Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Arizona
The Grand Canyon lay supine
beyond the senses I stopped
on the side of the road and the radio
was off a hawk flew over my head
I'd never heard wings beating so close
you can't reach and touch the Painted Desert
and the San Francisco Peaks stand still
until you pass them but the steady wingbeat
focused my attention I could hold it
for a moment can't you close your eyes?
and see how you are holding there
the shadows on the sun?
beyond the senses I stopped
on the side of the road and the radio
was off a hawk flew over my head
I'd never heard wings beating so close
you can't reach and touch the Painted Desert
and the San Francisco Peaks stand still
until you pass them but the steady wingbeat
focused my attention I could hold it
for a moment can't you close your eyes?
and see how you are holding there
the shadows on the sun?
Friday, May 23, 2008
Three poems I love...
For Grace, After a Party
by Frank O'Hara
You do not always know what I am feeling.
Last night in the warm spring air while I was
blazing my tirade against someone who doesn't
interest
me, it was love for you that set me
afire,
and isn't it odd? for in rooms full of
strangers my most tender feelings
writhe and
bear the fruit of screaming. Put out your hand,
isn't there
an ashtray, suddenly, there? beside
the bed? And someone you love enters the room
and says wouldn't
you like the eggs a little
different today?
And when they arrive they are
just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather
is holding.
We Met at the End of the Party
by Philip Larkin
We met at the end of the party
When all the drinks were dead
And all the glasses dirty:
'Have this that's left', you said.
We walked through the last of summer,
When shadows reached long and blue
Across days that were growing shorter:
You said: 'There's autumn too'.
Always for you what's finished
Is nothing, and what survives
Cancels the failed, the famished,
As if we had fresh lives
From that night on, and just living
Could make me unaware
Of June, and the guests arriving,
And I not there.
On My Own
by Philip Levine
Yes, I only got here on my own.
Nothing miraculous. An old woman
opened her door expecting the milk,
and there I was, seven years old, with
a bulging suitcase of wet cardboard
and my hair plastered down and stiff
in the cold. She didn't say, "Come in,"
she didn't say anything. Her luck
has always been bad, so she stood
to one side and let me pass, trailing
the unmistakable aroma of badger
which she mistook for my underwear,
and so she looked upward, not
to heaven but to the cracked ceiling
her husband had promised to mend,
and she sighed for the first time
in my life that sigh which would tell
me what was for dinner. I found my room
and spread my things on the sagging bed:
and bright ties and candy striped shirts,
the knife to cut bread, the stuffed weasel
to guard the window, the silver spoon
to turn my tea, the pack of cigarettes
for the life ahead, and at last
the little collection of worn-out books
from which I would choose my only name—
Morgan the Pirate, Jack Dempsey, the Prince
of Wales. I chose Abraham Plain
and went off to school wearing a cap
that said "Ford" in the right script.
The teachers were soft-spoken women
smelling like washed babies and the students
fierce as lost dogs, but they all hushed
in wonder when I named the 400 angels
of death, the planets sighted and unsighted,
the moment at which creation would turn
to burned feathers and blow every which way
in the winds of shock. I sat down
and the room grew quiet and warm. My eyes
asked me to close them. I did, and so
I discovered the beauty of sleep and that
to get ahead I need only say I was there,
and everything would open as the darkness
in my silent head opened onto seascapes
at the other end of the world, waves
breaking into mountains of froth, the sand
running back to become salt savor
of the infinite. Mrs. Tarbox woke me
for lunch—a tiny container of milk
and chocolate cookies in the shape of Michigan.
Of course I went home at 3:30, with
the bells ringing behind me and four stars
in my notebook and drinking companions
on each arm. If you had been there
in your yellow harness and bright hat
directing traffic you would never
have noticed me—my clothes shabby
and my eyes bright—; to you I'd have been
just an ordinary kid. Sure, now you
know, now it's obvious, what with the light
of the Lord streaming through the nine
windows of my soul and the music of rain
following in my wake and the ordinary air
on fire every blessed day I waken the world.
by Frank O'Hara
You do not always know what I am feeling.
