan, replacing a struggling Ben Jonson in the rotation, has given the Broadcasters a lift (3-0, 2.80 ERA)—who have gained on the Ceilings, too, though their record is still under .500.  A long, thrilling, grinding, road trip for the Broadcasters included two back-to-back, come-from-behind, wins in Rome for this slowly reviving team owned by Federico Fellini: Jim Morrison, Anne Sexton, and Charles Bukowski, got key hits, as Orwell beat J.S. Bach twice in nail-biting relief appearances, once in extra innings—to the horror of the Ceilings fans in Rome.

The Corsica Codes of Napoleon (Codes ace Homer going 3-0) the Madrid Crusaders, and the Broadcasters all gained on the Ceilings while playing .500 ball during the Ceilings current slump, but Philip of Spain’s Crusaders have to be the happiest—they gained in the standings playing a long road trip, and best of all, signed both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludvig van Beethoven to their starting pitching rotation. Mozart is 2-1 and Beethoven is 2-0 in their first 4 starts. The Crusaders, playing on the road, lost Beethoven’s first 2 games, 9-5 and 4-2, despite Crusader home runs by Mary Angela Douglas and Joyce Kilmer, as Ludwig was throwing too hard and not hitting the corners. Mozart has not been dominating; composers always need to adjust in a poetry league. But the addition of Mozart and Beethoven changes things: the Emperor Division is really up for grabs.

~~~

Ceilings 35 29 –
Goths 34 30  (1)
Codes 33 31  (2)
Crusaders 32 32  (3)
Broadcasters 30 34  (5)

~~~

And now a special treat.  Scarriet Poetry Baseball caught up with Oscar Wilde and W.H. Auden in a hotel cafe, following Wilde’s 3-2 complete-game victory in Paris over the Codes, despite a two-run homer by Auden.  At this writing, Auden has 20 home runs for Napoleon’s team, the most home runs in the Emperor Division, and is close to leading the entire league. Wilde has 6 wins for the Paris Goths, pitching beside Goethe, Chateaubriand, and Baudelaire.

Scarriet: Gentlemen…

Wilde: You flatter.

Scarriet: W.H. Auden…

Auden: Now you flatter!  Who’s he?

Wilde: (to Auden) You almost spoiled my win, silly.

Auden: My home run?

Wilde: Yes, what were you trying to do? (laughing)

Auden: I was distracted.

Wilde: By my pitch? (laughing)

Auden: No, by an idea for a home run. (laughing)

Wilde: You devil!  Where do you get these ideas? Not from me, I hope! (smiling)

Wilde and Auden pause, both looking at the interviewer.

Scarriet: (mind going blank) It’s a lovely day.

Wilde: To be outside.

Auden: It’s always better to be somewhere else.

Wilde: Precisely. Let’s go inside.

Auden: Is it too noisy here?  I thought we were inside?

Wilde: (looking around at the space) It’s difficult to tell. Are we?

Auden: We’re partially indoors. This large awning, and this carpet.

Wilde: A big cafe. So fancy, it’s hard to tell where we are. Who picked this place?

Auden: At least we’re not directly on the street.

Wilde: But we can see the street…

Auden: Thank God we can smoke here…

Wilde: I don’t know. What year is it?

Auden: It always feels like a year between cigarettes for me…

Wilde:  You measure time that way? By coughing?

Auden: Yes, it’s my clock. Sixty coughs per hour.

Wilde: But you have the breath of ten men.

Auden: My lungs are my best feature. I have handsome lungs.

Wilde: I can hear them. They’re lovely.

Auden: A bit high-pitched.

Wilde: Low tones can hardly be heard. I like a good, stabbing, high-pitched, voice!

Auden: (laughing, coughing) You’re making fun of me!

Wilde: Don’t lower your voice now! Don’t be suave, Wystan!  Be yourself. Scream.

Auden: (pealing, high-pitched laughter, interrupted by low, growling coughing)

Wilde: People are looking now! See what you’ve done, Wystan!

Auden: (still choking) Me??

Scarriet: Can I ask—

Wilde: About the United States?

Auden: (cough, cough) What about Ireland?

Wilde: Do you know what the United States was?  Ireland’s revenge against England.

Auden: And now? What about now, in 2020?

Wilde: China is England’s revenge—against the United States.

Auden: People have soured on Christianity. The pendulum is swinging towards a different kind of control.

Wilde: Oh life is pleasant now. Let’s talk about baseball. This gentleman wants to know—

Scarriet: I would rather you two just talk. I’ll stay out the way…

Wilde: This is the worst interview ever! (smiling) Let us two gasbags go on?  Is that a good idea?

Auden: Perhaps we could set a few things straight. History gets everything wrong.

Wilde: (sighing) Wystan! Do you have to bring history in? I’m still trying to figure out my mistakes…

Auden: They weren’t your mistakes. They were history’s mistakes.

Wilde: Yes, that’s what history is. But no, they were mine. They were my mistakes. (pause)

Scarriet: Can I borrow a cigarette…

Auden: Oh, certainly, dear!

Wilde: Our interviewer is so charming!

Auden: And he lets us say whatever we want! (laughing)

Wilde: He lets us do whatever we want! (laughing)

Auden: We should retire to our rooms..

Wilde: I have no rooms.

Auden: No rooms? Where are you?

Wilde: I don’t know. I don’t know.

(Someone is speaking to Auden)

Auden: Oh, we can’t smoke?

