TIME AND BEAUTY
It seemed there was an eye against the clouds the light a prism
of the sun setting behind the last great range
spiked hills
wrenched upwards thrust in geologic violence
their time their world
but ours feet stumbling kicking against rock
breathing heavily you realize your body is beginning its farewells
The horses stand in the meadow
their breath steaming in the early light
moisture off their flanks
two old friends are saying goodbye for the last time
one holds the bridle reluctantly as if delay could be permanent
one horse shakes its head mist rises the mountains
hidden
where does it go where does anything go
if by movement
we detect a purpose
or are we like the child with a missing chromosome
endlessly walking into the wall
who will never stop until the sad parent leads her gently away
In Perugino’s painting, Apollo watches Marsyas play
the greatest musician of his age
soon he will be flayed by the god for his presumption
unimaginable agony was it arrogance
or envy
yet even the pain
will be a memory and soon not even that It is something to look forward to
the water will cleanse us as we pass into
first element
a continual reworking re-substance though
we will never see Perugino again
It is difficult to follow beauty being there and then
like a car going by and you standing or better yet walking towards it
faces against the window that you have seen but not known it is difficult
because if you imitate
you digress
they are white those faces
and perhaps there was fear
because we are all speeding towards
what not to beauty that finds its way regardless
impervious to your pleading or else it is found simply as a way
ineffably sweet
unexpected and yet striven towards
an unconscious movement of great effort
White face against a curtain
sleeping in the dawn light
pillows surrounding her dark hair
the covers tossed around her Sometimes
there is nothing restful about sleep
She ascends a stair
turning once to look back
and with a smile while I
standing below watch her
grow small
ascending to where there is no light
In the dimness she is
standing maybe singing softly to herself
no more than a murmur
I like big topics. Granted, they scare me to death, but why would you write poetry otherwise? I am intimidated by those who have gone before and written beautifully. But it is clear that there is need, sometimes even desperate need for a helping hand as we struggle to make meaning out of what seems to be a meaningless world. My models go back to Gilgamesh. Nothing that has been written since is especially new, but all the great ones found themselves struggling with the same issues. The question for me is how do you approach these topics with freshness, and the only answer I’ve ever found is to be true to yourself. Which is extraordinarily difficult. Trying to be different or unique will almost certainly fail. To more or less quote Linda Gregg, there are so many traps and so many look courageous. Or this, from George Oppen: Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the most beautiful thing in the world. My poetry is an attempt to be as clear as possible about what it is to be alive, and to make some kind of sense about it. I do not believe in a random universe. Nor do I believe in any fixed creed. Yeats said something like We embody the truth but cannot know it. Therefore our job, as poets, is to work with all humility and modesty, and the recognition that we can only illuminate a small part, and even then only reach a tiny number of congenial and sensitive souls. And that should be enough. And of course, live a worthy life
according to those principles.Time and Beauty is an effort to take on two of the most perplexing facets of our lives. Personal references, such as being in the desert mountains, or domestic scenes, are mixed with references
to Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (the final part, Der Abschied) and the beautiful, if relatively unknown small painting by Perugino, which used to be, and perhaps still is, hung next to the Mona Lisa, and was difficult to see because of the crowds gathering around the famous painting. The poem proceeds, trying to understand what is impossible to understand, through image and musical movement. There is no period at the end of the poem. I wanted to leave it open-ended.
Bill Mayer was born and raised in Los Angeles. He received his BA and MA from San Francisco State University, studying with Jack Gilbert, Stan Rice, William Dickey and Nanos Valaoritis. In the late ’60s, he was invited to join a poetry workshop with Gilbert, Linda Gregg, Larry Felson, George Stanley, Bill Anderson, Wilbur Wood, and others. The workshop persists to this day with some of its original participants. Paroikia Press has begun a series of books and chapbooks of its members, both past and present ( Larry Felson’s Salt and Silver,and Mayer’s The Deleted Family, are the first in the series) and will publish an anthology of its nearly 40 years of existence.
Mayer has published four books of poetry: Longing, (Pangaea, 1992) The Uncertainty Principle (Omnidawn, 2001), the above mentioned chapbook, The Deleted Family (Paroikia, 2004), and most recently, Articulate Matter (Paroikia, 2012). Poems have also appeared in a number of magazines: Caterpiller, Ironwood, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Montana Gothic, Five Fingers Review, Red Rock Review, Paris Atlantic Poetry Flash, Alimentum, Danse Macabre (an online magazine)and Visions International, among others. He was included in an anthology of American poets who have lived in Greece, Kindled Terraces, edited by Donald Schofield.
A Truce With Fantasy, his 5th book, will be published in the Fall of 2015 by Aldrich Press, Kelsay Books. Grace Schulman, wrote about Articulate Matter: “The best of these poems are transcendent, bringing the sacred into common life. ‘The Arrival of Hermes’ is sublime. Others I find powerful here are ‘The Conversation,’ ‘Frogs on the Border’, ‘Days of 1966, Whittier,’ ‘The Shape of the Soul,’ ‘The Dream.’ I like, too, the tone. This work is genuine.” Joseph Stroud wrote, in his preface, “(Mayer’s) poems are not merely descriptive, they are stepping stones into a renewed world, and they are informed by an intense mindfulness, a shimmering that resonates long after the reading of the poem.”
Mayer has traveled widely, having spent extended time in Vermont, England, Greece, Hawaii, Monterey, Germany, France, Italy, and Austria. He is also a professional photographer, and has exhibited at Mythos Fine Art in Berkeley. He worked with Tony Keppelman on Hummingbirds, a photographic essay published by Little-Brown. He is also an importer of German and Austrian wines.