Last night in the warm spring air while I was
blazing my tirade against someone who doesn't
interest
me, it was love for you that set me
afire,
and isn't it odd? for in rooms full of
strangers my most tender feelings
writhe and
bear the fruit of screaming. Put out your hand,
isn't there
an ashtray, suddenly, there? beside
the bed? And someone you love enters the room
and says wouldn't
you like the eggs a little
different today?
And when they arrive they are
just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather
is holding.
We Met at the End of the Party
by Philip Larkin
We met at the end of the party
When all the drinks were dead
And all the glasses dirty:
'Have this that's left', you said.
We walked through the last of summer,
When shadows reached long and blue
Across days that were growing shorter:
You said: 'There's autumn too'.
Always for you what's finished
Is nothing, and what survives
Cancels the failed, the famished,
As if we had fresh lives
From that night on, and just living
Could make me unaware
Of June, and the guests arriving,
And I not there.
On My Own
by Philip Levine
Yes, I only got here on my own.
Nothing miraculous. An old woman
opened her door expecting the milk,
and there I was, seven years old, with
a bulging suitcase of wet cardboard
and my hair plastered down and stiff
in the cold. She didn't say, "Come in,"
she didn't say anything. Her luck
has always been bad, so she stood
to one side and let me pass, trailing
the unmistakable aroma of badger
which she mistook for my underwear,
and so she looked upward, not
to heaven but to the cracked ceiling
her husband had promised to mend,
and she sighed for the first time
in my life that sigh which would tell
me what was for dinner. I found my room
and spread my things on the sagging bed:
and bright ties and candy striped shirts,
the knife to cut bread, the stuffed weasel
to guard the window, the silver spoon
to turn my tea, the pack of cigarettes
for the life ahead, and at last
the little collection of worn-out books
from which I would choose my only name—
Morgan the Pirate, Jack Dempsey, the Prince
of Wales. I chose Abraham Plain
and went off to school wearing a cap
that said "Ford" in the right script.
The teachers were soft-spoken women
smelling like washed babies and the students
fierce as lost dogs, but they all hushed
in wonder when I named the 400 angels
of death, the planets sighted and unsighted,
the moment at which creation would turn
to burned feathers and blow every which way
in the winds of shock. I sat down
and the room grew quiet and warm. My eyes
asked me to close them. I did, and so
I discovered the beauty of sleep and that
to get ahead I need only say I was there,
and everything would open as the darkness
in my silent head opened onto seascapes
at the other end of the world, waves
breaking into mountains of froth, the sand
running back to become salt savor
of the infinite. Mrs. Tarbox woke me
for lunch—a tiny container of milk
and chocolate cookies in the shape of Michigan.
Of course I went home at 3:30, with
the bells ringing behind me and four stars
in my notebook and drinking companions
on each arm. If you had been there
in your yellow harness and bright hat
directing traffic you would never
have noticed me—my clothes shabby
and my eyes bright—; to you I'd have been
just an ordinary kid. Sure, now you
know, now it's obvious, what with the light
of the Lord streaming through the nine
windows of my soul and the music of rain
following in my wake and the ordinary air
on fire every blessed day I waken the world.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
LA City Bus
A man in his mid-thirties walks onto the bus, carrying a couple of torn shopping bags, wearing headphones, working out a rhythm in grunts and the march of his feet before he begins half-heartedly to ask the other passengers for spare change. My feet stick out a little in the aisle. He trips, slightly. We both apologize simultaneously. Every other one of five seats in the row along the back of the bus is occupied, and in the center seat sits a woman in her late thirties. Like most of the other passengers, she is doing her best to ignore the noisy newcomer, and even when she nods to confirm the availability of the seat next to her, she is looking insistently out the window. He sits. He adjusts his bags between his feet. He does all this without breaking the rhythm of his banter, which, seeming at first to address the general audience of the bus, becomes focused on winning the attention of the woman.
"Lady, I don't like pain," he starts, without eliciting as much as the raising of an eyebrow. "No pain, no rain," he continues, "but I don't like it. I go out of my way to avoid it, and no way in hell am I going to do anything to bring it on."
His voice gets caught in the filter that traps the voices of madmen and drunks, filtered and tuned out, the way one tunes out the intermittent screeching of the bus's breaks and then following, the rising note of the bus's transmission as it trundles on toward the less seemly blocks of Sunset Boulevard.
