'Beckettia' and "Stirrings Still', by Paul Illidge
I
Live and invent, so Beckett wrote:
We are all born mad, some remain so.
Words, he maintained, are the clothes
Our thoughts wear.
Have you never wondered, he once asked,
What God was doing with himself
Before the creation? Or what the ostrich
Sees in the sand?
Le fond ne change pas, he declared.
Le what? I asked, not knowing the language.
The essential doesn’t change.
That’s how it is on this bitch of an earth.
II
So I said again I thought it was
Hopeless and no good going on,
And she agreed without
Opening her eyes.
I asked her to look at me,
And after a few moments she did,
But her eyes were just slits
Because of the glare.
I bent over her to get them
In the shadow and they opened.
Let me in, I said as we
Continued to drift among
The bulrushes and stuck there.
The way they went down,
Sighing before the bow.
I lay down across her
With my face in her breasts
And my hand on her.
We lay there without moving.
But under us all moved,
And moved us, gently,
Up and down, and from side to side.
III
Live and invent. I have tried.
I must have tried. Invent.
It is not the word. Neither is live.
No matter. I have tried. While within
Me the wild beast of earnestness
Padded up and down, roaring,
Ravening, rending. I have done that.
And all alone, well hidden, played
The clown all alone, hour after hour,
Motionless, often standing spellbound,
Groaning. That’s right, groaning.
I couldn’t play. I turned till I was dizzy,
Clapped my hands, ran, shouted,
Saw myself winning, saw myself
Losing, rejoicing, lamenting.
Then suddenly I threw myself
On the playthings, if there were any,
Or on a child, to change his joy
To howling, or I fled into hiding.
The grownups pursued me, the just
Caught me, beat me, hounded me back
Into the round, the game, the jollity.
For I was already in the toils of
Earnestness. That has been my disease.
I was born grave as others syphilitic.
And gravely I struggled to be grave no
More. To live, to invent.
But at each fresh attempt I lost
My head, fled to my shadows as to
Sanctuary, to his lap who can neither
Live nor suffer the sight of others living.
I say living without knowing what it is.
I tried to live without knowing what
I was trying. Perhaps I have lived after all,
Without knowing. I wonder why I speak
Of all this. Ah, yes, to relieve the tedium.
Live and invent. Live and cause to live.
There is no use indicting words. They are
No shoddier than what they peddle.
IV
Live and invent, old Malone had said.
To pass the time before the finishing up,
The going hence, the pages filled with
What needed to be said to pass the hours.
To tell what became of me, and where I went
In the months and perhaps the years
That followed. But no. For I weary of
These inventions, and others beckon to me.
Though first, in order to blacken a few more
Pages, may I just say I spent some time
At the seaside, without incident.
There are people the sea doesn’t suit,
Who prefer the mountains or the plain.
Personally I felt no worse there
Than anywhere else. Much of my life
Has ebbed away before this shivering
Expanse to the sound of the waves
In storm and calm, and the claws of the surf.
Before, no, more than before, one with,
Spread on the sand, or in a cave. In the sand
I was in my element, letting it trickle
Between my fingers, scooping holes
That I filled in a moment later or
That filled themselves in, flinging it
In the air by handfuls, rolling in it.
And in the cave, lit by the beacons at night,
I knew what to do in order to be no
Worse off than elsewhere. And that my
Land went no further, in one direction
At least, did not displease me. And to feel
There was one direction at least in which
I could go no further, without first getting wet,
Then drowned, was a blessing. For I have
Always said, First learn to walk,
Then you can take swimming lessons.
But don’t imagine my region ended
At the coast, that would be a grave
Mistake. For it was this sea too,
Its reefs and distant islands, and its
Hidden depths. And I too once went
Forth on it in a sort of oar-less skiff,
Paddling with an old bit of driftwood.
And I sometimes wonder if I ever came
Back from that voyage. For if I see myself
Putting to sea, and the long hours
Without landfall, I do not see the return,
The tossing on the breakers, and I do not
Hear the frail keel grating on the shore.