CONNECTION LOST

~~~

Scarriet Poetry Baseball.

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THE ARM OF THE DAY

June 27, 2020 at 5:02 pm (Scarriet Editors)

Warm Inlet Sail Boat on Water Impressionist Painting Summer Day ...

What is the arm of the day?

These distant, somber, mountains?

Or these boats, held up by the green of the bay?

Or the round sunset that holds us?

What is the arm of the day?

Is it like the mind of the day,

And the thinking we do,

Which invisibly covers us,

During long, pleasant walks,

Walking here?  And far away?

Or perhaps it’s me,

Thinking what I would say,

If I saw you on a mountain trail,

Or sailing with a party of three,

A sprinkle of rain on the bay.

What holds me inside a typical day?

What holds me from no longer seeing you?

Inside the arm of the day?

 

 

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MY RIGHT EYE

June 26, 2020 at 11:28 am (Scarriet Editors)

 

10 of Ghana's Best Contemporary Artists

My right eye is gay, and the left one is straight,

Both holy day and tryst, a very special date.

My skin is read, but my desire is not—

I’m a public fool in my private spot.

I look at myself and see someone

You and I could not rely on.

But you and I, we do not care

For the beautiful sirens on the top of Saint Clare.

You and I will gather this.

The noon painting. The somnambulant kiss.

 

 

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DALIT AND BRAHMIN

June 25, 2020 at 12:45 pm (Scarriet Editors)

The Battle of Cascina Michelangelo's unfinished masterpiece.

“This is no revolution, but evil elites putting people in the streets.”

The true brahmin will always lose

For trying to be a true brahmin—

How can the true brahmin fight

Against the dalits who choose

To humiliate the whole idea of the true

Brahmin in the day and in the night?

Why does the whole truth suffer?

Because poor and rich dalits together hate

The true brahmin, when the sun fails,

Or when it’s very early, or when it’s late.

Nothing offends dalits, whether dalits are

Wealthy or poor, brutish or fancy,

More than the true musician; that is why,

For the sake of the non-dalit, and for all dalits,

This one, to prove no brahmin is, must

Sing a few songs before they die.

 

 

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I HATE CHANGE

June 23, 2020 at 4:56 pm (Scarriet Editors)

Harry and Caresse Crosby's Lessons in Polyamory | Rachel Hope Cleves

I hate change so much,

That I suffer change to happen

All around me,

Weeping when she leaves me,

While I do not change.

I am hated for being chaste,

Condemned for not discussing race,

Condemned for being good.

Some change to avoid change;

God, I wish I could.

“I want to die with you so we never go away,”

I heard Harry Crosby say.

“I wish you would kill me as I sleep

And then yourself, out of love.

Darling! Let the others weep.”

This is why, like Harry, I plan

To not change, even as change happens to Man,

Even as society changes, and no one finds it strange;

But I do.

I hate change.

 

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THE FIVE DIVISIONS IN THE SCARRIET POETRY BASEBALL LEAGUE SO FAR

June 22, 2020 at 12:52 pm (Anand Thakore, Ben Franklin, Devon Sun, Edna Millay, Elizabeth Bishop, Fellini, George Harrison, Jadoo Akhtar, James Tate, John Donne, John Lennon, John Milton, London Carriages, Mark Rothko, Merv Griffin, Napoleon Bonaparte, Paul Engle, Paul McCartney, Plato, Pushkin, Satyajit Ray, Scarriet Baseball Poetry League, Shakespeare, Sharon Olds, Shelley, Stephanie Burt, T.S.Eliot, Ted Hughes, V.S. Naipal, Victor Hugo, Vikram Seth, Virginia Woolf, W.H.Auden, Walt Whitman, William Wordsworth, Wolfgang Mozart, Woody Allen)

Gary McKeon on | The beatles, Beatles pictures, Paul mccartney

Paul McCartney, lead-off hitter for the London Carriages, has 6 home runs.

EMPEROR DIVISION

The Rome Ceilings have outscored their opponents 84-49 at home—holding them to 2 runs per game, as their spacious outfield, (as big as the Colosseum) and fleet center fielder Edmund Spenser, gobbles up would-be home runs; Milton, Dryden, Ariosto (7-2) and Augustine, with Bach in the bullpen, is all pitching coach Marco Polo, and manager Cardinal Richelieu need. If the Corsica Codes are going to catch the Ceilings, they’re going to have to pitch better, and play better on the road. In his last 5 starts, no. 3 starter Hesiod is 0-5.  Victor Hugo (2B) and W.H. Auden (SS) are hitting a ton, but Napoleon’s infield (Callimachus 1b, Derek Walcott 3b) leads the league in errors. The Madrid Crusaders have to be happy that Mary Angela Douglas played so well filling in for Saint Ephrem at shortstop—Douglas, Aeschylus, and Bradstreet were a murderer’s row from late May to early June. St. John of the Cross and Handel have pitched really well recently. But the big news: Cervantes, the Crusaders manager, has met with Mozart and Beethoven—if either one of these join the Crusaders pitching staff, all bets are off.  The Paris Goths (22-26) are out of contention because of one starter—Baudelaire is on a 9 game losing streak; the ‘cursed’ pitcher has had poor run support (10 runs in his last 7 starts). The Goths’ position players have been dogged by injuries; Tasso and Holderlin, tied with the 3rd most homers on the club, began the year on the bench. Manager Schopenhauer might put Baudelaire in the bullpen for a spell and use newly acquired Goya as a starter. The Rimini Broadcasters, at 22-26, in last place with the Goths, need to decide what to do with George Orwell, who pitched well for the damaged Samuel Coleridge—who is now healthy. The Broadcasters need pitching help (Ben Jonson, their no. 2 starter, has been lackluster) and are close to signing Lacan, Gurdjieff, Frida Kahlo, or Salvador Dali. Nero, the Broadcasters manager, has spoken to all of them.

Standings

Ceilings  Pope Julius II, 31-17  “They also serve who only stand and wait”
Codes Napoleon Bonaparte 25-23 “Let the more loving one be me”
Crusaders Phillip II of Spain 24-24 “If in my thought I have magnified the Father above the Son let Him have no mercy on me”
Broadcasters Federico Fellini 22-26 “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name”
Goths Charles X 22-26 “Every great enterprise takes its first step in faith”

WINS

Chateaubriand Goths 7-2
Ariosto Ceilings 7-2

Handel Crusaders 6-2
Milton Ceilings 6-4

Homer Codes 5-3
Hegel Codes 5-3
Nabokov Broadcasters 5-4
Aquinas Crusaders 5-5

Relief

Bach Ceilings 5-2

GLORIOUS DIVISION

The first place London Carriages swept the Laureates in Dublin—as Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Bronte combined to throw a 4-0, 11 inning shut out, and William Hazlitt beat Samuel Johnson in a 2-1 pitching duel. When the Laureates tried to repay the favor, and beat the Carriages 3 out of 4 in London; Virginia Woolf avoided the sweep, out-pitching Thomas Peacock 2-1.  The Carriages (27-21) swept the Florence Banners (25-23) when they first visited London, Andrew Marvell beating Dante 5-0. The second time the Carriages hosted the Banners, they lost 3 out of 4 to de Medici’s club, as Virginia Woolf prevailed over Shelley, 3-2.  That’s the difference between the first three teams.  The Devon Sun would be in last place, except John Ruskin won 5 straight replacing the injured J.S. Mill, Bertrand Russell is 5-1 in relief, and William Wordsworth hit some clutch homers. The Sun are tied with the Pistols, who they beat 23-18 and 27-3 in Berlin; however, the Pistols have beat the Sun 6 out of 8 since then. T.S. Eliot finally began winning (5 straight, 2 shutouts) a cursed Pound was sent to the bullpen, and the Pistols enjoyed a power surge from Ted Hughes, John Quinn, and Alistair Crowley.

Standings

Carriages Queen Victoria 27-21
Laureates Nahum Tate 25-23
Banners de Medici 25-23
Pistols Eva Braun 22-26
The Sun PM John Russell 22-26

WINS

Andrew Marvell, Carriages 7-2
Percy Shelley, Banners 7-4

Jonathan Swift, Laureates 6-1
William James, Pistols 6-2

John Ruskin, Sun 5-1
Leonardo da Vinci, Banners 5-2
Virgil, Banners 5-4
Virginia Woolf, Carriages 5-6
T.S. Eliot, Pistols 5-7

Santayana, Pistols 4-4
Samuel Johnson, Laureates 4-4
Dante, Banners 4-5
Emerson, Sun 4-6

Relief

Bertrand Russell, Sun 5-1
Livy, Laureates 5-1

SOCIETY DIVISION

The Boston Secrets have 10 wins in relief, while starters Plato and Pushkin have excelled; starters Poe and Moliere have been disappointing, and the Secrets haven’t exactly knocked the cover off the ball, but defense, and coming out on top in close contests, find Ben Franklin’s team solidly in first. No other team in the Society Division is playing over .500—the Connecticut Actors (24-24) are relying on Byron (6-0 in his last 8 starts) Chaucer (3 shutouts), and Thomas Nashe (12 home runs) and not much else. The Manhattan War need Shakespeare to pitch better, but he has won 5 games, and has been out-dueled a couple of times; he’ll be fine. Stephen Crane is the only one really hitting for the War. Philip Sidney (4 home runs) has been playing hurt (foot).  The Fairfield (Connecticut) Animals are tied with the War, and scoring runs is even more of a problem for them—Wallace Stevens, their clean-up hitter, has only 5 home runs. Seamus Heaney, their leader, has 8. P.T. Barnum’s club is scoring enough for Amy Lowell—she has one of the best records in the league. Herman Melville has been a study in futility, however. He’s 1-9. The Virginia Strangers are losing close games; Lovecraft is not scaring anyone in relief; Camus is 2-8; Pope, their ace, is 5-4. Rimbaud, Rabelais, and Roethke are providing pop. Manager Bram Stoker is talking to Luis Bunuel and Jean-Luc Godard about helping the Strangers bullpen.

Standings

The Secrets Ben Franklin 29-19
The Actors Harvey Weinstein 24-24
The War J.P. Morgan 23-25
The Animals P.T. Barnum 23-25
The Strangers David Lynch 21-27

WINS

Plato, Secrets 8-3

Amy Lowell, Animals 7-1

Walter Scott, War 6-2
Byron, Actors 6-3
Remarque, War 6-4
Verne, Animals 6-5

Pushkin, Secrets 5-1
Chaucer, Actors 5-3
Pope, Strangers 5-4
Nietzsche, Strangers 5-4
Shakespeare, War 5-4

Petronius, Actors 4-3
Hume, War 4-6

Relief

Lovecraft, Strangers 4-1
Shirley Jackson, Animals 4-1

PEOPLES DIVISION

