James, Stewart, Alexander Simmons, (Jimmy to the locals), was someone for whom I have always felt a sense of kinship; and that despite the fact that I hardly knew him. Our paths crossed only in my early teenage years, when, on errands for my mother, I would hop across the wall and ring the bell. More often than not it was Jimmy who answered. From somewhere out the back he would appear and saunter towards me. And what I particularly remember about these meetings, innocuous though they were, was, that it was never possible to tell from Jimmy's demeanour, what he might have been doing when I called. Whatever it was, he never complained. There again, he never spoke, for he knew what I was after, and where (once he had opened up the Bar), to find them, cigarettes.
A young man, in all probability he was dreaming. Sometimes he would sit on the fire-escape to the back of the house, singing his songs; and right out of the blue he hit the headlines: It was a banner headline in The Irish News: a morning paper for Catholics; but Jimmy, a Protestant, had managed to cross the sectarian divide: "Portrush Poet" it screamed, "On Board Missing Yacht". It was the sort of news that was more than enough to shake our small town to its foundations. But to hear that we had lost a poet, who lived next door - was extraordinary.
Jimmy hadn't always been a neighbour. But when the family first arrived and I heard my father remark that they were, "Derry people", the feeling of kinship was instant. For Derry, the home of my paternal grandmother, was a place that I knew and loved. As for their being Protestants, that of itself would not have called for comment; but it seemed that Protestants from Derry were different, for the perceived wisdom was, that they, identified more easily with things Irish, than did Protestants from the shipyards of Belfast.
Well besides being a poet, Jimmy was a writer and singer of songs. And as was the case with me, it seems that his first musical experiences were of the highbrow type. He sang at the local Feis, and from his early years was familiar with Moore's Melodies. And later, like me, he discovered Jazz. And something else that seemed to bind me to him, is to be found in two of his earliest songs: "The Old Lady's Song", and "Mansion By The Sea".
Almost certainly the first of these songs was inspired by his Grandma, "old Mrs. Montgomery", as my poem, Grandma, was inspired by my paternal grandmother. It is a sad song, a sensitive and philosophical portrayal of life from the perspective of an old woman, who, felt abandoned by the younger generation. To keep her occupied they had bought her "television", but it was a newfangled idea for which she didn't have much use. Accenting the voice of an old woman, and to the rhythm of a rocking-chair, and at this point in the song, with a sigh, Jimmy tells the story:
they think would be too much, for my poor heart to bear.
I pretend I don't hear them, for young folk can't see,
that whatever they do they will end up like me.
Mansion By The Sea, on the other hand, ties in nicely with my suggestion that Jimmy might have been dreaming when I called. For in it, he is a young man looking to the future, and hoping that he will be able to continue to live in the style to which he has become accustomed. But by the end of the song, and in the manner of a provocative cabaret act, he has thrown his hat at the whole idea:
I'm waiting and I'm wishing as the world goes nuclear fission
that someday I might be in a mansion by the sea.
When my songs are all the rage and I'm nearing middle age,
with any luck I'll be in a mansion by the sea.
On summer days I'd lie on sand and listen to the waves,
Or I'll take my children out in boats, or off exploring caves.
Of course I know success, doesn't bring you happiness,
but the cash might set me free, to look at mansions by the sea.
Or I would sit and watch the rain and maybe read King Lear again,
And friends would come and visit me, in a mansion by the sea.
And when I'm old, and all the family gather round my bed,
I'll hear them say, "We'll move to London when poor ould daddy's dead."
But when I've lost my point of view, I don't care much what they do,
if they dig a grave for me, near the mansion by the sea.
Don't mention mansion! They'll never be a mansion by the sea!
_____
Now as Jimmy has to his credit half a dozen or so, books of poetry published, as well as a study on the Irish playwright Sean O'Casey, you might be surprised to hear that in evaluating his work I felt the need to ask the question, What, in literary terms constitutes success? I had to ask, for not withstanding my capacity to have an opinion and give voice to it, and my interest in writing and publishing my own poems, the truth is, that my judgements lack the authority of what is known as, "the great and the good". And something else. As Jimmy is no longer with us, I thought that decency required that I find an honourable yardstick by which to judge.
Well, for an Irishman, what more honourable yardstick could you have than to have your work published in The Field Day Anthology Of Irish Writing. A three volume work, it was presented to the world with great acclaim in 1991. There had been other anthologies of Irish writing, but nothing on this scale; and it was the combined effort of the very best in modern scholarship. Well, in vol. III, you will find three items by James Simmons. One of them, (in terms of judgement), I am pleased to say, I took to a poetry reading group as exemplifying his work, not realising that it was in the Anthology. It is, Didn't He Ramble, a poem that records his discovery of Jazz and the impact that it had on his life. But the item from the Anthology that I would like to share with you at this point is, The Silent Marriage:
The Silent Marriage
A Song
With your clothes on the chair
and one white sheet above you
I have no need of words
to explain how I love you.
