Poets’ Corner- The Mad Hatter 15^th Century France’s Francois Villon Whether They Claim Him Or Not

 

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Once, a long time ago, an old communist I do not remember which version of the creed he adhered to, although he had had some impressive documented revolutionary credentials in Germany before Hitler pulled the hammer down in 1933 and he just barely got out into American exile by a very long and circuitous route, told me that as far as culture affairs, you know art, novels, music and what I want to talk about here, poetry, is basically subject to whatever personal whims a person may have on these matters. The caveat to all this is that both creators and admirers should be left to their own devises except if they are actively engaged with counter-revolutionary activity. Now that I think about it he probably got the idea from Leon Trotsky himself who wrote about such matters in the 1920s in books like  Literature and Revolution although I am sure that he did not consider himself a follower of that great revolutionary who was exiled in the late 1920s.

The point today is that if a left-wing political activist like myself, say, were very interested in the poetry of Emily Dickerson or Wallace Stevens or Thomas Mann or Edna Saint Vincent Millay then what of it. Except those kinds of poets do not “speak” to me. Poets like Allan Ginsberg burning the pages with his negro streets, his clamoring against the industrial complex, his angel hipsters, his chanting against the fate of the best minds of his generation, the gangster-poet Gregory Corso blazing the hot streets with his words and taking no prisoners, old Rimbaud with his mad ravings, Verlaine too, Genet with his black soul they “speak” to me. The troubadours, the “bad boys and girls,” the waifs, the gangsters, the drifters, grifters and midnight sifters and those who act as muses for the fallen are what makes me sit up and listen.                  

 And that brings us to Francois Villon, the “max daddy” of bad boy poets (and brigands) from the 15^th century. Strangely while I have picked up on most of my favorite poets from some academic setting I learned of Villon from two maybe unusual sources. First from the 1930s film The Petrified Forest where the Bette Davis character, Gabby, was crazy for the Villon book of poems sent from her returned to home mother in France. More importantly the poet and what he stood for was brought up in the film in conversation with Leslie Howard’s character Alan who was a Villon-like misplaced out of sorts wanderer out in the Arizona desert. The other source was a poem by Villon used as a front-piece of an article by Hunter S. Thompson who used the sentiment expressed by Villon where he considered himself a stranger in his own country (as did Thompson back in Nixon times in America).

But back to the muses, back to the gangsta muses (sorry hip-hop nation for stealing your thunder but your sing-song lyrics definitely make me think you have drawn from the same well, the same Villon well, especially guys like Biggie, Tupac, 50 cent, and Brother Cole, a brother from the same damn “sew those worn-out pants” projects neighborhood in spirit as me). Old Villon must have gotten tripped up on his DNA finding the back streets of Paris and later exile spots more attractive than the court life, the scholar’s. Trouble followed the guy wherever he moved (granted he had little room to maneuver in those days since he was a city man and not some outlaw Robin Hood working the old rural pastures and forests). His poetry speaks of drunken sots, of quick upstairs flights with besotten wenches, of tavern dark corners to plan, plan the next caper, or the next poem to explain away his life led.         

Who knows what makes a man or woman a stranger in their own land, an internal exile. Maybe like Villon it was his dismissal of the vanities of court life, the vacuity of the student life, or the lure of the outlaw life when bourgeois society (and France in the 15^th century was reaping the beggar’s banquet of bourgeois society) and it took no Karl Marx to notice that the old ways had to give way to the new city ways with their gold and death to free spirits, to those who lived outside allegiances. Maybe like Ginsberg shattered by the smoke of downtown Paterson, maybe shattered by the hysterical cries of his beloved if discarded mother, maybe shattered by the square-ness of his father-poet. Maybe like Jean bon Genet born of some ancient mix of the crime that dared not speak its name and crimes that had names. Trolling waterfronts looking for rough trade, looking for his lady of the flowers. Strangers, strangers all looking for some new Algiers, some new Casablanca, some new city a-borning.

