Hadrian's Door

 

This photo of a colossal door built by Emperor Hadrian at the Pantheon reminded me of Hadrian's never-ending passion for his dead boyfriend Antinous. So I wrote this new poem about meeting Hadrian's ghost at that giant door.

HADRIAN’S DOOR

by Brett Rutherford

“The oldest door still in use in Rome, Pantheon. Cast in bronze for emperor Hadrian's rebuilding, they date from about 115 AD. Each door is solid bronze seven and a half feet wide & twenty-five feet high, yet so well balanced they can be pushed or pulled open easily by one person.” -- History Addicts

At the Pantheon’s

colossal door,

Hadrian’s ghost pushes.

The shade of Antinous

pulls. A child could move

the hinges, bronze on bronze,

yet ghosts fail even

to raise a single quill

from a single fallen dove.

Here in the Pantheon,

doomed love

of Emperor for favorite

raises no sweat

on a statue’s brow,

just as no creak

of hinge, no slit

of dark to light admits

a passage between

the immortal beloved

and the grieving lover.

What passed through here

at Empire’s height?

Gods of marble, plunder

from barbarian cities,

high banners waving,

the tented float

bearing a captive queen,

triumphs brought in

on the backs of elephants?

Now the world’s largest door

swings in, swings out

for the merest tourist,

one line of force here,

one movement there,

a victory of vectors.

I summon you,

great Caesar’s ghost:

lean your tired arm

upon my shoulder.

Pass through with me—

I push — it yields —

ajar it is,

just wide enough

for the two of us.

Who would not wait

two thousand years

for a passage through

to the azure gaze

of Antinous – Oh!

See him there,
among the crowd:

that silhouette!

None other!

When Poets Keep On Getting Older

 by Brett Rutherford

In youth, you were the debauchee of verse.
You loved, and lost, and suffered
     in order to fill those stanzas
with blood and barbed-wire, grieving
     in heart’s battle-fields. 

Who would have thought
     that you would make it to thirty,
     or forty, or half a century?

Now, you must be a hierophant,
     whose wine is tea, whose lust
must settle for the idea of beauty,
     seizing nothing, yet owning all.

Now, others love, and lacking
     the words, they turn to you,
thumbing the pages of your early errors,
     seeking the fatal phrases
to hurl at those who reject them,

or the lines they will pen,
     — ah! unattributed —
in that cryptic last note
the police will puzzle over.

You write where you are driven.
If here and there, some line
sets off the lover, the serial killer,
composer, or manifesto-vendor;
if someone draws or paints
your doomed or winged narrators,

these things are fine. You radiate
your poems into the cosmos.
Fame is the galloping horse
that flees the steady tread
of the Inquisitor. Your lines
in memory are antidote
to the banished texts, books burned
before the faithful's shaking fists.

Footnotes be damned! Let me live on
in a thousand epigraphs!

Ludwig Tieck's The Wild Huntsman

I have published the famous Wild Huntsman of Burger, as translated by Sir Walter Scott, and I have also adapted a Wild Huntsman poem by Victor Hugo. Here is another retelling of the legend, by German Romantic poet Ludwig Tieck:

The “ Wild Huntsman" of the Harz Mountains was also a cruel and profligate lord , who indulged in his passion for the chase without regard to the crops or even the lives of his vassals, or of the holy days set apart by the Church. He is firmly believed in by the peasant of the Black Forest, and many ballads have been written on this legend. The following is a translation of one of Tieck's poems:

 

THE WILD HUNTSMAN

 

By Ludwig Tieck

 

At the dead of the night the wild huntsman awakes

In the deepest recess of the forest's dark brakes;

He lists to the storm and arises in scorn,

He summons his hounds with his far -sounding horn.

He mounts his black steed; like the lightning they fly,

And sweep the hush'd forest with snort and with cry.

Loud neighs his black courser;  hark! his horn how 'tis swelling;

He chases his comrades, his hounds wildly yelling

Speed along! Speed along! for the race is all ours;

Speed along! Speed along! while the midnight still lowers;

The spirits of darkness will chase him in scorn

Who dreads our wild howl and the shriek of our horn.

Thus yelling and belling they sweep on the wind,

The dread of the pious and reverent mind;

But all who roam gladly in forests at night,

This conflict of spirits will strangely delight.”

 

Unattributed translation, found in: From “Dogs of Legend and Romance.” M.F. O’Malley. Aunt Judy’s Christmas Volume for 1879. Edited by H.K.F. Gatty. 1879. London: George Bell & Son.

Bride of the Vampire

 

by Brett Rutherford

After a ballad by Felix Dahn

Gladly would I, as the other
     dead, my grave in quiet keep;
Yet a curse, a ban eternal
     makes me roam while mortals sleep.

