The Hill Gate of Freedom Horn (A First Erudition)

I am in a battle of wits with myself, and I keep winning. So this means, also, that I  keep losing.

Last week, not the week just ended but the one before it, I was traveling, to Austin and back, all as part of my other life, a life as an archivist, specifically one who talks, who cajoles, who calls people to do. I am a speaker, a man of words, so I fly places to make those words for an hour here, a day there, and leave. It is a tiring life, and I've made many trips already this year.

I read while on planes or in airports, and I ended up reading five books, four of them while traveling. During all of this, I thought of myself as a sponge, but not of cellulose, not one that soaks up water, that fills with knowledge. I thought of myself, I always think of myself, as a living sponge: stationary, and the water moves through me. I don't soak up knowledge. Instead, knowledge flows through me.

This is a story of how knowledge flowed through me during a couple of weeks of my life, and of what that flowing made. It is also the story of three books, two of the by L.S. Asekoff and one of them by Gaius Aurelius Catullus, the story of how those books, how the poems within them hit me and how I responded to the pummeling.

It has, yes, occurred to me that my reviews of books are more responses to them, and thus unfair to the books and the authors of same. So I will publicly apologize here to Louis Asekoff for not creating a proper review of his two books of poetry. In memory of these poems let's take a few seconds to hear Louis read his poems (with my friend Anne Gorrick introducing him).


For, you see, I have met Louis, even heard him read, in Kingtson, New York, on February 11th of this year, a day of some kind of loneliness and the anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath (some facts adhere to the contours of the brain). Louis' reading was quiet and steady, filled with words, which I think is good. (Such a reading is the opposite of a reading that is loud and pianoforte, filled with sounds, which is the way I do, and which may be another kind of good.) I bought two of Louis' books from him at the reading, The Gate of Horn and Fredoom Hill, and I was particularly interested in reading the second of these, which is a booklength monolog spoken to an apparent but unidentified (and rarely referred to) other.

Wanting to read Freedom Hill first, I read The Gate of Horn first, so I could read them in chronological order. I read these books mostly while in flight. In The Gate of Horn, I found poems in various shapes, on various topics, but which were stitched together by their ravenous erudition. With lines long and languid, these poems stretched out across the page and out across my mind. One poem opens with the speaker explaining that he (we assume) is a bit off, having just awoken from a dream of words, and that's what these poems are. One after another they unfurled themselves in these long long lines, many reaching more than half-way across the page. These poems had a touch of Ashbery to them, a bit of awkward but benevolent beauty, a reaching across forms of speech, a tendency to accumulate images, words, phrases, epochs. Yet there was something more stable in Louis' poem, something planted, if not altogether firmly, at least somewhat, in a certain point of view. And through all their corsucating vocabulary and imagery, they had a sometimes palpable humanity to them, meaning a sense of a person sitting on the page being a person. As I read, I underlined phrases here and there, found pieces to steal. And I hardly noticed the strange description of the work life of an archivist, or even the reference to serifs in handwriting.

Freedom Hill was something else by something similar. It's lines were even longer, suggesting prose instead of poetry, but their length suggested not a languid reading, but the fast speaking of a hyper-intelligent academic speaking to his acolyte. (Of course, at his reading in Kingston, Louis essentially described this book as a reworking of all the stories a former professor had told him over the years. Listen, and you will see.) The story of this poem is of a literary man, highly educated, talking about his life and loves and losses, and complaining as he does. The character is well formed and changes over time, sometimes dramatically section by section, and he talks and talks and talks, allowing the lowly auditor, the transcriber of the speech, the one who makes the speech possible, to disappear under the words. Even in the face of a seeming one-way stream of words, what we really see and feel are the interruptions, how the speaker who allows himself never to be interrupted still undermines his own speech, every few beats, to move in another direction, how this one-man conversation takes on the peripatetic characteristics of a conversation. It is a remarkable thing to see.

With Asekoff in my blood, I began to consider the poem I would make with a few of his stolen words, but work was busy and I didn't start the poem for a few days.

In the meantime, I found Catullus. Drawn as I am to Catullus' Carmen 101, I thought I'd enjoy reading of book of his poems. I had no idea. Catullus was simply a direct and ferocious lyric poet. Moving from invective to supplication, from ardor to despair, he exhibited the entire range of human emotion and being. His spleen was as big as his heart. I pulled even more lines out of Catullus, because at this point I figured out what kind of poem I would be writing. Over the course of three or four days, I scraped together a poem (27 pages in length) that steals from Catullus (the translated English and the original Latin, steals from Asekoff, and fills itself with Huth, as it talks about the self as poetry, poetry as lover, and rails against, cries of, decries the fact of poetry.

