This poem mentions the
self-immolation of the Buddhist monk, Thích Quảng Đức, on June 11, 1963, in
protest of the escalating war in Vietnam. The images were all over the news and
they shocked the world, and of course it was a sign of things to come. It
remains one of the iconic images of the horrible tragedy of the war there. “The
Secretary of State of War” might be either Robert McNamara, Secretary of
Defense in 1963, or Dean Rusk, Secretary of State. Neither was involved in an
actual sex scandal in 1963, but the reference to winking and screwing a “redhaired
whore” has to be an oblique allusion to “red” Communism and Vietnam, quickly
escalating into the Cold War’s hot outbreak once the dangerous affairs in Cuba had
settled a bit. We’re of course supposed to hate war, right, but perhaps not
every winking adulterer in power does? It brings them more power, and if you’re
also, for example, ex-CEO and still with close ties to a company like
Haliburton, which stands to profit mightily from an engagement, then you stand
to make a lot of profit as well. An excellent use to which your power may be
put! (And by the way, water boarding is merely a form of enhanced
interrogation. Some of these people have an infernal poetical streak themselves.)
Pope John 23 died that week, and his friend and Papal Secretary, Loris
Francesco Capovilla, of course mourned his passing. Abba Pimen, of the Orthodox
Church, said: “A man may seem to be silent, but if his heart is condemning
others, he is babbling ceaselessly. But there may be another who talks from
morning till night and yet he is truly silent, that is, he says nothing that is
not profitable.”
It all fits. There’s the week,
then, second week of June, 1963. I’m sure Walter Cronkite told his viewers, “And
that’s the way it is.” What arises in the
poem is the discrepancy between the arrival of fame, which is supposed to be a
good thing, but in the end might be just as awful as the litany of newsworthy
tragedies listed in the first stanza, because of the underlying recognition
that deep down, you’re not worthy. This is what sours his fame, turning it into
something like the burning monk, a horrifying demonstration, even though you’re
also affable and top-shelf, la-dee-dah. There’s a sour vapor curling from your
affability; the top shelf is glass and it’s cracking. You go get laid, then, feel
bad about it after, keep going.
The quote from Abba Pimen seems
to be assuming that silence is a virtue to be cultivated, though he doesn’t
mean a mere superficial not-talking; It’s rather a deeper, spiritual stillness,
something “profitable.” Does this fit the poet? I think so: The deeply silent
holy person may indeed never shut up. Ideally, that’s the poet, speaking,
speaking through his work. There is a resonant, complex silence that follows
from this Dream Song, like a bronze Tibetan bowl struck once and that shines
forth its tone for a full minute. This one interior moment held aloft in all
its ambiguity: famous, false, fearful, flaming: tragic and magnificent. “Quelle
sad semaine”: What a sad week.
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