Peaceful in the azure moonbeams
     stand the vaults where others rest,
yet I, beneath my marble tombstone,
     a burning pang within my breast

flow out and up, my dusty pinions
     shaking as they set me free,
over hill and dale to wander,
     unslaked yearnings driving me

to where my tender bride reposes,
     in her dreams of a living lover.
I will hover, bat and shadow,
     lightly falling from above her.

Now my black eyes, forever open
     lock on her closed orbs, lashed shut;
now the candle flickers lower
     as my wing-beat snuffs it out. 

I nearly faint from undead passion,
     yet from here I cannot go.
She must join me ’ere the sunrise
     join me in the realms below!

Well she knows my bite’s destruction.
     Twice have I been here and gone.
In vain, in vain, the others warned her;
     outside they pray, and watch for dawn.

Slowly I feed, and take my pleasure,
     vein to lips, and blood to throat.
Now I press the fatal signet
     upon her breast, Undead,

unblessed, unsoul’d, unmourned,
I carry her off on night’s last zephyr,
so pale, so cold, forever-more.
Only an empty bed discover’d,

a drop of blood upon the floor,
a taper snuff’d, an unread prayer,
the garland of protective herbage,
the crucifix she shunned to wear.

Now hark! Beware! The cock is crowing.
     They are calling out her name!
And though she whispers, “Father! Mother!”
     She is far beyond their finding,

Back into my grave I burrow,
     sliding aside my marble roof.
At sunset, on the hungry morrow,
     side by side we’ll issue forth.

 

 

What Does the Raven Eat Today?

 

by Brett Rutherford

    After a ballad by Kreuznach

Over the parched field one raven flew.
Keen was his eye, but nothing he found.
One comrade comes from the flock to join him.
“My coal-black friend, a word I pray.
What man shall give us our food this day?”

Quoth he: “Beyond the wood in Elfindale,
a lordly feast awaits us all.
Come follow me, to the gallow-tree
where the smell  of blood I keen,
the blood of a hero, once brave and kind.”

“Ah!” cried his friend. “I will alert the host.
Who was the wretched man, and how his fall?” —
“Ask the knight’s falcon, who knew him well,
or ask the grieving charger on which he rode,
or better yet, ask of the wife at home alone

what name shall the tombstone call him.
The hawk speaks now, for he has flown
beyond the hunt and its dainty reward.
The horse now serves the murderer,
who rides and rides to the humble abode

where he will play with his enemy’s child,
and take the woman and lift her up
from weeping widow to his armor’d kiss.
Come, ravens wild! The feast is ours,
another banquet from human-kind!”

 

So I'm A Duck (Ne Súwæk)

 

by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from a Mingo Indian narrative

So, I’m a duck. Get used to it.
Suwaek they call me
when I fly over the houses.
But duck will do. I’m good with that.

You already know
that I talk a lot, quack,
quack, that’s just the way I am.
I can only do things one way.

I talk when flying south;
I talk when coming back:
it’s all the same to you
except the way my bill
is pointing. One quack
is as good as another.

I talk when someone tries
to bring me down with his gun.
I talk to the dog and tell him:
not this time, buster!

Talking got my bill so dull.
No one would mistake
me for a hawk or an eagle.
I cannot rend my dinner,

But akya'tíyú, I am beautiful!

The handsome friend
you’re walking with,
enjoying so much chatter:
it might be me, you know,

talking away in wood-shade,
making you tired from so much
walking. I’ll even make tea
from boneset if your leg hurts,

just to keep our conversation
going, just to keep company
with a fellow talker. It’s almost ten
in the morning, and we have a ways

to go. Just over there,
beyond the fir trees, we might,
if we are lucky, spot some
of the Little People I spoke of.

But wait! A little pond!
Just let me rinse my toes first.
Ah! That’s better. Oh look:
there goes a snipe,
that brown spot, hardly moving!

So nice to see a relative,
though with that beak
as long as a porcupine quill
he’s not much of a talker.

Look over there! Not every day
you see a kingfisher fly down
and do his quack-quatic —
I mean aquatic —

dive-and-catch, then quack —
I mean back — to the treetop
(excuse my stutter). I don’t mean
to repeat myself so much!

I’m more than I’m quacked up
to be, you know. That ocean,
far off and many hills away:
one of us made that, you know.

We stretched it out on a frame,
like a fish, drying. No big deal.
And all those islands
and continents? We made them!

Now I know something
that you do not, since I have flown
all the way over and back,
across the whole ocean —

I’ll bet you didn’t know
that people live there, too!
All upside down and quack-
backwards, but there they are!

