Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm.
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ‘gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.
—Ezra Pound, Ancient Music
Bitter cold this morning, -1º when I went out the door at 4:30 and most likely still dropping. Though it is crystal clear and razor sharp dry, it reminds me of the poem above from Ezra Pound. It’s the kind of cold that inspires swearing, especially in early December when the memory of the milder temperatures of autumn are still fresh in my mind. You expect this kind of cold in February but in December it feels like an ambush.
I looked for a painting of mine that fit Pound’s words and cadence, but his hard chops and ire don’t show up much in my work, at least in recent times. So, I focused on the ancient part of the poem and chose the piece above, Dusk of Time, which is in a way about the connection of all times. The same cold that drove Pound to swearing when he wrote it, and myself this morning, is that same bitter cold that probably caused the ancients to utter a profanity or two. This painting is not so much about the cold as it is about how our experiences of this world, in the end, are little different than those who lived hundreds and thousands of years before.
Cold is cold. Dark is dark. Alone is alone.
Then and now.
I thought someone might have put Pound’s verse to music but only a single composer wrote a piece of music and it is not recorded anywhere as far as I can see. Pound’s verse has a kind of Kurt Weill rhythm that reminds me of some Tom Waits music. Here’s a song, God’s Away on Business, that feels like it would work with Pound’s words or in a Kurt Weill Threepenny Opera-type piece. It’s got that bite and spit, just right for swearing away the cold.
Redtree Times 