Author Information
Apology To Any Of My Readers Who Have Read My Poem Entitled, "Mayerling"
I had great hopes for my poem, "Mayerling." It was supposed to nominate a new candidate for the identity of the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper; and it was to be an answer, from a challenge (issued by a person who has not been in my life since April, 2013) to find, as a poet, some historical link between the two most sinister human beings of recent history (as interpreted by Jacomyntje, Lady Chausette). The poem was written in a flurry . . . no, actually an emotional storm . . . over several days in August, 2013. The internet poet, outside of postpoems, whom I most admire graciously linked it on his site of what he considered to be significant or important poems since 1950. I do not say this simply to boast; but to underscore the enormity of the stupid and clumsy error to which I must now admit.
Re-reading "Mayerling" today in order to explain a detail to one of my closest online friends, I was shock, dismayed, and almost nauseated to find clumsily constructed lines, lines that failed to follow the syllabic pattern (six iambs per line in the first half, five in the other half). I also found words that sounded clumsy upon the iambic flow of the lines that contained them.
Like I said, I am highly, furiously, disappointed with myself. That poem has been on display on this site almost eight years, and yet it was no better than an uncorrected draft. Yet, the true purpose of the poem was not to strut its format, but to answer Lady Chausette's challenge (which she made with little or no awareness of Uncle Joe . . . Stalin), and to do something that I had promised, in substance if not by direct description, to a person on whom I had a great crush (1975-1976; until I met BlueLevels)---which was to nominate a viable, and hitherto unconsidered, identity for the murderer called Jack the Ripper. My first published Ripper theory, published in 2001 in England and still part of that website---and the one of which I am and always shall be the most proud---suggests, based upon five key pieces of evidence, that Mary Kelley survived her encounter with the assailant; and not only survived, but killed the Ripper in self defense. "Mayerling" does not recognize that theory: it accepts the canonical five victims, and shows the Ripper's activity shortly after the murders.
But this is all paranthetical to the real purpose of this brief essay, which is to apologize for my unconscionable and clumsy carelessness. In my defense, I can only offer three statements: that it was not intentional; that it did not, in any way, fall prey to the Do-Does-Did, that monstrosity I detest; and that I have corrected all of the errors I have found.
To you, if you have read "Mayerling," I apologize. If you have not, I apologize.
Starward
PS. For that one reader, or more than one reader, who may be interested (he says, still with great embarrasment on his grimacing face), I include her the link to my very first internet poem, published by my very first internet publisher: https://www.casebook.org/diversions/fiction.jere.html