You can eat those berries:
the red ones, the blue ones.
Myself, I do not eat them.
You’d better not ask me why.

Let’s walk a little more. From here
on forward the way is smooth
along the lake shore. There!
That’s what I wanted you to see:
a heron! Look at him go,

catching that fish, as big
as my body, with his horned
war-club of a bill, so pleased
with himself he is!

Now aren’t you glad
we took this walk together?

(The original of this narrative, in the Mingo language, contains Mingo words that sound like "quack", so this version attempts to re-create that comic effect.)

Where Do Rutherfords Come From?

Before the 1600s, my Rutherford ancestors vanish across the Scottish border. We came from the "Debatable Lands," a border region where bands of men called "reivers" indiscriminately plundered and killed anyone who had the misfortune to be in their way. Often both England and Scotland ignored the raids, or even encouraged them. It maintained a dangerous no-man's-land between the two countries.


The clan Rutherford of West Teviotdale of the Middle March was among them. Today they would be regarded as serial killers, as they seemed to take great pleasure and pride in their work. The reiver bands ranged from a dozen to as many as 3,000 when incursions were made far beyond the border.


Sir Walter Scott was descended from Rutherfords, and in his first published long poem, "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," (1805) he relates an assassination carried out by "A hot and hardy Rutherford/ whom men called Dickon Draw-the-Sword" (Canto VI, Part VII).


The story of the Reivers and the Debatable Land is outlined here. The ruined towers and fortresses are where my ancestors wreaked havoc.

Border reivers on Wikipedia


This map, which traces the horrific feuds and battles of "The Debatable Lands," shows the original home of the Rutherfords and Robsons, my ancestors. Unfortunately the full map is out of print. But with this most recent bit of research, I now know where we came from back to the 1300s.





The town of Hawick even has an annual festival where the descendants of the fearsome Reivers dress up as borderland marauders. The principal focus of the people of Hawick appears to be RUGBY. The name of the town is pronounced "Hoick." This page traces Hawick back to the 600s (an Angle settlement) and the arrival of the Normans in the 1100s.


About Hawick in Undiscovered Scotland



A tantalizing line from another Reivers page: "In 1598 in an incident, the Scottish Halls and the Rutherfords were allegedly singled out by English officers as two surnames to whom no quarter should be given." King James I, after 1603, set out to eliminate the Debatable Land and drive out all its inhabitants, who were scattered across the border and far and wide. (This is how my Rutherford ancestors wound up in Northumberland.)


Hawick is our ancestral home from the 1300s to 1603. My great grandmother was Annie Robson Rutherford, her Robsons having wound up in Blackblakehope in Northumberland. So the Rutherfords and Robsons were probably intermarrying for hundreds of years.

Another clan site lists Robertus Dominus de Rodyrforde and other even earlier Rutherfords.

Although most of these lines went extinct, there is no doubt that all other Rutherford are offshoots of this Rutherford clan. I do not have the begats and marryings that directly connect the Northumberland Rutherfords of Elsdon, but the history pretty much locks it up. No one was named Rutherford because they thought it was a nice name to be connected to.


This is the Rutherford coat of arms:

 

Now I have another generation back on the marauding, limb-hacking, cattle-thieving clan Rutherford of Teviotdale. Yesterday I posted about Dickon "Draw-the-Sword" Rutherford who is in Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel."


A footnote provides more details about an earlier Reiver, a Rutherford with a plundering band of nine sons:


"The Rutherfords of Hunthill were an ancient race of Border Lairds, whose names occur in history, sometimes as defending the frontier against the English, sometimes as disturbing the peace of their own country. Dickon Draw-the-Sword was son to the ancient warrior, called in tradition the Cock of Hunthill, remarkable for leading into battle nine sons, gallant warriors, all sons of the aged champion.


"Mr. Rutherford, late of New York, in a letter to the editor, soon after these songs were published, quoted, when upwards of eighty years old, a ballad apparently the same with the Raid of the Reidsquare, but which apparently is lost, except the following lines :


"Bauld Rutherford ho was fu' stoat,
With all ha nine sons him about,
He brought the lads of Jedhrught out,
And bauldly fought that day."



Britannicus adds:

*** ***

And to think that I spared my enemies...

I need na' ha' dun that.

Pepper and Salt

by Brett Rutherford

and I was only thinking
about the shakers of salt and pepper
that were standing side by side on a place mat.
I wondered if they had become friends.
— Billy Collins, “You, Reader”

Pepper and salt
are enemies:

chessmen on the place mat,
one black, one white,
forward-left, forward-right
political knights,
or plowing angular,
dissenting bishops
each to his heaven,
his rival to hell —

spill from one, a run
of bad luck;
spill from the other,
a sneezing fit
precipitate
of a heart attack.