This seemed the right poem for this moment in my life. It is a poem seemingly randomized and specifically structured. It changes its mood tiny section by tiny section. And it bravely hopes for a reader hardy enough to read to the end. The references in this are many, and includes ones no-one will understand.

But that's the most we can hope for poetry, so all will be fine.



 
 
69 Cattails

Carmen 1
Times are bad enough without you lousy poets to make it worse
The wordsand only wordsoh the worst of themyou use
as ifour brains could care to hear you
through
to that plinking end
of every soundof your tinny voices
Wouldyou were already buriedwith catfish and carrots rammed up your holes
something (for once)valuablecoming out of your body

Carmen 2
There is no differentword for
Poem versus Song
“The Ultimate Battle”

Carmina 3
O maiden so modest
O virgin so pure
I am full, flat on my backand my cock’sblasting up and out through my underwear for you
my poetrymy poem

Carmen 4
Up your ass and in your mouthyou stupid, furious, cocksucker poets
What words would you have me use?
asphodel?countrymen?Norfolk?
You are neither man nor beastnor woman eitherbut some calcified bit of poisoned earth
Call me dirt,but remember
that is the soil where life grows
Nothing lives in your polluted dustI walk over when heading nowhere
My poems are filled with the fuckingwords of fucking and life
and they’re as gladas I amthat you rotting corpsessee not the life in them

Carmen 5
Women bleed involuntarily under the moon, and under the sunthey bleed as well
Take this small napkin,fold its cloth into a triangle,and hold it against you whereyou come together inthe scissors of your legs
A wound might weepbut not this sweet centerof youwith the slip for potteryin my hands as a vessel
I take across any sea

Carmen 6
Once that brief light goes out on usthe night is but one long sleep forever
cumnobis semel occidit breuis luxnox est perpetua una dormienda
Once that brief light goes the night is but one long sleepforever
cumnobis semel occidit breuis luxbreuis luxnox est perpetua una dormienda
nox est perpetuanox est perpetua

Carmen 7
a poetis a cheap whore who hustles every holein his bodyevery holein her body
just to feel
just tofeel
justto feel
all these ravenousears uponhim
or her
hymn or hurt
or me

Carmen 8
Though I am worn out with constant pain and sorrow, and no fit company
though I am wornas a small badgeand rememberedin my absence
though I am warm,still, and not quitedead, and rememberedfor forgetting the words to my poems
though I am wearied by constant painand sorrow upon medaily and into the nightand I am not wortheven the company of my words
I take to the comfortof this hard desk(Dear Reader)to write such wordsas you will never read
and even less likelyneed

Carmen 9
non iam illud quaerecontra me ut diligat illa
non iam illud quaerenon iam illud quaere

Carmen 10
“Touch is like bread” “Touch is like breath”“Touch is like breast”
Touch is like beast

Carmen 11
[pershist…

Carmen 12
my every happiness perished to the last with you
perishedto the lastknuckleand bone
last fingerfingering
the lastwriting finger
writingthe lastword

Carmen 13
& acres & acres
surrounded
by acres& acres
of ashberries
floweringflowingerringairing
off

Carmen 14
Why wait, Huth? they ask
Go drop dead right now,they say
YetI rise

Carmen 15
gratias tibi maximas Huthusagit pessimus omnium poeta,tanto pessimus omnium poeta

Carmen 16
What I couldsee in that proleptic lightof tomorrowmorning
What Icould seein mourning
What smallpieces of lightbroken bymy fingers and heldin my palm
and keptso dimI need wordsto see them by

Carmen 17
ut te postremo donarem munere mortismortis mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cineremcinerem
cinerem

Carmen 18
the “lack” in “lilac”the “light” in “flight”the “loss” is “loss”

Carmen 19
The mouth is a wound
wound rounda word that
falls from a mouth
making a word from
the woundthat’s a mouth

Carmen 20
and if I wereto ease my mind of my own deep trouble and darkness
a darknessapproaching night
if I wereto slip my minddown into that darkness
soft and sweet and deep
I might leta poem ripfrom between my legsone so loudand lively
even lovely
that everyonewould stop to listento stare
whether theyloved the poemor poetry itself
yet I lovepoetrymyself
because it isso perfectlyworthless
it cannot changea thing’cept to make it worse


Carmen 21
deprecor illam assidue, uerum dispeream
nisi amo

Carmen 22
You pansy phallus,soft as rabbit’s fur
hard as goosedown,or a nibblesworth ofa sweet little earlobe

just an old man's limp dicktrapped by fraying cobwebs and malign neglect
how will you everhelp me writemy own stupid poems?
what inspiration are you, so soft
that flaccid makesyou hard

