Poemunity — your poem community

You’re clean shaven in this country where trees grow beards of moss, where even bank tellers look a little like banditos in vests as pungent as sweatsuits. Still, you prefer the vegetable air to almost any other place on the map. After the heart attack, you considered Paris— the flying buttresses, the fractured light of its cathedrals; the entire city refined and otherworldly, ascending on its architectural wings— but decided you had no use for glory, boulevards fur-lined with statues and expensive trees. You admit, on the whole, the towns in this country are ugly. One summer you drove toward Nicoya (a beautiful name that became your destination), expecting a fragrant town of mango trees but found cattle grazing in the plaza, rattling the tin plates in the ubiquitous Chinese restaurant. A Coca-Cola sign hung weathered and askew. That’s perhaps why you like it, it’s a country you can’t count on, a country of misfits. Unable to take root in the mud, the twentieth century has failed miserably, creating neither factory nor industry but a thirst for soda pop; like cosmetic surgery, it is skin deep. The clock is stuck in the rain and the mud of four o’clock. There’s nothing to do but wait as if in a dry cave, a room with a view of the waterfall, pinned as you are beneath the downpour. The waiter bends over your cup without filling it, the storekeeper holds your change until the rain, hypnotic and dramatic, leaves the streets and the gutters, the balcony and the air greener, heavier— mildew blooming in the closet where your shoes, powdered with a sea-green lichen, resembles old bronze, a pair of ancient goblets. While iguanas lounge in the attic (a prehistoric version of the domestic rat), the Office of the Ministry (a pink and crumbling building surrounded by dusty rose trees) prints more money to prop the flimsy flowered currency. You can’t predict what your American dollars will bring by morning. In the hotel restaurant you meet the Undesirable American. He learns just enough of the local lingo to swing by, living on a dwindling account and, here and there, a real estate swindle. Or the pensionado who buys two cigars, offering you one the day his Social Security arrives. Like the cockroach, the displaced have crawled through the cracks and selected for themselves an agreeable niche. A place to start from scratch. They thrive in the vegetable air. You wonder how you’ll survive, unfit, unable to work. Lacking the predatory skills, you’ve stayed in the trees, a dreamer, all your life, even now wanting to believe a change of scenery will get you back on your feet. A brief hiatus in the vegetable air. Tonight, you walk along the damp streets, an average steak, a glass of wine swishing in your belly, to your small room wedged between a jukebox and a dance hall. There are so many things you can’t change— like the dull thrashing music. You draw the blinds, switch on the tiny cassette. Silence. The click of the tape. And then the familiar aria, rising like the moon, lifts you out of yourself, transporting you to another country where, for a moment, you travel light.

Cabbages, beans and bell peppers vie for the glossy centerfold of Nature's Hand where this month the vulgar Hubbard squash reclines with succotash of questionable origin. I've grown to prize passivity; I've learned the word "vegetable" comes from Medieval Latin— vegetabilis , and vegetare which means "to animate, to grow," though I can think of half a dozen ways to squander an afternoon as Destry Rides Again , Dietrich and Stewart... and my doctor friend Lenny who calls to tell me that broccoli has a nervous system, that it suffers when you pick it. If form follows function, it stands to reason that pain is the fate of all "brainy" things— cauliflower, coral and raspberry clumps, the florets that sizzle in my spiced tahini. I've heard potatoes described as "thuggy and plotless," but never "aristocratic" as it says on page seven's "The Stately Spud," where tubers possess an enviable pedigree, popular back to 4000 b.c. when Incas made urns in the shape of russets— long reds, round reds and Yukon Golds, best for sautéing, excellent in frittatas. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for ambition, but some days I'd rather steep in my own kettle. Give me chamomile, cowboys, cornelian cherries. Let me sink, once again, into purposeless sleep.

In this low place between mountains fog settles with the dark of evening. Every year it takes some of those we love—a car full of teenagers on the way home from a dance, or a father on his way to the paper mill, nightshift the only opening. Each morning, up on the ridge, the sun lifts this veil, sees what night has accomplished. The water on our window- screens disappears slowly, gradually, like grief. The heat of the day carries water from the river back up into the sky, and where the fog is heaviest and stays longest, you’ll see the lines it leaves on trees, the flowers that grow the fullest.

