What the Quiet Accomplishes By Marshall D. Dury

What the Quiet Accomplishes

By Marshall D. Dury

Marsh.dury@gmail.com

20 Pages



Reviewed by Dennis Daly



This modest chapbook by Marshall Dury chronicles breaths, and whispers, and wordlessness. These are quiet poems, and at their best—haunting. There is a lot of soul-searching going on here in a very literal sense. In Cicatrix (Prelude) the poet considers the nature of memories,



tender the memories,

tender the changes.



a new softness rising in you,

the suppleness of skin, gone.



The body of his lover loses its suppleness as our memories of the past soften and lose their essential tension. As the strength of a mountain can erode, so can our past, which in this poet’s words is a “delicate vessel.” As the poet seems to imply, the past changes with time, becomes set as a story or series of stories, and then changes yet again. Then with time the past collapses into itself losing substance and eventually vanishing.

The poem Being Gift Enough celebrates the sweet breath of life. It seems to argue that life alone is blessing enough and that all of us should stop and take it in. This pantheistic vision is exhilarating with the breath of life literally dancing in one’s heart,



if you breathe it truly.

let it dance in the beautiful mess

of veins and heart





that the night is quiet, is still:

your dog’s soft chirps of dreaming,

your wife’s skin soft love, warm breath of joy,

that these, most any night,

be gift enough to truly know

what a blessing is.



By the way, dogs do really chirp in their sleep, while dreaming. At least my dog does. Good observation.

In Reverie, not only do we dream our life in nearby houses, but as we listen carefully the two realities merge, and the poet and his lover merge,



Where dreams show us what beauty our lives are now,

If we be willing to listen

If we be willing to live the reverie of this life together

Until there is no difference.



Sharing dreams do cement lovers together (even in other people’s houses) like nothing else.

In an unusual poem, entitled For Sylvia Plath’s Audience—The Ones Who Repeatedly Tried To Carve Out The Last Name ‘Hughes’ From Her Headstone, Dury attempts to explain the unexplainable with, I believe, mixed results. The poem is clearly aimed at Plath’s infamous husband, the well- known and accomplished poet, Ted Hughes. Dury mulls the complicated human desire for correcting great mistakes and wonders what a life would be if, by some magic, a destructive flaw could be chiseled out of the story of one’s life, in this case, Plath’s unhappy marriage. These lines show insight and are memorable,



Peeling away cold days

Like we can forget them

By choice. The motionless

Fissure where your chisel

May strip from stone

All that misunderstanding…



The poem entitled Plain upon Plain meditates on the mystery and artistry of writing. An internal geography emerges from the tip of the poet's ball point pen,



… words falling through the funnel of your pen—this ballpoint,

received as a wedding gift. You see:



dewed, silent hills. tall grass,

small twists of morning light..



And,



life held up, hoisted over your heart.

the inner country of your soul unfolds,

plain upon plain…



I think the best poem in the book is the last: On the Failing of Words. A fourteen year old boy seeks communication with his very sick brother. The poet details the limits of art. Sometimes words fall short. It’s one of the flaws in humanity,



because sometimes,

that is all you want.

for your words

simply to be

enough.



And sometimes they just aren’t. Dury nails this poem and a good many others in this surprising chapbook.

JABBERWOCKY

JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)


`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.




"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"


He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.


And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!


One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.


"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.




`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Sonnets

Four Sonnets (1922)
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I love, though for this you riddle me with darts,
And drag me at your chariot till I die, —
Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer of hearts! —
Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie
Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair,
Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr,
Who still am free, unto no querulous care
A fool, and in no temple worshiper!
I, that have bared me to your quiver's fire,
Lifted my face into its puny rain,
Do wreathe you Impotent to Evoke Desire
As you are Powerless to Elicit Pain!
(Now will the god, for blasphemy so brave,
Punish me, surely, with the shaft I crave!)

II
I think I should have loved you presently,-- 10 syllables/ unstressed/stressed
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride, 14 LINES
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,

A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two. Rhyming couplet

III
Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love's self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now:
After the feet of beauty fly my own.
Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you — think not but I would! —
And seek another as I sought you first.
But you are mobile as the veering air,
And all your charms more changeful than the tide,
Wherefore to be inconstant is no care:
I have but to continue at your side.
So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,
I am most faithless when I most am true.

IV
I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far, —
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.