"Nope, not a fan of pain, so you can bet that I'm not gonna say anything to piss you off, when I KNOW you've got a mean right hand."
That wins it. Her head turns as if inadvertently toward him, and she looks at him directly for the first time.
"Lady, I don't like pain," he starts, without eliciting as much as the raising of an eyebrow. "No pain, no rain," he continues, "but I don't like it. I go out of my way to avoid it, and no way in hell am I going to do anything to bring it on."
His voice gets caught in the filter that traps the voices of madmen and drunks, filtered and tuned out, the way one tunes out the intermittent screeching of the bus's breaks and then following, the rising note of the bus's transmission as it trundles on toward the less seemly blocks of Sunset Boulevard.
"Nope, not a fan of pain, so you can bet that I'm not gonna say anything to piss you off, when I KNOW you've got a mean right hand."
That wins it. Her head turns as if inadvertently toward him, and she looks at him directly for the first time.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Arlo & Esme
From Dan Chazin's Trip on the Amtrak Lake Shore Limited New York-Chicago.
"In the meantime, I went back to the lounge car to see what was doing there. I was greeted by a young man with the unlikely name of Gage Pray, who was in the process of moving from Mystic, Conn. to San Francisco. He had a miniature tape recorder with him, and asked everyone to speak into the recorder, giving their name and making any other comments they desired. He also took a number of pictures with a throwaway camera, including several of me. Gage told me that he would be writing a story of the trip, so I gave him my address and asked him to send a copy of the story to me. There were a number of other people hanging out there (including a man who lived in Hackensack), and I was not really tired, so I decided to remain in the lounge car for awhile. Gage had taken a number of trips around the country on Amtrak, and loved the experience of traveling by train and meeting new people."
The fact that those stories and recordings are gone, stolen in the car that was stolen, makes it all the more marvelous somehow and I am thinking of the rolls of film in the camera bag that was stolen from my Sentra on the first day I had it in 2002, when I didn't know you have to hold the handle to lock it. There were three or four rolls, exposed, unprocessed, most particularly photographs I had taken with Adam in a field near the Gorge. I was naked, doing cartwheels; I would love to have such a ridiculous record of my body at that time, now. But the images that have gone missing, those in Poughkeepsie, the Beck show at Brixton, Derek Mahon standing on the sidewalk near the Groucho Club (the one time in my life I took a whole roll of photographs with no roll of film inside the camera) left an imprint like a palm slap on my brain. There are some faces from grade school, David Grobin, Jamie Salvietti; later, when I was already back in Romania escaping a sensible career, medication and a certain kind of spiritual demise, Kroon died in his sleep in New Haven. No matter how much time passes, I can't quite believe that light isn't hitting those faces somewhere in the world.
But I had meant to write about this place, about the step next to the wrought iron gate, about the glasses of gin in the planter and about the way being in a bar in a big city, after hours, anchors you into the heart of that city, in the way that maybe only receiving mail in the post can anchor you, saying gently YOU ARE HERE... I meant to write about all that and not about people who were marked for death.
In A Moveable Feast, the time of the telling is already going off somehow, and even without the greedy fingers of the narrator reaching back from a later present, you can tell that things turned rotten. It is a heartbreaking device, the way Hemingway holds his love for Hadley in suspense, as if writing could retrieve it.
The perfect last days in New York were poised to spill over in more obvious ways, but I could wait and write about that later. I walked from Bar 6 to the Strand to get a new copy of A Moveable Feast, to replace the one I'd finished and left that morning at Arlo & Esme. The day was clear and bright and I was a little drunk already and bracing myself through a sweet, unconquerable exhaustion. I was going to meet Danica at her office in the Flatiron Building, but first I had to go to the Strand. I love the Strand because the books are reasonably priced but mostly because of its name, which makes me think of public swimming pools in Europe. They have the same name, pronounced "shtrand," which is a beautiful word, shallow as the shallow end is shallow, and painted in primary colors. You can't compare the strand to the sea, though people have tried to take the depth out of the sea in places such as Brighton and Mamaia and Metaponto. But there is an urban bliss about the strand and its diving boards and beach balls and peals of laughter not drowned out by the sound of waves. Some even have manufactured waves and those are the best.
