AJ Moolman is a healthcare worker who lives near Port Elizabeth. He moonlights as a folksinger/guitarist.

Of Shadow and Dark

AJ Moolman

It was a scene his mind was to devour in the days to come.

Looking raggedly like an artist, walking up the steps to the entrance of the fabled Publishing House with its hallowed St Georges Street address, the doorman opening the wood and glass-paneled door with white gloves, asking him the nature of his visit to this bastion of literature.

‘I’m here to present my latest volume of poetry,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I’ll find my way.’

‘Please sign here … just routine, sir.’ The doorman shoved a form on a clipboard in front of the poet, who, with a dash and a dot hurriedly completed irritating necessities on the high road of great art.

A brisk walk upstairs. The pretty brunette with a low cut V-neck cotton top at the reception. The toss of the manuscript on the counter.

‘Are you the writer?’ Her voice husky, her young hazel eyes stroking his posture.

‘Actually I’m a poet.’ There’s a definite distinction. The poet’s connected to the gods to relay divine signals onto paper, to wander in words bathed in a sacred tradition. Writers, well … they’re word stringers whose connections and signals are less defined.

‘Your first time?’

Sensing ambiguous tones, he rather focused on business at hand. ‘It’s the first one I offer for publication. Had a few poems already published in poetry magazines.’

She held up the manuscript as if she weighed it with her hands. ‘Feels impressive. I’ll pass it on to the people working with it,’ she said politely. ‘What’s your name, you say?’

‘Derek Castelyn. And the book’s title is “Out of the Shadow”.’ Some facts you need to hit home.

‘Castelyn … ’ She eyed him quizzically. ‘There’s another writer with that name…’

‘Pete Castelyn, the biographer. He’s my father. Many books of his appeared through Publishing House. He passed away last year.’

‘So sorry to hear that.’ She didn’t look as if she was.

‘Doctor Dunbar is waiting for this.’ He pointed to his manuscript on the counter. ‘A friend of his urged me to publish.’

‘He’s out for the day, but it will be on his desk when he comes in tomorrow,’ the brunette promised, and carried on with other tasks.

What more could a poet asked for: a great volume of poetry on the desk of the doyen of publishing, waiting to ignite the literary landscape. A young lion’s roar in an aging pride.

An emptiness nagged at him when he left; he felt as if he was leaving a piece of himself in that manuscript. It’s difficult to forgo something that was an intimate part of your thoughts, actions and sweat for more than a year. Like leaving a child for the first time in the care of a stranger, the experience sowed doubt. But it was all in the name of poetry, and these sensations and visions would occupy his mind for some time to come. And, hopefully, these thoughts would be distilled, refined and processed to bring forth great art, great poetry.

With a heaviness of heart he climbed into his car to challenge the busy midtown traffic. His mood lifted as he hit the N7, picking up speed as the traffic thinned out, and turned off at the Blouberg Turnpike. He negotiated a few robots and stops, and soon found himself on a deserted stretch of beach at the northern end of Blouberg Strand, quite close to Melkbos Strand.

The sun shone brilliantly, and for a change it was windless — a beautiful early spring morning, with Table Bay, Table Mountain and Lion’s Head rising spectacularly in view as he walked onto the beach. It was low tide, and being familiar with the surroundings, he quickly found the rock that formed a natural seat near the low tide mark on which he went to sit.

Once comfortable he opened a copy of the manuscript he delivered. Look with favor upon the chapters in your hand, said Pushkin. The phase of doubt and self-criticism had been worked through. He was satisfied that what he wrote — he actually preferred the term compose when relating to poetry — was of high standard. It was time to reflect, to mentally savor the fruits of his labor.

Turning to the first poem, aptly titled “Gambit”, and signed Margate 21/01/01, his mind wandered to the sunrise over the Indian Ocean that Sunday morning, breaking the day in the kindest of sub-tropical colors. The poem was there, right on the beach where he sat with a girl he hardly knew. The night was wild, but inspiration tended to follow tranquility after wanton. The words flowed from his pen like the waves hitting the shore, metaphors soaring even higher than his hormones a few hours earlier. With the sacrifice of a pawn — or a virgin — the book was opened.

‘Who’s the real Derek Castelyn?’ the tousled damsel dreamily asked.

