Poets’ Corner- The Mad Hatter 15th Century
France’s Francois Villon Whether They Claim Him Or Not
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Once, a long time ago, an old
communist I do not remember which version of the creed he adhered to, although
he had had some impressive documented revolutionary credentials in Germany
before Hitler pulled the hammer down in 1933 and he just barely got out into
American exile by a very long and circuitous route, told me that as far as
culture affairs, you know art, novels, music and what I want to talk about
here, poetry, is basically subject to whatever personal whims a person may have
on these matters. The caveat to all this is that both creators and admirers
should be left to their own devises except if they are actively engaged with
counter-revolutionary activity. Now that I think about it he probably got the
idea from Leon Trotsky himself who wrote about such matters in the 1920s in
books like Literature and Revolution although I am sure that he did not
consider himself a follower of that great revolutionary who was exiled in the
late 1920s.
The point today is that if a
left-wing political activist like myself, say, were very interested in the
poetry of Emily Dickerson or Wallace Stevens or Thomas Mann or Edna Saint
Vincent Millay then what of it. Except those kinds of poets do not “speak” to me.
Poets like Allan Ginsberg burning the pages with his negro streets, his
clamoring against the industrial complex, his angel hipsters, his chanting
against the fate of the best minds of his generation, the gangster-poet Gregory
Corso blazing the hot streets with his words and taking no prisoners, old
Rimbaud with his mad ravings, Verlaine too, Genet with his black soul they
“speak” to me. The troubadours, the “bad boys and girls,” the waifs, the
gangsters, the drifters, grifters and midnight sifters and those who act as
muses for the fallen are what makes me sit up and listen.
And that brings us to Francois Villon, the
“max daddy” of bad boy poets (and brigands) from the 15th century.
Strangely while I have picked up on most of my favorite poets from some
academic setting I learned of Villon from two maybe unusual sources. First from
the 1930s film The Petrified Forest where
the Bette Davis character, Gabby, was crazy for the Villon book of poems sent
from her returned to home mother in France. More importantly the poet and what
he stood for was brought up in the film in conversation with Leslie Howard’s
character Alan who was a Villon-like misplaced out of sorts wanderer out in the
Arizona desert. The other source was a poem by Villon used as a front-piece of
an article by Hunter S. Thompson who used the sentiment expressed by Villon
where he considered himself a stranger in his own country (as did Thompson back
in Nixon times in America).
But back to the muses, back to the
gangsta muses (sorry hip-hop nation for stealing your thunder but your
sing-song lyrics definitely make me think you have drawn from the same well,
the same Villon well, especially guys like Biggie, Tupac, 50 cent, and Brother
Cole, a brother from the same damn “sew those worn-out pants” projects
neighborhood in spirit as me). Old Villon must have gotten tripped up on his
DNA finding the back streets of Paris and later exile spots more attractive
than the court life, the scholar’s. Trouble followed the guy wherever he moved
(granted he had little room to maneuver in those days since he was a city man
and not some outlaw Robin Hood working the old rural pastures and forests). His
poetry speaks of drunken sots, of quick upstairs flights with besotten wenches,
of tavern dark corners to plan, plan the next caper, or the next poem to
explain away his life led.
Who knows what makes a man or woman
a stranger in their own land, an internal exile. Maybe like Villon it was his
dismissal of the vanities of court life, the vacuity of the student life, or
the lure of the outlaw life when bourgeois society (and France in the 15th
century was reaping the beggar’s banquet of bourgeois society) and it took no
Karl Marx to notice that the old ways had to give way to the new city ways with
their gold and death to free spirits, to those who lived outside allegiances.
Maybe like Ginsberg shattered by the smoke of downtown Paterson, maybe
shattered by the hysterical cries of his beloved if discarded mother, maybe
shattered by the square-ness of his father-poet. Maybe like Jean bon Genet born
of some ancient mix of the crime that dared not speak its name and crimes that
had names. Trolling waterfronts looking for rough trade, looking for his lady
of the flowers. Strangers, strangers all looking for some new Algiers, some new
Casablanca, some new city a-borning.
Villon, lord of the sneak away
night, besotted with six wines, drunk with the fragrance of women. Women who
reek of the kingdom’s perfumes and if Hilary Mantel is to be believed over in
bedeviled England all the women worked lilac and lemon tree leaves into their
skin so that guys, guys like Villon ready to seek a lady’s favor could stand to
be within ten feet of them. Reeking of words too, Villon reeking of words that
is, quick words, words with hidden messages, words heard in taverns, on wormy mattresses,
in stinking hayloft barns, unholy holy words that would make men quake if they
had the sense that their God gave them as a gift (or was it the son, the damn
crazed son, Jesus, called bandit), stealthily grabbing whatever was to be
grabbed and the hell with the lord business. Then writing in dark dungeon nights
looking for reprieves from a wretched life.
Beautiful, a beat down brother, no
wonder Alan the wandering homeless out of fashion intellectual in The Petrified Forest claimed him as
kindred, and why he could have walked on steamy late night New York streets and
found kindred among the midnight sifters. Beat, beatified before his time
probably clamoring on some woe begotten trumpet, blowing out big medieval blow notes
to the hard Seine, the hard Norman shores, to all who would listen, Yeah, Saint
Villon, sanctified, man of misrule, man of the hidden cloth, beat, beat about
six ways to Sunday if you believe his resume, if you believe his 15th
century be-bop wail. What did Kerouac, hell, a kindred, a Breton, said-yes,
moan, moan long and hard for man, and Saint Villon grant us some sign, some path
that we might come to rescue you in sotted, sweated dungeons, so that you too
can walk the fetid streets singing, holy, holy, holy.
Yes, wanderers, waifs, strangers in
a strange land, those are the poets I want to read and listen to. And what of
it.
Le Testament: Epitaph et Rondeau
Epitaph
Here there lies, and sleeps in the grave,
One whom Love killed with his scorn,
A poor little scholar in every way,
He was named François Villon.
He never reaped a morsel of corn:
Willed all away, as all men know:
Bed, table, and basket all are gone.
Gallants, now sing his song below:
Rondeau
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