The doll told me to exist. It said, “Hypnotize yourself.” It said time would be transfixed. * Now the optimist sees an oak shiver and a girl whiz by on a bicycle with a sense of pleasurable suspense. She budgets herself with leafy prestidigitation. I too am a segmentalist. * But I’ve dropped more than an armful of groceries or books downstairs into a train station. An acquaintance says she colors her hair so people will help her when this happens. To refute her argument, I must wake up and remember my hair’s already dyed. * As a mentalist, I must suffer lapses then repeat myself in a blind trial. I must write punchlines only I can hear and only after I’ve passed on

When the tide lay under the clouds of an afternoon and gave them back to themselves oilier a little and filled with anonymous boats, I used to sit and drink at the very edge of it, where light passed through the liquids in the glasses and threw itself on the white drapes of the tables, resting there like clarity itself, you might think, right where you could put a hand to it. As drink gave way to drink, the slow unfathomable voices of luncheon made a window of ultraviolet light in the mind, through which one at last saw the skeleton of everything, stripped of any sense or consequence, freed of geography and absolutely devoid of charm; and in this originating brightness you might see somebody putting a napkin against his lips or placing a blazing credit card on a plastic tray and you'd know. You would know goddamn it. And never be able to say.

But I have been familiar with ruins too long to dislike desolation. (Lord Byron, November 1816) what happens in any sovereign body is created on the evidence of the last head on its last lap those of us watching then, during the programme see the die seem to be cast to draw the teeth of our first question affecting essential interests they and only they had she was dealing with an unworthy family gathered for death inconvenient location gruesome tired mannerisms a bit thick coming from her losing the thread of argument in a sinuous cartwheel drained of what life hurried out with a pushchair unsparing he takes us to the cabaret into patterns and groups contrived for distraction more likely to deepen withdrawal such a decrease in which women had views diametrically opposed soon changes his tune howling face to face cruel for people recoiling in horror plastered indeed by any form of social charges and interest it may be healthy to change the tone of administration in growth dynamics use of perspective attachment to things entail perpetual disruption of what space is for built up in absence transactions typically occur under conditions of heightened variations in taste spaces, isolated thoughts which his concept of beauty distorts to represent thinking and feeling life he considers in particular superimposed spatial images accelerating production of different times to control the future this book has been edited to detect the note of such preoccupations blue evening light desire out of stasis for jobs investment itself ruthless traders organising forces unable to stop the drift of imagination over materiality form an autobiography in fires of competition only to emerge stronger within this system of production brought into our homes which in turn form the basis of generating and acquiring aesthetic pleasure conventional these days cluttered with illusion based on writing remixed to demolish any narrative of the world within no image concealed from the realm of material accumulation and circulation in part as would be true enduring time by herself he touches her surrounded by models able to pass unrecognised in the stream of money implied by a photograph where the sun never seen can be constructed crashing through layer after layer on a depthless screen with the requisite speed somewhere behind us thrown into the street patiently to see rotting pieces of car buttons working backwards against nerve junctions tilt her head towards her ankles in the underground light black fur gleamed off the oil drum searchers found a delicate bubble of oil sweeping through it pure oxygen dawn touched at the corners rose in flame lengths of thin steel drawn across dust shifting in thick time on motions playing out across from me not in sequence cut into the sides of an extension run below his eyes were tombstones ringed with razor-wire he threaded bright slashes of colour through open jolts of fear measuring, calculating shaking so hard a lump of shadow watching turned from side to side shielding us from the sun pale green glass frames disintegrating tarmac down to the tunnel of the corner of his eye moving on to some other man for the moment horizon of empty water locking him away inside and he wore two pictograms set in strange lines invisible in air energetically above them heels and silk scatter snow in the middle of a room swirling out of the mist bright with arrangements tainted too historically he had forgotten quite violent fights listening to the continuous pounding of some other thought looking at the surface far away down in a cloud of dust tattered lace about her she watched him calmly bits of it he tore off at the end of each meeting seemed colour-coded sparkling violently tingling on his skin holes turned round slowly in brown earth lined with age he smelled burning trees in darkness a voice came from an imaginary telephone on the dashboard shrink-wrapped packages soft underfoot glowed in the dark blinds slanted to make the match flame blast across his face snap shut in the jungle after the ones still alive start confessing flashbulbs go off her hand flicked back and forth over a section of floor he had heard more than every single word from the once proud ruins of arches in one outstretched hand an odd sensation included balance working to repair the damage of triumph on his face folded against the edge of exhaust fumes closing his lids properly needed great care she heard a rustle little numbers flew around trees tumbled across a moonlit field trying to reassemble his head again she blinked some sort of code subtle variations in the colour of her eyes a reliable testing ground gardens inside shelters shades patterning an idealised culture in one landscaped clump stuffed full of shells a version or remnant of something under a different name some crisis of identity spanned the world thought was the only thing to come back to acting beyond acoustics even when dramatic she always wore fancy dress simply cut and held low objects grouped together confidently into fine jewellery after the storm new scents touched by salt spray hardly dimmed the harsh light he sometimes pulled at his hair obsessed with finding the beautiful curtain allowing him entry never able to follow the middle of night downwards to find a runway with deep sides writhing under his fingers personalities full of energy order a series of the same programme cool for film using this knowledge machines talk to themselves maintain a very persistent buzzing as the signal ends in a dramatic freeze close to the border on a street with a few orange trees

