Dear, though the night is gone,
Its dream still haunts to-day,
That brought us to a room
Cavernous, lofty as
A railway terminus,
And crowded in that gloom
Were beds, and we in one
In a far corner lay.
Our whisper woke no clocks,
We kissed and I was glad
At everything you did,
Indifferent to those
Who sat with hostile eyes
In pairs on every bed,
Arms round each other's necks,
Inert and vaguely sad.
What hidden worm of guilt
Or what malignant doubt
Am I the victim of,
That you, then, unabashed,
Did what I never wished,
Confessed another love;
And I, submissive, felt
Unwanted and went out.
This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
and they open--
pools of lace,
white and pink--
and all day the black ants climb over them,
boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away
to their dark, underground cities--
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,
the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding
all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again--
beauty the brave, the exemplary,
blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?
Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,
with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
In placing this particular thought
I am taking up the cudgel against indifference
I wish that I might be different but I am
that I am is all I have so what can I do
as the hero of the hour I might have one strange destiny
but it is all mixed up and I have several
I can't choose between them they are pulling me aloft
which is not to say up like a Baroque ceiling or anything
where is the rain and the lightning to drown or burn us
as there used to be
where are the gods who could abuse and disabuse us often
when am I ever in the country walking along a lane plotting murder
you would think that the best things in life were free
but they're the worst even the air is dirty
and it's this "filth of life" that coats us against pain
so where are we back at the same old stand buying bagels
I think it would be nice to go away
but that's reserved for TV and who wants to end up in Paradise
it's not our milieu
we would be lost as a fish is lost when it has to swim
and yet and yet
this place is terrible to see and worse to feel
along with the purple you have contracted for an awful virus
and it is Christmas and the children are growing up
I was having a coffee at the
counter
when a man
3 or 4 stools down
asked me,
"listen, weren't you the
guy who was
hanging from his
heels
from that 4th floor
hotel room
the other
night?"
"yes," I answered, "that
was me."
"what made you do
that?" he asked.
"well, it's pretty
involved."
he looked away
then.
the waitress
who had been
standing there
asked me,
"he was joking,
wasn't
he?"
"no," I
said.
I paid, got up, walked
to the door, opened
it.
I heard the man
say, "that guy's
nuts."
out on the street I
walked north
feeling
curiously
honored.
Perhaps everyone else has forgotten it,
but in the days when my mother
poured her midsection into a girdle;
when she gathered her nylons into flimsy donuts
before unrolling them, up one leg and then the other;
in the days when we, her daughters,
fastened bulky sanitary napkins
to sanitary napkin belts,
there was Dippity Do.
My mother dabbed the greenish blue gel from the jar,
reached up and slid a section of hair through her fingers,
then wound the hair around a bristly curler,
securing it against her scalp
with a plastic curler pin.
Now, my daughters trap and pull their naturally wavy hair
through the jaws of a straightener
so that their hair might be "as straight as a pin"
which is exactly the way
my mother used to describe her own hair
and, with an sense of tragedy, mine as well.
I don't know who decides whether curly or straight
is the right look for hair
and I can't say that I care,
but what matters to me still
is the way the light changed in my mother's eyes
as her gaze shifted
from her own reflection in the mirror
down to mine;
the way her exasperation eased
with the hair, the Dippity Do, the curlers;
the way the wrinkles over her cheekbones deepened,
and a smile emerged
as if we were co-conspirators,
co-creators, in some grand drama
It is quiet, but not too quiet. I opened the
windows, high, to feel the breeze.
When it rained, it was soft
and fast, but just loud enough that I could
pretend I was somewhere else.
It’s not that I’m hiding out in here. It’s just
that for the first time in weeks, I am really alone.
The phone doesn’t ring. I didn’t put on music.
I stretched out on the futon, dangling
my bare foot over the edge. I should have
been doing laundry. I should have been
cleaning the floors.
But it is quiet in the apartment today.
When I hear the cars pass by, I am reminded
that I am not alone.
