Ruta Skendeliene Poet Bio

Notes About The Poem

 

This writing is about Juozas Miltinis, Lithuanian Theater director, who played a prominent role in Soviet occupation period in Lithuanian theater and intellectual society's life. This is a part one of a bigger project. Young years of learning in Paris. 

Juozas Miltinis Learning Years In Paris

It was September 
Of one thousand 
Nine hundred seven
The end of summer
With apples lying thickly
Under the apple trees
And the smell of Autumn
Covering the grass
Filled with ripe yellow
And orange squash
He was born in a little
Wooden house that night
At the very edge
Of a very small village
At the rail tracks
Where lonely train 
Run once a day
Every other Sunday

Then one rainy Autumn day
He caught a Paris train
And ended up on the stage
With Jean-Louis Barrault
Who was taming a wild horse
In As I Lay Dying famous
Performance that stunned
The artistic community
Of avant-garde France
And Théâtre de l'Atelier 
Became an icon of the time

After the show was over
They all got drunk with ideas
That were brewing up in the air
They disagreed about many things
And all had different images
Of what future is about to bring
Fiery proving his own point
Marcel Marceau broke a fight
Protecting the mime rights
On the modern theater stage 
Under Mullen Rouge cabaret lights
Where fancy elusive prostitutes 
Stepped down from the paintings
Of dreamy Toulouse Lautrec
Who was leaning at the wall 
At white clothed table very small
In a corner next to open doors
Women with blood red lips
On whitish anorexic faces
Whispered little dirty things
In slutty enticing voices
Into enchanted artists ears 
They danced around the tables
In blurred light with their eyes 
Framed with dark eye shadows
Like deep pools of water shut wide 
On the other side in a dim light 
He saw a man sitting at the window 
Who looked like Antonin Artaud 
With pale face suspended in frenzy
Whispering with bloodless lips
And eyes locked in a distant gaze
Mystical words of a secret prayer
To his own God whom he called 
Magical cruel double theater cage

Later he slept in a room
With Madeleine Renaud
Future wife of J L Barrault
Which they shared in the attic
Of a historical stone building
On the Augustine street corner
With trams running non stop
All night along till the morning
Waking up exhausted artists from
The marathon of intellectual orgies
After the premier of Volpone
J L Barrault was still dancing
In the dark narrow corner
With pale shadowy horses 
In his deep sleepwalking haze
When morning broke up
Through narrow windows 
And light was gliding through
The cosmic artsy scenery
Of cosmopolitan Paris streets

One-day Picasso showed up at the door
Of the little room on the top floor
Where the roof was serving as ceilings
In his pocket he had a bottle of aperitif 
And the party went on till next morning
When he inspired started Guernica drawing
On the walls of the attic with his fingers
Dipped in blood reaching the arched ceiling
A beautiful but suffering weeping woman
Emerged in the dark shades of the beams
Screaming about sadness of human being 
In the world that lost its own Identity 
For imaginary empty cruel things

Jean Cocteau brought a bizarre spirit
Of avant-garde into the community 
Of a little world of artistic attic
That was tremendously affected
By the ideas of surrealism in his movies 
Filled with mystical images of dark spirits
Elaborated shapes sounds and forms 
Never seen on the screen before
Love struggle death and rebirth
Of The Blood of the Poet that is 
A part of a divine sacrifice
And the modern world’s price
For being authentic and alive

The next day he went to a market place
With beautiful actress Marcelle who was
Maestro Charles Dullins’ beloved wife
He wanted to learn the lessons of life
And to get a reality check of street wise
Also to ask for an intelligent advice
How not to get lost and find a way
To freedom and not to scream or cry
In all this spectacular confusing mess
Of imagery and novel lavish ideas 

He chose Charles Dullin as his teacher
And Théâtre de l'Atelier became his home
And his rigorous training ground
For long  strenuous four years
That flew by as fast as one day
He was taught to master the secrets
Of sacred stage that is to become 
A new religion of the future to come
On the grounds of Intellectual belief 
That there is hidden true meaning
Of every living human being
In the world that lost its ability 
To be fair and true to itself
He spent days and sleepless nights
Learning behind the closed curtains
The hard lessons of the theater art
Taught by skillful masters of the craft
The signs of the time were brought to life
In that dimly lit space of a closed stage
And lit with bright light to emphasize
The importance of the sacred stage
And the future was to be defined
Of many aspects of the art of theater
That was conceived in that place
Into the craft he was ordained 
To be perfected to absolute space
And time limits expanded and defined
In a new creative enchanting way
He pledged to be true to the cause
To protect the dignity of human being
To fight for the freedom of art
To become a new century's religion

Deep impressions of Paris artistic life
Etched in his brain in a new pattern
That he saw in the back of his mind
He knew he had to find his own way
To bring this pattern to life one day
He was searching for fertile ground
In Paris and all over around
But couldn't’t find the right stage
Till one rainy day he took a train
Back to where from he came 
He opened a new chapter in his life's 
Book that he was about to write
In images on Lithuanian theater stage
He brought spirits of masters to life 
Off all times in to this little country’s
Tragic life that was about to unfold
In the shadows of the second world war
Brewing in the guts of European core
That was wide opening the doors
For dark evil unpredictable force
To come and change the world
in a way that will never be the same

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Jan Allison February 27, 2020 at 4:10 PM what a terrific insight into his life Ruta - I am half Lithuanian - my father is buried there in Gelgaudiskis but for many reasons i will never visit his homeland although my mother went several times and I understand its very beautiful:-) hugs Jan xx

Tim Smith September 2, 2016 at 3:24 PM A terrific poem ruta. I was enthralled from beginning to end.