got no flag at all, Michael Holmes
ECW Press, 1992
To say I accidentally happened upon this small volume while perusing my bookshelf would be a lie. The truth is that the name Michael Holmes had resurrected itself to me as part of an on-going internal investigation into the zeitgeist, as I considered much of what passes itself off as poetry these days [just one person’s opinion, you understand, feel free to disagree]: mawkishly personal, mawkishly emotional, mawkishly sentimental [getting redundant here, I know, but…], insular, hermetically sealed against the world except how the world and its structures impinge upon their own perceived individual rights and freedoms, with much beating of chests and gnashing of teeth; a sort of ‘look at me, I’m special,’ attitude along with the requisite personal journey, personal message/flag waving, tinged always with some level of grief, some level of the will and resilience to overcome (and/or blame); where the word ‘accessible’ — a perfectly useful word if one wants to understand a contract, or enter a building, or catch a train — is currently become saddled with connotations of the simple, the trivial and the banal when it comes to the subject matter and craft of poetry.
So, these were the trigger points that conjured the name Michael Holmes (or, more specifically, his first collection of poems, got no flag at all from ECW PRESS, 1992). To my mind, the title is not only intriguing, but telling, in that it hints to provide a change from much of what is published today and subsequently championed as poetry of literary merit. A further hint was the cover artwork, a logogram (a written character that represents a word or morpheme) designed by Bill Baker as a tattoo meaning SACRIFICE, likely Chinese or Japanese in nature, since it credits “after Ezra Pound and Ian Hamilton Finlay” inside the cover, two poets who were obsessed with antiquity and sought to encapsulate the world in its most compact forms, being, the image; the word.
The red tattoo itself is mounted on what might be recognized as a black wall-hanging, yet the lower part of this cover image is slanted with a thin edge of white, causing it to resemble a guillotine blade. A sign, one hopes, of what to expect once the book is opened and the eye falls upon the page [shades of the Louis Bunuel film “Un Chien Andalou”]: red for passion/blood, black for conflict/death, white for innocence/purity. As in the poem Mapplethorpe, which ends: “when the mind scissors by a calla lily / the negative shall bleed you”. Lovely use of the word “negative” with its implied double meanings: ‘marked by denial, prohibition, or refusal marked by absence,’ as well as being a result of the film developing process, that serves to warn the viewer: you can’t unsee this, the image of the calla lily will have its way with you, in some one fashion or another. A reminder of Pound’s use of the word “apparition” as either “appearance” or “ghostlike” in his famous poem, In a Station of the Metro.
The book title also brings to mind [my mind, at any rate; fantastically, mysteriously, confoundingly, even] the character of Diogenes, who lived in the 4th century BC, who, when asked where he hailed from, declared himself a cosmopolitan and a citizen of the world, hence: got no flag at all.
In the poem, Translating Neruda, we read: “we inhale spanish” closely followed by “we exhale slavic and stand / for Christ’s sake / in moscow or helsinki spring.” In, An Open Letter, the poet meets a washerwoman, “More a Portuguese / wyf-man-o-war … Voice escalating (picture / Salema, Djerba, Lesbos, Liverpool … None of us belongs / here, none but the lost / tribes: / cigar-store Israelites,” the poem comprised of broken lines, broken thoughts, and enjambments that serve to disconnect character from place of origin. Use of the pronouns “we” and “us” place the poet among the rest. Who is the “I” here except an anonymous mind/body traversing the globe — “Sister, I plot migrations on THE WORLD” — picking up and developing a cadence of stripped-down, muscular, street lingo along the way, attempting to discover a way to fit into a landscape rife with shifting boundaries and all manner of socio-cultural diversity; where every day is a struggle for basic survival: “For sixteen years the family has peddled / food off Bloor, not the gold / sweat of Morocco; getting by with less / English and respect / than the leather-men / of Ad Dakhla.”
Diogenes was a practitioner of the Cynic philosophy which postulated that, as reasoning creatures, people can gain happiness through rigorous training and by living in a way which is natural for themselves, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, fame, and power and even flouting conventions openly and derisively in public. Instead, they were to lead a simple life free from all possessions. The word “cynic” derives from the ancient Greek meaning dog-like, and indeed, Diogenes himself lived his life like a dog, begging, eating scraps, sleeping in an abandoned water tub on the street. He would also spit, urinate on people, fart, and masturbate in public. Not that I’m comparing Michael or his behaviour to that of Diogenes [except, perhaps, metaphorically], though Michael, as I recall from OMG! 30+ years ago, did sport the typical costume of the renegade poet, along with the cynic’s attitude: long, unruly hair, five o’clock shadow, tattoos, black T-shirt and jeans, cigarette jammed between his lips, he looked a cross between Arthur Rimbaud, Marlon Brando and Jesus Christ, middle fingers pointing straight to heaven, “pecs ripplin, flag / a fleshscape”. In Where the Air Comes Quick Like Winter, writing: “And he tastes the dogsblood they force into him mix with his own and he has it all over now drowning in it. Him seeing through the crimson night their lips peeling back bearing hungry fangs amidst the hot bubbling foam.”
Whoever said life was easy? Whatever happened to “no pain, no gain”? Whatever happened to “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”? Whatever happened to “nothing worth having comes easy”? Whatever happened to SACRIFICE? Whatever happened to “if I exorcise my devils, well, my angels may leave too”?
Go ahead, sing it Tom. A little night music, if you please.
From This Leaden Spring read: “Yes, we are all of us immigrants. / And yes, we are serene / (whether blind or mad) / degeneration / of lead.”
Meanwhile [if not exactly walking hand-in-hand, at least traveling in close proximity], the pair hold a lit lamp in the brightness of day, seeking an honest person, and, perhaps (even) a reason to celebrate. The poet makes an appeal to an imagined audience in Rainsong: “say come O my people, blow the clarion and raise your tankard high; and breathe deep of the bowels of the city, exhale hard with regeneration; caress each and every dirty brick with hands of naming, the mob of hands, sexless Adams; and colour the black dungeons of impregnable shackled family dwellings with the hues of equality…”
“The hues of equality.” Not speaking here for the one, but the many.
Got no flag at all.
At end, who is the poet? Where is the poet? What is the poet feeling? What is the poet trying to say?
At end, how know the dancer from the dance; the poet from the poetry?
How, indeed.
Perhaps not the most easily accessible poetry around, yet, as my good old pal Basil Bunting was fond of saying: “Never explain — your reader is as smart as you.”
Of course, ever the optimist, Basil also said: “Always carry a corkscrew and the wine shall provide itself.”
Cheers to that. And cheers to Michael.
Stan Rogal lives and writes in the backwater hamlet commonly known as Toronto, along with his artist partner and their pet jackabee. His work has appeared — almost miraculously — in numerous magazines and anthologies in Canada, the US, and Europe. He is the author of several books, plus a handful of chapbooks. An autodidactic intellectual classicist [reformed]. Speaks semi-fluent English and controversial French. Also a Personal Confessor, Truth Teller, and Psychic Investigator: no job too small; cheap rates.