The Poe Underground Highlights

Warwick poet and musician D.K. Mckenzie presents excerpts from his spoken word and music podcast, The Poe Underground, in a Warwick Radio exclusive.

In this episode, hear original music, the poems Sharaku Dreams by John Gould Fletcher and The Casket of Opals (Tenth Opal) by George Parsons Lathrop, and Hemingway City Nights, a reimagining of Ernest Hemingway’s poetry.

Sharaku Dreams

I will scrawl on the walls of the night

Faces.

Leering, sneering, scowling, threatening faces;

Weeping, twisting, yelling, howling faces;

Faces fixed in a contortion between a scream and a laugh,

Meaningless faces.

I will cover the walls of night

With faces,

Till you do not know

If these faces are but masks, or you the masks for them.

Faces too grotesque for laughter,

Faces too shattered by pain for tears,

Faces of such ugliness

That the ugliness grows beauty.

They will haunt you morning, evening.

Burning, burning, ever returning.

Their own infamy creating,

Till you strike at life and hate it,

Burn your soul up so in hating.

I will scrawl on the walls of the night

Faces,

Pitiless,

Flaring,

Staring.

The Casket of Opals (Tenth Opal)

Colors that tremble and perish,

Atoms that follow the law,

You mirror the truth which we cherish,

You mirror the spirit we saw.

Glow of the daybreak tender,

Flushed with an opaline gleam,

And passionate sunset-splendor—

Ye both but embody a dream.

Visions of cloud-hidden glory

Breaking from sources of light

Mimic the mist of life's story.

Mingled of scarlet and white.

Sunset-clouds iridescent,

Opals, and mists of the day,

Are thrilled alike with the crescent

Delight of a deathless ray

Shot through the hesitant trouble

Of particles floating in space,

And touching each wandering bubble

With tints of a rainbowed grace.

So through the veil of emotion

Trembles the light of the truth;

And so may the light of devotion

Glorify life—age and youth.

Sufferings,—pangs that seem cruel,—

These are but atoms adrift:

The light streams through, and a jewel

Is formed for us, Heaven's own gift!

Hemingway City Nights

Night comes with soft and drowsy plumes to darken out the day

To stroke away the flinty glint

Softening out the clay

Before the final hardness comes

Demanding that we stay

It is cool at night on the roofs of the city

The city sweats

Dripping and stark.

Maggots of life crawl in the hot loneliness of the city.

Love curdles in the city

Love sours in the hot whispering from the pavements

Love grows old

Old with the oldness of sidewalks.

It is cool at night on the roofs of the city

Desire and

All the sweet pulsing aches

And gentle hurtings

That were you,

Are gone into the sullen dark.

Now in the night you come unsmiling

To lie with me

A dull, cold, rigid bayonet

On my hot-swollen, throbbing soul.

At night I lay with you and watched the city whirl and spin about

Through the hot, pounding rhythm of the waltz

You swung and whirled with eager, pagan grace

Two sleepy birds in their wicker cages

And I am dancing with the woman of the town

Cover my eyes with your pinions

Dark bird of night

Spread your black wings like a turkey strutting

Drag your strong wings like a cock grouse drumming with scaly claws

Dip with your beak to my lips

But cover my eyes with your pinions

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