He paused long. The moment called for a poetic answer. ‘A man on a quest for rhymes, reasons, enjambments and jambalayas.’ It was good enough for her. Good enough for me, and Bobby McGee.

Philosophy. That’s what DJ Opperman railed against. Well, “Philosophy of a Subculture” lived up to standards of Georg Lichtenburg, that everyone should study at least enough philosophy to make his sexual experience more delectable. Insights gained after two bottles of wine with a lady of vice let thoughtful verses roll on subtle associations between Kant and cunt. Deep feelings reveal superficial wisdom, a soundboard echoed. But then, everyone has the right to offer critic to other’s reason.

And it wasn’t just with philosophers he poetically rubbed shoulders with. The light breeze that rose from the direction of Robben Island blew up the pages at a poem with the poet’s favorite title. “Intertextual Textures with Intellectuals” found himself in literary interaction with Browning’s troubled painters, Henry Miller’s artist loving women, dueling on life and death issues with Tennyson, and a final swing with the sonorous rhymes of Swinburne. Browning, Castelyn, Miller, Swinburne, Tennyson. His name fit well in a gallery of greats.

He remembered reading the poem at a gathering of the Stellenbosch Authors Society. SAS, very military-sounding. In fact very unmilitary in attitude and manner. With the Cape winter rain beating against wood-paneled windows that Saturday afternoon, he took his bow and did a passionate reciting of his poetic tour de force. The exalted company’s applause and words pleased him. For the first time he felt he could uphold himself in a fine literary crowd.

Afterwards an imposing elderly man whose name he didn’t catch took him to one side. The man, graying at the temples, looked around to see if anyone else was in earshot, and then said in all confidentiality: ‘Young man, I want to tell you just one word.’ He hesitated for heightened effect. ‘Publish!’ Another pause, then more words: ‘I’ll call John Dunbar straight away.’ Putting word to deed he took out his cellphone and made the call.

‘John. Derek Castelyn, Pete’s boy. The most exciting new voice in poetry.’ Doctor John Dunbar, the revered name in South African literature. When John Dunbar say publish, then Publishing House publish. The elderly man with the cryptic way of talk listened a few moments to the voice on the other side, then closed up his phone without saying good-bye. ‘John Dunbar’s waiting for your work,’ he said and walked away.

Derek closed his manuscript and opened it randomly again. ‘Voodoo Chile’ was the poem he found. Conceived and written in a dim purple-lit room around 3am with a quiet whiff and Jimi Hendrix music pumping lowly through the loudspeakers of the hi-fi, he explored lyrical possibilities of a meeting between Hendrix and Pablo Neruda.

I pass my axe to the other side of Jimmy Page … a line he particularly liked quite a bit.

With an elated feeling, a heart that jumped for joy, a pride of being one of an elite group of human beings that have an outstanding volume of poetry under the belt, he closed his manuscript and took out his cellphone. He fiddled with his hi-tech thing, and soon an e-mail was dispensed to his wide circle of friends. ‘ I’m having a party, everybody’s invited. As usual — Cagney’s at nine o’clock.’

The poet took his belongings, had a long last look at the sea, Table Mountain, and the city where common mortals were toiling for their bread on the table this time of the week, and then headed to his car. He hit the road with rock’n’roll thundering in his ears.

Life’s good, life’s cool
I always get what I want …

Then came the waiting. Like a woman falling pregnant waiting for her tummy to show. He did the cocktail rounds, worked the club circuit, having endless days and nights of fun. In his mind he could see rave reviews and accolades bestowed upon him for his masterpiece. But the weeks dragged on, with no news forthcoming about the publishing of his poetry.

He started to call Publishing House, leaving messages neither Doctor John Dunbar nor anyone else bothered to return. Unable to ascertain the status of his manuscript at the publisher, he searched for the man at the Author’s Society who had so easy access to Dunbar. Not having the name of the old-timer, he found at least seven men fitting the description of elderly and graying at the temples participating at the Society’s gatherings.
He didn’t have the heart to go through the exercise to locate the well-connected old man.

Derek’s female companion of the time, Mary Ann Evans, a short-and-curlies computer analyst, did her best to encourage him, to cheer him up. One night, at the long end of a candlelight dinner at Camps Bay, she showed a literary inclination of her own.