The Kolkata Cobras were not happy when Tulsidas agreed to play right field with Lorenzo de Medici’s Ceilings, but the Cobras have done just fine without him, depending heavily on the 20th century and English. Ramavtar Sarma and Acharya Shivapujan Sahay were just added to the bullpen, to help Kabir Das, Nissim Ezekiel, Krishnamurti, Faiz A. Faiz, and Raja Rao, as manager Rupi Kaur and pitching coach V.S. Naipal struggle to find the right combination there. Herman Hesse is 3-5 as the fourth starter, but Rumi, Tagore, and Gandhi are a combined 21-7.  Javed Akhtar, Vikram Seth, George Harrison, and Anand Thakore have combined for 145 RBIs, while Samar Sen and Allen Ginsberg have scored 55 times at the top of the order. The Beijing Waves, in second place, are 17-7 at home, with Lao Tzu as a starter and Confucius in relief, their top hurlers. Khomeini in the bullpen, and Voltaire and Rousseau as starters, have been big disappointments. Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, Engles, and Lu Xun are in the mix in relief. Jack Dorsey, the Waves manager, is at his wit’s end trying to find pitching for Chairman Mao’s team. Li Po, Tu Fu, and Karl Marx are hitting well in the middle of the order, but they need more from Brecht, Li He, and Neruda. The Santa Barbara Laws are playing much better away from home than the Waves, and are tied with them for second place, as John Donne and Thomas Hardy lead the Laws in homers. The good news for the 25-23 Laws is the recent performance of 3 of their starters—Aristotle, Francis Bacon, and Oliver Wendell Holmes are all 4-1 in their last 6 starts. Quintilian has been added to help Mark Van Doren in relief. The Tokyo Mist and the LA Gamers are the current bottom feeders in the Peoples Division. Yukio Mishima (6-4, 2.10 ERA)  has been a pleasant surprise for the Mist, filling in for the injured Heraclitus as the no. 3 starter, and has certainly earned a spot on the team. Basho and Issa as starters, Kobe Abe and D.T. Suzuki in relief, have not been good. John Lennon, Hilda Doolittle, and Yoko Ono are not hitting in Tokyo, as the Mist have a terrible home record.  The Mist are 4-12 against the Waves, but are playing .500 against everyone else. The Gamers are 1-7 against the Cobras. James Tate has started to win, but Derrida is 0-4 in his last 4 starts, and Democritus replaced the injured E.E. Cummings only to go 1-4. Lewis Carroll, the Gamers ace, has contributed to the slide, not able to win in his last 4 starts. Ionesco leads the Gamers with 11 homers. Manager Bob Hope is talking to both Woody Allen and Muhammad Ali about joining the bullpen. Merv Griffin is also trying to woo W.H. Auden away from Napoleon’s Codes in the Emperor Division. Auden, critically esteemed, yet a champion of Light Verse, would be an ideal fit for the Gamers.  But Auden is leading his division in homers and seems to love playing in Corsica, so that move is doubtful.

Standings

The Cobras, Satyajit Ray 29-19
The Waves, Chairman Mao 25-23
The Laws, Dick Wolf 25-23
The Mist, Kurosawa 20-28
The Gamers, Merv Griffin 19-29

WINS

J. Rumi, Cobras 7-1
R. Tagore, Cobras 7-3
M. Gandhi, Cobras 7-3

Lao Tzu, Waves 6-2
Yukio Mishima, Mist 6-4
Lucretius, Waves 6-4

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, Laws 5-2
Yone Noguchi, Mist 5-3
Lewis Carroll, Gamers 5-5
James Tate, Gamers 5-5
Francis Bacon, Laws 5-6

Relief wins

Confucius, Waves 6-2

MODERN DIVISION

The Chicago Buyers have the best record in the whole league, even as Freud has stopped winning and their bullpen has not been effective.  But Freud started out 5-0, and now the other 3 starters have taken over: in their last 6 starts, Whitman is 3-1,  Twain is 4-1, and Paul Engle is 4-1. Elizabeth Bishop has more home runs than anybody (20), plus Dylan Thomas has 14, and Robert Lowell has 10. The Arden Dreamers have cooled after a hot start and now they’re in second place—under .500 and 9 games behind the Buyers. Margaret Atwood and Anais Nin have each won 5 for the Dreamers, but Germaine Greer is 2-6 in relief. Manager Averell Harriman would love Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera to join their bullpen. Talks are underway. Run-scoring is not a problem for the Dreamers. Sharon Olds, Edna Millay, and Louis MacNeice have knocked in 129 runs between them. Bob Dylan (.311 batting average, 9 home runs) finally got hot for the Phoenix Universe, but manager Billy Beane knows they have to make a move, as they are 10 games out of first and not one of their pitchers has been outstanding. Steven Spielberg’s Universe is talking to everyone, including Jack London, Octavio Paz, and MLK Jr. The Manhattan Printers have been playing much better lately. John Updike is their home run leader with 14, and Duchamp and Marjorie Perloff have been on fire—Duchamp is 4-1 and Perloff is 5-0 in their last 7 starts; Stephanie Burt, and Mark Rothko, however, have been dismal; Burt is 0-4 in his last 6 trips to the hill, Rothko has not won in his last 5 outings. That leaves us with the Philadelphia Crash, 13 games out of first.  The only bright spot is Pablo Picasso in relief (7-2). Allen Tate leads them with 8 homers. Walter Pater hasn’t won in 6 starts, John Dewey is 0-1 in his last 4, and their ace, John Crowe Ransom, has yet to notch a win. Manager Giorgio de Chirico and Henri Matisse are doing what they can to keep Ransom’s confidence up. The Crash lost Ransom’s first four starts by one run, and he was tossed for throwing at hitters in one of those close games. Pitchers Clement Greenberg and Roger Fry are said to be close to signing for the last-place Crash.

Standings

The Buyers John D. Rockefeller 32-16
The Dreamers Pamela Harriman 23-25
The Universe Steven Spielberg 22-26
The Printers Andy Warhol 21-27
The Crash A.C. Barnes 19-29

WINS

Paul Engle, Buyers 8-2

Mark Twain, Buyers 7-2

Margaret Atwood, Dreamers 5-3
Anais Nin, Dreamers 5-4
Marjorie Perloff, Printers 5-4
Freud, Buyers 5-4

Walt Whitman, Buyers 4-2
Duchamp, Printers 4-3

Relief Wins

Picasso, Crash 7-2

HOME RUNS  —LEAGUE LEADERS

Elizabeth Bishop, Buyers 20 (Modern Div)

William Yeats, Pistols 16 (Glorious Div)
Charles Dickens, Laureates 16 (Glorious Div)

James Joyce, Pistols 15

WH Auden Codes 15 (Emperor Div)

Sharon Olds, Dreamers 14
John Updike, Printers 14
Dylan Thomas, Buyers 14

Edna Millay, Dreamers 13
Aristophanes, Printers 13
Louis MacNeice, Dreamers 13
Aphra Behn, Laureates 13
Aeschylus Crusaders 13
Sophocles Goths 13
Anne Bradstreet Crusaders 13
Stephen Crane, War 13 (Society Div)

Victor Hugo Codes 12
Friedrich Schiller, Banners 12
Thomas Nashe, Actors 12
Vikram Seth, Cobras 12 (Peoples Div)
Javed Akhtar, Cobras 12 (Peoples Div)

Heinrich Heine Goths 11
Arthur Rimbaud, Strangers 11
Ionesco, Gamers 11
Li Po, Waves 11

Lord Tennyson, Carriages 10
Ted Hughes, Pistols 10
Emily Dickinson, Secrets 10
George Harrison, Cobras 10
John Donne, Laws 10
Robert Lowell, Buyers 10

Edmund Spenser Ceilings 9
Rilke Broadcasters 9
Robert Burns Broadcasters 9
Robert Browning, Carriages 9
William Wordsworth, Sun 9
Alexandre Dumas, Laureates 9
Thomas Hardy, Laws 9
Karl Marx, Waves 9
Bob Dylan, Universe 9
Juvenal, Universe 9

Tu Fu, Waves 8
John Lennon, Mist 8
Seamus Heaney, Animals 8
Mary Angela Douglas Crusaders 8
Jean Racine Codes 8
Allen Tate, Crash 8
Stephen Spender, Crash 8
Muriel Rukeyser, Dreamers 8
Matthew Arnold Sun 8
Henry Longfellow Carriages 8
GB Shaw Carriages 8

Anne Sexton Broadcasters 7
Robert Frost, Secrets 7
Francois Rabelais, Strangers 7
Theodore Roethke, Strangers 7
Billy Collins, Gamers 7
Thomas Hood, Gamers 7
Anand Thakore, Cobras 7
Hilda Doolitte, Mist 7
Martial, Laws 7
Paul Celan, Universe 7
Kenneth Koch, Printers 7
John Quinn Pistols 7
HG Wells Sun 7
Basil Bunting Sun 7

Woody Guthrie, Secrets 6
Harry Crosby, War 6
Hafiz, Actors 6
Euripides Ceilings 6
Kenneth Rexroth, Buyers 6
Anthony Hecht, Universe 6
Hart Crane, Printers 6
Wole Soyinka Codes 6
JK Rowling Laureates 6
Sara Teasdale Laureates 6
Paul McCartney Carriages 6
Haruki Murakami Mist 6
Sadakichi Hartman Mist 6

Joe Green Gamers 5
Tasso Goths 5
John Paul II Crusaders 5
Holderlin Goths 5
Wallace Stevens Animals 5
Phillis Wheatley Crusaders 5
Jim Morrison Broadcasters 5
Knut Hamsun Strangers 5
Amiri Baraka Actors 5
Gwendolyn Brooks Actors 5
Lawrence Ferlinghetti Animals 5
Boris Pasternak Laureates 5
Christina Rossetti Banners 5
Ben Mazer Banners 5
Alistair Crowley Pistols 5
Sir John Davies Sun 5
Yoko Ono Mist 5
Donald  Davidson Crash 5
Federico Garcia Lorca Printers 5
Robert Penn Warren Buyers 5
John Gould Fletcher Crash 5
Stevie Smith Dreamers 5
Richard Lovelace Dreamers 5
Jack Gilbert Dreamers 5

Maya Angelou Universe 4
Edgar Lee Masters Buyers 4
Duke Ellington Buyers 4
John Crowe Ransom Crash 4
Andre Breton Printers 4
John Ashbery Printers 4
Kalidasa Cobras 4
Donald Hall Laws 4
Ghalib Laureates 4
DG Rossetti Banners 4
Dante Banners 4
Geoffrey Hill Carriages 4
Phillip Sidney War 4
Shakespeare War 4
Derek Walcott Codes 4
William Blake Ceilings 4
Thomas Chatterton Goths 4
de Stael Goths 4
John Milton Ceilings 4
Michelangelo Ceilings 4

Oliver Goldsmith, Laureates 3
John Townsend Trowbridge Laureates 3
Glyn Maxwell, Banners 3
Ford Maddox Ford, Pistols 3
D.H. Lawrence, Pistols 3
Olga Rudge Pistols 3
Filippo Marinetti Pistols 3
Alfred Orage Pistols 3
Margaret Fuller Sun 3
Rudyard Kipling Sun 3
Horace Walpole Sun 3
Carol Ann Duffy Carriages 3
Elizabeth Barrett Carriages 3
Carl Sandburg Secrets 3
Nathaniel Hawthorne Secrets 3
Paul Simon Secrets 3
Robert Graves War 3
Marianne Moore Animals 3
Ovid Animals 3
Jack Spicer Animals 3
Reinhold Neibuhr Crusaders 3
Robert Herrick Goths 3
Callimachus Codes 3
Jules Laforgue Codes 3
Mick Jagger Broadcasters 3
Francois Villon Codes 3
Gottfried Burger Laws 3
Reed Whitmore Laws 3
Jane Kenyon Laws 3
Antonio Machado Laws 3
Ernest Thayer Gamers 3
Noel Coward Gamers 3
Bertolt Brecht Waves 3
Gary Snyder Mist 3
Natsume Soseki Mist 3
Izumi Shikabu Mist 3
Li He Waves 3
Allen Ginsberg Cobras 3
Walt Whitman Buyers 3
Carolyn Forche Dreamers 3
Lou Reed Printers 3
Archilochus Crash 3
WC Williams Crash 3
Chuck Berry Universe 3
Delmore Schwartz Universe 3

Joyce Kilmer Crusaders 2
Saint Ephrem Crusaders 2
James Russell Lowell Ceilings 2
Mina Loy Codes 2
John Clare Codes 2
Vladimir Nabokov Broadcasters 2
Giacomo Leopardi Broadcasters 2
Gregory Corso Broadcasters 2
Edgar Poe Secrets 2
Cole Porter Secrets 2
Wilfred Owen War 2
Apollinaire War 2
Alan Seeger War 2
T.E. Hulme War 2
James Dickey War 2
Robinson Jeffers Animals 2
Mary Shelley Strangers 2
Marilyn Hacker Actors 2
David Bowie Actors 2
Lucille Clifton Actors 2
Rod McKuen Laureates 2
Van Morrison Laureates 2
Thomas Wyatt Banners 2
Stefan George Banners 2
Thomas Moore Banners 2
Guido Cavalcanti Banners 2
John Keats Banners 2
T.S. Eliot Pistols 2
Gertrude Stein Pistols 2
Carl Jung Pistols 2
Dorothy Shakespeare Pistols 2
Ralph Waldo Emerson Sun 2
Marilyn Chin Sun 2
Joy Harjo Sun 2
Joseph Addison Sun 2
Richard Steele Sun 2
Philip Larkin Carriages 2
Sylvia Plath Carriages 2
Simone de Beauvoir Dreamers 2
Jorie Graham Buyers 2
Marcel Duchamp  Printers 2
Larry Levis Universe 2
Christopher Isherwood Printers 2
Stanley Kunitz Crash 2
Franz Werfel Crash 2
Galway Kinnell Universe 2
James Baldwin Printers 2

Scarriet Poetry Baseball Reporting

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TWO-WAY MIRROR: POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS OF B.S.M. MURTY

June 19, 2020 at 2:50 pm (B.S.M. Murty, Dharmveer Bharati, Kedarnath Singh, Nalin Vilochan Sharma, Ram Gopal Sharma, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Suryakant Tripathi, Two-Way Mirror, Vagishwari Prakashan)

Two-Way Mirror
Author: B.S.M. Murty
Publisher: Vagishwari Prakashan
2020

The poem is, for some, what we need to hear—but don’t want to hear.

The poem pours morals all over us.

But forgive me. As a critic, I’ve already ruined everything, defining morals as some vague, liquid, cure-all which we don’t want.

This poem by B.S.M. Murty, the third poem in his just published, elegant book, Two Way Mirror, demonstrates how not to ruin everything:

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a blessing
A divine Benediction
That only comes to a heart
Cleansed by true Repentance

True Forgiveness comes
Not from incontrite solicitation
But from earning it the hard way
Through sustained Repentance

It will only enter into a heart
Purified by overflowing Lovingkindness

The poem is the best device for admonishment and punishment—it comes from the wise, but we receive it alone, and anonymously, so our pride is intact; the punishment costs little, and the admonishment is over in a few moments, and, far from the clutter and confusion and ego of life, it gives us a simple truth.