Villon, lord of the sneak away night, besotted with six wines, drunk with the fragrance of women. Women who reek of the kingdom’s perfumes and if Hilary Mantel is to be believed over in bedeviled England all the women worked lilac and lemon tree leaves into their skin so that guys, guys like Villon ready to seek a lady’s favor could stand to be within ten feet of them. Reeking of words too, Villon reeking of words that is, quick words, words with hidden messages, words heard in taverns, on wormy mattresses, in stinking hayloft barns, unholy holy words that would make men quake if they had the sense that their God gave them as a gift (or was it the son, the damn crazed son, Jesus, called bandit), stealthily grabbing whatever was to be grabbed and the hell with the lord business. Then writing in dark dungeon nights looking for reprieves from a wretched life.

Beautiful, a beat down brother, no wonder Alan the wandering homeless out of fashion intellectual in The Petrified Forest claimed him as kindred, and why he could have walked on steamy late night New York streets and found kindred among the midnight sifters. Beat, beatified before his time probably clamoring on some woe begotten trumpet, blowing out big medieval blow notes to the hard Seine, the hard Norman shores, to all who would listen, Yeah, Saint Villon, sanctified, man of misrule, man of the hidden cloth, beat, beat about six ways to Sunday if you believe his resume, if you believe his 15^th century be-bop wail. What did Kerouac, hell, a kindred, a Breton, said-yes, moan, moan long and hard for man, and Saint Villon grant us some sign, some path that we might come to rescue you in sotted, sweated dungeons, so that you too can walk the fetid streets singing, holy, holy, holy.

What was it that his literary descendants, guys like Jack Kerouac who I swear had Villon blood in him, guys like Alan Ginsberg who sang holy, holy, holy to the new age except he cried out in vain to dreaded Molochs, called those who listened to their own drummers, listened to the winds beyond the towns, beyond the cities, listened to the forest men, the men who earlier in their lives lived in towns and cities?  Oh yeah, “holy goofs.” Not goofs like you would call some guy walking down the street looking down and he hits his head on a telephone pole because he wasn’t watching where he was going. No, our holy goof, I think Kerouac used that term to describe, or rather used that term as one of the ways to describe mad man fellow traveler Dean Moriarty, and hence the model Neal Cassady as well, to his Sal Paradise in On The Road. A guy who is for the moment, an existential be-bop guy, a guy who knows the score, knows right from wrong even, knows it better than you and me, and says “what the fuck,” says you know, I know, and so let the mystery be, let the cloistered intellectuals in their sullen monasteries poring over the number of angel that can fit on the head of a needle sulk while he worked on the angles, looked for dough, dames and dope. See, I swear Villon from his hidden grave sent down to posterity the model for the holy goof, and these other guys picked it out of the fog-bound air.          

Sweet word man Villon articulate in a hoary dark world when gangster warlord and unsavory princes vied with each for land, for wealth, for some fair maiden’s favors. And let’s not beat about the bush it wasn’t for some silly scarf just off the boats from faraway China or the Japan Seas but for a tussle in some off-hand hayloft, some milady’s boudoir, some back room tavern straw bed. Read what you want into that but some buck jack was taking his right of first night, well, before the first night. But heroic buck jacks sometimes could speak no lady’s words, could not utter the thoughts in an otherwise black heart and so old Villon had a space to breath, had words to tell of loves truths, or what milady would go to the downy billows for. And for his services for he was a man of the city, a man of the back alleys, a man who consorted with the rabble, a con man and a wordsmith in his own right and so every once in a while a bored milady would stop her quilling, stop her needlepoint and show the old curmudgeon her downy billows for just one word of the night, for the sound of those moans that no child should know before his or her time.    

Of course a guy who liked to walk on the wild side, who was organically incapable of saying a straight thing if for no other reason than self-preservation would have many a back room tavern wench taking him around the world (yes, they, the wenches, and their procurers, knew all about “taking a guy around the world” like that little sexual trick was invented by Master and Johnson or something). And on a normal night, maybe after stealing some gold from a merchant’s back room, maybe pilfering some goods just off the boat from the Japan seas, maybe after waylaying some drunken sot for his ready bag of cash that would be good enough, would sate his sexual desire. But once every dark moonless night, maybe feeling a little put upon by his wretched place in the world he would seek the high life, “go uptown” as they said in their own way among the brotherhood.

