Back in 2003, when the Post-911 wars started, I was flipping through Moby Dick, which was published in 1851, and struck by the phenomenon of Herman Melville’s prescience when the narrator surveys the headlines of a local paper and reads:

“GRAND CONTESTED ELECTION FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES.
“WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.
“BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.

Little did I know at the time that poet Edgar Allan Poe was equally prescient, indeed that Poe had written a poem that anticipated the antics of Senator Larry Craig in the bathroom of the Minneapolis air port, and God knows how many other porcelain thrones across the land. Call, “The Stalls,” this previously unknown poem sounds uncannily like “The Bells.” Could it perhaps have been a first draft version of “The Bells”? Only time and the diligence of Poe scholars will tell. For now, though, the reader can simply enjoy its shocking anticipation and celebration of Senator Craig’s favorite pass time.

I

Hear the slamming doors in stalls -
Silver stalls!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How men tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While urinals oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
in a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a tapping Runic rhyme,
To the taptaptapulation that so musically wells
From the stalls, stalls, stalls, stalls,
Stalls, stalls, stalls -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the stalls.

II

Hear the mellow meeting stalls -
Golden stalls!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they sound out their delight! -
From the molten - golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle - dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! - how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the stalls, stalls, stalls -
Of the stalls, stalls, stalls, stalls,
Stalls, stalls, stalls -
To the rhyming and the chiming in the stalls!

III

Hear the loud alarum, stalls -
Policed stalls!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now - now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale - faced moon.
Oh, the stalls, stalls, stalls!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the stalls -
Of the stalls -
Of the stalls, stalls, stalls, stalls,
Stalls, stalls, stalls -
In the clamor and the clanging of the stalls!

IV

Hear the trawlling of the stalls -
Iron stalls!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people - ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the peep hole,
All alone,
And who, trolling, trolling, trolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls: -
And their king it is who trolls: -
And he trolls, trolls, trolls,
Trolls
A paean from the stalls!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the stalls!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the stalls: -
Of the stalls:
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the stalls -
Of the stalls, stalls, stalls: -
To the sobbing of the stalls: -
Keeping time, time, time,
As he kneels, kneels, kneels,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the stalls -
Of the stalls, stalls, stalls -
To the trolling of the stalls -
Of the stalls, stalls, stalls, stalls,
Stalls, stalls, stalls, -
To the moaning and the groaning in the stalls.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007 at 3:26 pm and is filed under Reel Politique - Film columnist DK Holm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.