As a critic, we pass over “Forgiveness” in silence; “Forgiveness” has no image, no rhyme; we cannot say anything about it. Why should we? To the poet, to the readers, and to the truth of the poem, we would only look like a fool.

There are some poems which cannot be reviewed.

Most poets don’t dare admonish the reader.

Here’s what most ingratiating poets do. You all know them. They say: Let me flatter the reader and tell them what they want to hear: that I am a rogue, exactly like them; oh and here’s a story for them anyone might tell at night after a few drinks. You’ve read countless poems like this, and if read aloud in public, this kind of poem always gets a burst of relieved laughter and applause.

B.S.M Murty is not such a poet.

B.S.M Murty is a student of Edgar Allan Poe.

Beauty—impersonal beauty—is the flip side of Murty’s truth which does not flatter.

This is also from Two-Way Mirror. They are the first lines we meet in the book:

You cannot have the aura alone.
A bright clear smile must be
On a soft-swaying anemone
In the heart of a darkening sea.

These lines, from “The Aura,” are more beautiful than what most poets write—you know these poets, the poets who never tell a truth or a moral, but laugh and confuse us, or, like those Instagram flatterers, say: if there is a truth, it is only you, reader, and only what you feel.

You will never get easy advice from B.S.M. Murty.

In our deep pride, we would turn away, If someone, in person, were to tell us to be a better person.

So the reader hopes the poem will be the medium to anonymously and delicately impart what he or she will otherwise be too proud to hear.

And if there is beauty also, we have two reasons to celebrate.

We are happy to report that this double splendor is accessible in the work of B.S.M. Murty.

But now, in “The Pitcher,” we have a third type of poem. Once the poet establishes himself in the first two—moral poetry and poetry which is beautiful—the muse may grant him a completely different kind of poem, which uses a voice, seeking answers among his fellows:

I am an earthen pitcher
Lying in a pitcher-maker’s backyard.
As I look around, I find many pitchers
Lying around me, some of them
Have their necks broken.
Others appear misshapen.
Hardly any are perfect in shape.

I get worried about myself:
Am I all well made?
Free from all defects?
Round and sound in shape?
How can I see myself?
They are all looking at me?
Am I in good shape?
Is nothing wrong with me?
How do I know?
Who can tell me?
Only the pitcher maker perhaps.

In the social arena, among his peers, the wise poet loses confidence, asking a host of questions.

But the wisdom is not absent, as we see in the sly modesty of the last line: “Only the pitcher maker perhaps.”

Questions do not indicate a lack of wisdom; questioning is the default setting of any gathering; no one can read minds; no one, no matter how wise, is not given to wondering (“How can I see myself”). The good individual and the healthy society are full of questions.

And so B.S.M. Murty, the wise poet, triumphs in the third type of poem.

How many types of poems are there?

We can’t forget the ‘immersion’ poem, which transports the reader to a familiar, yet strange place, enfolding one in the atmosphere of a reality one can taste—and the mere words of the poet have put you there.

We find examples of this kind of poetry in Two-Way Mirror, as well:

The Jetty

Dusk sat
At the dark stairs of death.
The jetty lay still
In the black tranquility.
The sound of wing-flap
Amid the leaves unquivering
Three dogs dancing blackly
Vanishing and reappearing
Unbarking.

The path from the Temple
Led it to the Pavilion of Death
Where a ray of prayer
Lay prostrate begging for
Love and life.
Beneath the porch
Behind the library
Once upon a time not so dark
In the harsh glare
Of a 100 watt electric bulb
It was torn
To be torn again
And again ad infinitum.

“The Jetty” takes the reader into the abyss pleasantly. Anything a reviewer might say about “The Jetty’s” “black tranquility” and “sound of wing-flap” would not do this poem justice; this reader can only stand in silence before this higher order of poetry.

We get many kinds of poems in Two-Way Mirror, including happy hymns to the gods, and this poem, whose philosophy is so white-hot, pure, and rare, we wonder whether this may not be the burning flame in the mind of the poet which creates all his poems:

‘Isnotness’

My presence is in my absence;
In my being, my cessation.
I am because I am not.
I am not because I am.
All you know, you don’t know.
You only see what you don’t see,
Hear what is not audible,
Touch what is ephemeral,
Smell only the deja vu.

I am untruth
The whole untruth,
And nothing but the untruth.

Yes, I am all, I’m everything.
Because I am nothing at all.

Whoever says there is no God
Knows not, because God Is;
Because his ‘isnotness’
Is impossible to prove,
Because what you don’t see
Or believe, also Is.

The invisible
The inaudible
The untouchable
Is the whole reality.

This poem almost scorches us with its philosophy; we shut the door on its boiler room heat.

But there are many rooms in Two-Way Mirror.  Some are loud and small; some are wide and airy.

Have I forgotten to tell you there are also first-person poems in which the poet experiences life in hope and whimsy?

In “Ganapati,” the poet has anguishing writer’s block—and the elephant deity comes to his rescue, surprising him by stroking the poet’s back with his trunk.

And there are poems where wisdom is applied to contemporary social matters.

Technology today
Is like an all-enveloping smog
Creating a choking pollution
That it seeks to wipe out
But which is slowly
Strangling itself.

We get illusions of the common folk, and hints of Marxism.

B.S.M. Murty moves from philosophical priest, to kindly father, to humble poet, to religious devotee, to political priest, surprisingly quickly.

We don’t find rancor and irritation in Two-Way Mirror. We don’t say this to praise Murty for being nice.  Some of the greatest poets were full of hate. The major poets know all the emotions, and put every emotion with a mood and every mood with a thought and every thought with a poem.

Two-Way Mirror is that unusual book where the author (in fulfilling the prophecy of the title of his book) is looking at you as you look at him.

As soon as you think he is one thing, he is another.  You think you see him, but you do not.

There is no escape from B.S.M Murty.

Aesthetically, this is a good thing, even if it may cause a bit of social discomfort.

Murty often comes across as a kindly professor, but this is not even close to all that he is.

In “Patriotism On Sleeves!” he sings the praises of the salt of the earth of India, but before that, he puts things in perspective:

Is a Cinema Hall—nowadays in Multiplexes—
the fittest place to make it mandatory
for the big-money viewers to stand up
in respect as the National Anthem
plays on for fifty four seconds
before the film show begins?
(The film will have plenty of noisy
hip-swinging, lovey-doveying,
and comical fighting to absurdity.)
Will that be OK there?

Yes—why not, because all
the nouveau riche in our society,
spending their thousands over tickets
for their family & friends,
assemble there only
to while away their time
munching vigorously
on peppered popcorns
or swilling with slurps
their cans of Coke—
they are the people enjoying fruits
of their ill-begotten wealth,
living off the misery and poverty
of the common people

Perspective, perspective.  Murty understands perspective. He has prepared the ground—and now when he praises the patriotism of the poor, wearing patriotism “on their sleeves,” even as India’s poor do not have “sleeves” because they can’t afford them, well now you’ve got a poem.

In finding things we like, we are afraid we will end up quoting the whole book.

If you want love poetry, there are few love poems as passionate as the following:

My Old Love

I took her in my arms, my old Love
Now withered and shriveled
Her bones brittle, coming unstuck
Her spine bent with decrepitude
Scarcely breathing, almost senseless
Dead in my arms? I wondered awhile
And put my ear on her once-charming
Unheaving, perspiring bosom

It felt snowy cold and motionless
She had left me alas, alone and forlorn
I fell into a swoon. She was gone.
Was she to be wrapped in a shroud
Laid down into a wooden coffin
Down into a grave to be dug

All my ocular nerves were awash with tears
Ringing with a melancholy music
The final moment of bodily separation was come
She had to be buried into earth
‘Dust thou art, to dust returnest’
Said the poet singing his psalm

But my soul cried, she was a mummy
Let her remain a mummy

Rather than bury her to be eaten by worms
Keep her by your bedside, on a hallowed shelf
Drape her in her bridal clothes
And let her be a memento mori
For she will then outlive you
Lying on that shelf of eternal memory
To be remembered even while
You are forgotten.

This harrowing song of self-effacement smashes love even as it builds it; it is hyper-Romanticism before Romanticism is even born.

“My Old Love” is more melancholy than even the masterpieces of medieval German melancholy.

Poems like this guarantee B.S.M. Murty’s immortality.

Two-Way Mirror may also be seen as a deck of prophetic playing cards—not prophecy, exactly; truths which are true forever; look at this startling poem:

The Mask

Who are these people
Who surround me
At this late hour
With their faces masked

In weird grimaces
Ogling with green, glinting eyes
Their bat-ears protruding wide
Swaddled under their dark cloaks

In their hairy nakedness
I seem to know them
Each one of them
At one point of time

Beyond the present
In the labyrinths of the past
I have often seen them
Lurking in dark alleys

Peering into half-shut windows
Mumbling cabbalistic syllables
Scratching their pubes
Spitting out venom

Singed by their own flames
Of pride, envy and hatred
Burning to ashes
To nothing.

“The Mask” glows with the metallurgic fury of Dante.

And look at this poem.

We know there are millions of sports metaphors.

Here’s the best one, perhaps; from Murty’s “The Football; a humbling observation which really does sum up life:

Football is a game
Where the football
Runs always faster
Than the footballer […]

Two-Way Mirror finishes with this stanza, as the plain-speaking, melancholy, lynx-eyed, theme rings its knell.

The grateful, wise, but obedient, poet bids us adieu:

[…]

You’re my will-power.
The more you stay with me
The more power I’ll have
To fight the darkening despair
Which keeps surrounding
Me terribly.

The humane, selfless, and gracious professor returns, at page 100, giving us a long (65 pages) encore performance—notable Hindi poems translated into English.

The translations have the same high quality as Murty’s poems, and feature a sensual masterpiece by Suryakant Tripathi (“The Joohi Bud”); the lovely “Seadusk” by Nalin Vilochan Sharma; “The Boatman” and “The Etcher,” revealing the singular genius of Nalin’s father, Ram Gopal Sharma; political poems by Dharmveer Bharati and Ramdhari Singh Dinkar; and many poems by Kedarnath Singh, evoking his uncanny wisdom—the spookiness of simplicity, symbolic and uncanny, using material from simple nature, including the entrancing “Tiger Poems;” translations by Murty of nine poets in all.

The notes which follow the translations are informative and interesting.

Two-Way Mirror by B.S.M. Murty is a wise, holy—and literary—treasure.