Carmen 23
nullberries

Carmen 24
Omy dearsweet poem
all ready for me
looking so isoscelesed and equilateraled
your puckered apricot & indigo
delta
all forme

Carmen 25
I might as well scribble in wind and swift water

Carmen 26
All we do is but
the pale image of what
we dream of doing
Every poemis just
the lostwill
to make  a poem right

Carmen 27
We have been warned against nostalgia
nostalgia for a time when people had something to be nostalgic about
We have been warmedby nostalgia
too
There is something vaguewe remember vaguelyor we touchin a vacant or vagueway
We’re all nightingaled now

Carmen 28
My heart achesemptied
I leave the world unseen

and quite forget
the weariness
for I will fly
on viewless wings
of poesyhere
where there is
no light and I am
half in love
with easeful death

to cease upon
only midnight
opening on the foam
        of perilous seas

Carmen 29
why no woman is willing to spread her legsfor your poems
is becauseevery she is alreadyyour poem
Cuntstruckyou babblebut neverfinish evenone of them
and only thatsaves poetry

Carmen 30
Maybe sometimesome of you will read these words,clumsy as they, and still not mindto lay your hands,to rest your eyesupon them
to lay your softhands tenderly upon,to rest your steadydelicate gaze upon,to releaseyour whispered breath
upon
and then overand then throughand finally beyond
me

Carmen 31
I’m smart enough to see the limits of my brilliance
My bald patecould never lighta ship’s dark passage
So I sailblindly, valiantthrough the dark

Carmen 32
hurt a Huth in love and helusts for youmore, but the less he really cares
huth a hurtand it humsmore for youthan him
if hurt did notexistwe would
neitherwould we

Carmen 33
Momentum ofemptiness
filling emptiness
with momentumof forms
filling immenseforms
with all thisemptiness
Only the blankallows for
the filling-in


Carmen 34
I crossed many to get to this so I could give to silent asheshere with me,to tear us apart,bring these offeringsafter the customsoaked with tearsand forever more.

Carmen 35
Many people and many oceans I have crossedto arrive, my love, here at this grim burialthat I might give this last gift to you for death,to waste a few words for these empty cinders, since earth itself has taken from me your fleshand you are lost wrongly from me again, and ever,still I offer these small words to you in keepingwith the signs and stones we leave upon burialscovered all with a lover’s tears for you to takeas things given in perpetuum, endless farewell.

Carmen 36
Many people I crossed,
at these poor burials,
[to] give you the last
talk (with mute ash),
tore you from me, you
taken from me,
now still anyway this
handed-down gift
soaked with tears
and into forever.

Carmen 37
so muchgets lost in transliteration
that I justtranslate it allinto languages
I’ve neverknown

Carmen 38
Let poetryenjoy herself with cheap lovers
Let herclamp them up between her legs by the hundredsby the hundreds and hundreds
And let her say it’s lovethe only love she’s ever feltwhile one after another she breaks them inside her
she breaksthem inside of her
one by one

Carmen 39
I throw the words
out
to the world
Pigeonswon’t
eatthem
Even pigeonsrefuse
to eatthem

Carmen 40
nulla potest mulier tantum no-one can say that she herselfse dicere amatamso much was lovedquantum a me amataas much as I loved
as muchas I loved this poemas I loved herthis poetry as muchas I loved these wordsas muchas this need for poetryI loved as muchas these words I spokethese words I wrotethese useless wordsI have not yet foundthe time to lose
the time to forget
time toneglect
time to leaveto turn toruins

Carmen 41
don’t tear me away from what I care for even more than my life
yes, even more than my putrid life
don’t tear me
don’t tear meaway from theseformless words
from thesefordless turds
from theseforgeless turnsof phrase
(Take a breath)

Carmen 42
It doesn’t matterwith a poet if you kissthe person’s lips or the ring of the asshole
each as sweet as the otherand from each there slipsthe same sweet poetryheavy with scent
but the cornhole’s got to be better
it has no teethno rotten gumssagging longer thantheir sesquipedalian words
Just avoid that rotten smilespread open and dripping pisslike a mule’s cuntthe body’s own honeypot
and just as uselessas a word
or even morethan one

Carmen 43
dulci dulcius ambrosiaa poet’s fart

Carmen 44
sentence by sentence
it opens up to me
word byword
in comesinto place
I feelthe shudder
the shutterwhen it does

Carmen 45
in uento et rapida scribere oportet aqua

Carmen 46
poetry like mass hysteriahas its advantages
like abandoned buildingsriding on chemical sludge
like a rotted treetumbling ontocrashing through your house
like youlike me

Carmen 47
I am
where one’s cryfound its blue echo in a sky
I am
where one’s tread would runover his head
I am
where one’s viewrises fast only for you

Carmen 48
I curse herwith a vengeanceand I swear
I love her
(oh)

Carmen 49
et tristis animi leuare curas!

