873 Life poems

Today is a trumpet to set the hounds baying. The past is a fox the hunters are flaying. Nothing unspoken goes without saying. Love’s a casino where lovers risk playing. The future’s a marker our hearts are prepaying. The future’s a promise there’s no guaranteeing. Today is a fire the field mice are fleeing. Love is a marriage of feeling and being. The past is a mirror for wishful sightseeing. Nothing goes missing without absenteeing. Nothing gets cloven except by dividing. The future is chosen by atoms colliding. The past’s an elision forever eliding. Today is a fog bank in which I am hiding. Love is a burn forever debriding. Love’s an ascent forever plateauing. Nothing is granted except by bestowing. Today is an anthem the cuckoos are crowing. The future’s a convolute river onflowing. The past is a lawn the neighbor is mowing. The past is an answer not worth pursuing, Nothing gets done except by the doing. The future’s a climax forever ensuing. Love is only won by wooing. Today is a truce between reaping and rueing.

I have met people who, asked after their names, shyly—as if they had no title to an appellation all to themselves— replied “Fräulein Christian” and added: “like the first name,” they wanted to make it easy for the other, not a difficult name like “Popiol” or “Babendererde”— “like the first name”—please, don’t burden your memory overmuch! I have met people who grew up in a single room with their parents and four brothers and sisters, and studied at night with their fingers in their ears at the kitchen table, and grew up to be beautiful and self-possessed as duchesses— and innerly gentle and hard-working as Nausicaa, clear-browed as angels. I have often asked myself and never found an answer whence kindness and gentleness come, I don’t know it to this day, and now must go myself.

We have had our lives. The reservoir visible In the window beside our elbows, and the willow Branches trailing at our stop Are the nature we leave Behind us gladly, since it has no place For all we have recently learned: that sex Is temporary, help Ours to hand down now, and materials science Not the only kind. We thank Calm, careful Minerva, goddess Of adults, who for so many years took us To school: her voice the timbre of fretless bass, Her eyes the color of pencil lead, she taught Us how to behave in order to have our rewards In twenty years. We have them, and if we wish Too often, this fall, to have led another life We do not mean that we would give up ours: Though we stand in a row and sway Before an obstructed view, we are able to find Initials outlined in the crosshatched trees, And pebbles—calculi—around our ponds And cherish them; we like to watch the roads Along which the perennial pollen sifts down As finely as ever, making a soft powder Of brass amid the troughs in softball fields. Our skills are finally in demand. If you mock us, Pan, In whom we also believe, do it As gently as you can.

I have a perfect life. It isn't much, But it's enough for me. It keeps me alive And happy in a vague way: no disappointments On the near horizon, no pangs of doubt; Looking forward in anticipation, looking back In satisfaction at the conclusion of each day. I heed the promptings of my inner voice, And what I hear is comforting, full of reassurance For my own powers and innate superiority—the fake Security of someone in the grip of a delusion, In denial, climbing ever taller towers Like a tiny tyrant looking on his little kingdom With a secret smile, while all the while Time lies in wait. And what feels ample now Turns colorless and cold, and what seems beautiful And strong becomes an object of indifference Reaching out to no one, as later middle age Turns old, and the strength is gone. Right now the moments yield to me sweet Feelings of contentment, but the human Dies, and what I take for granted bears a name To be forgotten soon, as the things I know Turn into unfamiliar faces In a strange room, leaving merely A blank space, like a hole left in the wake Of a perfect life, which closes over.

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on. We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it. It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women. At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers. Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table. This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun. Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory. We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here. At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks. Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

A boy from Brooklyn used to cruise on summer nights. As soon as he’d hit sixty he’d hold his hand out the window, cupping it around the wind. He’d been assured this is exactly how a woman’s breast feels when you put your hand around it and apply a little pressure. Now he knew, and he loved it. Night after night, again and again, until the weather grew cold and he had to roll the window up. For many years afterwards he was perpetually attempting to soar. One winter’s night, holding his wife’s breast in his hand, he closed his eyes and wanted to weep. He loved her, but it was the wind he imagined now. As he grew older, he loved the word etcetera and refused to abbreviate it. He loved sweet white butter. He often pretended to be playing the organ. On one of his last mornings, he noticed the shape of his face molded in the pillow. He shook it out, but the next morning it reappeared.

Don’t take it personal , they said; but I did, I took it all quite personal— the breeze and the river and the color of the fields; the price of grapefruit and stamps, the wet hair of women in the rain— And I cursed what hurt me and I praised what gave me joy, the most simple-minded of possible responses. The government reminded me of my father, with its deafness and its laws, and the weather reminded me of my mom, with her tropical squalls.

for Vivek Narayanan it isn't matter isn't doesn't matter does it compared with what shan't have known your lines are all lines of approach this dog's eyelids this delhi dog's intentional eyelids, this doorway dog, this dog fellating beggars delhi exuding matter nictitation cannot extrude America to england the third nictitating poetry is over eyelid cannot eject America to england large foreign bodies poetry is over over and out surgery rarely happens over and ours dogs aren't loved over here, here! sufficiently foreign bodies remain requiring incision mind yourself it happened before you as you go you're nothing cold sunshine practised apprehension

Now when I walk around at lunchtime I have only two charms in my pocket an old Roman coin Mike Kanemitsu gave me and a bolt-head that broke off a packing case when I was in Madrid the others never brought me too much luck though they did help keep me in New York against coercion but now I'm happy for a time and interested I walk through the luminous humidity passing the House of Seagram with its wet and its loungers and the construction to the left that closed the sidewalk if I ever get to be a construction worker I'd like to have a silver hat please and get to Moriarty's where I wait for LeRoi and hear who wants to be a mover and shaker the last five years my batting average is .016 that's that, and LeRoi comes in and tells me Miles Davis was clubbed 12 times last night outside birdland by a cop a lady asks us for a nickel for a terrible disease but we don't give her one we don't like terrible diseases, then we go eat some fish and some ale it's cool but crowded we don't like Lionel Trilling we decide, we like Don Allen we don't like Henry James so much we like Herman Melville we don't want to be in the poets' walk in San Francisco even we just want to be rich and walk on girders in our silver hats I wonder if one person out of the 8,000,000 is thinking of me as I shake hands with LeRoi and buy a strap for my wristwatch and go back to work happy at the thought possibly so

She says she had a baby but I don’t believe her Let me tell you the feeling of relief when I started to believe her baby wasn’t real “What’s she getting out of it?” I surrender without a fight Ok, you can have your baby Sometimes all you can do is reify your worst fears What if I can’t have healthy relationships Ever With anything Even your cat Undressing in the open window Like being in public Is it not knowing or not caring? I’m offended reading memoir advertised as essay I give a mini-lecture on insecure attachment from the living room As if to ask Is that what you wanted? Who you think I am Improving my senses You see I was siding with the baby