~~~

Salem, MA 6/19/20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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VERBS NOT ADJECTIVES

June 18, 2020 at 10:54 pm (Scarriet Editors)

10 Famous Self Portraits That Changed the Face of Art | Widewalls

Verbs, not adjectives,

Some coming right out of the computer screen,

Your friends texting you, bills arriving,

Family concerns and work appointments,

Your ambitious friends no longer friends

As photographed scenes come to life,

Mocking you, the stag, the ram, in each mirrored hall.

Some of the verbs too passive to seem like verbs at all.

You were the smart one, but as you think, in your room,

You notice something happening. No one wants you.

You try, you try every adjective, you cry.

Adjectives grow. You’re one of them.

They describe you in crude terms

Because once you showed up wearing the wrong thing.

The flat note, the low note, the utterance,

The key change. Alone, but not in front of them, you sing.

 

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YOU WERE MENTIONED

June 17, 2020 at 8:11 pm (Scarriet Editors)

Reading and Art: Jonathan Janson

Now that I can almost touch you,

All of us sitting on a sea

Of electronic communication

In our lonely boats, I realize how we love

Is everything, not who we love.

The adulterer is tender

To his mistress, not because

Of who she is; he doesn’t love

His wife, and this is how he loves:

He hates his wife; how is this love?

His hate is what the mistress feels as love.

Two ideas came together at once;

The truth flashed upon me: how it is done,

Not her, not you, not the person.

The whole, sorry, truth of love could be a word

Electronically sent—do you think that’s absurd?

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WHEN THIS, MY VERSE

June 16, 2020 at 6:31 pm (Scarriet Editors)

Why Renaissance Paintings Aren't as Green as They Used to Be ...

When this, my verse, turns, and comes to its end,

You will be in my arms again.

I wish I could be as simple and as dear

As this verse you are reading here.

If any man could be something else, and still be

Himself, I wish it were this poetry,

Which touches you subtly.

What goes into someone as deeply as light into the eye?

Yet the writer of this is distant and shy.

I would be conveniently everything to you,

Even as I am nothing. Passionate, yet cold,

As young as this moment, but like verse, old;

This, and I, knowing just what to do—

So when this poem turns, and comes to its end,

See? You are in my arms again.

 

 

 

 

 

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YOU CAN’T LOVE ALONE

June 15, 2020 at 5:17 pm (Scarriet Editors)

The Beatles Live At Circus Krone 1966 - YouTube

I think the rock song as a song died in Germany in 1966
But most musicologists disagree.
The lead singer sang, “You can’t love ’em all.”
But what I heard was “you can’t love alone.”
Error is the best thing for creativity.
The Germans were warming up for the Beatles, who were clowning backstage,
At the center of the world. Getting ready for the big fall.
The audience was familiar with Brahms.
Some looked a little bored at the hitting of the toms.
You can’t love alone.
I took a long walk yesterday,
Under an endless sky,
Certain I was in love.

 

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THE ECONOMY

June 14, 2020 at 11:50 am (Scarriet Editors)

Night at the Carnival - RICHARD CLAREMONT (With images ...

Spending money she doesn’t have helps the economy.

Infidelity helps poetry and song.

The economy is getting better.

There has to be something wrong.

I learned to write by myself—

So I’m the economy’s enemy.

I stay at home, murdering the economy—

As I write how the economy

Is acquainted with everything.

She is off somewhere, helping the economy—

Weeping, quietly, so I don’t wake the economy, I sing.

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MR. HYDE HAS MOVED THROUGH THESE ROOMS

June 13, 2020 at 12:05 pm (Scarriet Editors)

How to Manage an Employee with a Jekyll-and-Hyde Personality

Always forgive. Always revise.

We told you: she has two Mr. Hydes.

She will let you love one;

One is slightly smarter than the other—

And that is the one she loves.

The vaccine has Dr. Jekyll in it.

For years, plagues ravaged places

Either too filthy or too clean.

You are always Mr. Hyde

When you witness the clean surfaces in porn.

Mr. Hydes can turn up anywhere.

Beware Mr. Hydes who are intelligent.

Beware enlightened, kind souls who say

The Jekyll-Hyde distinction is a false one;

Beware ones who say Hyde

Is misunderstood. There is no false

Distinction without one.

I’m sorry, my sensitive friend,

The hushed receding of the tide

In the gray morning always reveals Mr. Hyde.

