Elegy for Philip Seymour Hoffman

For Philip Seymour Hoffman, on his death by overdose in Greenwich Village

The pain that held
The arm that rang
The mouth that said
The ace that fell
The eye that read
The chest that could
The lungs that banged
The arm that sprang
The heart that caused
As mean as hard
As hard as that
As heavy as tried
As dismal as can’t
The love that stung
The bit that played

The lungs that clanged
The harm that hammed
The ham that harmed
The charm that gave
The grave that stood
The beckoning vein
The rented digs
The role of blood
The man that held
The hold that failed
The hard that was done
The doing that came late
The work spared
The body bare
The bare bodkin
The barely lit stage
The stained page
The uplate night
The morning haze
The crying shame
The crust of fame
The tip of bone
The broken bread
The street drug cred
The harming head
The heavy as lead
The soul of night
The break of doing
The dawn of crime
The kiss of need
The needing to go
The having to leave
The leaving us
The using it
The hurting lit
Up at night
And back again
The man and his arm
The arm and the man
Cold bathroom tiles
Bare body and the can
The greatness curse
The heavy load
The load of shit
The world heaves
And the missing it
The craving dream
The way off
The way back on
The falling in
The wanting to drown
The dropping crown
The sorry state
The I am so sorry
Letter sent too late
The pain that held
The arm that rang

by Todd Swift, 2014.

Comments

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise...

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Search This Blog