My friend told me I don’t like to be alone.
I am tired of being told how I am. I am tired
of it all.
He asked me why, and I clenched my fists.
He begged me to try —
But that is all I had done for months,
only to feel like I failed.
I ran out of all my words.
I am not angry anymore. I am only quiet.
The cat sprawls upside down
across the rug. It’s kind of like that.
Hey when she sings when she sings when she sings like she runs
Moves like she runs
And I’ve been feeling homesick for something that doesn’t exist
For years
Go on, go on scream and cry
You’re miles from where anyone will find you
It’s okay, though, really
Mostly just that I keep wanting
A conversation
That I cannot have
Cause I was once told to write a letter
That cannot be sent
Hey when she moves, when she moves when she moves like she runs
We used to toy with these grandiose ideas
Of things that were gonna happen
(they never did happen)
And it makes me a little sad
I’m more than a little wistful
So I went to the coffee shop
And I bought a mint tea
You weren’t there
Because you’re never any where
Hey there there's such deadly wolves 'round town tonight
Round the town tonight
They gave me my tea
On a little dish
With a tiny spoon
And even cramped at the tiniest table
Leaning over my massive Joan Didion book
It was perfect even if it was not
The other chair would stay empty,
So I propped my foot on it
Oh how I forgot what it’s like
Overwhelmed, I flipped around
Read about migraines and Georgia O’Keefe
Until I couldn’t concentrate any more,
So I pulled out my red journal
And began frantic scribbles of thoughts
Trees break the sidewalk and the sidewalk skins my knees
There’s an empty spot on the wall
Where I knocked the record off
Now there’s only a nail, bare
In my head, I compared it to myself
Then scoffed at my own ridiculousness
Wanting to laugh with him again
About how dramatic I felt
But he wasn’t there either
The look on your face yanks my neck on the chain
Today I tried to picture you
Reading my writing
I was hoping you might smile
Praying you’d be proud
And I would do anything
To see you again
I didn’t have the answer
I haven’t written a letter
I couldn’t cry
So I just held my head high
Against the Chicago wind
My collar flipped up
My boots clacking on the sidewalk
And I smiled,
Even though the wind was cold
Against my face
Because I think that maybe, just maybe
That when I’m alone
I walk fast, head up high,
Just like you did.
Right at that thought,
A stranger passed me and smiled
I knew it’d be okay.
Hey when she sings when she sings when she sings like she runs
Moves like she runs
It was time to go, almost
I circled the jewelry stand slowly
Clutching a black lace shirt
And a creamy, soft Obey tee
M was sitting by the books
Waiting and silent
I stared at the jewelry.
Gently fingering the long earrings,
The delicate pieces
Waiting for something to jump out
To speak to me
Any of it might have been fine
But I felt the need for something
Specific,
Something to be mine
Then there it was:
A chunky mix of delicate and sharp
Pearls & spikes
Circle & dagger
I ran my fingers across the white balls
The black spikes
Maybe I was in a bit of a daze
The cashier with the long, messy locks
Came over to ask if he could help
He had one perfect curl
Resting against his neck tattoo.
The rest was a tangled and beautiful wreck.
I looked up at him but was quiet,
With a ‘thank you, I’m fine’
I pictured the necklace, resting heavy,
But not too heavy,
On my collarbone
Glanced over my shoulder
And M was still there,
Sitting, silent
The white ear buds dangled
From his ears
A sharp contrast from the black
Of his hat, of his jacket
I ran my fingers across the soft white pearls,
Again, the sharp black spike
Pulled the necklace off the stand
Quickly, I walked back to the shirts
Placed the Obey tee back on the pile
The necklace was it.
It was specific, if only to me.
Mine.
I only found the pearls fine
Mixed in with the spikes.
Together, it was beautiful.
Without them, it would have been just another necklace.
I was going to transcribe a Frank O'Hara poem for today's poetry slam,
but really, it's tonight, and tonight is almost tomorrow,
& I just wrote my last Groupon for the day
in bed with a heating pad
listening to Tori Amos, and only Tori,
for the first time in months & months.
