In Praise Of The Horizontal (A Prose Poem) Poem by Denis Mair

(after reading Ralph La Charity's summary* of his travels across America's rough hide)
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{Ralph's words: }
...mobilesse oblige will overcome...

{Denis' words: }
'Mobilesse oblige' is absolutely a cool concept. I imagine it being coined during session of repartee at the Brass Rail, or perhaps while preparing to bust a move outta Dodge with your better half. My father would have liked such a concept. On more than on occasion he remarked that 'noblesse oblige' was his fate due to the 'droit de seigneur'* that was asserted upon one of his female ancestors by a bearer of the local nobility's bloodline. Being singled out to receive a drop of blue blood, the powers above expected him to put his abilities to use providing for lots of family and relatives. He had to keep on plowing his father's field even after he got married. A picture of my Dad's home village lent credibility to his surmises. A picturesque ruin of a castle overlooked the village, perhaps the seat of the very bloodline of which he spoke.

*{Ralph's words: }
While in then-West Germany for 3 years in the '80s, we lived in Landstuhl, a small town close to Ramstein Air Base that had the ruins of a castle on a bluff above the ville - your last sentence above brought it back to mind. Your mention of the Brass Rail put me in mind of an adult dancer bar in Newport KY, across the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati, called the Brass Ass - your 2nd sentence above brought the Ass back to mind also. As for the term 'mobilesse oblige, ' that term is my own, coined sometime during my years of roaming as a mobility-obligated open poetry operative hither & yon in cities across Amerisha's abundant hide, to include extended stays in Denver, San Antonio, San Franscisco, Seattle, & now Cinci -- even had a notable sojourn over in Honolulu, once upon a time. Your post took me down one very protracted & sonically well-articulated memory lane -- thank you!

{Denis' words: }
This account of your peregrinations sounds wonderfully free-wheeling. It also has sizable dimensions and articulations like a tree laid out horizontal across the land. It has grand branchings and exploratory probings like a tree gradually occupying a space in the upper canopy. But in your case, it lays claim not the lofty overstory but the land's amplitude. No wonder you come up with phrases like the land's 'checkered hide' (or whatever the adjective may be) . And as you say, the journey lends itself to sweeping sonic evocations, because the arcs of its course call for a canticled narrative. You've measured it with the length of your staff. And like a tree that gives an expansive view of the horizontal, by offering its branches held aloft, your horizontal tower offers a privileged vantage point upon the vertical. You can survey all metaphors of ascending levels of abstraction (i.e., metaphysics) and see what contortions people get into while trying to occupy them concretely.

{Ralph's words: }
yea, being alone is both unavoidale & omnipresent -- ever in the midst of an enveloping swarm, to choose is still the singular option 'mobilesse oblige' bequeaths...

{Denis' words: }
I wrote about a horizontal tower in one of my effusions. Maybe that's why I had the image ready-to-mind. See my poem titled --- 'The Bottle Mouth of a Harbor.'
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*Note: Literally 'right of the master' ---this expression refers to a nobleman's prerogative to spend the first nuptial night with a bride on the occasion of marriage between two of his serfs.