gives joy only if read in a broken rhythm, pausing at every period, parting your lips a little at the colons What: a pity to die my love. To say: "I don't love you anymore" with no one listening. What: a shame the irritated voice the haste. The distance between the first passionate whisper and this new timbre. How little shame I have. to have killed you and put you here. beneath the very expanse you created. The: expanse. Is: a cloth. Is: white. Is: a sheet. Is: a land on which snow has fallen. Ssh. you'll be alone there. No longer on top. but. under. as is proper for the dead, as is proper for seed. and. for lilies yet to sprout. You'll feel something like moving scratches: those are birds mice my own bony hands that you adored my tongue with its thirst. Brr. love. how. painful for me to see you shrunken by this chill so stripped of your gifts in this tomb where I can't grieve for you but can only dig down to the earth down to its iron to the fire that now embraces the earth and celebrates me.

What am I to think now, the white scut of her bottom disappearing down the half-flight carpet stair to the bathroom? What am I to do with this masted image? I put all my doubt to the mouth of her long body, let her draw the night out of me like a thorn. She touched it, and it moved: that's all.

Sometimes I dream what’s called the male dream : I’m going somewhere not too far away, I’m almost there, When there’s a slight delay—a minor detour of no consequence, But then another, and another, as I get farther and farther Away from my initial destination, which becomes inaccessible. Before I left Berlin I went to Venice, a city that reminds me of that dream. However close you are to where you want to go, the compound Turnings of its narrow passageways and alleys carry you relentlessly away, Until you dead-end at a small canal that’s nowhere on your map. The late, wrecked century that started in Berlin, where all roads lead— I thought I’d find, if not the truth exactly, then at least an inkling Of some fantasy that lay beneath the placid surface of the day, The remnants of some dream so many people had to die for. Instead, I watched the boats go by, and clouds traverse the sky Above an unreal city floating on the water. We’re sure at first That something lies beyond the facts and books, but then we realize it isn’t there. Whatever lay behind the slaughter wasn’t in the world, Existing merely in the heart, in memory, in someone’s imagination, Places harboring nothing real. To try to see it is to watch it disappear, Stranding you a life away from where the unimaginable began, Staring blankly at your own face floating in the water.

