Our staff is still busily preparing Volume One of the memoirs of Arnold Schnabel for publication as a book later this year, and so, in lieu of any new chapters at this time, we present again the following poem, submitted by Arnold to "The Olney Times" in early March, 1963, just a couple of weeks before his release from the Byberry mental hospital in Philadelphia. (Republished with the kind "nihil obstat" of the Arnold Schnabel Society.)
“A Guy Named Jesus”
A guy named Jesus came to see me last night;
He opened my door and for a moment just stood there;
“Hello,” he said, then, shutting the door tight,
He came to my bed and pulled up a chair.
“My name is Jesus,” said He, and extended His hand;
I took it and shook it, His grip was warm and firm.
“So,” He said, “You’ve had some trouble, I’m led to understand.”
“Yes, it’s true,” I said, “For I am a lowly misbegotten worm.”
“Poppycock!” said He; “and by the way, may I smoke?”
“Dear Lord,” said I, “smoking’s not allowed in patients’ rooms.”
“But you forget,” said He, “’Tis I who make the rules! (Ha! a joke!)
But fear not, for there’s nothing like a butt to dissipate the glooms.”
And taking from His pouch a lighter and a pack of Pall Mall
He lit us both up and said, “I have come, you see, to set you free,
from your absurd travails, and your own self-made Hell.”
“I deserve only Hell,” I cried, “And free I deserve not to be!”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” He said with a winning grin,
“that is, of course: the Holy Ghost, My Father, and Me.
So stop this nonsense, for I want you to begin
that long journey home to Avenue Nedro and B.”
A guy named Jesus came to see me last night,
a simple Jewish carpenter smelling faintly of wood;
we talked until the first faint glimmerings of light,
and when He left I slept the sleep of the good.
(For links to other poems from Arnold Schnabel and to the serialization of his memoir Railroad Train to Heaven, go to the right hand column of this page.)
As our staff of volunteers is still busy preparing Volume One of Arnold Schnabel's memoirs for publication this year as a "book", made of actual paper, and in lieu of any new chapters of the saga at this time, we present again this much-beloved sonnet, first published in the July 27, 1963 issue of the Olney Times, and harkening back bravely to Arnold's famous poem “One Night” (which latter was composed immediately following his breakdown and commitment to Byberry).
Internal evidence suggests that this poem was written on the night of the morning described in Chapter 9 of Arnold's memoir, Railroad Train to Heaven.
(Rebroadcast
thanks to the continuing generosity of the Arnold Schnabel Society, all
rights reserved to that noble organization.)
“The Hammock”
After a modest lunch of liverwurst
On pumpernickel, washed down with iced tea,
It is decidedly far from the worst
Thing in life just to rise and go nicely
Lie myself down in the hammock out back
(Hooked from an oak and the rear of house
And fashioned from an old potato sack),
Content as a dog, a cat, or a mouse,
Or even as this tree, or the great sky
Flickering through the living boughs;
I do not fear rising into that eye
Of fire, nor do I ask the whys and hows;
If the sky should want me, let it take me;
I’m as ready now as I’ll ever be.
(For links to other transcendental poems by Arnold Schnabel, as well as to his sprawling memoir Railroad Train to Heaven, step firmly over to the right hand column of this page. New, never-before-published chapters of Arnold's magnum opus will be coming within the next couple of months!)
Our dedicated staff of interns and graduate assistants are still busily preparing Volume One of Arnold Schnabel 's memoirs for publication in book form later this year, and so, in lieu of any new episodes at the moment, we present the following classic sonnet by our hero, which first saw light of day in theOlney Timesof July 13, 1963.
“Alone”
Alone is not so bad; I breathe the air
and it’s my air; I look at the sky
and it’s my sky; I go for a walk
and this is my world. And now I stare
at things seen clearly with my mind’s eye,
at dark thrashing trees who whisper and talk
among themselves in a gas lamp’s glare,
as the singing ocean six blocks away
asks to join the party; it will bring wine
and music, and fishes and loaves, and rare
and precious sweets, and dance an antic hay
amidst five million stars: all this is mine.
alone is not alone; I sit in this chair,
alive at long last, and ready to dare.
(For links to many other Arnold Schnabel poems, and for entrée into his previously unpublished memoir Railroad Train to Heaven, go to the right hand column of this page.)
