Paul Blackburn

EAST OF EDEN is mountains & desert until you cross the passes into India  . It is 3 o’clock in the afternoon or twenty of 8 at night, depending which clock you believe  . AND WEST IS WEST It’s where the cups and saucers are, the plates, the knives and forks  . The turkey sandwich comes alone or with onions if you like The old newspaperman always takes his hat off & lays it atop the cigarette machine; the younger, so-hip journalist, leaves his on old-style . The old man sits down in the corner, puts his hat back on. No challenge, but it’s visible, the beau geste  . The cigarette hangs from the side of the younger man’s mouth, he’s putting himself on  . East of Eden is mountains & desert & every thing creeps up on you & comes in the night, unexpectedly  . when one would least put out his hand to offer, or to defend  .

I look out the window in upstate New York, see the Mediterranean stretching out below me down the rocky hillside at Faro, three years, two months, fourteen days earlier . 8:25 A. M. Rosemary gone back to sleep, pink & white . I stand at the livingroom window drinking coffee, open the doors to the balcony . Warmth beginning, tho I wrap my hands around the cup, count fishing boats in the sunglare, moving shoreward now slowly, or sitting there motionless on the flat sea . a fat blue arm stretches out from the coast, ripples where wind and currents show muscle below the blue skin of sea stretched out below me . The coffee’s cold toward the end of the cup . I go back to the kitchen for more hot . put orange in bathrobe pocket, reach for knife, return to the balcony with the fresh cup where the flat blue sea fills my eye in the sunglare . stretches out below me. The Southern Tier:    the maple outside the window warms in the early sun . red buds at the ends of branches commence their slow bursting . Green soon Joan moves her legs against mine in the hall, goes down to start my egg . Carlos thumps the lower stairs . We move. All our farewells al- ready prepared inside us   .   aaaall our deaths we carry inside us, double-yolked, the fragile toughness of the shell   .   it makes sustenance possible, makes love    possible as the red buds break against the sunglight possible green, as legs move against legs possible softnesses     .     The soft-boiled egg is ready now  . Now we eat. 19  .  IV  .  71

Slowly and with persistence he eats away at the big steak, gobbles up the asparagus, its butter & salt & root taste, drinks at a glass of red wine, and carefully taking his time, mops up the gravy with bread— The top of the café filtre is copper, passively shines back, & between mouthfuls of steak, sips of wine, he remembers at intervals to with the flat of his hand the top removed, bang at the apparatus, create the suction that the water will fall through more quickly Across the tiles of the floor, the cat comes to the table  :  again. “I’ve already given you one piece of steak, what do you want from me now? Love?” He strokes her head, her rounded black pregnant head, her greedy front paws slip from his knee, the pearl of great price ignored  .  She’s bored, he bangs the filtre again, its top is copper passively shines back  . Food & wine nearly finished. He lifts the whole apparatus off the cup  .  Merciful God, will it never be done?                      Too cold already to add cream and sugar, he offers the last piece of steak with his fingers  . She accepts it with calm dignity, even delicacy  .  The coffee goes down at a gulp, it is black & lukewarm  .

Straight rye whiskey, 100 proof you need a better friend? Yes.        Myself. The lights the lights the lonely        lovely      fucking       lights and the bridge on a rainy Tuesday night Blue/green double-stars      the line that is the drive and on the dark alive gleaming river Xmas trees of tugs scream and struggle Midnite Drops on the train window wobble  .  stream My trouble is it is her fate to never learn to make anything grow be born or stay Harbor beginnings and that other gleam  .  The train is full of long/way/home and holding lovers whose flesh I would exchange for mine The rain, R.F., sweeps the river as the bridges sweep Nemesis is thumping down the line But I have premises to keep & local stops before I sleep & local stops before I sleep The cree- ping train joggles rocks across I hear the waves below lap against the piles, a pier from which ships go to Mexico a sign which reads PACE O MIO DIO oil “The flowers died when you went away” Manhattan Bridge a bridge between we state, one life and the next, we state is better so is no backwater, flows between us is our span our bridge our naked eyes open here see bridging whatever impossibility. . . PACE! PACE O MIO DIO oil “The flowers died. . .” Of course they did Not that I was a green thing in the house I was once. No matter. The clatter of cars over the span, the track the spur the rusty dead/pan ends of space of grease We enter the tunnel. The dirty window gives me back my face

—for Joel— Nice day, sweet October afternoon Men walk the sun-shot avenues, Second, Third, eyes intent elsewhere ears communing with transistors in shirt pockets Bars are full, quiet, discussion during commercials only Pirates lead New York 4-1, top of the 6th, 2 Yankees on base,    1 man out What a nice day for all this  ! Handsome women, even dreamy jailbait, walk nearly neglected  : men’s eyes are blank their thoughts are all in Pittsburgh Last half of the 9th, the score tied 9-all, Mazeroski leads off for the Pirates The 2nd pitch he simply, sweetly CRACK! belts it clean over the left-field wall Blocks of afternoon acres of afternoon Pennsylvania Turnpikes of afternoon  .  One diamond stretches out in the sun the 3rd base line and what men come down it The final score, 10-9 Yanquis, come home