THE PSYCHIC HOUR-HANDS OF POETRY

On Mario Azzopardi's anthology Monokord i (1984).

A critical commentary by Francis Ebejer, originally published in Maltese in il-mument (January, 1985) and appearing here

in a liberally condensed translation.

Somewhere in the lower depths of Mario Azzopardi's thick forestry of verse there had always been a cascade of serenity and hope. In the thick of the furious sounds of the majestic trees of the Sixties, traces of this mysterious fountain had already been heard, at least by those of us who did not let the tempestuous, volcanic eruptions blind us from the true destination of the poet.

And if sometimes the tempests and the conflagration grew fiercer in later poems, in such a way that one started thinking that serenity and the search for a synthesis of truth were virtually impossible in Azzopardi, some of us still kept a sensitive ear and a searching eye for him. And we were not deceived.

At that same moment, when claps of thunder and lightning and cries were all thrown at destiny by a tormented soul; at that same moment when one phantom after another were climbing out of the poet's tortured subconscious mind, the poeta puer kept his intimations going, like redeeming water. The antithesis to the poet's dark cynicism was never very distant. If in the skeletal depths there is substance , not very far away there exist the sources of anti-sadness.

One would say that the poet's disappointment is almost primordial and therefore loaded with forceful elements of religious mysticism. Which also incorporates new hope, as when nature destroys itself for renewal and rebirth. Hence Azzopardi's continuity: from the profoundest depths to the surface and then to the next plunge, like an endless poetic rondo. If I tend to relate a purifying source of water with the cry of the eternal child

( puer aeternus ) who is the poet himself, I do this to stress the dichotomy in Azzopardi's

work, especially his articulation and his muteness, his dense forest of contrasting moods. Such a dichotomy unfolds and extends itself in an infinity of possibilities, a whole topography. In Monokordi , therefore, we discern a sense of calmness before and after each and every tempest that assaults the forest. There is a light that animates every shadow; wisdom in the very essence of sighs and anguished pain.

If we are all a confusion of contradictions that we need to accept if we want to be humans marked by integrity, Azzopardi is not prepared to accept them unless he discerns them and understands them thoroughly. This is because his protest against the perennial contradictions of existence needs to be sustained and incremented as a form of energy- search-solution, all at the same time. The fact that these contradictions are of such high priority to the poet indicates that he hopes in a final elucidation, through time and experience, when he can declare: This is I. The journey represents a ruthless search by a poet who wants to discover his personality with absolute integrity but whose poetic spirit, paradoxically, seems not to want this to happen.

It appears that for Azzopardi, atomization is preferred to the synthetic moment: again paradoxically, the synthesis might prove more valuable as the result of sharpened sensibility, endeavor, mental analysis and existential pain. And if the synthesis of a singular moment is achieved, isn't life a long stretch of moments? In every synthesized moment there is a synthesized universe. When a moment is destroyed and atomized, synthesis is disrupted, as well as the universe. And therefore a new energy is needed for another synthesis. And that's the way of the poet.

Sometimes, in order to regain enough energy from his bitter internal struggles (a testimony of life lived authentically),

Azzopardi ventures into the world of people, of community. He even hopes that people would resist being thrown about by circumstantial and momentary winds and take stock of truth according to their responsible consciousness. Realizing that this is not happening, the poet retreats again within himself, not hopelessly, but to analyze passionately whether the synthesis failed because of something for which he himself stands responsible. And that's a giant step into the deep forest.

In his poetic sensitivity, Azzopardi reminds himself that the odyssey outside him needs to be resumed or start again from the beginning, even from the point of failure, of every failure. He would emerge again and address the workers, the native women, the Mediterranean self, until interior turbulence gets entangled with outside forces and failures and both conditions fuse as if in one cell: unique, singular, beating in a uniformity that gets louder and at the same time longing for oblivion, disintegration, death and annihilation. The actuality of sorrow and despair as well as the presence of death, ironically become a solemn testimonial for life. And for a brief instance, the cascading water and the poet-child are heard together, like a solitary flute in an orchestra. Even if it's a skeleton playing the flute.

Moreover, even as the poet declares that our horoscope is falsified he would still believe there's a monochord between heaven and earth (flute+skeleton). If we exist in an interval of the gods, or if we are imprisoned under the accent of the sun/within tombs of

anguished souls, the poet would still admit he does not understand the aesthetic quality of torment . This is a most rare acceptance in this poet and therefore very essential to his thematic development. The word aesthetic has finally been uttered: what was anti-thesis has become thesis; the poet has finally yielded to a moment of brilliance. It has become a destination.

One has to notice Azzopardi's frequent allusions to water or objects associated with water: lake, snow, tears, hail, leaks, vapor, dew, iodine, river, fish, blood, thirst, fountain, drop, melts, overflows, amphora, humid, sank, poison, clouds, dry season of the vine, fish drunk on blood , and many more. How could one have one's thirst quenched if one doesn't thirst?

Inside the pit of murdered chants there is an endless chain of symbols and association of ideas expressed in a frenzied, pyrotechnic display. This is the essential Azzopardi. His heart belongs to itself and rejects the indifference of the universe. At the same time it's a heart not willing to deny the translucent genius of madness, because even that state of being is a universe, based on the notion of reality as perceived by every individual human. Certainly, Azzopardi's is a heart that beats continuously to every mood, internal or external.

Time is/Time was/Only the hour-hands are static. And time stays on, too. The dynamism in Azzopardi's poetry would certainly not tolerate or accept that the hour-hands remain stuck: the very fact that the hour-hands have been mentioned is already a testimony for continuity. Like the hour-hands of Time, the poet's psychic hour-hands will resume their movement. They will lead him to meet the first human-companion on the road as well as to the most recent star under the mantel of the universe. Or they would lead him to the first spring outside his black fortress-forest (never completely impenetrable and often illusionary).

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