As our dedicated staff of graduate assistants is still busily preparing the first volume of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven for publication in the form of an actual "book" later this year, we thought that – in lieu of any new episodes (at present) of Arnold's massive and towering chef-d'œuvre – we would present today another one of his classic poems, in the hope that it would bring a touch of Christmas cheer to these dog days of August. "Christmas Among the Damned" is one of the very few poems of Schnabel’s to exist only in his holograph — written, as was his custom, with a Bic pen in a black-and-white marble copybook. The poem is undated, but carbon dating of the paper indicates that the poem was probably written sometime during his stay at the Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry in early 1963, following his complete mental collapse in January of that year. The poem is probably unfinished, lacking as it does the formal perfection of the great bulk of poems that Schnabel published on a weekly basis for some thirty years in his neighborhood paper, The Olney Times, but nonetheless we feel it worthy of sharing with his many readers, even if he chose — undoubtedly for his own good reasons — not to submit it for publication.
“Christmas Among the Damned”
Their eyes blear,
their voices coarse,
they wander from tavern to bar,
full of fear
and cheap remorse;
they know death is not far,
and that the Lord on high
will not come for them;
He would rather drop
a bomb on them;
He does not heed their grumbling,
He does not hear their curses,
He does not hear them mumbling
as they scrabble through their purses
and their wallets made of plastic
for the price of a glass of Ortlieb’s
or, tripping the dark fantastic,
perhaps also a shot of Schenley’s.
These are the damned, these
who seek but know not pleasure,
damned once,
damned twice,
damned thrice,
and damned once again for good measure.
Their eyes bloodshot,
their noses bulbous and red,
their flesh carbuncular,
where it is not the color
of the belly of a week-dead
flounder,
yes,
these,
these are my friends.
I see them at Pat’s,
at the Huddle,
and at the Green Parrot;
I see them at the VFW,
and at the Knights of Columbus;
some of them even have wives
or husbands as the case may be;
many of them have children,
even grandchildren
(unlike bachelor me);
they all have homes of some sort
a rowhome, apartment, or rented room,
most have jobs of some kind,
working at the Heintz factory
or at Philco or Tastykake,
but this is their real job,
sitting in a bar, staring at
the TV playing I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster,
sitting silently,
or talking petulantly,
this is their calling
and their place,
in the legions of the damned.
Yes, some sit silently on their stools
but most will talk at the slightest
provocation, or even if there is none,
even if they have nothing to say
which is nearly always,
because the hell they carry within
loves to overflow into the hell
outside them.
At last the bartender, last call
long called, stands in his coat by
the door. “This is not a hotel,”
he yells. “You don’t have to go
home, but you can’t stay here.”
One by one they shuffle through the
door and out into the cold,
into the night, from one hell
into another, and off they stumble,
to rowhome, apartment or rented room.
Gay colored lights are strung
outside the windows of the modest homes,
and along the shops on Fifth Street,
for it is Christmastime,
the anniversary of the birth
of the Savior, of someone’s savior,
but not theirs, not these,
who are beyond saving;
no.
It’s Christmas on the streets of Olney,
and a gentle snow begins to fall,
on these the damned who have
nothing to look forward to
but another hangover.
It’s the eve of Christmas Eve,
the cold wind licks their faces,
the snowflakes find their way into
the collars of necks whose scarves
have been left in the sawdust of the
barroom floor.
A shortcut is taken through Fisher Park,
but the scrubby grass is slick and wet;
a fall is taken down Dead Man’s Hill
where the children love to sled
on their Flexible Flyers:
down, down he tumbles, down and down,
until finally he lands at the bottom,
in the slush and jagged ice,
where, in pain,
which means at least not dead,
not yet, he lies on his back,
howling at the universe,
the snow rushing down
heedlessly into his face,
and somewhere among the rowhomes
on Nedro Avenue, a dog replies,
howling also, and then another on
Sixth Street, and yet another on Spencer,
and soon a whole chorus of dogs join in,
drowning out the screams of the human,
or of what once was human.
Yes, it’s Christmas,
for God and man and dog,
for those who are heaven bound
and for those forever banned
from paradise.
This is Christmas,
Christmas among the damned.
****
(The illustrative frame up top is from Lionel Rogosin's On the Bowery (1956). Kindly scroll down the right hand side of this page to find a listing of links to many other classic poems by Arnold Schnabel. Our serialization of Arnold Schnabel’s Gold View Award™-winning 67-volume autobiography, Railroad Train to Heaven, with all new and thrilling episodes, will resume, God willing, in a month or so.)