I'm wearing my Sly shirt & forgot to take off
the wristband from Lauren's show
& I was going to type out O'Hara's DIGRESSION ON NUMBER I, 1948,
mostly because it starts with the line,
"I am ill today but I am not too ill/I am not ill at all"
which sums up everything & nothing
of my own day,
because I am ill today but not too ill,
& I might not be ill at all, really,
plus I'm not sure if I even get his second stanza
& as I started typing it I felt like a fraud
because I didn't know what a "complicated Metzinger"
was in the slightest
& right as I thought that, the book fell shut
& I reopened it to the wrong page,
instead to his poem
YOU ARE GORGEOUS AND I'M COMING
and I couldn't help but smile,
because I get that, if only that:
"yes it may be that dark and purifying wave, the death of boredom
nearing the heights themselves may destroy in the pure air
to be further complicated, confused, empty but refilling, exposed to light"
I wonder if he remembers that morning, after I changed my mind (for the hundredth time)
he sat on the kitchen floor & I sank in his chair
the new St. Vincent album kept playing & playing
and it was infuriating because it felt like a film
except I hated all of my lines & there was nothing beautiful about any of it
and he had just downloaded the album
It felt like a small, quiet act of hope, & maybe victory, & maybe a bit of pleading: Stay, won't you?
Yet at the time I couldn't, no matter how much
it was a perfect soundtrack to our shitty movie
I was the dilettante & he was the surgeon
Or no, wait, I just messed it all up
Cause I was the one dissecting, and picking, at
Every little thing, opening us up for painful adjustments
Why, why was I so cruel? Why was it all so cruel?
No, I don't know what.
But you roughed me up. I roughed you up.
I didn't have any good news, I didn't know how to help you sleep
We had nothing close to the makings of a perfect plan
"Slow down, dilettante.
Hang on."
I finally listened to the album again. It was nothing like I had remembered.
"I feel different today. I don't know what else to say."
I listened to this song on the train this morning. And then I listened to it again. And then I listened to it one more time.
Once, someone taught me how to hear the poetry in hip hop. I was mad that I hadn't heard it for myself. But now I'm only mad that I was too scared just to listen.
I’d pick out my favorite one
roll it around the palm of my hand
Unsure what to do with it,
only knowing it was beautiful,
just so,
blue and crystalline
with that one dull
imperfection
at its center.
Always, I’d find it,
from the pile of marbles
tumbled out of the jar
to the floor
And each time I felt it,
cool and comforting
in the palm of my hand
It was such relief:
Like I was shocked to find it again
even though each time
I knew, it was there,
waiting,
right where we’d placed it,
back in the jar.
There was something about finding it
from the jumble of all the others—
they all seemed so dull, so plain,
in comparison
that finding it was utter delight.
It wasn’t that it was so much
more beautiful, really,
it was just that it felt like a secret.
Like everyone else only saw
the beautiful blue,
the way the light shone through
when I held it at just the right angle,
the swirls and twists of color,
and then that bit of brown
right in the center
made it a little less perfect
than the pure blue one
in the jar
But to me, it was mine,
the one I always searched to find
and it wasn’t that the brown spot
was an imperfection
it just made the blue
all the more beautiful.
I'd hold it in my hand,
quietly,
until the time came
and all the marbles
were placed carefully
back in the jar.
Every time I forgot about it
as soon as it was back
in the mix
trapped amid the others
But as soon as we'd reopen the jar
and the marbles would tumble out
I'd remember
and search, and search,
Until, at last!
The delight
of feeling its cool, small comfort
in the palm of my hand
if only for a second
it was worth it,
just finding it,
just knowing it was there all along.