The best kind of solitude is walking in New York, tipsy in the afternoon, having left the side of someone you love as much as you can in the moment and given the circumstances, then spending only what you have in your pocket, on only what you need, in a good bookstore that is as bright and bustling as a public swimming pool.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
New York in May (yes, that's still LA, somehow)
Dawn's apartment has a great small room for keeping jade plants and writing letters by the window, though not for reading, since the chair is bare and stiff. It is spring in New York and within the frame of the dirty window two maple trees nearly block the brick facade of the school building, and there is a good feeling of space and vegetation. These small deceptions belong to cities and make me feel that I belong to cities, too, since I have always loved to find a hidden courtyard or a garden on a rooftop.
I have been re-reading A Moveable Feast, to get to Pound.
"When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself."
I think I would say now the only thing that spoils these days is the awful technology. People are welcome. Any minute Simon will call to say he is down on the street. Then he will come up and we will make a salad and talk about the last three years, which is how long it's been since we last saw each other. People on the street below have small, efficient shoulder bags. A city for walking makes for light travelers, and this elicits a moderate degree of envy. I brought too much for two weeks, and anyway I have been wearing the same pair of jeans and the tee shirt with the title of Dan's novel in green felt letters.
I asked Whit for bad ideas; he said cocktails at 4:30 on a sidewalk with a view of walkers. I didn't ask for good ideas, but he said "If you carry a camera make it a mini digital. And if it's a day out and about wear comfy quiet shoes." But my camera is large and my red boots make the sound I couldn't wait to make when I was a little girl. The click clack of a woman's heels on the sidewalk. Walking back late from the subway last night, I carried that rhythm somewhat painfully and woke up at 6 this morning with a charlie horse.
I've been looking at maps of Montana once every two or three weeks. Two hours from Dillon to Missoula, four from Dillon to Red Lodge. Surely there will be time to put something aside and plan a trip. Coffin is going to see his old friend and Sam will be tending the middle cow camp from June to November. For me it is a question of the season, maybe a little of courage, because I have been dreaming for a long time and it takes courage to give up a dream.
But I am drifting. The window is open now, and I have Richard Goode playing Bach, and although I'd like to be comfortable in a tee shirt, I've become vulnerable to the Northeastern chill, which maybe means I've hit the peak of my days in Southern California and am gearing for the long descent.
Simon made an album and it sounds like this: clean out my heart before you leave.
I have been re-reading A Moveable Feast, to get to Pound.
"When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself."
I think I would say now the only thing that spoils these days is the awful technology. People are welcome. Any minute Simon will call to say he is down on the street. Then he will come up and we will make a salad and talk about the last three years, which is how long it's been since we last saw each other. People on the street below have small, efficient shoulder bags. A city for walking makes for light travelers, and this elicits a moderate degree of envy. I brought too much for two weeks, and anyway I have been wearing the same pair of jeans and the tee shirt with the title of Dan's novel in green felt letters.
I asked Whit for bad ideas; he said cocktails at 4:30 on a sidewalk with a view of walkers. I didn't ask for good ideas, but he said "If you carry a camera make it a mini digital. And if it's a day out and about wear comfy quiet shoes." But my camera is large and my red boots make the sound I couldn't wait to make when I was a little girl. The click clack of a woman's heels on the sidewalk. Walking back late from the subway last night, I carried that rhythm somewhat painfully and woke up at 6 this morning with a charlie horse.
I've been looking at maps of Montana once every two or three weeks. Two hours from Dillon to Missoula, four from Dillon to Red Lodge. Surely there will be time to put something aside and plan a trip. Coffin is going to see his old friend and Sam will be tending the middle cow camp from June to November. For me it is a question of the season, maybe a little of courage, because I have been dreaming for a long time and it takes courage to give up a dream.
But I am drifting. The window is open now, and I have Richard Goode playing Bach, and although I'd like to be comfortable in a tee shirt, I've become vulnerable to the Northeastern chill, which maybe means I've hit the peak of my days in Southern California and am gearing for the long descent.
Simon made an album and it sounds like this: clean out my heart before you leave.
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