And here is how it was done. A great and gratifying scam. Some poor high life guy who made his dough off the Japan seas or something like that had a lady love who could not be moved except by words, words of love. And he from rough usage spoke only in twaddle. No sale. So sweet boy Villon to the rescue. Pretty words at a dime a throw. A few ducats. But get this that poor roughly used guy would have old boy Villon prate the words to his love to his love. And sometimes, sometimes when there was a dark, moonless, night maybe a little sweaty milady would close her virginal eyes and act the backroom tavern wench and take old brother Villon around the world. See she knew such arts too. And that roughly sued sot would never be the wiser. Oh sweet boy Villon teach your arts.        

When you mess with women though, mess in the bedroom anyway, some paid for bedroom, and it was not you paying the freight, whether it was Eve in the garden, hell, maybe before when two primates started doing the courtly dance or today with some Evita trying to avoid getting your toes stepped on by some fast moving female you have to be prepared to take the gaff. Be prepared to find that the end could only lead one way, and it was not in favor of Villon and his progeny. So, Eve, Helen, Mary, the Pea, some sweetie, whoever was ready to throw you to the wolves once they were done with you. Or maybe throw you to the wolves even if they were not done with you just for practice. Ah, love, love divine, love in the back alleys, love in that scented boudoir but love nevertheless. Except when you mess with another man’s woman, go against some broken code, and this too has been going on since the garden, maybe before, maybe in some half-remembered tussle in the savannah where the winner dragged the queen of Sheba, his queen of Sheba anyway by the hair and took her by main force you must take the gaff as well and be prepared to run after the rut. Whether she liked it or not. But still playing with kingly woman is always a dicey thing and so Villon, Adam, Markin, whoever is now out begging for alms, for his life for the chance once more to get at that jasmine scent that maddens his mind, keeps his thoughts clouded, disturbs his sleep and makes him ask the question-what the fuck- or whatever old Villon term used with his corner boys to signify defeat. And proclaim that defeat in sweet saucy words to a candid world.        

 

 

Yes, wanderers, waifs, strangers in a strange land, sneak thieves in the milady’s heart heated night, those are the poets I want to read and listen to. And what of it.        

     

 

Le Testament: Ballade Des Dames Du Temps Jadis

 

Tell me where, or in what country

Is Flora, the lovely Roman,

Archipiades or Thaïs,

Who was her nearest cousin,

Echo answering, at clap of hand,

Over the river, and the meadow,

Whose beauty was more than human?

Oh, where is last year’s snow?

 

Where is that wise girl Eloise,

For whom was gelded, to his great shame,

Peter Abelard, at Saint Denis,

For love of her enduring pain,

And where now is that queen again,

Who commanded them to throw

Buridan in a sack, in the Seine?

Oh, where is last year’s snow?

 

Queen Blanche of the Siren’s voice

White as a swan, and Alice, say,

Bertha Big-Foot and Beatrice,

Arembourg, ruler of Maine,

Or Jeanne d’Arc of Lorraine,

The English burned at Rouen? Oh,

Where are they Virgin, you who reign?

Oh, where is last year’s snow?

 

Prince, don’t ask of me again

Where they are, this year or no,

I have only this last refrain:

Oh, where is last year’s snow?

Note: Dante Gabriel Rossetti took Archipiades to be Hipparchia (see Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, Book VI 96-98) who loved Crates the Theban Cynic philosopher (368/5-288/5BC) and of whom various tales are told suggesting her beauty, and independence of mind. This would make her an exact or close contemporary of Thais, beautiful Athenian courtesan and mistress of Alexander the Great (356-323BC). Villon presumably means that they were ‘near cousins’ in spirit.