Poemunity — your poem community

I had a calling. I took the call. It was all I could do to follow the voice streaming into me Like traffic on the runway where I lay Down to gather. I had a calling. I heard the geese bleat In the firmament as they migrated Into the jet’s jets. And could I have foreseen that falling I could have fallen too Rather than being sutured to the bottomless Freeze-out lake. For it is fine to lie within one’s borrowed blankets Looking up at the Dropped ceiling coming down. For at the moment I am employed counting the holes In the sound absorbing tiles Keeping a running record of the interlocutor’s Chides. I feel at one with extinction By my own hand (Inner hand) Though once there were many of my kind Flocking inland, or perhaps It felt that way.

Another day come, add it To the list, the Not to do list. Son of mine, I was rambling across the undercarpeting Strewn with imperceptible tacks In one shapeless slip-on When a pain rang out in my flank And I fell to, Braying, But who should answer but no one. I lost good cause that day, don’t ask, Let us sit a bit in this ill-starred Suit in the form-filling Chamber of subtraction, Listing. I haven’t another trip around the sun Left in me. Speak to me Son, vague one. For this is where it thickens, Me here and it there and me there and them here And you with the soul. I’ll cross that gravid boneyard All the day poking Radishes for remembrance. For this is a private matter Between a man and his scaffolding And it shall remain so Privation permitting.

Out of cash, out of well-fitting trousers, Out of soap and apples, Out of pencils, out of my keeper’s Reach. I wish to set myself afire But may not. This morning (Last night) in the common room I watched the administration Of oxygen to one who had none And I would not sit down, demanding To do so. Later I happened on a man At the piano, and though I have happened five or six times On men at the piano, None moved his hand like this Within the keys. I sat beside him, looking for a sound A chest sound. Not listening; I don’t listen Anymore. I make music But I don’t listen.

at the unemployment office I know it can be a two hour deathly wait before one’s name is called out so I find a chair and bury my head in a book that I brought to read sitting beside me, a man and a woman converse talk of years past, of people they knew and Leonard, is he still in prison? yeah, he’s still doing time well, that’s good, I guess, means he’s still alive a young girl walks in, short black halter top and airbrushed-on jeans her breasts pouting up past a too-low neckline the men, the women, all stare whether they’d like to or not Leonard’s friends exchange stories yeah, my ex, she just wants my money I tell her, well, go work then! and they laugh between the irony life, huh, she tells him,it’s crazy, the things we get into, he agrees the rest of us caught silently in their exchange agree, as well his arms are thick with hair and tattoos of skills and scrawled out indecipherable letters of the alphabet yeah, this chick that was riding with me once, he tells her got her jacket belt caught on my wheel I didn’t even know it until I got to the next light I went back, she was alright, just fell off, didn’t get hurt or nothing she was pissed though. “just fell off, didn’t get hurt,” what does he mean? this story just drops off, I want to know a little more, a lot more I mean, how fast was the bike going when she fell off did she ruin the belt, scrape her nose did they drink a lot of beer afterwards? and so the time drags by, the line lengthens now and then people unbury their heads from their midmorning dragging into noon thoughts women adjust their bra straps scold their kids with unfulfilled warnings the folks behind the counter look at us holding their half empty cups of coffee ah, if only there was a dollar for every story

For Mary Peace Then I led her to the river certain she was still a virgin though she had a husband. The fourth Friday in July, as good as on a promise. The street lights were vanishing and the crickets flaring up. Last bend out of town I brushed her sleepy breasts. They blossomed of a sudden like the tips of hyacinths and the starch of her petticoat bustled in my ear like silk slit by a dozen blades. The pines, minus their halo of silver, grew huger and the horizon of dogs howled a long way from the river. Past the blackberry bushes, the rushes and whitethorn, beneath her thatch of hair, I made a dip in the sand. I took off my neckerchief. She unstrapped her dress. Me my gun and holster, she her layers of slips... Not tuberose, not shell, has skin as half as smooth nor does mirror glass have half the shimmer. Her hips flitted from me like a pair of startled tench: the one full of fire, the other full of cold. That night I might as well have ridden the pick of the roads on a mother-of-pearl mare without bridle or stirrups. Gentleman that I am, I won’t say back the scraps she whispered to me. It dawned out there to leave my lip bitten. Filthy with soil and kisses, I led her from the river and the spears of lilies battled in the air. I behaved only the way a blackguard like me behaves. I offered her a big creel of hay-colored satins. I had no wish to fall for her. She has a husband after all, though she was still a virgin when I led her to the river.

