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.
What was it that his literary
descendants, guys like Jack Kerouac who I swear had Villon blood in him, guys
like Alan Ginsberg who sang holy, holy, holy to the new age except he cried out
in vain to dreaded Molochs, called those who listened to their own drummers,
listened to the winds beyond the towns, beyond the cities, listened to the
forest men, the men who earlier in their lives lived in towns and cities? Oh yeah, “holy goofs.” Not goofs like you
would call some guy walking down the street looking down and he hits his head
on a telephone pole because he wasn’t watching where he was going. No, our holy
goof, I think Kerouac used that term to describe, or rather used that term as
one of the ways to describe mad man fellow traveler Dean Moriarty, and hence
the model Neal Cassady as well, to his Sal Paradise in On The Road. A guy who is for the moment, an existential be-bop
guy, a guy who knows the score, knows right from wrong even, knows it better
than you and me, and says “what the fuck,” says you know, I know, and so let
the mystery be, let the cloistered intellectuals in their sullen monasteries
poring over the number of angel that can fit on the head of a needle sulk while
he worked on the angles, looked for dough, dames and dope. See, I swear Villon
from his hidden grave sent down to posterity the model for the holy goof, and
these other guys picked it out of the fog-bound air.
Sweet word man Villon articulate in
a hoary dark world when gangster warlord and unsavory princes vied with each
for land, for wealth, for some fair maiden’s favors. And let’s not beat about
the bush it wasn’t for some silly scarf just off the boats from faraway China
or the Japan Seas but for a tussle in some off-hand hayloft, some milady’s
boudoir, some back room tavern straw bed. Read what you want into that but some
buck jack was taking his right of first night, well, before the first night.
But heroic buck jacks sometimes could speak no lady’s words, could not utter
the thoughts in an otherwise black heart and so old Villon had a space to
breath, had words to tell of loves truths, or what milady would go to the downy
billows for. And for his services for he was a man of the city, a man of the
back alleys, a man who consorted with the rabble, a con man and a wordsmith in
his own right and so every once in a while a bored milady would stop her
quilling, stop her needlepoint and show the old curmudgeon her downy billows
for just one word of the night, for the sound of those moans that no child
should know before his or her time.
Of course a guy who liked to walk on
the wild side, who was organically incapable of saying a straight thing if for
no other reason than self-preservation would have many a back room tavern wench
taking him around the world (yes, they, the wenches, and their procurers, knew all
about “taking a guy around the world” like that little sexual trick was invented
by Master and Johnson or something). And on a normal night, maybe after stealing
some gold from a merchant’s back room, maybe pilfering some goods just off the boat
from the Japan seas, maybe after waylaying some drunken sot for his ready bag
of cash that would be good enough, would sate his sexual desire. But once every
dark moonless night, maybe feeling a little put upon by his wretched place in
the world he would seek the high life, “go uptown” as they said in their own
way among the brotherhood.
And here is how it was done. A great
and gratifying scam. Some poor high life guy who made his dough off the Japan
seas or something like that had a lady love who could not be moved except by
words, words of love. And he from rough usage spoke only in twaddle. No sale.
So sweet boy Villon to the rescue. Pretty words at a dime a throw. A few ducats.
But get this that poor roughly used guy would have old boy Villon prate the
words to his love to his love. And sometimes, sometimes when there was a dark, moonless,
night maybe a little sweaty milady would close her virginal eyes and act the
backroom tavern wench and take old brother Villon around the world. See she
knew such arts too. And that roughly sued sot would never be the wiser. Oh sweet
boy Villon teach your arts.
Yes, wanderers, waifs, strangers in
a strange land, sneak thieves in the milady’s heart heated night, those are the
poets I want to read and listen to. And what of it.
R ough
indeed, a hypocrite sweetness,
A mor, like iron on the teeth and harder,
N amed only
to achieve my sure distress,
C harm that’s
murderous, poor heart’s death,
O covert
pride that sends men to ruin,
I mplacable
eyes, won’t true redress
S uccour a
poor man, without crushing?
M uch better
elsewhere to search for
A id: it
would have been more to my honour:
R etreat I
must, and fly with dishonour,
T hough none
else then would have cast a lure.
H elp me,
help me, you greater and lesser!
E nd then?
With not even one blow landing?
Or will
Pity, in line with all I ask here,
Succour a
poor man, without crushing?
That time
will come that will surely wither
Your bright
flower, it will wilt and yellow,
Then if I
can grin, I’ll call on laughter,
But, yet,
that would be foolish though:
You’ll be
pale and ugly: and I’ll be old,
Drink deep
then, while the stream’s still flowing:
And don’t bring
trouble on all men so,
Succour a
poor man, without crushing.
Amorous
Prince, the greatest lover,
I want no
evil that’s of your doing,
But, by God,
all noble hearts must offer
To succour a
poor man, without crushing.
God orders
me to plough, and sow again:
Even for
this end are we come together.
Princess,
listen to this I now maintain:
That my
heart and yours will not dissever:
So much I
presume of you, and claim:
Even for
this end are we come together.
A
forum cosponsored by United for Justice with Peace and Massachusetts Trust Act
Coalition
