Ladies and gentlemen, the director of the Mercury Theater and star of
these broadcasts, Orson Welles.

ORSON WELLES:

Hello, the Jeunesse Doree and all the ships at sea and in the maelstromed starry welkin!

Hello, this is ORSON WELLES!

Who knows what poetry lurks in the hearts of men?
The Shadow knows!

Tonight I stand here on the heath of the Spirit Planet Wolf 767. . I believe I see great spirit whales a leeward and what are those strange constellations wheeling overhead? And I am expecting the poet and wit Candice Ward to be translated here momentarily by the infernal engines of Mr. Blake. Who is a sponsor of this show. And may I offer some words about his fine establishment?

"Blake's Satanic Mills. Visit us at our new Factory Outlet!

Mr. Blake begs leave to inform the public that two products of his manufacture will be available to the Ladies and Gentlemen for the first time at low, low prices:

THE LINEAMENT OF GRATIFIED DESIRE! Sovereign remedy whose superior excellence and utility is attested by all Major Poets.

ETERNITY, the perfume in love with the productions of time!

Mr. Blake's establishment also stocks many other items of his manufacture too numerous to attempt a description of -- all at low, low prices.

Also -- see the Tygers of Wrath that are Wiser than the Horses of Instruction! On display here for the first time and seen very recently by HER MAJESTY, THE FAERIE QUEEN.

Orson: Yes, I am back. I am here. And, tonight, I am with -- here on the heath -- the immortal poet, Candice Ward. Candice…may I call you Candice?

Candice Ward: Why certainly, er, Orson. Or should I call you George? My, isn’t the heath wind bracing!

Orson: Yes, George is my first name, isn’t it? I also named my first daughter Christopher. Your planet is most strange. In any case…

Splendid. Will you, just to get started, join me in singing this wonderful ballad?

Candice Ward: My pleasure. I love all manner of silkie ballads. (“I am a man upo-on the land / I am a silkie o-on the sea…”).

They sing:

The silkie be a creature strange

He rises from the sea to change

Into a man, a weird one he,

When home it is in Skule Skerrie.

When he be man, he takes a wife,

When he be beast, he takes her life.

Ladies, beware of him who be -

A silkie come from Skule Skerrie.

His love they willingly accept,

But after they have loved and slept,

Who is the monster that they see?

'Tis "Silkie" come from Skule Skerrie.

A maiden from the Orkney Isles,

A target for his charm, his smiles,

Eager for love, no fool was she,

She knew the secret of Skule Skerrie.

And so, while Silkie kissed the lass,

She rubbed his neck with Orkney grass,

This had the magic power, you see -

To slay the beast from Skule Skerrie.

Orson: And bad cess to him wherever he may be. Candice, I was shocked, after reading your transcendent book, The Moon Sees the One, to read that it had been thirty long years since you had published a poem. A “hiatus” you call it. Why? What were you doing? Why is it that you denied me the pleasure of your verse while I yet lived? If indeed I lived thirty years ago -- one tends to forget.

Candice: Oh yes, you lived until 1985, and I stopped publishing in the 70s. I continued to write, off and on, all that time, but I’d become sick of the emphasis on publication in my MFA program (UMASS, Amherst) and feared that I was beginning to write for publication. It was enormously liberating then to write in utter solitude.

Orson: Yes. "We will sell no wine before its time" and may I add that Carlsburg lager is "Probably the best lager in the world"

Well, all that is over. Your book is at hand. Here’s one poem

Ballad Child

(for my daughter, Alexandra)

lean your head over

and list’ to the wind

(“The Connemara Cradle Song”)

scrimshow through the window

on the deep roiling braes, on

currachs a’sailing over the furze,

as rues the shad the rose is blown

we never fished for flying glass,

yet chad did happen nonetheless

(we cannot get o’er the Whitewater

business either); really, sulks the lily,

must we list’ to the brass

or heed the windrose?

come by our glenglass,

there go our Windows!

Chorus: lean your head over

the side of the bowl,

bog down, bog down

Lady Isabel, take cover

if herring is silver, then sour

the cream, as slivers of heather

do sharpen the Tweed

so too may the chains of Old Ireland

bind you
no overlooked clover ever to
find you

when the wind drags the corn

by her silk from the field,

and your hair smells of beer

shorn from the barley,

then shall you have the story,

child, as it was told to me

Vertigo under Mistletoe

I’m at a place called Vertigo

It’s everything I wish I didn’t know

(U2,“Vertigo”)

all-heal by the garland flaunted

above the rushes-o punt! what betideth

these yuleclouds magellanic?

O natal star say our

yongling ycomen

littel childe myrrh is mine

its bitter perfume

its babel sound

O hush ye men of strife!

it’s kisses kisses

then into egypt with him

crisscross the rubicon

sun askance the snow

where it lies dinged

by deer on the run

so infant limbs do

blanch to lose their

outdoor color and

touch my robe!

O babe be not

affrighted

desire of nations

mark my step

my good page

holly mistletoe red berries ivy

turkeys geese game poultry brawn pigs sausages oysters

pies puddings fruit punch all instantly

vanish

into the lightcut

of manner born to

dissolution distill!

sublime & cropped

for want of cereal

eviction

cue the tattoo

let shepherd tend his dinner

let lamb be led to sweater

we’ll have all 9 yds

with our taste for

fabrication: pontic

stiptic

werish

all in the Manor of Arcanumskulduggery:

lapisophistry

pyramidiocy

gnomeopathy

. . . .

her metabolism et passim

tomorrow’s arrow grows

lonesome at such speeds

sangfroid in the shade

this sunny neutrino sings

soprano abandonado

Miss Fortune serenading

her shipwrecked sailors

help is but a step a cheap

skate away over the laws

of northern metaphysics:

ICE

seeks no ECHO

ECHO

strikes no VOICE

VOICE

cuts no ICE

remember the almanac!

lest punctuation be forgotten

in vehemence hazardous

as if this vile drizzle is

not enough as it is

or so it seems

do you hear chimes

god the irony

next will be symmetry

so unnecessary or worse

Matthew Arnold back to

bring that eternal note in

again ill-gotten away from the window

untimely as was

it must be space

this passive voice