for David Kalstone Stand to one side. No, over here with me: out of the light but out of darkness too, where everything that is not odd or old is gold and subjugates the shadows. There, now you will be no trouble and behold none— anything but trouble, at first glance, last chance to see what I say is worth a look. This whole palazzo is the property of a middle-aged and penniless dilettante, Pen Browning (Robert’s son), who has made terms —palatial terms, in fact—with towering premises afforded by the tact of his New York heiress, Fannie Coddington Browning, dutiful daughter-in-law, doubtful wife. Yet who would not be full of doubts, perplexed at having to define Pen’s talents and finance his tastes? Their Ca’ Rezzonico itself is dubious. The ripened fruit of centuries, rat- and roach-infested, peeling, rank, withers with each tide that rots the piles, though apt withal to weather these tenants as well ... He is painting from the model:Dryope, undressed of course but draped against the draft in a looping swathe of silver-printed stuff that seems to move, glistening over flesh— it does move! lapped in its silver mesh are coils of a python wrapped in loving torpor round the contadina’s undistracted torso. The afternoon is numb: Dryope sleeps in her pose, the python slips a little down the umber slope of her thigh, and Pen, spired, slaps a dashing curlicue across his canvas. “I had the Jew come by with this brocaded velvet yesterday— I bargained some old clothes against it, Fan, so you needn’t ask how much it cost in dollars.” To whom does Pen speak, his eyes intent, his hands “working busily”? Beyond his “subject,” look past the unimposing Dryope, look through the tufts of pampas grass extending up to the tufa vault whose patination casts a pall of watery splendor on the scene— if you manage to overlook the sumptuous junk, jasper urns, a suit of Japanese armor, two stuffed bears, on the divan bearskins too— there, or in this atmosphere let me say lo! on that very divan Robert Browning lolls, a short and foreshortened colossus with feet of clay but the hardest imaginable cranium, among his son’s possessions slightly ill at ease though well bestowed on slippery pelts, and plays (against the wealthy Fannie—see her white shawl?) at draughts with agate pieces, red and green, like a page from some old parchment of kings and queens. In approbation of his son’s economies the old man smiles now—but does she? The skull interfering with our view of Fannie is, I believe, or was the Mahdi’s which Pen keeps beside his easel (Victorians could make anything into a tobacco jar). “I took my pipe through Cannareggio on a long tramp yesterday morning, right into the Ghetto, looking for likely faces, which I found! Didn’t you say, Father, a satisfactory Jew is worth a dozen Gentiles? The one who sold that velvet to me is sure to be ready by Spring: for Lear, you know, or Lazarus at least ...” Pen chatters on to charm the python, not Dryope or Fannie who look up only when the poet, roused, exclaims— as rapt before himself as a child in front of the Christmas tree: “A satisfactory Jew! Setting mere Rothschildsplay aside, Pen, I never saw but one in all my life: Dizzy, I mean—the potent wizard himself, at Hampton Court a dozen years ago, murmuring at the Queen’s ear like a wasp who hoped to buzz his way into the diamonds ... With that olive cast and those glowing-coal-black eyes and the mighty dome of his forehead (to be sure, no Christian temple), as unlike a living man as any waxwork at Madame Tussaud’s: he had a face more mocking than a domino— I would as soon have thought of sitting down to tea with Hamlet or Ahasuerus ...” As if on cue, the poet’s high voice fades, the lights on his tree go out. Yet we have seen enough and heard enough: the secret of losing listeners—did Browning never learn?— is to tell them everything. We lose details. The Mahdi’s skull and Fannie’s coincide ... The scene blurs and the sounds become no more than exaggerated silence. Stand with me another moment till our presence is sacrificed to transitions altogether. Time will not console—at best it orders into a kind of seasonable chaos. Let me tell you, it will not take much longer than a medical prescription— give you ingredients, no cure ... Visitors to the palazzo used to speak of the dangerous ménage—the menagerie! yet the Costa Rican python that cost Pen (or Fannie) sixteen pounds was the first to go, untempted by the rats of Rezzonico; Dryope followed Dryope underground, the girl carried off by a chill and buried at San Michele, the great daub interred in the cellars of the Metropolitan ... “Dear dead women, with such hair, too,” we quote, and notice that hair is the first of ourselves to decay before—last after—death. In a year Robert Browning too was dead, immortal; in another, Fannie dropped her shawl and took the veil and vows of an Episcopalian nun; and Pen? Oh, Pen went on painting, of course— buono di cuore, in yellow chamois gloves, obese, oblivious, dithering into debt and an easy death. The sale of what we saw or saw through in Venice realized, as they say, some thirty thousand pounds at Sotheby’s. I told you: first glance is last chance. Darkness slides over the waters—oil sludge spreading under, till even Venice dies, immortally immerded. Earth has no other way, our provisional earth, than to become invisible in us and rise again. Rezzonico ... Disraeli ... We realize our task. It is to print earth so deep in memory that a meaning reaches the surface. Nothing but darkness abides, darkness demanding not illumination—not from the likes of us— but only that we yield. And we yield.