Dusting Off My Starry Pointed Hat--Omen Reading New Murfin Verse

 

Back on September 12, 2007 I noted the serendipitous coming together of Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah on the day after the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.  Today I have to dust off my Starry  Wizard hat.  Tonight, October 21 with a dark  New Moon two comets, R2 SWAN and AC Lemmon, will streak across they sky as the annual Orionid Meteor shower reaches its peak.  And other stuff is going on as well.

 

 

Dusting Off My Starry Pointed Hat

Calendar Coincidences October 21, 2025  

Four Days after new order of things

    was disturbed the rousing of the Folk

    two comets, one expected, one detected,

    one green and one silvery blue 

    will streak through the Moon dark sky

    as Old Orion's belt showers its shooting stars, 

    each vanishing spark once shed by 

    Haley's regular visitor 

    and on puny Earth  diyas of Diwali 

    are lit to greet them all. 

 

Dusting off my starry pointed hat

    I recognize an omen or two

    when I see one.

    King and would be Kings should tremble

    and empty their bowls.

 

But Earth itself and we scurrying creatures

    upon it should feel a chill as well 

    if a resistance doesn't carry on 

    and lamps of every sort 

    flicker and fail.

 

Make of this what you will.

--Patrick Murfin 

 

 

 

Old Obscure Versifier Contemplates Two Great Young Dead Poets

 

Dylan Thomas in a characteristic pose before a bookstore reading.

Some years ago, I noticed that Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath shared a birthday, October 27—1914 in Wales for him, 1932 in Boston for her.  They had little in common except that they wrote poetry—although poetry very different in form, theme, style, and substance—and died young each in a kind of pitiful squalor.  Each had crossed the ocean and passed in the other’s country, a nice cosmic balance.

That year—2011—their common birthday also coincided with a new moon and where I was, at least, a howling storm of darkness.  

Sylvia Plath in a similar venue battling her invisible demons.

You know me.  I am a sucker for cosmic coincidence.  So, I scribbled a poem for the occasion.

Writing poetry about poets, both infinitely more gifted than I, is an act of terminal hubris for which I shall be justly punished.  But here it is anyway.

How Black the Night

 October 26, 2011—New Moon, Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath

 Even the New Moon hides behind the howling clouds. 

Happy Birthday Dylan—

Why did you not

            rage, rage against the dying of the light

            in that pool of your own black vomit

            at the Chelsea?

 

Happy Birthday Sylvia—

The same year, you dewy goddess,

            you emptied the medicine vials

            and crawled under your mother’s porch.

 

Not ships passing in the night,

                    but traversing the same black ocean

                    away from home

                    to something else.

 

Did you find what you were looking for

                    in worship and whiskey,

                    in broken love and madness?

 

As Dylan moldered under Laugharne,

                    Lady Lazarus, you wrote.

                   Dying

   Is an art, like everything else.

   I do it exceptionally well.

 

But laying your head in an oven

             is no art

             and posthumous poems

             no resurrection.

 

How black the night, dead poets,

                    how black the night?

 

          —Patrick Murfin

Two Great Young Dead Poets Contemplated by an Old Obscure One

Dylan Thomas in a characteristic pose before a bookstore reading.

A few years ago, I noticed that Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath shared a birthday, October 27—1914 in Wales for him, 1932 in Boston for her.  They had little in common except that they wrote poetry—although poetry very different in form, theme, style, and substance—and died young each in a kind of pitiful squalor.  Each had crossed the ocean and died in the other’s country, a nice cosmic balance.

That year—2012—their common birthday also coincided with a new moon and where I was, at least, a howling storm of darkness. 

Sylvia Plath in a similar venue battling her invisible demons.

You know me.  I am a sucker for cosmic coincidence.  So, I scribbled a poem for the occasion.

Writing poetry about poets, both infinitely more gifted than I, is an act of terminal hubris for which I shall be justly punished.  But here it is anyway.

 

 

How Black the Night

October 26, 2011—New Moon, Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath

 

Even the New Moon hides behind the howling clouds.

 

Happy Birthday Dylan—

Why did you not

            rage, rage against the dying of the light

            in that pool of your own black vomit

            at the Chelsea?

 

Happy Birthday Sylvia—

The same year, you dewy goddess,

            you emptied the medicine vials

            and crawled under your mother’s porch.

 

Not ships passing in the night,

                    but traversing the same black ocean

                    away from home

                    to something else.

 

Did you find what you were looking for

                    in worship and whiskey,

                    in broken love and madness?

 

As Dylan moldered under Laugharne,

                    Lady Lazarus, you wrote.

                   Dying

   Is an art, like everything else.

   I do it exceptionally well.

 

But laying your head in an oven

             is no art

             and posthumous poems

             no resurrection.

 

How black the night, dead poets,

                    how black the night?

 

—Patrick Murfin

 

Old Obscure Poet Contemplates Two Great Young Dead Ones

Dylan Thomas in a characteristic pose before a bookstore reading.

A few years ago, I noticed that Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath shared a birthday, October 27—1914 in Wales for him, 1932 in Boston for her.  They had little in common except that they wrote poetry—although poetry very different in form, theme, style, and substance—and died young each in a kind of pitiful squalor.  Each had crossed the ocean and died in the other’s country, a nice cosmic balance.

That year—2012—their common birthday also coincided with a new moon and where I was, at least, a howling storm of darkness. 

 

Sylvia Plath in a similar venue battling her invisible demons. 

You know me.  I am a sucker for cosmic coincidence.  So, I scribbled a poem for the occasion.

Writing poetry about poets, both infinitely more gifted than I, is an act of terminal hubris for which I shall be justly punished.  But here it is anyway.

 

 

How Black the Night

October 26, 2011—New Moon, Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath

 

Even the New Moon hides behind the howling clouds.

 

Happy Birthday Dylan—

Why did you not

            rage, rage against the dying of the light

            in that pool of your own black vomit

            at the Chelsea?

 

Happy Birthday Sylvia—

The same year, you dewy goddess,

            you emptied the medicine vials

            and crawled under your mother’s porch.

 

Not ships passing in the night,

                    but traversing the same black ocean

                    away from home

                    to something else.

 

Did you find what you were looking for

                    in worship and whiskey,

                    in broken love and madness?

 

As Dylan moldered under Laugharne,

                    Lady Lazarus, you wrote.

                   Dying

   Is an art, like everything else.

   I do it exceptionally well.

 

But laying your head in an oven

             is no art

             and posthumous poems

             no resurrection.

 

How black the night, dead poets,

                    how black the night?

 

—Patrick Murfin