 

 

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HALF THE SEX AND TWICE THE SHAME

June 12, 2020 at 2:54 pm (Scarriet Editors)

42 Amazing Ancient Ruins of the World | The Planet D

More free floating interchangeable connectiveness

Than is possible to perceive

Is the reason for this mess,

The debates on conscience and God,

The significance of aesthetic melancholy,

The laughter when the sheriff attempted to bless

This town which, since he arrived, is exactly the same,

The unfairness of beauty and Wall Street wealth,

The component parts, the poetry, anything you can name,

Defensiveness accelerating

Despite the error involved in every practice;

Kindness can be avoided, but nothing else,

And sure, there’s nothing else to do but blame;

That’s how thought works, that’s God;

You saw the headline didn’t you?

Half the sex, say the experts, and twice the shame.

 

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CEILINGS LEAD THE EMPEROR DIVISION

June 11, 2020 at 3:49 pm (Bach, Baudelaire, Francisco Goya, Francois-Rene Chateaubriand, G.W.F. Hegel, Ludovico Ariosto, Mary Angela Douglas, W.H.Auden)

Francisco de Goya - - Biography

Francisco Goya might be what the Goths are looking for.

The Rome Ceilings of Pope Julius II are doing it with pitching.

Bach, the great Lutheran composer who spent his last years perfecting his Catholic Mass, has been a godsend for The Ceilings in relief: 30 innings, 12 hits, 34 strikeouts, 2 walks, and 2 runs allowed, with a 5-2 record.

John Milton, the famous Puritan poet (his brother was a Catholic) agreed to play for Julius II (“We’re all Christians,” he said as he signed) is 6-4 with a 1.80 ERA. Ariosto, the great Italian renaissance poet, has also been amazing for the Ceilings, with a 7-2 record and a 2.20 ERA.  The Ceilings have allowed just 137 runs in 48 games, the best in the entire league.

Only Lorenzo de Medici’s Banners in the Glorious League is close (139) in allowing the fewest runs.  The Banners, with a starting four of Dante, Shelley, Virgil, and da Vinci, have a modest 25-23 record (John Keats, batting third, only has 2 home runs, and they don’t have much of a bullpen.) The Ceilings send Milton, Dryden, Ariosto and Augustine (Jonathan Swift went to the Laureates at the beginning of May) to the hill as starters, and Bach has made a huge difference in relief. Bach’s success meant Augustine could move from the bullpen to the starting rotation.

Edmund Spenser (9) and Euripides (6) are the leading home run hitters for the Ceilings, atop the Emperor division with a 31-17 record.

Only Rockefeller’s The Buyers, in the Modern division, have a better record, at 32-16.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Codes are in second place, led by Homer and Hegel’s pitching (both 5-3 as starters), and the hitting of W.H. Auden and Victor Hugo.  Auden leads the Emperor division with 15 homers. People are still wondering why the suave modern poet, W.H. Auden, wanted to sign on with Napoleon.  Auden, with a conservative and eccentric streak, still won’t say.  But his bat is speaking loud and clear. “I do hope our pitching improves,” Auden said. “Our boys certainly know how to pitch.”

The Crusaders signed Handel to be “their Bach in relief” but decided to move the composer into the starting rotation and use Bishop George Berkeley as their heavy lifter in relief.  This has worked wonders for Philip of Spain’s club, which has played better than .500 ball since the first month of the season, and find themselves just a game out of second place. Handel is 6-2 and Berkeley has won some extremely close games. St. John of the Cross won three straight starts recently and Thomas Aquinas has been steady, though not brilliant. The Crusaders have some pop in their bats—Anne Bradstreet and Aeschylus have 13 homers each, and Mary Angela Douglas, filling in the for the injured St. Ephrem, has added 8.

The Broadcasters and Goths, the two “strange” teams in the division, are tied for last.  They’ve been inconsistent, but certainly have the stuff to win. Jim Morrison of the Broadcasters missed 20 games, and the reason was anyone’s guess, but when he returned, he homered in 4 consecutive games. None of the Broadcasters’ starters (Leopardi, Ben Jonson, Nabokov) have been horrible, but they’ve been hot and cold, including George Orwell, who has replaced the injured Samuel Coleridge as the no. 4 starter. The signing of Maurice Ravel in relief could be one answer for the Broadcasters; Valery as a reliever hasn’t been that good. And Alfred Hitchcock and Walter Benjamin haven’t really impressed so far, either. Rilke, Bobby Burns, and Ann Sexton have hit well for the Broadcasters and Mick Jagger has 3 homers and 17 stolen bases from the lead off spot.

The Goths know that Goethe (3-4) can do better; Chateaubriand, their no. 2 starter has been great. Wilde and Baudelaire, starters 3 and 4, have been disappointing. “The very nature of winning and losing streaks are flimsy,” Wilde quipped. “Time and work will be kind to our team.” A.W. Schlegel (3-3) and Theo Gautier (1-3) have worked a lot of innings in relief, without much to show for it—newly signed Goya has already made a difference, however. If Goethe pitches like people expect, and Sophocles and Heine continue to hit balls out of the park, look for the Goths to move up.

But who can catch the Ceilings, with their pitching staff of Milton, Dryden, Ariosto, Augustine, and Bach?

Emperor Division Standings

Ceilings Pope Julius II, 31-17
Codes Napoleon Bonaparte 25-23
Crusaders Phillip II of Spain 24-24
Broadcasters Federico Fellini 22-26
Goths Charles X 22-26

WINS

Chateaubriand Goths 7-2
Ariosto Ceilings 7-2

Handel Crusaders 6-2
Milton Ceilings 6-4

Homer Codes 5-3
Hegel Codes 5-3
Nabokov Broadcasters 5-4
Aquinas Crusaders 5-5

Relief

Bach Ceilings 5-2

Bishop Berkeley Crusaders 4-4

Goya Goths 3-0
Kant Codes 3-2
Balzac Codes 3-2
AW Schlegel Goths 3-3

HOME RUNS

W.H. Auden Codes 15

Aeschylus Crusaders 13
Sophocles Goths 13
Anne Bradstreet Crusaders 13

Victor Hugo Codes 12

Heine Goths 11

Edmund Spenser Ceilings 9
Rilke Broadcasters 9
Robert Burns Broadcasters 9

Mary Angela Douglas Crusaders 8
Racine Codes 8

Ann Sexton Broadcasters 7

Euripides Ceilings 6

 

 

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PISTOLS SCRAMBLE BACK—EVEN AS POUND IMPLODES

June 10, 2020 at 1:36 pm (Berlin Pistols, Dante, Devon Sun, Dublin Laureates, Ezra Pound, Florence Banners, John Keats, London Carriages, Shelley, T.S.Eliot, Ted Hughes, William Butler Yeats, William James, William Wordsworth)

William James - Psychology, Pragmatism & Books - Biography

William James, the Nitrous Oxide Philosopher. Savior of the Pistols?

Who really likes Pound’s work?  The crackpot rantings in prose, the so-so verse, occasionally good as robbery.  Forget the politics and the strange, dangerous, hidden, unsavory, life, and the fact that nobodies, for whatever reason, won’t shut up about him, as if every writer who knew Pound needed Pound to tuck them in at night. Who can stand him?

The Berlin Pistols have demoted Pound to the bullpen after his last five starts, in which the Pistols lost 16-11, lost 27-3, won 3-2 (Pound got a no decision) lost 24-7 and lost 22-14.

“We had to stop the bleeding,” Heidegger, the Pistols’ pitching coach, said.  “It was bit embarrassing, but it’s just one of those things. Pound will collect himself, and he will be back. Something like this can happen to anyone.”

But as a team, even as Pound, one of their starters, was self-destructing, the Pistols turned it around.

It began with a 2-0 shutout thrown by William James in the Florence Banners’ home park.

At the time, the Pistols were 5-13.

After playing 17-13 ball in their last 30 games, the Pistols are now 3 games out of second place.

Ted Hughes, James Joyce, and William Butler Yeats are providing the power for Eva Braun’s club.

Ernest Hemingway and Horace Greeley have tried to fill Pound’s starting role, without much success.

Rumor has it the Pistols might give Rufus Griswold a shot.

The Devon Sun and the London Carriages of the Glorious Division both represent the glories of Britain and its Empire, but the Sun is less sunny; Lord Russell, who owns the Sun, was the Prime Minister, in the mid-19th century, in charge of looting the world and destroying the United States; his grandson, Bertrand, stellar out of the bullpen for the Sun, cuckolded the young American, T.S. Eliot.  You get the idea: arrogant, profane, as well as entitled. Wordsworth, the green and sensitive face of Empire, leads the Sun with 9 home runs.

The Sun are fading a bit, but they received a glowing performance by John Ruskin.

Who is Ruskin?  He was an art critic who coined ‘the pathetic fallacy’ was the intellectual founder of the Pre-Raphaelites, was sued for libel by James Whistler, and lost, and as a result, resigned his professorship at Oxford.

Stepping in for the injured John Stuart Mill, Ruskin won 2-1, and then over his next four starts, made history.

Perhaps urged on by his mound opponents’ pitching, Ruskin pitched not one, not two, not three, but four consecutive shutouts for the Sun, and every game was 1-0.

You can’t make this up.

This is why we play Poetry Baseball.

Will the league now sign James Whistler?

Another savior: Jonathan Swift, signed at the beginning of May by the Laureates, to replace Leigh Hunt.

Swift has won 6 of his 8 starts, with a 3.49 ERA, as Dublin is in second place, only 2 games out of first—tied with the Banners of Lorenzo de Medici.