He said it doesn't look good
he said it looks bad in fact real bad
he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before
I quit counting them
I said I'm glad I wouldn't want to know
about any more being there than that
he said are you a religious man do you kneel down
in forest groves and let yourself ask for help
when you come to a waterfall
mist blowing against your face and arms
do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments
I said not yet but I intend to start today
he said I'm real sorry he said
I wish I had some other kind of news to give you
I said Amen and he said something else
I didn't catch and not knowing what else to do
and not wanting him to have to repeat it
and me to have to fully digest it
I just looked at him
for a minute and he looked back it was then
I jumped up and shook hands with this man who'd just given me
something no one else on earth had ever given me
I may have even thanked him habit being so strong
This is where we met, he said,
Not looking, but looking,
Smiling at the joke they haven't said
It's too ridiculous,
It's nothing,
It's everything.
He said she was killing him,
She shook her head and said something smart,
But completely stupid.
Cause if she could,
She would have said: 'This is killing me
And I feel like a joke
Until you look at me and make me feel
Like me again'
Something whole, and real, and good.
The question
That lingered in the air between them
I wanted to know why he looked at me
Like that
When all I've done was nothing
and yet he says these things, but, still,
looks at me like that
like I could be, and I am,
the most exceptional woman on earth,
or at least this place,
where I sit alone
but surrounded
and feel you stare
only to realize you're not, at all,
so I hate you and want you
and wish we would just disappear
maybe "go play a video game"
so I can only remind myself
maybe it is just a game
for two
and I listened to that damn song
I had told you to listen to
So many, many times
I kept hoping it would burn out
But it didn't
Instead I just kept hearing it.
It took my all not to weep
At the knowing.
You know it, too.
So let's keep it like this:
The joke we've never said
Cause it's on us.
It’s not even the same table these days,
but still I cling to the notion
that I have an idea what’s going on
when I don’t, I don’t,
I don't know anything at all.
like Lizzy Grant sang,
“I was born bad, but then I met you, you made me nice for awhile, but my dark side’s true”
We all do what we have to do.
'Whiskey on my tongue'
And I do think it's kinda fun,
but I'm flat outta luck, too.
She puts a sparkle in your eye
where I keep extinguishing the flame.
Sylvia wrote that
“we should meet in another life
we should meet in air, me and you”
I love that bit
(don’t you?)
Oh, baby, I want you, I want you.
It’s hysterical, really,
when you consider all the facts.
how am I supposed to get to that cloud?
it’s like writing in the tub
holding pen and paper mid-air.
my bubble bath cost $22
and I couldn’t even afford that Tecate
I ran the bathwater too hot
sweat was pulsing down my temples
(‘you’re no good for me/
but baby I want you, I want you, I want you’)
Still, I refuse to get out.
Not yet.
I paid for this shit.
Just let me soak in it,
won't you?
Lana, or can I call you Lizzy?
I hope you’ll be in love forever.
Maybe we'll be in love forever.
A glass of red wine and Frank O'Hara. I highly recommend it. This poem, in particular. I'd say it makes me want to cry, but that's too obvious, huh. But God! The way he talks about his "wounded beauty" makes my heart aflutter, too.
I often wait for "for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting."
1
My heart’s aflutter!
I am standing in the bath tub
crying. Mother, mother
who am I? If he
will just come back once
and kiss me on the face
his coarse hair brush
my temple, it’s throbbing!
then I can put on my clothes
I guess, and walk the streets.
2
I love you. I love you,
but I’m turning to my verses
and my heart is closing
like a fist.
Words! be
sick as I am sick, swoon,
roll back your eyes, a pool,
and I’ll stare down
at my wounded beauty
which at best is only a talent
for poetry.
Cannot please, cannot charm or win
what a poet!
and the clear water is thick
with bloody blows on its head.
I embrace a cloud,
but when I soared
it rained.
3
That’s funny! there’s blood on my chest
oh yes, I’ve been carrying bricks
what a funny place to rupture!
and now it is raining on the ailanthus
as I step out onto the window ledge
the tracks below me are smoky and
glistening with a passion for running
I leap into the leaves, green like the sea
4
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.
The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.
It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.