As the father turns away from the thought of his failure, the hands remove his glasses and rub his eyes over and over, drying the nonexistent tears. Unknown to the one who is troubled about losing his hair, his fingers stroke his baldness as he speaks. The body, our constant companion, understands the loneliness of the hostess in her dark driveway, embracing herself after the guests who promised more and soon have gone, and even visits the old schoolteacher who reads the same happy ending to each new class, working her toes in her shoes. How could the people of the kingdom not have known the curse of sorrow was nothing more than a long sleep they had only to wake from? In dreams the body, which longs for transformation too, suddenly lifts us above the dark roofs of our houses, and far above the streets of the town, until they seem like any other small things fastened to earth.

Sir, please accept my resignation As of next month, And, if it seems right, plan on replacing me. I’m leaving much unfinished work, Whether out of laziness or actual problems. I was supposed to tell someone something, But I no longer know what and to whom: I’ve forgotten. I was also supposed to donate something — A wise word, a gift, a kiss; I put it off from one day to the next. I’m sorry. I’ll do it in the short time that remains. I’m afraid I’ve neglected important clients. I was meant to visit Distant cities, islands, desert lands; You’ll have to cut them from the program Or entrust them to my successor. I was supposed to plant trees and I didn’t; To build myself a house, Maybe not beautiful, but based on plans. Mainly, I had in mind A marvelous book, kind sir, Which would have revealed many secrets, Alleviated pains and fears, Eased doubts, given many The gift of tears and laughter. You’ll find its outline in my drawer, Down below, with the unfinished business; I didn’t have the time to write it out, which is a shame, It would have been a fundamental work. Translated from the Italian

Ah yes - they justify it all, the brats, hungry or asleep and gorged with milk. Each drop's (yes, the milk they drink is yours) another line unwritten, another page crumpled like a pufiball on the floor. Your limpid dialogue is reduced to the basic syllables of the cave and the quick infant minds grow huge, while you relearn vocabularies from the pram. The typewriter is now a battered toy, its ribbon has fingerprinted all the walls (cenotaphs for dead letters all its keys). You tap the heads assailing your broad lap and polarise regret and love them while the cunning offspring of your milk and blood root up the truffles of your mind.

Wake up, get married, be born First A and B pick up the trunk, then C relieves A and A wanders off, then D takes B’s end and B goes in search of A, but A is nowhere to be found, and C and D make off with the trunk Long are the lazy man’s laws, the kittens are in the kitchen, the child’s chin aids pronunciation Maybe I’m dreaming I’m naked except for a long black t-shirt I’m dreaming Bring on the aspirin and bread, the vitamin C and gin We have fourteen names for blue and that doesn’t even count “meridian” Diderot, Audrey Hepburn, Hegel, Charles Dickens, and Gertrude Stein Shadow bird shouting White coral fencing The butcher on Sunday, Pablo Ruiz, lives south of here (in F___) and has five kids—how full of vitality he is She leaves us behind in the interstices of competence Origami, irreverence, sand on the wing of an ibis She drops a bucket down a thick well, she whacks a golfball longer than a marble Rude and shoed, should and lead, reed

Puddings don’t have lungs, melons don’t have riders Listen—a female seal, a seaport, and a social world Come day’s end the top of the tree hesitates, pauses, then sweeps on like a blackboard eraser to clear the horizon Sit, Shep, incognito The lid of the sun is heavy, its lashes blink on the horizon, brushing the curve of the sea So now they want to grant federal coal subsidies I heard “suspected pipe bomb” as “suspected python” The first nest empty and deep, at child’s eye level, in a young fir tree, of twigs Pathos is at the front line of defense against worries as they approach I remember almost nothing, only that I am in a room with others and we are reading through sacks of mail, trying to ferret out spies She will never believe she’s too old to join a band or make quick vertical moves on the playing field to really quiet music—she is that still Then the sparrow went to sleep in a lumber castle And so we come to chapter LIX, in which I learn that I have failed Can you believe this shit