I. 11 P.M. Nov. 17 [1967]
By the way, until today I have not written poems. This afternoon I did not go to Dalton. I shut myself in my room and composed one with a dedication: “To my wife.” I’ll mail it separately. As an English major with a solid base on Pinter, I leave the grading to you. You can do anything with it, esp. giving it to the Coll. with the dedication. After all I am 12,000 miles helpless to forbid the Coll. For once you can outmaneuver me from pt. to pt. Here are some random lines: ….”Why do you carelessly spend/Your youthful lipid fire on unsubstantial whim/….Take a visible aim, science/With it, then lay the laws of writing poems.”/Now as this look leans thin like Cassius’ face/….I retreat, without the laws, into the cellar-inn.”]
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II. Where Are The Pompous Days [First Version]
(For my Wife)
Like Brutus’ dagger w/c once was maybe loved
With all the pompousness of a secret pact
Then later, as fancy took a newer interest,
Intact into the ghostly cellar-inn of mind
Was kept with the dead habits of a buried age
“Here time would do the unkingly job,” I said
“Of rusting them quitely back to the elements,”
Like done to that dagger, I wrapped my poems
Simply to vanish them from that previous self
To trail on science.
“Why do you carelessly spend
Your youthful lipid fire on unsubstantial whim
On what consumes, yet leaves you empty-handed
You slide into the same grave that the reckless
Like you dig up. Take a visible aim, science
With it, then lay the laws of writing poems.”
Now as this look leans thin like Casius’ face
Or these hard bones change like ice when steamed
I retreat, without the laws, into the cellar-inn
But it’s dark here, where are the pompous days?
F. G. David
Nov. 17, 1967
E.P.D.:
Until you requested for a poem last Nov. 17, I had not
written one at all. My mind had been preoccupied with the
hardness of physiology and experimenting, my fingers gotten
stiff with manipulating what-leads-to-what. So I had been
hard or crude to the Muses and to fancy’s wandering. But
all along my feeling had been that the Muses would not de-
sert me completely. Would they? On moment of reckon-
ing I find out I miss them. Old habits only go to the background.
fg–
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III. Where Are The Pompous Days [Second Version]
(For my Wife, EPD)
Like Brutus’ dagger w/c once was maybe loved
With all the pompousness of a secret pact,
And later, as fancy took a newer interest,
Was kept with the dead habits of a buried age
Intact into the ghost cellar-inns of brains
‘Here time would do the unkingly job,’ I said
‘Of quickly rusting them back to the elements;’
Like done to that dagger, I wrapped my poems
And just vanish them from that previous self
To trail on science.
‘Why do you carelessly spend
Your youthful lipid fire on unsubstantial whims
On what consumes, yet leaves you empty-handed;
You slide into the same grave that the reckless
Like you note not. Take a visible aim, science
With it lay down the laws of writing poems.’
Now as this look leans thin like Casius’ face
Or the hard bones transform as ice if steamed
I retreat, w/o those laws, into the cellar-inns
‘O here it’s dark, where are the pompous days?’
f.g. david
nov. 17, 1967
‘Thel:
Revising is my bad habit in writing poems.
It is bad as it takes much of my time, and also
it can only begin, not end.
So here, after having just mailed the
first, I now am mailing a new one. Too costly.
-fgdavid