I went to see Linda Bierds last night at Bryn Mawr.  She's an outstanding poet who works in scientific and historical narrative, and (she said) is even inspired by T.V. documentaries, which have been a big source of material for me (particularly on those insomniac nights when I flip on an A&E biography or an E! True Hollywood Story or some other calming, easily digestible infotainment program that often contains some bizzare bit of trivia).  Linda also has a harrowing poem about Zelda Fitzgerald's letters to her husband, which she happened to read last night.  I, too, wrote a poem several years ago about Zelda Fitzgerald, and I think the journal that published it (Black Water Review)  is now out of print.  So here it is again: my modest contribution to the Fitzgerald mythology...

 

Zelda Fitzgerald Dies in a Sanitarium Fire

 

 

Light swells under my door

like a cymbal crash

 

a chain of gold ripples

in the sea near the south of France

 

smiling, sun-stained

holding its breath.

 

This life was much too quick

diamond glint dangling

 

from an ear refracted

through gin and crystal

 

into a perfect green eye.

My death will not be rushed.

 

I will smolder.  Clouds will lift

to let my gray inscription pass.

Wow, I just found myself on Yahoo.  That means that I should probably start posting on my blog.  So it looks like I'm being productive, you know.  Problem is, spring semester is in full swing, and as a perpetual PhD student, I have no life to speak of.  Or, to be more specific, the shape of my life is a plateau of dreadful dullness punctuated by brief bursts of terrible stress.  I've also discovered over the years that no one (apart from other grad students) is interested in listening to a grad student whine.  So in future posts I promise to try to keep the school-related bloviating to a minimum.

 

But for this post, let me just say that Henry the Fourth Part 1 is one wacky play, that Prince Hal is kind of an arrogant asshole and doesn't deserve Falstaff (I mean, Hal picks on the kid who's manning the beer taps--why mock the fact that this boy's life will never amount to a hill of kumquats just because you're the king's son and you're bored?), and I can see why Ben Jonson criticized Shakespeare for his characters' manic verbal spews.  (Oops, did I say that?  Harold Bloom and his cronies will have my head on a pike by sun-up...)  On the other hand, the vulgar name-calling smackdowns that Hal and Falstaff get into are priceless.

 

 

I've finally gotten around to posting some content on my "Creative Work" page.  This includes some old, old poems that have been moldering away in my documents folder, and several pieces that have never made it to the Internets before...