Shelley, da Vinci, Virgil, and Dante are a solid starting core for the Banners, who are 16-8 at home, but only 9-15 on the road. Friedrich Schiller leads the Banners with 12 homers.  John Keats is still in a slump, batting .214 with 2 homers. The Banners were the favorite to win at the start of the season. They will probably need a rejuvenated Keats to put them over the top. “What ails thee, John Keats?” the Banners fans cry.

Andrew Marvell has been a real ace for the first place Carriages, Charlotte Bronte and Charles Lamb have won 6 games in relief, and Tennyson leads Queen Victoria’s team with 10 homers; Robert Browning has 9.

GLORIOUS DIVISION STANDINGS

Carriages Queen Victoria 27-21
Laureates Nahum Tate 25-23
Banners de Medici 25-23
Pistols Eva Braun 22-26
The Sun PM John Russell 22-26

WINS

Andrew Marvell, Carriages 7-2
Percy Shelley, Banners 7-4

Jonathan Swift, Laureates 6-1
William James, Pistols 6-2

John Ruskin, Sun 5-1
Leonardo da Vinci, Banners 5-2
Virgil, Banners 5-4
Emerson, Sun 5-5
Virginia Woolf, Carriages 5-6
T.S. Eliot, Pistols 5-7

Santayana, Pistols 4-4
Samuel Johnson, Laureates 4-4
Dante, Banners 4-5

Relief

Bertrand Russell, Sun 5-1
Livy, Laureates 5-1

Charles Lamb, Carriages 3-0
Charlotte Bronte, Carriages 3-1
Dana Gioia, Laureates 3-2

HOMERS

Yeats, Pistols 16
Dickens, Laureates 16

James Joyce, Pistols 15

Aphra Behn, Laureates 13

Friedrich Schiller, Banners 12

Lord Tennyson, Carriages 10
Ted Hughes, Pistols 10

Robert Browning, Carriages 9
William Wordsworth, Sun 9
Alexandre Dumas, Laureates 9

 

 

 

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SECRETS LEAD THE SOCIETY DIVISION

June 9, 2020 at 1:56 pm (Francis Scott Key, George Washington, Harry Crosby, Harvey Weinstein, Plato, Poetry Baseball, Rabelais, Rimbaud, Stephen Crane, The Secrets, Theodore Roethke, Thomas Nashe)

Plato's Cave by | Danielle MAILLET-VILA | buy art online | artprice

Ben Franklin’s Boston Secrets are winning in a way common throughout history.

The theory is this.

Play .500 ball—win half your games.

Then add one thing.

The 20 game winner.

You take an ordinary, 70-70 club, add a 20-5 pitcher, and now you have a 90-75 pennant winner.

The Secrets are not scoring that many runs.  Their ace, Edgar Poe, is 3-4.  Francis Scott Key is 2-5 in relief.

Enter Plato.  He’s 8-3 with a 1.90 ERA

George Washington, the Secrets manager: “The best things take a long time. Plato’s fruition took a long time. Certainly it could not have come at a better moment. Plato is making this forever. Everybody, and of course, everyone on the team, is very happy.”

Here is a lesson for the haves and the have-nots.

A 10-10 pitcher can be exchanged for another one, ad infinitum. A 10-10 pitcher can strike people out and practices long and hard to become a 10-10 pitcher, or even a hurler with an 8-12 record.

The 20-5 ace will always be paid in the top one percent while he’s good—fair or not.

The 20-5 pitcher has a bit more command, or throws the ball one inch faster.  It doesn’t matter how that slightly better ability exists.

A 20-5 pitcher is worth more than all the 10-10 pitchers in the world.

The Secrets are in first place by 5 games in the Society Division.

Harvey Weinstein’s Actors, at .500 with a 24-24 record, are in second place. Thomas Nashe, the Elizabethan, a brilliant, slightly erotic, brawler of plays and pamphlets, leads the team with 12 homers. Byron, who leads all pitchers with 4 shutouts, is their best pitcher (6-3, 3.05 ERA). Only slightly behind Byron for the Actors is Chaucer, at 5-3, a 3.11 ERA and three shutouts!

J.P. Morgan’s The War and P.T. Barnum’s the Animals are tied for third, only a game behind the Actors. Seamus Heaney of the Animals leads the club with 8 homers, but the team, as a whole, is not hitting (Wallace Stevens, the clean-up hitter, only has 5 homers.) Ovid has been disappointing as the Animals no. 1 starter at 3-5, but he does have 2 shutouts. Amy Lowell has emerged as the ace of the Animals—-she is 7-1 with a 2.44 ERA and a shutout.  Jules Verne of the Animals has won 6, and Shirley Jackson (4-1) keeps winning in relief for P.T. Barnum’s club.

The War’s starting four should scare anybody: Shakespeare (5-4, 4.40 ERA), Walter Scott (6-2, 2.52 ERA), Erich Remarque (6-4, 3.55 ERA), David Hume (4-6, 4.70 ERA). Stephen Crane of the War leads the division with 13 home runs, and Harry Crosby has surprised a few, adding 6 homers and a couple of game-winning hits.

David Lynch’s Strangers are in last. Rimbaud (11), Rabelais (7) and Roethke (7), the “Three Rs,” have slammed 25 homers between them, Mary Shelley and Fernando Pessoa have been getting on base, but the bottom of the order, Verlaine, Kees, and Riding, have not hit a lick. The Animals are averaging barely 3 runs a game. H.P. Lovecraft, 4-1 in relief, has helped the Strangers win some close games. Alexander Pope, their ace, has 5 wins and 2 shutouts, but recently lost 4 straight. Camus has won only 2, pitching well with terrible run support. Nietzsche began the year with his only shutout, then went 1-4 in 8 starts, but has won his last 3 outings.  Samuel Becket (3-6) has pitched much better than his record and got his first shutout of the season in his last start, blanking the Animals 5-0. Bram Stoker, the Strangers’ manager said in measured tones: “I believe in this team. There are still a lot of games to play.”

The Secrets Ben Franklin 29-19
The Actors Harvey Weinstein 24-24
The War J.P. Morgan 23-25
The Animals P.T. Barnum 23-25
The Strangers David Lynch 21-27

WINS

Plato, Secrets 8-3

Amy Lowell, Animals 7-1

Walter Scott, War 6-2
Byron, Actors 6-3
Remarque, War 6-4
Verne, Animals 6-5

Pushkin, Secrets 5-1
Chaucer, Actors 5-3
Pope, Strangers 5-4
Nietzsche, Strangers 5-4
Shakespeare, War 5-4

Petronius, Actors 4-3
Hume, War 4-6

Relief

Lovecraft, Strangers 4-1
Shirley Jackson, Animals 4-1

James Monroe, Secrets 3-1
Thomas Jefferson, Secrets 3-1
Sade, Actors 3-3

HOMERS

Stephen Crane, War 13

Thomas Nashe, Actors 12

Rimbaud, Strangers 11

Emily Dickinson, Secrets 10

Seamus Heaney, Animals 8

Robert Frost, Secrets 7
Rabelais, Strangers 7
Roethke, Strangers 7

Woody Guthrie, Secrets 6
Harry Crosby, War 6
Hafiz, Actors 6

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COBRAS LEAD THE PEOPLES DIVISION

June 8, 2020 at 4:11 pm (Anand Thakore, Beijing Waves, Confucius, Gandhi, George Harrison, Jack Dorsey, Joe Green, John Lennon, Kolkata Cobras, Lao Tzu, Poetry Baseball, Rabindranath Tagore, Rumi, Rupi Kaur, Vikram Seth)

How the U.S. viewed the 1967 Sikkim skirmishes between India and China

The Kolkata Cobras are still talking bullpen.

Manager Rupi Kaur and pitching coach V.S. Naipal, with spiritual advice from Sri Ramakrishna, were seriously thinking of using Mahatma Gandhi in relief.

But Kaur stayed with Gandhi as a starter, and together with Cobra pitchers Rabindranith Tagore and Rumi, Mahatma Gandhi has won 7 games, helping Kolkata to a 29 and 19 record and first place in the Peoples Division.

Dick Wolf’s Laws and Chairman Mao’s Waves have identical records, in second place, 4 games behind the Cobras at 25 and 23.

Herman Hesse (3-5) the fourth starter for the Cobras, has pitched well enough to win seven games, as well.

This is a very impressive starting four:

Rabindranith Tagore 7-3, 2.51 ERA
Rumi 7-1, 4.14 ERA
Gandhi 7-3, 3.21 ERA
Hesse 3-5, 3.49 ERA

The bullpen is still a mess. The Cobras have won some wild games, including a 20-18 contest, in which Faiz A. Faiz  (1-0) was the last man standing on the mound and got the win, and a 10-9 victory in which they trailed 9-4 going into the final frame, Krishnamurti (1-1) pitching badly but earning the win in that one. Raja Rao (1-0) has been signed. Nissim Ezekiel (2-1) and Kabir Das (1-5) have not been giving away too many victories recently. The Cobras are looking to sign more relief pitchers: E.M. Forster, Acharya Shivapujan Sahay, just to name two.

The Cobras offense is led by Vikram Seth and Javed Akhtar, with 12 homers apiece.  George Harrison has added 10 and Anand Thakore has pounded 7.

After about a third of the season, the Cobras are the team to beat in the Peoples Division, with the three top starters and the two top home run hitters.

