One Night Stand on Der Zauberberg

[TranquillityBase]

On a road-trip with James in 72
Us in his new Celica, Canada or bust,
I carried Ezra Pound’s Cantos as my talisman,
And in Santa Fe
Found Weiger’s etymological dictionary of Chinese characters
And the talisman was confimred.

We met them in the Uncompaghre wilderness near Ouray,
A group travelling in a van, all males,
But I remember only one,
His head was held in place
By a steel cage, neck and shoulders encased in plaster,
Like a knight in fragile armor.
He’d broken his neck diving off a cliff
And he had a St Bernard as big as a pony,
Who once won the strongest dog in the world contest.

He took us for a terrifying ride
In a jeep without lights
Through the darkness of midnight mountain trails,
And I was laughing hysterically.

As we left their campfire, 
They handed us a paper bag, leftover peyote buttons, 
And probably instructed us, I don’t remember.
I do remember the chewing, the swallowing and the vomiting,
Like eating dried up dinosaur skin,
Then each of us sought our sleeping bags,
And lived a night of separate journeys with mescalito
In the unfamiliar Colorado night.

Next morning we set out drug bedraggled,
Came to a cafe,
And a Botticelli angel bearing an orderpad came to our table.
Both our hearts were lifted to the sky,
Just one more vision bequeathed by those travellers
And a restless bit of cacti.

[Knot]

.
Hi TqB,
happy to go along for the ride, and particularly enjoyed the 'dinosaur skin' but it falls rather flat at the end.
The 'hearts were lifted to the sky' and 'bequeathed' seem out of place.
And I'm not sure you need the third verse at all.

I'd suggest reordering some of the lines. As a for instance

I carried Ezra Pound’s Cantos
as my talisman on a road-trip
with James in 72. Canada or bust,
us in his new Celica.

In Santa Fe I found Weiger’s
Etymological Dictionary of Chinese
Characters. And the talisman
was confirmed.

(Is there a better line than 'And the talisman ...'?
Might you cut it?
It would be nice to get a bit more detail of where N found the dictionary)


As this is basic, I'll leave it there.


Best, Knot


·

[TranquillityBase]

.
Hi TqB,
happy to go along for the ride, and particularly enjoyed the 'dinosaur skin' but it falls rather flat at the end.
The 'hearts were lifted to the sky' and 'bequeathed' seem out of place.
And I'm not sure you need the third verse at all.

I'd suggest reordering some of the lines. As a for instance

I carried Ezra Pound’s Cantos
as my talisman on a road-trip
with James in 72. Canada or bust,
us in his new Celica.

In Santa Fe I found Weiger’s
Etymological Dictionary of Chinese
Characters. And the talisman
was confirmed.

(Is there a better line than 'And the talisman ...'?
Might you cut it?
It would be nice to get a bit more detail of where N found the dictionary)


As this is basic, I'll leave it there.


Best, Knot


·
thanks, Knot

i like your redo of first stanza, but I'm real attached to that third stanza, at least the event, if not those words.

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[quote="TranquillityBase" pid='251491' dateline='1612179747']
[quote="Knot" pid='251480' dateline='1612117740']
.
Hi TqB,
happy to go along for the ride, and particularly enjoyed the 'dinosaur skin' but it falls rather flat at the end.
The 'hearts were lifted to the sky' and 'bequeathed' seem out of place.
And I'm not sure you need the third verse at all.

I'd suggest reordering some of the lines. As a for instance

I carried Ezra Pound’s Cantos
as my talisman on a road-trip
with James in 72. Canada or bust,
us in his new Celica.

In Santa Fe I found Weiger’s
Etymological Dictionary of Chinese
Characters. And the talisman
was confirmed.

(Is there a better line than 'And the talisman ...'?
Might you cut it?
It would be nice to get a bit more detail of where N found the dictionary)


As this is basic, I'll leave it there.


Best, Knot


·
thanks, Knot

i like your redo of first stanza, but I'm real attached to that third verse, at least the event, if not those words.

[Knot]

.

Hi TqB,

with regards to the third verse, if it is an event, make it one. A bit more show and a little less tell there might bring that section to life.

At the moment it's something important to the poet, not to the poem.

At the risk of overstepping, you might edit the second verse so that the focus is on the 'knight' first, and the group (who don't really

seem to play much of a role in the rest of the poem) second. Arguably you could cut all mention of 'them' and their 'van' and simply

add those details to the fourth verse.

