"Series"

1997-1998

Introduction: An set of poems /Sunday-painterly-efforts in my own style (-whatever that is-), in form overall somewhat like Stephen Crane's 'War Is Kind'... and as uneven in quality of individual poems, as near as I can tell (W.I.K. #1 is famous, and one later in the series about newspapers/tabloids/the-free-press is notable...) But I took no model and created as it seemed right... so some are lyric e.g. VI, XI, XXX, XXXII; others dramatic, one or two almost epigrams... 'sung' verse, blank verse, rhymed verse, strict verse, free verse, gnomic mottoesque, symbolist, at least one altogether new form, maybe everything I could manage and more than I've mentioned. Somewhat as I described Simmons' Hyperion, only I had never read any of his work until July 2-5 or so 1997... (past XXVIII)... when I first opened Endymion & read its 3-page opener, I was stonkered to immobility for a half hour or so... some of the words therein were so apposite, esp:

"If you are reading this to learn what it was like to make love... you should not read on, because you are little more than a voyeur.
Although... our fates seem as certain as anyone's could be... my own awaits the final act even as I write these words.
...The past few years have been one improbability after another.... To share these... the motivation is... to put down the series of events so that I can structure them in my own mind.
...If you are reading this for the same reason that I am writing it - to bring some pattern out of the chaos of the... years... then you may be reading this for the right reason, after all." [from Endymion, Dan Simmons, (C) (- I hope I'm not in violation of copyright by these brief quotes.]

[ But I hasten to emphasize:
      1. I've never been sentenced to death (etc, etc, OK!?)
      2. Chapter 1 of Endymion, though one of the great beginnings of S.F., is followed by some rather commonplace (if thrilling) writing until the middle of the fourth chapter.
      3. I don't resemble (Raul) Endymion at all - and have never met anyone resembling the vigorous cheerful and self-sure girl portrayed therein (more's the pity!!)
      4. Though these poems qualify more or less as 'love poetry', they are purely works of the imagination - mine - in an essentially exalted state.    They are frankly romantic works glorying in possibility and envisioning more than in 'facts'. (Also, I consider diarism literal self-expression & no more] in the arts to be contemptible: I aimed at universals - as in 'War Is Kind', which isn't only about the American Civil War - even when I slipped into self-expression to some extent, I tended to embellish the facts a bit (that seemed the artistic/creative thing to do.)
      For anyone who ever attempts to afflict them with crude exegisis or trivialized real-life 'relevance', biographical or scando(il)logical (-XXb 'Ciphers' deals with this issue some-) I wish very sincerely something like Yeats' curse

"......shorten his life,
Manacle his soul upon the Red Sea bottom."!

[A Prayer on going into my House, 1918, from 'The Wild Swans at Coole' by W.B. Yeats.]
5. It is old-fashioned, in containing no eroticism - I think a child could read it (but would probably find it incomprehensible & chaotic, mostly) without being shocked.
And it contains no references to anatomy... (except here and there to eyes - I think that's it. I tried to keep it all as universally applicable as possible, but implied once that those eyes were blue. My apologies - this isn't a perfect work. 'The Ragged Wood' [by Yeats, 1904, from 'In The Seven Woods'] should have 'glorious' substituted for 'yellow' in the penultimate line, I've always felt.)
6. Lastly, though a sincere result of effort, they're probably not Great stuff. Great inspiration to creativity seems to require great unhappiness, and I never thought that price worthwhile. But they came of unhappiness and a hard life, and brought joy to it despite all seeming inevitabilities - and still do, though I do better in life now.
And ( - though I used such a phrase with conscious awareness of its possible irony in one of these poems - ) that is sufficient, but more will be required. ]


I     March 17                                       
II      "   23
III     "   23  'Eclipse Night'
IV      "   25
V       "   27
VI    April 1   -Farewell?!
VII     "   2   ["What is one year?..."] TO_LAI.POM
VIII    "   3   Confessional Realisation
IX      "   6   
X       "   9   ["Madman..."]
XI      "   10  Lyric
XII     "   23  [prediction]
XIII  May   6   Sun Dawn
XIV    "    12  [Surprise]
XV     "    31  (-lost; Luckily it wasn't great.)
XVI   June  3   Magic of green...
XVII   "    6
XVIII  "    7   [Goddess?]*
XIX    "    9   
XX(a thru h)  "  13  Statement; Ciphers; Punishment...
XXI    "    17  'XX-Won!'
XXII   "    20  The True Name
XXIII  "    23  
XXIV   "    24a [Summer's Paramount]
XXV    "    24n 
XXVI   "    26p
XXVII  "    27
XXVIII "    29  
XXIX  July  1 & 2 [Xxx...]
XXX    "    4   


*(Needs 2nd verse, explicatory....? but I can't write one deliberately....)


XXXI   "    11  "'Where has...' I asked..."
XXXII  "    12
XXXIII Aug. 9   4 names 44
XXXIV(a,b) Sept. 4 & 5  "How beautiful..."
                   "She is..."
XXXV  (mid-October) The ghost, again (see III)
XXXVI  Nov. 16  "Light of glory..."
XXXVII  "   20  Victory Uncertain?
XXXVIII "   30  
XXXIX  Dec. 21  
XL     Jan. 6, 1998: "What is there to discover..."
XLI     "   7   "No urge to another's life..."
XLII    "   10  Not A Woman, (But Maybe) For A Woman's Sake
XLIII  Feb. 4   "Categorization and..."
XLIV    "   23  Apple-blossom Brightness
XLV(a)  "   24  The Coin
   (b) April 20  (-& The Coin's Other Side)
XLVI    "   28  Four-In-One
XLVII  Mar. 5p  "When you're missing I'm..."
XLVIII  "   20  If Love Were All Power And (...etc.)
XLIX   (early April) 'Ghost III' (see II & XXXV)
L      April 8 & 13  (L.w/M.& Rfacbs!)
LI       "   11  "...we are so far away..."
LII      "   12  "If I had..."
LIII   May   4   Promise And Unpromise
LIV     "    7   Nuptials Chorus
LV    ~May   10  Final (this poem was stolen, with a wallet of mine, 
                                        in June 1998, in the Arlington Co. Library.  
                                        I had to rewrite it from memory.)

    Envoi:   [June 1997 & later] "Ever be..."
    Finale:  [January 3 1998]   "Come to me once again, stay with me ever..."

57 poems, "Series" by Russell Hess. (C) [or (C)s for all adates shown, & the month of completion, May 1998] & All Rights Reserved, to Russell Hess only, plus whomever he deems deserving or explicitly designates.

-page completed June 23 & 27, 1999 (-copied to UpSky2, July 6). R.H., Webmaster, 'UpSky'.