Sherry Chandler

It’s Dylan Thomas’s birthday and that has reminded me that one of the things that got lost in the great crash was my link to the Chelsea Hotel blog, Living with Legends. It was at the Chelsea that Thomas lost his rage against the dying of the light.

And of course that other Dylan claims, in Sara, to have been

Stayin’ up for days in the Chelsea Hotel,
Writin’ “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” for you.

The blog is written by a displaced Kentuckian, Ed Hamilton, and his wife Debbie Martin. It has been featured in the NYTimes [PDF file]. Another displaced Kentuckian, Ben Lucien Berman, lived at the hotel for years.

So drop by once in a while and see what’s going on in Bohemian New York. We have ties.

And if you want to raise a Black Russian to Mr. Thomas, you can hear him read the world’s most famous villanelle here at the American Academy of Poets.

Sam Martin recently went on a Mountain Top Removal Tour in West Virginia. He sends this observation:

Well, I’m back from the WV MTR tour. I didn’t realize the extent of the destruction. It’s very sad, a bone-marrow, ancestral sadness. Grandparents can’t take their grandkids on hikes when they get big enough because the mountains aren’t there. Memories without places to rest. …The memories of the children will be the smell of diesel exhaust and the whispering of Mom and Dad at the kitchen table late at night.

To which I can only add “No sh*t, Calhoun.”

Thanks, Sam.

A Child’s Nightmare

Through long nursery nights he stood
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
Purring in my haunted ear
That same hideous nightmare thing,
Talking, as he lapped my blood,
In a voice cruel and flat,
Saying for ever, “Cat! … Cat! … Cat!…”

That one word was all he said,
That one word through all my sleep,
In monotonous mock despair.
Nonsense may be light as air,
But there’s Nonsense that can keep
Horror bristling round the head,
When a voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, “Cat! … Cat! … Cat!…”

He had faded, he was gone
Years ago with Nursery Land,
When he leapt on me again
From the clank of a night train,
Overpowered me foot and head,
Lapped my blood, while on and on
The old voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, “Cat! … Cat! … Cat!…”

Morphia drowsed, again I lay
In a crater by High Wood:
He was there with straddling legs,
Staring eyes as big as eggs,
Purring as he lapped my blood,
His black bulk darkening the day,
With a voice cruel and flat,
“Cat! … Cat! … Cat! … Cat!…” he said, “Cat! … Cat!…”

When I’m shot through heart and head,
And there’s no choice but to die,
The last word I’ll hear, no doubt,
Won’t be “Charge!” or “Bomb them out!”
Nor the stretcher-bearer’s cry,
“Let that body be, he’s dead!”
But a voice cruel and flat
Saying for ever, “Cat! … Cat! … Cat!”

– Robert Graves