‘Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo,’ she quoted Don Marquis, trying to ease the emotional pain building up in him.

‘It seems to be an awfully deep canyon, my dear. And I bet there’s no microphones down there to amplify the sound,’ he commented wryly.

At another occasion, a noisy bar on Cavendish Square, she suggested another publisher. ‘I heard Frederick Forsyth got “The Day of the Jackal” published only after being rejected by twenty other publishers,’ she motivated her proposal.

‘That won’t do.’ The scene wasn’t right to explain at length lucid differences between publishers. ‘Publishing House’s like New York. If you make it there, you can make it anywhere,’ he said, and with that settled the argument.

Derek’s days got emptier as time went by. His inheritance took more than enough care of his rather extravagant monetary needs, and having had no desire to find a regular job, his poetry project was the singular entity that directed his life. Mary Ann hinted that he should start with a next literary project, but he countered that his mind needed to be cleared of “Out of the Shadow” before he could move on.

Then very early one autumn morning his cellphone rang. Sleepily he answered. It was John Dunbar. He jumped out of bed, trying hard to wipe the cobwebs from his mind.

‘Where are you, Derek?’ the famed publisher asked with a gruff voice.

‘Betty’s Bay.’

‘How’s the sunrise there?’

Derek waffled in easy syllables of poetic description.

‘You’re in the same place your father used to stay?’ Dunbar asked. ‘Near Verwoerd’s place?’

‘Near Verwoerd’s place.’

‘Then I’ll see you in an hour.’ The publisher rang off.

Derek was alone. It was Wednesday and Mary Ann was at work. He showered and cleared the house a bit. Some rowdy friends partied with him deep into the night, and left the house in a mess.

Exactly an hour after he rang off Doctor John Dunbar stopped at the rustic, but very comfortable seaside dwelling at Betty’s Bay. He had Derek’s manuscript with him, which he flipped on the slate-type table in the living room and went to sit in an easy chair. Derek offered him coffee, which he declined. He motioned for Derek to sit.

‘What inspires you to write?’ Dunbar asked.

‘Blue oceans, full moons, music, literary greats, and life’s experience,’ he said affably, very happy to have at last the attention of the respected publisher.

Dunbar, bespectacled, bald, and corpulent, glared at him sullenly. ‘That’s inspiration, alright. But inspiration doesn’t yield great art. Great art is what other people recognizes as beauty. It is what moves others, not necessarily what moves the artist.’ He coughed, and lit a cigar. The strong smell of tobacco drifted about in the room.

‘No-one can tell exactly how to create it,’ he continued. ‘But in any genre there are rules and clues that lead to great art. That you’ll find only through hard work, intellectual capacity, and in the will to create something beautiful.’

The writing seemed to be on the wall, but Derek had heard Dunbar was a quirk with strange ways of putting things across. ‘And my poetry?’ he asked with a glimmer of hope and expectation.

Dunbar stood up and walked to the window overlooking the wind-swept shore of Betty’s Bay. He turned around to face Derek, who was still seated. Cigar smoke billowed through his lips as he spoke.

‘You’ve been given the benefit of the doubt at Publishing House. That was because of your family name, and also a call I got from a friend. I involved other selectors. I consulted widely. We failed to detect true beauty in your work.’

Derek was shattered. ‘I gave more than a year of my life for these poems!’ he lamented.

Dunbar puffed his cigar, ready to leave. ‘The time you spend on anything is not equal to the quality of the work you produce,’ he said coldly, got up, walked out, and drove off again.

Derek was devastated. For hours on end he stared at the manuscript where Dunbar left it on the table. His mind raced with anger, later to calm down, his mental waves oscillating in longer cycles. In the late afternoon he settled behind his desk, and wrote on a piece of A4 paper:

Great art is usable art
Devoured in the brightness of light
Mine: a rambling in the shadow
Unable to ignite

He then lit a fire in the fireplace. Without ceremony he threw the manuscript into the fire and watched eager flames burning up his work. When the paper had turned to ashes he walked outside.

The setting sun threw a majestic array of colors across the rocky landscape, but all inspiration had left him. His eyes were shut, his mind went dark.

boontoe

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