“This is a very spiritual team. We don’t care if we win, so we win,” George Harrison said.  The rest of the Cobras would not comment.

The Tokyo Mist need more consistency from their first two starters—Basho (3-3) has not won in his last 5 starts; Issa (4-7) has won once in his last 7 starts. Kobe Abe and D.T. Suzuki have been shaky in relief. John Lennon leads the Mist with 8 homers.

The Beijing Waves are in striking distance of the Cobras and have been lifted with the addition of Confucius to their bullpen, but they need better starting pitching from their Western imports, Voltaire (4-4) and Rousseau (1-5). “We are the team to beat,” Waves’ manager Jack Dorsey insisted, “gosh, look at our mix: Confucius, Lao Tzu, Karl Marx, Voltaire, Rousseau, Brecht, Li Po!”

The Santa Barbara Laws, tied with the Waves, need more from their top 3 starters: Aristotle (4-5), Francis Bacon (5-6), and Horace (3-6), but Donne, Hardy, and Martial are hitting pretty well, and Aristotle, Bacon, and Horace have good stuff, so don’t count the Laws out. Yvor Winters went to the bullpen to make way for Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, who is 4-1 in his last 6 starts, including a shutout.  Quintilian has been added to the relief staff, with mixed results.

Merv Griffin’s LA Gamers must be worried about starting pitchers E.E.Cummings (2-3) and Derrida (1-7), though Cummings has pitched better than his record. Derrida is capable of frustrating hitters; right now he’s frustrating himself with control problems. Ionesco has been crushing the ball lately, Joe Green has belted five homers from the 8th spot in the lineup and is playing a mean third base, but Billy Collins, Noel Coward, John Betjeman, and Thomas Hood need to hit more, and their fielding has been sloppy. “We need to enjoy ourselves. We’re watching the score too much,” manager Bob Hope said, in a rare somber mood, “it has to be more about feelings and less about numbers.”

Here’s the Peoples Division standings:

The Cobras, Satyajit Ray 29-19
The Waves, Chairman Mao 25-23
The Laws, Dick Wolf 25-23
The Mist, Kurosawa 20-28
The Gamers, Merv Griffin 19-29

WINS

J. Rumi, Cobras 7-1
R. Tagore, Cobras 7-3
M. Gandhi, Cobras 7-3

Lao Tzu, Waves 6-2
Yukio Mishima, Mist 6-4
Lucretius, Waves 6-4

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, Laws 5-2
Yone Noguchi, Mist 5-3
Lewis Carroll, Gamers 5-5
James Tate, Gamers 5-5
Francis Bacon, Laws 5-6

Relief wins

Confucius, Waves 6-2

Mark Van Doren, Laws 4-1

Menander, Gamers 3-2

HOMERS

Vikram Seth, Cobras 12
Javed Akhtar, Cobras 12

Ionesco, Gamers 11
Li Po, Waves 11

George Harrison, Cobras 10
John Donne, Laws 10

Thomas Hardy, Laws 9
Karl Marx, Waves 9

Tu Fu, Waves 8
John Lennon, Mist 8

Billy Collins, Gamers 7
Thomas Hood, Gamers 7
Anand Thakore, Cobras 7
Hilda Doolitte, Mist 7
Martial, Laws 7

 

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BUYERS LEAD THE MODERN DIVISION

June 7, 2020 at 1:44 pm (Bob Dylan, Elizabeth Bishop, John D Rockeller, Judith Butler, Kenneth Koch, Kenneth Rexroth, Margaret Atwood, Mark Twain, Pamela Harriman, Paul Celan, Paul Engle, Poetry Baseball, Robert Lowell, Robert Penn Warren, Sigmund Freud, Stephen Spender, Walt Whitman)

Biography: John D. Rockefeller, Senior | American Experience ...

John D. Rockefeller, owner of the Chicago Buyers, knew what he wanted.

A good starting pitching staff built on iconic confidence and swagger.  A savvy manager who understands what it takes to win. A bullpen by committee.  A starting lineup of respectable, accessible poets.  No fancy theory. No avant-garde. No messy, melancholy, romanticism. No light verse. No children’s lit goofiness.

So far it’s paid off, as the Chicago Buyers and their manager, Charles Darwin, lead the Modern Division with a 32 and 16 record.

They’ve already opened up a 9 game lead on the second place Dreamers, Pamela Harriman’s club which began fast behind pitcher Margaret Atwood, but has faltered.

The Buyers’ success can be summed up in four words: Whitman, Freud, Twain, Engle.

Walt Whitman 4-2,  2.79 ERA
Sigmund Freud 5-4, 3.32 ERA
Mark Twain 7-2, 3.18 ERA
Paul Engle 8-2, 2.88 ERA

Paul Engle is the no. 4 starter!  And look at him!

Helen Vendler and Judith Butler have each won 3 games in relief.

Elizabeth Bishop (2b) has been the offensive surprise for the Buyers, clobbering 20 homers!

She likes playing with shortstop Robert Lowell, who has contributed 10 dingers.

Dylan Thomas has hit 14 homers, Kenneth Rexroth has 6, Robert Penn Warren has 5, and Duke Ellington and Edgar Lee Masters each have 4.

With Thomas at third, Lowell at short, Bishop at second, and Masters at first—that’s 48 homers from the infield!

Whatever the Buyers are selling, people are buying—whether it’s Whitman’s holy extravagance, Freud’s naked symbolism, Twain’s gilded era wit, or Paul Engle’s Cold War Writing entrepreneurship—these starting four, together with Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, and Dylan Thomas’ hitting, seems real enough to carry this team to a Poetry Baseball title. When asked to confirm, manager Charles Darwin merely looked up from his beard and ponderously mumbled a barely discernible assent.

Here’s a snapshot of the Modern Division:

The Buyers John D. Rockefeller 32-16
The Dreamers Pamela Harriman 23-25
The Universe Steven Spielberg 22-26
The Printers Andy Warhol 21-27
The Crash A.C. Barnes 19-29

WINS

Paul Engle, Buyers 8-2

Mark Twain, Buyers 7-2

Margaret Atwood, Dreamers 5-3
Anais Nin, Dreamers 5-4
Marjorie Perloff, Printers 5-4
Freud, Buyers 5-4

Walt Whitman, Buyers 4-2
Duchamp, Printers 4-3

Relief Wins

Picasso, Crash 7-2

F.O. Matthiessen, Printers 3-0
Hilton Kramer, Printers 3-1
Judith Butler, Buyers 3-1
Vendler, Buyers 3-2
Foucault, Universe 3-2

HOMERS

Elizabeth Bishop, Buyers 20

Sharon Olds, Dreamers 14
John Updike, Printers 14
Dylan Thomas, Buyers 14

Edna Millay, Dreamers 13
Aristophanes, Printers 13
Louis MacNeice, Dreamers 13

Robert Lowell, Buyers 10

Bob Dylan, Universe 9
Juvenal, Universe 9

Allen Tate, Crash 8
Stephen Spender, Crash 8
Muriel Rukeyser, Dreamers 8

Paul Celan, Universe 7
Kenneth Koch, Printers 7

Kenneth Rexroth, Buyers 6
Anthony Hecht, Universe 6
Hart Crane, Printers 6

 

Scarriet Poetry Baseball reporting

 

 

 

 

 

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IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO LOVE

June 6, 2020 at 1:34 pm (Scarriet Editors)

How Thomas Cole Founded the Hudson River School - Artsy

She tried to be romantic for awhile.

She did. I received her smile.

But she was a ghosting, gaslighting cockroach

At heart. She was never clear with me.

In the furry forest she spoke rapidly.

The romantic cannot be cowardly and sly.

She practiced confusion.

The romantic needs a beautiful inward seeing eye.

She wasn’t able to dream in dreams.

She couldn’t be romantic for long.

She retired into darkness, afraid of the sunbeams.

Poor angry devil. The love was mine. And the song.

 

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LIFE IS MOSTLY SLOW

June 5, 2020 at 6:02 pm (Scarriet Editors)

Pilgrimage in Medieval Europe | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of ...

Life is mostly slow. It was slow
When we went to the store. That was because
We had to obey the traffic laws
At intersections and parking lots where everything we know
Is back there, or was back there, and we didn’t know
Everything, so we had to drive slow,
And in the store the shopping list had a tendency to grow
Against the bank account we didn’t know
Was there, as much as it was last week,
When I was arguing with you and then I couldn’t speak.
It all happened so fast
After life was slow,
The fast fast at last.

 

 

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THE POEM THAT RHYMES SOMETIMES

June 2, 2020 at 7:09 pm (Scarriet Editors)

Tips to Understanding Renaissance Paintings

The poem that rhymes sometimes

First made its appearance in Rome

Centuries ago,

And surprised everyone because everyone

Thought: why had no one thought of this before?

It usually involves what is less, or more,

What is predicted and therefore not ridiculous,

Or explained, and therefore ridiculous,

Because how to explain how it all began?

Asking who created God insults God,

And this is where the question of obedience began.

The atheist, in spite of himself,

Brings himself to ask God questions

To prove God doesn’t exist,

And almost triumphs in the interview,

Only to find, in despair, that God is a lawyer.

The long argument of God triumphs before a jury of our peers, at last.

No one said proof.

There was dying.

There was love

Deep in the recent past.

 

 

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