Edgar Allen Poe: Creeley's Other Country of Origin

Where does Robert Creeley come from--I mean, as a voice? I've known for years his origins in Samuel Beckett tempered by William Carlos Williams. But now I know there is in him, too, the intimate dread of Edgar Allen Poe. However, Poe's terror and claustrophobia have been tempered, via Beckett, to unflinching mindfulness. Creeley's first duty is that of the Cartesian 'I-Am' clinging to the life raft of words in the perfect, ceasless storm of perception. He is admirable in the ruggedness of his observation--drowned already in the consciousness that contains all, but still feeling the self as turret and battered enclosure. The 'I' is the seed of God that refuses to let go and become the full flower called, by dualists, God.

Here is the poem which gave me Creeley's link to Poe--a glorious short story of a lyric called "The World," opened to by chance this morning. In this poem, Creeley sees an apparition of his dead brother-in-law who hovers between him and his wife in the pre-dawn. Intent on visiting his sister, the ghost is forced to see Creeley by the sheer unthwartable will of the circumstance. Creeley has to make a decision to comfort the ghost or his sleeping wife and chooses her. But by doing so, the chimera is somehow set free from whatever need had made it manifest. Once it departs, Creeley's wife awakens and knows what has happened. Let the living haunt the living.

THE WORLD

I wanted so ably
to reassure you, I wanted
the man you took to be me,

to comfort you, and got
up, and went to the window,
pushed back, as you asked me to,

the curtain, to see
the outline of the trees
in the night outside.

The light, love,
the light we felt then,
greyly, was it, that

came in, on us, not
merely my hands or yours,
or a wetness so comfortable,

but in the dark then
as you slept, the grey
figure came so close

and leaned over,
between us, as you
slept, restless, and

my own face had to
see it, and be seen by it,
the man it was, your

grey lost tired bewildered
brother, unused, untaken--
hated by love, and dead,

but not dead, for an
instant, saw me,myself
the intruder, as he was not.

I tried to say, it is
all right, she is
happy, you are no longer

needed. I said,
he is dead, and he
went as you shifted

and woke, at first afraid,
then knowing by my own knowing
what had happened--

and the light then
of the sun coming
for another morning
in the world.

--Robert Creeley, "Words," Scribners, 1967

This is the fifth anniversary of the only holiday that is named after a number: 9-11. I do not trust my memories or any feelings that I have about this hallowed day, especially after reading the following eye-witness poem I wrote within raw, aching proximity to the event. I later lapsed from my own prayer for non-violence by supporting the war in Afghanistan. I was angry at the Taliban's desecration of some huge cave Buddhas and frightened for the future of that country's women. I was wrong to have done so. I should have remained the man I was on the mornings of September 12 and 13, 2001.

I AM NUMBERED AMONG THE NEWLY FALLEN
for Bob Speisman, who died in the Pentagon plane crash

1
I am numbered among the newly fallen,
among those whose lives were finished
yesterday by death or heartbreak
from the same absolute cause
of fire summoned from the sky.

Watching the replays of the wrath
it seems we invited the comets of cruelty
by living lives of excess
and doing nothing more to curb them
than worshipping gods

who are easily angered.

2
They fell to streets crowded with kindness
that no one who gave it could have known existed
until the need to give it was all there was.

Who knew the call to kindness
would be a death trap for so many seized by it?
Who knew earthquakescould come from the sky?

3
When kindness is all there is
it is the will of God
Eden entered
even in the final blazing alleyways of Armageddon
and on the smothering smoke-filled terraces of Pompeii.

4
By nightfall
there were calls to acts
other than kindness
as the living began to dishonor the dead
with curses of the enemy
and pledges to forego forgiveness
if the need to mirror terror
became overpoweringly persuasive.

By nightfall
revenge was in the air
like honeysuckle.

5
Kindness can curdle
at the sight of horror
it is powerless to stop or soften.

Men carrying the dead
can call for more dead
among the people of the killers.

It is the last temptation:
to rescue Christ from the cross
and not want to leave it empty
of any meaning

but service as kindling.

6
We had been feeling
the first breath of autumn
needing blankets at night
as we slept on the cusp
of September chill
while trees unclasped
fugitive leaves in premonition
of October alchemy
which turns green to gold.
Who knew that friends
and fellows would be among
this year's newly fallen?

7
Watching men of virtue
call for volcanic clouds of war
rising along the horizon of Afghanistan
and a magma of warm blood
flowing in the streets of Kabul
I felt the first pangs of life
in a republic of revenge:
contempt for compassion,
the utter disgrace
of thinking the dead
want more than sleep.

8
You know war is in the air
when compassion feels as sinful
as adultery or as wrong as overeating.
You know war is being served for dinner
when your wife chides you for pacifism
you both practised yesterday.
You know war will soon rain down from Asian skies
in answer to no previous prayer
of any friend or loved one
but the wrathful ones
the citizenry uttered
with growing familiarity today.

9
"An eye for an eye
leads only to blindness,"
warns the Buddhist web site.
And the teaching I follow
is too busy shielding me from debris
to order me into any battle
but the one for my soul.

10
Today when revenge
is the hardest substance known to man
I pray that my own lifelong iron will
for peace will never bend
but only appear to do so

like a rainbow.

--David Federman, September 12-13, 2001, Narberth, PA