misc/poetry

All the new thinking is about loss.
In this it resembles all the old thinking.
The idea, for example, that each particular erases
the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk
of that black birth is, by his presence,
some tragic falling off from a first world
of undivided light. Or the other notion that,
because there is in this world no one thing
to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds,
a word is elegy to what it signifies.
We talked about it late last night and in the voice
of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone
almost querulous. After a while I understood that,
talking this way, everything dissolves: justice,
pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman
I made love to and I remember how, holding
her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,
I felt a violent wonder at her presence
like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river
with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,
muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish
called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.
Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances. I must have been the same to her.
But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled
bread,
the thing her father said to her that hurt her, what
she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as
numinous
as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.

AFTER READING “MOCK ORANGE”

Already, it was so:
the scent of orange blossoms
at the window, sun-jostled, bearing

the sting of the finite.
I thought of birds in those branches
as jewels, hard, refracting

light onto our walls, and knew
whatever gleaming they may have done
was not for us.

Knowledge came
disguised in sweetness
and with such ease, it astonished.

We knew, eventually, we would want
different things. Then
we started wanting them.

you know how sometimes you want to write about the working class
you go to the factory district
but there is no working class
just a bunch of hipsters drinking coffee
when you see out of the corner of your eye a giant shadow
it must be a representative of the working classes
you think
and you prepare to write about
how the working class still lives and breathes
when the shadow comes out from around the corner
and puts its finger in your face
don’t write about me, it says,
I know your kind
you make things up that can never happen
then the rest of us spend a century cleaning up the mess

why don’t you write instead
about how with your elegant thin white fingers
that have known neither factory machines nor farm implements
(although, you know what, you can skip that part)
you break off a piece of delicious biscotti

yeah. that would be a lot more realistic
after all you’re so interested in realism

so why don’t you write about how on a sunny May afternoon
you pour yourself a glass of rich red wine
and it sends sparks off your glass, like a snow globe

and as for me I think I can live without
another poem about me, by you,
and anyway what new thing can you say about me?
I know everything about myself already
whereas about a sunny May afternoon
about how ineffably sad one sometimes feels
and how she has such enormous crystal eyes
this you know far better than I
write it. Write about
how a vase full of flowers
wakes up
and pours a child out of itself, with the water

just don’t write about a day in the life of the workers of AvtoVAZ3
and don’t write about young Lenin

write, like Mandelstam, about the yearning for world culture
put yourself somewhere between the bedroom and the chapel

just don’t write anymore about the foundation pit
and try to keep yourself from mentioning solidarity

I think you understand what I’m saying
go and write it
and we’ll read it when we have a break
or maybe we’ll go fishing
or to the bathhouse for a sauna
or maybe to pick mushrooms, the mushrooms are coming up you know
or maybe we’ll go to the theater with our wives using our union cards
or maybe we’ll see the football game, Spartak is coming on, who do you root for?

I apologize if I’ve offended you
the working class has a diverse range of entertainment options
we don’t always have a chance to keep up with contemporary poetry

all right
the main thing is don’t get depressed and start thinking of doing something stupid
I know you poets
first thing that happens you go shooting yourselves or tying up a noose
and then after that our kids come home from literature class all pale
like from another world
they start crying and yelling
dying isn’t anything new in this life
fuck it!

sorry
all right, off you go
before I mess up and say anything else
hurt your feelings
and then you’ll get all inward-looking
you’re the one who taught me
a class in itself must become a class for itself
so live for yourself a little bit
relax
take a break
learn to take some pleasure in life
and don’t be so quiet
why are you quiet all the time?
you scare me with this silence of yours
you’re a prophet, after all
so rise up and speak
inflame our hearts
with your elevated verbiage
nothing that is human is alien to us
in fact maybe it’s through you that we see it
otherwise what the fuck do we need you for
if not to tell us things that have never happened
and about paradise here on earth