Salt is poison
to pepper’s ground:
no gardens grow
in Carthage, sown
with the sea’s bitters;

no papricum in Sodom
where Lot’s wife
stands petrified,
a mineral pillar.

If you are white,
all pepper is black,
a back-of-the-cupboard
kitchen mistress,
safely savored,
country of origin
unasked about,
milled, ground
to ash fineness.

If you are brown,
rainbows of spice
surround you:
cayenne, paprika,
jalapeño, chili,
hot on the tongue,
warm in the belly,
the edge of eros,
lips closing, teeth
bursting peppercorn,
sweat beads
across the forehead,
the supplicating smile,
the liquid eyes’ surrender.

A Chinese chef,
wise in the way of things,
heats Szechuan peppercorns
till aromatic smoke
stings, fries salt
in the pepper’s oil,
grinds all together
as “pepper-flavored salt.”

His yin-yang craft subdues
two rival empires.

But here and now,
on this chrome-formica
dinner table, two
pale glass cylinders
stand separate,
monogrammed,
one “S” — one “P” —
imagine the horror
if P got into the S shaker! —

forever apart,
and no, not even
remotely friends.

Disgrace With A Capitol D

 

A passionate essay written January 9th, with the facts-as-we-know-them about the right-wing lunatic attack on the U.S. Capitol. Pittsburgh writer Jonathan Aryeh Wayne sums up how we got to the catastrophe of January 6th, and profiles a number of the bizarre invaders who wreaked havoc in the Capitol. This is an urgent and angry essay. This free PDF pamphlet was produced the same day the author finished his article. This publication takes The Poet's Press back to its origins in underground newspaper publishing. Please download, read, and share this intense article -- while you still can.

This is the 293rd publication of The Poet's Press. 7 pages.

GO TO DOWNLOAD PAGE

In the Alley

by Brett Rutherford

Somewhere in Union City
on a pot-holed side street
I stumble upon a crime scene.

It is not yet seven. No one
has entered the alleyway
that fronts the auto shop.
No one has seen her, naked,
flattened, it seems, by tires
that crushed her this way
and that. Her toothless mouth
is agape in the permanent “oh”
that must have frozen there
as she knew there’d be no mercy
from the circle of attackers.

The thing her mother told her
never to show to strangers
now greets the pigeons, the clouds,
and the imminent sun-rays.
She is so torn it seems
that dogs, and not a pack of men
had been at her. Her legs
are still apart, her shoes
might be some blocks away.

Running this way at midnight
she would have found no shelter.
The chain-link fence, the ripple
of the closed and corrugated shutters
gave her no place to hide.

They had all the time in the world.
No one would hear her. One by one
they did as they wished with her,
then, lighting one another’s cigars,
they left. The moon watched
and sank, too shamed to speak.

Next week, the men will take
among themselves a collection,
a pay-day self-tax for future pleasure.
Down at the pink-lit adult arcade
they will purchase another
whose toothless mouth will never
refuse them, whose legs
are always open, whose breasts
remind them
of one another’s younger sisters.
There is a place on her back
where you pump the air in.
With luck she might last
an hour in the parking lot,
before she’s done for,

hissing out her last,
late night’s love-doll,
inflatable woman.

 

More Creepy Poems Than You Can Count

 

My huge collection, Whippoorwill Road: The Supernatural Poems, contains all my dark and creepy work up through mid-2019. Like Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," I have expanded this work like a huge ball of string. Vampires, Golems, werewolves, mummies and ghouls abound, as well as many dark things inspired by or about H.P. Lovecraft. This is the ultimate poetic story-book for things to read aloud around the campfire, or to frighten young children into hiding under the covers. The 416-page book is now available as a PDF ebook for just $2.99. And remember, every time a copy of this book is purchased, a demon gets his wings.

Order PDF Ebook

Van Cliburn's Triumphant Rise

One of the greatest recordings of the 20th century. Van Cliburn, back from Russia after winning the Tchaikovsky competition, got a ticker tape parade in New York City. This recording, made in Carnegie Hall with a live audience, shows what all the fuss was about. This tall, imposing young Texan rips into Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto, the Mt. Everest of piano concertos.

 

My First Typewriter

 

When I was in third grade, all I wanted was a typewriter. I was given one for Christmas, but it was a toy. You had to rotate a wheel to each letter and then strike a key. It was a cruel joke.

Sometime around fifth grade, with no prospect of ever seeing a typewriter, a camera, or a bicycle (let alone new shoes or eyeglasses), I saw an ad in the back of a comic book. Shortly thereafter I was going from door to door, taking orders for Christmas cards. I am pretty sure this is how I bought a typewriter.