Every touch of delight
through the long wedding night
is defining our love.
With this kiss I thee wed.
If our luck should run out
and love withers and dies, love
don't try out of kindness
to save me with lies, love.
You won't need to explain
that I'm single again
and the marriage is done
when your kiss says goodbye.
_____
Now in writing about Jimmy Simmons I have to be careful, for though it is not hard to find the autobiographical in his work, his poems and songs are all I have to go on. And there is a further and obvious danger in having known him, (however slender that acquaintance might have been); and in the fact that we, quite literally, shared the same landscapes. It is that I might read too much into his work, and fail to see its worth from a global perspective. Or put another way, from the point of view of those readers who, are strangers to the world that we inhabited. Be that as it may, and as the principal purpose in this blog is to focus on those things that bound me to him, I must carry on, and begin by telling you that his dream was fulfilled: he did acquire a mansion by the sea. But in his poem, Westport House, Portrush, he tells us that in its dilapidated state, he parted with it, "in lieu of alimony." It is not one of his better poems, but his description of the structural disintegration of the building, is clearly a metaphor for his failed marriage. And after it had been sold on by his ex and converted into three holiday apartments, the poem ends on an ironic as well as a melancholy note. For when he returns to reflect on what once was, the gulls, unaffected by all that had been going on down below, become a vehicle through which he relives the experience:
eyes bright and hurling down
what sounds like lyrical abuse
that echoes round the town.
There's style and courage in their cries,
ferocious love and hate,
indifference to vicissitudes
I cannot emulate.
Another of Jimmy's poems is, West Strand Vision. But before I discuss how it connects with me, here it is in full:
West Strand Vision
The man alone at the third floor window
Is the man alone at the cliff's edge.
Before him gulls are cutting each other's
invisible paths of flight. Bent sideways
in his cockpit above the dog-fight
alone he observes engaging bi-planes
locked in each other's sights and strategies,
diving, swerving and climbing heavily,
and droning earthwards in flames.
The man watching the pony-girl waving
on the West Strand to her three assistants
and suddenly rearing her horse and wheeling
off at a canter, followed by donkeys
into the grey curtain of rain,
is the man watching barbarians gather,
Tamburlaine, was it, or Genghis Khan,
shabby in robes strange to the watcher,
returned from reconnoitring,
deciding and acting on God's plan.
The man who watches neglected children
leaping in yellow light of sunlight
by waters whipped by wind, majestic
ten yards out and fierce,
but gentle in the shallows,
is me, estranged from mystery,
trying to hear what they say,
envying no one in the world but they
who never use words like "beauty",
shouting in apparent ecstasy
a pane of glass and fifty yards away.
_____
This is a melancholy poem, in which, it seems to me, both at the beginning and at the end, there is an implicit threat of suicide. And it seems something of a paradox, that innocence could be so near and yet so far away. And it is a poem that could have been a precursor to Westport House, Portrush.
In this next poem, the voice is not that of a disillusioned adult, but of a child, who, in a moment of solitude develops an acute sense of how things were, before Time, or the advent of man. The voice in the poem is me, and its conclusion is one of hope, rather than of despair. And although I give no clue in the poem as to where this spiritual experience took place, I might justifiably have called the poem, East Strand, Portrush. For what is being described in the poem, occurred on the opposite side of the geological divide, that made Portrush a peninsula town. Instead, I chose to call my poem, Before Time:
when man was given his state of consciousness
and the umbilical chord was first let loose among the elements.
When there were no constraints, no moral imperatives
and Christ had not been crucified.
I was taken there while my soul was in formation,
back to where the elements raw and unrestrained
washed over me in waves of being.
Disfigured - I have returned to that raw hallowed place
to be refreshed - and give thanks.
_____
Now something else that we had in common, but that is not unique to us, is, that in our poetry, both of us have confronted the issue of the sectarian divide. Perhaps the most potent poem, in my case, is, Life. But then again it could be Sinister Forces. But more subtle, and with the same end in view, there's, Miss Mills, Friendship, and, "In the long Ago". In Jimmy's case, it would be a mistake to think that the title of the poem that I am going to share with you, says it all. It is more subtle than that. The poem is, Ulster Says Yes.
One Protestant Ulsterman
wants to confess this:
we frightened you Catholics, we gerrymandered,
we applied injustice.
However, we weren't Nazis or Yanks,
so measure your fuss
Who never suffered like Jews or Blacks,
not here, not with us;
but since we didn't reform ourselves,
since we had to be caught
red-handed, justice is something
we have to be taught.
