Mourning in America: Lhude Sing Goddamm

Hm, I thought this Brave New World would be braver—or at least newer. Apparently, the American mandate is, “Why make history when you can repeat it?” Or, to paraphrase a(n in)famous political ad from my youth, “It’s mourning again in America.” They shot that spot in Petaluma (next will be journalists).

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Meanwhile…

When I was an angsty young man, my fellow malcontents and I were apt to spout half-learned poetry whilst staggering the rain-soaked streets of Petaluma. This was between sloppy slugs of Carlo Rossi Burgundy and the occasional cris de coeur over somebody’s sister or other.

A favorite poem was by Ezra Pound. We hadn’t gotten far enough into Mod Poetry at the JC to learn that the Idahoan-turned-Parisian-expat had overripened into an Axis radio propagandist during the war. Hemingway himself had to testify on his behalf that he was more lunatic than fascist to spare him the firing squad. It was a complicated mess, like the man’s poetry, at least to us suburban plebes for whom “trochaic tetrameter” sounded more like a social disease than the invisible framework of the poem in question. 

Pound called it “Ancient Music”; it was a knock-off of an old English rota, which celebrated spring and got a lot of mileage out of repeating “Cuckoo!” in comic refrains. Per usual, he went in the opposite direction: 

Winter is icumen in,

Lhude sing Goddamm,

Raineth drop and staineth slop,

And how the wind doth ramm!

Sing: Goddamm.

And that was just the wind-up. After some nonsense about a freezing river and the state of his liver, Pound exhorts, “Damm you; Sing: Goddamm. Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,” which was our favorite part (though Pound didn’t know how to spell “damn”). We would get louder and louder, rolling through American Alley toward Western Avenue, where we were eventually apprehended and charged with violating Business and Professions Code 25662—a.k.a. “minor in possession,” which prohibits poets under 21 from possessing an alcoholic beverage in any public place. Goddamm indeed.

Most of us walked because it was our first offense, but it did dampen an already damp season. And frankly, I haven’t been dry since. Call me a case of arrested development (literally), but the best way to greet the season, in my opinion, is with wine, poetry, and anarchic abandon of all decency. Today, Nov. 6, is “Samhain”—the cross-quarter day and the actual beginning of winter (don’t let all that Solstice B.S. fool you). So it’s time… Time to sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM! 

Welcome to winter.

— DH

P.S.: Watch and review Werewolf Serenade on Amazon Prime Video! Your inner beast will thank you.