Henry James and Constipation

by Peter Porter

The mail creeps into Florence with the sun
And I, along these lotos-lettered tiles,
Touch at the door of disappointment; smiles
Of fellow-guests I am ashamed to shun
Adorn the corridors and I assume
The living William's in a letter in my room.

Your strictures, William, if I call them thus,
Are Medical Injunctions, similar
To that one body-mind self-avatar
We hold is Moral Truth. The impetus
Of our distinct decorums, like our bowels,
Stays with the Signoria and the men with trowels.

Why do we quit our shores of sense to seek
Something no better, but much longer known?
Their masons' trowels! We think perhaps we've sown
The present with the past. Is Boston weak
In wanting to declare a glorious pose
Just truths a waiter winks or scholar might disclose?

Dear Henry, says the word-within-the-words,
You've eaten Europe, now digest it well:
Alice, yourself, all Jameses should dispel
Inheritance, as migratory birds,
Wingspanned enough, approach the classic coasts
Of Excellent Ambush, hangmen's shadows, faction's ghosts.

The pills are packed, small dictionaries of hope,
Encyclopaedias encroaching on
The Atlas where the motorist may swan
The shore. Old Europe's by new Huxleyan soap
Made clean. One half-Swiss hint from Burckhardt and
All Art lies open like an oyster in the hand.

In Rome one day at Carnival a flour-
Bomb surprised me, covering me in white,
A proper suiting for the Church of Night,
If somewhat vulgar. Climb the tallest tower,
View any landscape here, its sepulture
Is cold retention, derogated, anal, dure.

De Quincey had my trouble -opium
For him, for me, inaction, looking on,
The bathroom stalled, the crucial moment gone.
The Bread of Culture, eaten crumb by crumb,
Chokes off all other appetite, and we
Who will one day be prints exist as effigy.

The picture of itself, The Great Good Land,
Which waits your passage in the sired boat,
Is not so truthful as a brother's coat,
Your many-coloured words. We understand
Each other who were not made here, but seek
The broad bestowing stream fed by clearskin creek.

The mail leaves town, I've often noted, by
The Porta Roma, wheels retarded, carrying
Enchantments far back home, the marrying
And dying, gossiping -this claimed life's wry
Postmark of ancient lore and new device
Is Advent of Degree, point made, distinction nice.