Nabokov's Superman Poem [by Vladimir Nabokov, June 1942]

Vladimir Nabokov's poem about "Superman of the Funnies," written in June 1942, has surfaced and been published in London's Times Literary Supplement. Nabokov sent the poem to The New Yorker, whose poetry editor, Charles Pearce, rejected it, saying "Most of us [at the magazine] appear to feel that many of our readers wouldn't quite get it. And then, too, there is the problem you foresaw about the lines in the middleof the poem."
Nabokov had conceded that the poem, about the man of steel's explosive wedding night, might be "too risqué." -- DL

The Man of To-morrow’s Lament

I have to wear these glasses – otherwise,
when I caress her with my super-eyes,
her lungs and liver are too plainly seen
throbbing, like deep-sea creatures, in between
dim bones. Oh, I am sick of loitering here,
a banished trunk (like my namesake in “Lear”),
but when I switch to tights, still less I prize
my splendid torso, my tremendous thighs,
the dark-blue forelock on my narrow brow,
the heavy jaw; for I shall tell you now
my fatal limitation … not the pact
between the worlds of Fantasy and Fact
which makes me shun such an attractive spot
as Berchtesgaden, say; and also not
that little business of my draft; but worse:
a tragic misadjustment and a curse.

I’m young and bursting with prodigious sap,
and I’m in love like any healthy chap –
and I must throttle my dynamic heart
for marriage would be murder on my part,
an earthquake, wrecking on the night of nights
a woman’s life, some palmtrees, all the lights,
the big hotel, a smaller one next door
and half a dozen army trucks – or more.

But even if that blast of love should spare
her fragile frame – what children would she bear?
What monstrous babe, knocking the surgeon down,
would waddle out into the awestruck town?
When two years old he’d break the strongest chairs,
fall through the floor and terrorize the stairs;
at four, he’d dive into a well; at five,
explore a roaring furnace – and survive;
at eight, he’d ruin the longest railway line
by playing trains with real ones; and at nine,
release all my old enemies from jail,
and then I’d try to break his head – and fail.

So this is why, no matter where I fly,
red-cloaked, blue-hosed, across the yellow sky,
I feel no thrill in chasing thugs and thieves –
and gloomily broad-shouldered Kent retrieves
his coat and trousers from the garbage can
and tucks away the cloak of Superman;
and when she sighs – somewhere in Central Park
where my immense bronze statue looms – “Oh, Clark …
Isn’t he wonderful!?!”, I stare ahead
and long to be a normal guy instead.

Vladimir Nabokov
June 1942

Times Literary Supplement (March 2021)

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/superman-returns-poem-vladimir-nabokov-andrei-babikov/

see also the write-up in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/04/vladimir-nabokovs-superman-poem-published-for-the-first-time 

"my namesake in Lear": Kent

Comments

[mitch sisskind]

Beautiful. Masterful.

[Marissa Despain]

So great. Thank you.

[Garden Decor]

My child fav super hero - Superman