_____
Now in drawing to a close I'm going to share with you the poem, Didn't He Ramble, (the one that I took to the poetry meeting only to discover later, that it was in the Field Day Anthology Of Irish Writing). For me, it does justice to his work, and there are many other worthy alternatives. That said, I don't want to give the impression that I am writing about another Seamus Heaney. Recently, when I gave a selection of his work to an acquaintance, I could tell from his response that he was not impressed. For him there was too much angst; and possibly, too much emphasis on the power of the genitalia. In many instances, Jimmy's writing is earthy, which can be tedious. But that said, he is worth reading, and much of his work will still be appreciated, when we are long dead:
Didn't He Ramble
for Michael Langley
"The family wanted to make a bricklayer of him, but Fred,
was too smooth and clever a fellow. He preferred to sit in
the parlour out of the sun and play piano."
Henry Morton
There was a hardware shop in Main Street sold
records as well as spades and plastic bowls.
Joe, the assistant, had a taste for Jazz.
The shop being empty as it mostly was
I tried out records, then, like seeing the light,
but genuine, I heard Joe White:
I'm going to mo-o-ve you, way on the outskirts of town.
Where was my turntable to set it down!
A voice, styled by experience, learning to make
music listening to blind Willie Blake,
walking the streets of a city, avoiding cops,
toting a cheap guitar and begging box.
The campus poets used to write of saxophones
disgustedly and sneer at gramophones;
but the word of life, if such a thing existed,
was there on record among the rubbish listed
in the catalogues of Brunswick and H.M.V.,
healing the split in sensibility.
Tough reasonableness and lyric grace
together in poor man's dialect.
Something that no one taught us to expect.
Profundity without the po-face
of court and bourgeois modes. This I could use
to live and die with. Jazz. Blues.
I love the music and the men who made
the music, and instruments they played:
saxophone, piano, trumpet, clarinet,
Bill Broonzy, Armstrong, Basie, Hodges, Chet
Baker, Gerner, Tommy Ladiner,
Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, Bechet,
and Fats Waller, the scholar-clown of song
who sang Until The Real Thing Comes Along.
Here was the risen people, their feet
dancing, not out to murder the elite:
"Pardon me, sir, may we be free?
The kitchen staff is having a jamboree."
History records how people cleared the shelves
of record shops, discovering themselves,
making distinctions in the ordinary,
seeing what they'd been too tired to see;
but most ignored the music. Some were scared,
some greedy, some condemned what they hadn't heard,
some sold cheap imitations, watered it down,
bribed Fats to drink too much and play the clown
instead of the piano, and failed - the man was wise,
he did both painlessly. Jazz is a compromise:
you take the first tune in your head and play
until it's saying what you want to say.
"I' ain't got no diplomas" said Satchmo,
"I look into my heart and blow."
What if some great ones took to drugs and drink
and killed themselves? Only a boy could think
the world cures easy, and want to blame
someone. I know I'll never be the same.
A mad world my masters! We might have known
that Wordell Gray was only well spoken,
controlled and elegant on saxophone.
He appeared last in a field with his neck broken.
The Jazz life did it, not the Ku Klux Klan.
Whatever made the music killed the man.
_____
If you are not used to poetry, try reading this poem aloud. For it will help you to find the points of emphasis and changing rhythms; and hopefully, if they are not your natural patterns of speech, to give effect to the black idioms.
And a last something in the context of kinship, that connects me with "Jimmy" Simmons - James Stewart Alexander Simmons, was born on the 14th of February, 1933. I was born on the 14th of February, 1942.
© Cormac McCloskey
James Simmons 1933-2001
The Old Lady's Song and Mansion by the Sea
from, City & Eastern James Simmons Sings his own Songs
Arts Council of Northern Ireland 1971
Moore's Melodies. Thomas Moore 1779 - 1852
i.e. The Minstrel Boy & The Last Rose of Summer
Poetry by James Simmons:
From The Irish, 1985.
Publisher, Blackstaff Press, Dundonald, Belfast.
ISBN 0 85640 311 8
James Simmons Poems 1956-1986
Publisher, Gallery & Bloodaxe Books 1986
ISBN 1 85224 020 2 Bloodaxe Books
ISBN 1 85235 002 4 Gallery Books
Mainstream, 1995.
Publisher, Salmon Publishing, Galway.
ISBN 1 897648 27 8
Also. Sean O'Casey
by James Simmons, 1983
Publisher, Macmillan Press Limited London etc.
ISBN 0 333 30896 4 (hc)
ISBN 0 333 30897 2 (pb)
_____
The Field Day Anthology Of Irish Writing 1991
Publisher Derry, Field Day Publications
Distributed by Faber & Faber Limited
ISBN 0 946755 20 5
My Poetry Website - here
Note: This blog, "James Simmons", was first published on Windows Live Spaces, by me, on 3rd September 2009
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