Stirrings Still
We are all born mad. Some remain so.
That is soon said. Let us not waste our time
In idle discourse. Let us do something
While we have the chance. It is not every day
That we are needed. Not personally needed
At such a place, at such a moment of time.
Shall we make the most of it then,
Before it’s too late, in anticipation of some
Tangible return?
We’re not magicians.
We can always try. Persevere in what
We have resolved. Shall we?
I suppose, though it’s past midnight.
I never knew such silence.
The earth might be uninhabited.
Have courage. Be resolute.
The Lord upholdeth all that fall and
Raiseth up all those that be bowed down.
This always provided consolation in
My wandering. From the Psalms.
I would say it to myself while travelling
In the towns, the woods and wilderness,
Tarrying by the sea, sometimes in tears
Before the islands and peninsulas
Where the little yellow lights of man
Lit the night as I crouched on the sand,
In the lee of the cliffs with the smell
Of the seaweed and the wet rock and
The howling of the wind, the waves
Whipping me with foam or sighing
On the beach softly clawing the sand—
And you were happy?
No, I was never quite that, but strangely
Wished the night would never end,
And morning never come when men wake
And say, Let’s go, we’ll soon be dead,
Let’s make the most of it.
II
I am alone in the garden. My mother
In the kitchen making ready for
Afternoon tea with Mrs. Coote.
Making the wafer thin bread and
Sugared butter Mrs. Coote so adores.
From behind a bush I watch Mrs. Coote
Arrive, a small thin sour woman.
She wonders where I am.
My mother answers her saying,
He is playing in the garden.
I climb to near the top of a great fir.
I sit a little listening to all the sounds,
Then throw myself off. The great boughs
Break my fall. The needles.
I lie with my face to the ground.
Climbing the tree again my mother
Answers Mrs. Coote saying, He has been
A very naughty boy.
III
In another dark, or in the same,
Another devising of it all for company.
This at first sight seems clear,
But as the eye dwells it grows obscure.
Indeed the longer the eye dwells
The obscurer it grows. Till the eye
Closes and, freed from sight, the mind
Enquires, What does this mean?
What finally does this mean that
At first sight seemed so clear?
Till it, the mind, closes as it were.
As the window might close in a
Dark, empty room. The single window
Giving on outer dark. Then nothing more.
No. Unhappily no. Pangs of faint light
And stirrings still. Unformulable gropings
Of the mind. Unstillable.
Spiritually a year of profound gloom
And indigence until that memorable
Night in March, at the end of the jetty,
In the howling wind, never to be forgotten,
When suddenly I saw the whole thing.
The vision, at last. This I fancy is what
I have chiefly to record on the final tape,
Against the day when my work will
Be done and perhaps no place left
In my memory, warm or cold,
For the miracle that . . . for the fire
That set it alight.
What I suddenly saw then was this,
That the belief I had been going on all
My life, namely that the dark I have
Always struggled to keep under
Is, in reality, my most unshatterable
Association until the dissolution
Of storm and night with the light
Of understanding, the fire felt with
My face in her breasts and my hand
On her as we lay there without moving.
—Gooseberries, she said. I said again
I thought it was hopeless and no good
Going on, and she agreed without opening
Her eyes. I asked her to look at me
And, after a few moments, she did,
But the eyes just slits because of
The sun’s glare. I bent over to
Get them in the shadow and
They opened. Let me in, I said.
We drifted in among the rushes
And stuck. The way they went down,
Sighing before the bow! I lay down
Across her with my face in her breasts
And my hand on her. We lay there without
Moving. But under us all moved,
And moved us, gently, up and down,
And from side to side.
IV
Past midnight. Never knew such silence.
The earth might be uninhabited.
Perhaps my best years are gone,
When there was a chance of happiness.
But I wouldn’t want them back,
Not with the fire in me now.
No, I wouldn’t want them back . . .
Paul Illidge is currently with an agent seeking a publisher for his innovative mystery project “WHO KILLED TEDDY VILLANOVA?.” His previous books can be viewed at Google and Goodreads.
Photo by Ellie Burgin