Best, Knot

.

[TranquillityBase]

Here's a revision.

Any better?


On a road-trip with James in 72
Us in his new Celica, Canada or bust,
We met a band of travellers
 in the Uncompaghre wilderness near Ouray,
We shared their campfire
And told stories,
But I remember only one of the group:
His head was held in place
By a steel cage, neck and shoulders encased in plaster,
Like a knight in fragile armor.
He’d broken his neck diving off a cliff
And he had a St Bernard as big as a pony,
Who once won the strongest dog in the world contest.

He took us for a terrifying ride
In a jeep without lights
Through the darkness of midnight mountain trails,
And I was laughing hysterically.

As we left their campfire, 
They handed us a paper bag, leftover peyote buttons, 
And probably instructed us, I don’t remember.
I do remember the chewing, the swallowing and the vomiting,
Like eating dried up dinosaur skin,
Then each of us sought our sleeping bags,
And lived a night of separate journeys with mescalito
In the unfamiliar Colorado night.
James was pursued by a woman’s lips in his dreams;
My visions, all lost.

At dawn we set out,
Ready to move on from the Magic Mountain,
Came to a cafe,
And a Botticelli angel bearing an orderpad came to our table.
Both our hearts were lifted out of sleep,
One last joy before the miles of asphalt ahead.

[Knot]

.
Hi TqB.

I liked the detail of the book in the original, sad to see it go.
My problem with this, as with the original is that the main part of the story, the 'knight', the 'wild ride' and the 'mushrooms' seem like background details.

I don't think it serves you to emphasise your lack of recall of details/events (e.g. 'I don't remember', 'all lost.)

You could add a parenthetical near Ouray to the title, perhaps?

One Night Stand on Der Zauberberg (near Ouray)

In the Uncompaghre wilderness

we met a band of travellers

late sixties flotsam, shared their campfire

And a bag of [I think you could be a bit more detailed here]

This was 72,

me and James,

road-tripping

his new Celica

Canada or Bust.

(Less than miles/days from home)

- judging by the original, you guys hadn't made it that far on your road trip when this event happened. Or am I wrong?

I'll call him John,

good a name as any other

a steel cage held his head

in place, neck and shoulders

encased in plaster, Like a knight

"Broke it, cliff diving"

We nodded. Couldn't help ourselves.

[I like the St. Bernard details, but what do they have to do with the story you're telling?]

a terrifying ride

Why did he do this? Why did you (both?) go? And where was the dog?

Just saying it was 'a terrifying ride' doesn't make it so. As a reader I'd like you to be alongside you in the jeep.

Hope this helps.

Best, Knot

.

[TranquillityBase]

I think I'm not supposed to explain too much here (in the thread, that is), if I read the recommendations right, but we started in central Texas so this was half way to Cananda.  We did make it there and back again, but this was the outstanding event/memory for me of the whole 2 week trip.  If I wrote about the whole trip, it would get very long.

Anyway, thanks for the new suggestions.  Not used to this kind of criticism, honestly, but don't stop.  It's forcing details back, like we gave them $10 gas money for the bag of peyote.

And yes, the jeep ride.....needs work

[Knot]

.
Hi TqB

so this was half way to Cananda

In which case, perhaps start

Halfway, in the Uncompaghre wilderness

we met a band of travellers ... ?

this was the outstanding event/memory for me of the whole 2 week trip

Just a thought, but could the story work by itself, independent of the road trip?

we gave them $10 gas money for the bag of peyote.

Well, that's got to be in there.

Would this be considered cheap or expensive (for the time)?

Best, Knot

PS each of us (S3) reads like there were more than just N and James.

.

[Erthona]

TB,

As this in basic, I'll be brief and refrain from an expository, although this seems to demand it.

Capping every line is a bit off putting and makes for more difficult reading, unless you are aping Pound's style; regardless it makes the reading difficult

Did you not read your Castaneda well? One never swallows the juice.

“A man of no fortune, and with a name to come"

best,

dale

[TranquillityBase]

No idea on the market for peyote; we were both babes in the woods when it came to drugs, as Erthona's previous comment shows 

---

My capping goes way back before my Pound fixation to Dylan Thomas, however I'm as much a Ginsberg fan, and I went and looked, and No, Allen didn't cap every line.

How I missed that little change I don't know.

But I do love to ape my favorite poets, I admit.