Carmen 50
out of which all contradictions flower
I come & come & come
again

Carmen 51
odi et amo
this fucking poem
these fucking words
even after all their fuckingthey cause no joy
they makeno babies
no sense
no one

Carmen 52
so I could finally give you gifts for the deadthe dead
and waste time talking to silent ashes
these ashesthat markmy forehead
(you know what they sayabout children bornon a Wednesday)

Carmen 53
wreck’d & toss’d
the tortillas soak up the mescalwhere the tequila should be
the drinking’s a drainingthe eating’s a coming

Carmen 54
His razor wit guillotined
cut the vein just right
cut the vainjust write
le jet d’eau
mais l’eauc’est le sang
sed in sanguine est aqua
a song so red
sing it steady
just a stream
but a fountain
the flowthe flow
liquid
and ink

Carmen 55
everything pellucid
the conjunction of two
whiter than winter
than wither
still life in white
it is still life
th’erection’s flow
the push and the pulse
the spasms of being
the white cum of self
everything pellucid
everything milky
everything salty
all of this life

Carmen 56
Quid est, Huthe? Quid moraris emori?
My weight is weighted, in favorof moving
you

Carmen 57
Come on, please little,please, my little sweet isthmusof a girl, you deliciouspiece, pleasebe a good girl and let me fold myself around youand slip myself intoyou, so slick and slendera slope inward, so sweet and wet
for you are only words
only the onlywordsI have
only the lonely words  I have to call youto make you
to call youforth

Carmen 58
What rabid purpose guides this stupidity of yoursand throws you so clumsily into my poems?
What mindless phantom of your puny imaginationsets you up for such a fucking pointless battle?
Is it that you just want people to remember you?Is that what you want? To a find fervid & empty fame?
I see, you think taking my love, my poetry, will do it.Maybe I should make you suffer forever within my poems.

Carmen 59
What does it mean to lead this posthumous life?
What does is meanto slip into syllogismsthat never direct?
What doesit ever mean to find yourselflost?
Whatdoes it really meanto writea stupid clucking poemout into the headless empty
we live ever within?

Carmen 60
You know the drill
First, there is smoke & then bells ringinglike Sirens
Then a dank burnt& whispersthrough what used to be
& that little clickas your assholes close
(tight & tense)
& you know it is allcoming back
& harder this time
much much harderthis time

Carmen 61
I’m not asking that she love me back any longerfor I can no longer get any longer myself
I am asking that  she rememberthe singing
the singing there used to be

Carmen 62
into this gorgeousrubble this poemeverything collapsesinto this gorgeousrubble this poem
I can livefor poetryno more

Carmen 63
Seethat it lasts for more than a lifetimeinside you
this poem
that it lastswithout youthat it leaves
itself behind

Carmen 64
But you won’t escapeyou’ll never escapemy poems

Carmen 65
I know the shapes thatmy memories of myself take
how these shapeschange and howthey take the forms of dreams
of beasts long thought dead
(if I were a native parakeetof this same centuryof this same countrywhere I live)
every dreamis an action towards remodeling the worldimage by image intoa contradiction of itself at a microscopicand infinitely continuinglevel
the act of memory beingin this instance the act of forgetting

Carmen 66
Pedicabo ego uos et irrumabo!pedicabo ego uos et irrumabo!

Carmen 67
nam pransus iaceo et satur supinus
pertundo tunicamque palliumque

Carmen 68
Yet who do not want reparations for their childhoods?
Yet
who does not want themyet?

Carmen 69
nouem continuas fututionesnouem continuas fututionesnouem continuas fututionesnouem continuas fututionesnouem continuas fututionesnouem continuas fututionesnouem continuas fututionesnouem continuas fututionesnouem continuas fututiones
thanking you, I remain, in closing (finally,I know),
truly yours, Huth, the lousiest poet of them all,certainly the lousiest poet of them all
______


Asekoff, L.S. Freedom Hill. TriQuarterly Books / Northwestern University Press: [Evanston, Ill.], 2011.

__________. The Gate of Horn. TriQuarterly Books / Northwestern University Press: Evanstone, Ill., 2010

Catullus, Gaius Aurelius. Selected Poems of Catullus. Translated by Clark Sesar. Mason & Lipscomb: New York, 1974.

ecr. l'inf.