THE NICKNAMES
“You
lisp, and nickname God’s creatures . . .” (Hamlet)
1.
Careful
Sometimes the ones who name first name
badly, and so take back what
they’ve given first
and name again, and those
are usually bad as well: Skip,
Butch, Sonny, Bud, Babe, Honey,
Dolly, Sugar, Sweets. Almost never
Bubbletoes, Maple Syrup, Bugbag,
Fuzzywit, Little Horny, Mousemouth, or
Foamy. They hug tight and it’s
touching,
but hardly gripping,
nothing’s fixed here.
So it's left to friends, or enemies,
or some babbling fool who loves
you.
They make you Bubber,
Dizzy, Mandrake,
Gummo, No-Doze, Hoppy, Specs, or Slowhand.
For one thing you do when you’re drunk
your children get to hear it
publicly
as a pimply minister drones over
your spent casing:
Now we take our leave of Twinky,
never
to be forgotten, treasured
husband of Marbles
and loving father to Cramps and
Attila.
So why not nickname God’s creatures,
unwatched
bobbers floating off with their bait?
The sea
name Whaleroad,
the shark Joe Razors, the humble
snail Sir Speedy and the swan Miss
Feathers.
Why call a spade a spade at all? If
the heart bucks, let’s name
it Trigger. If the sky
glowers, call it Grumpy or Big Funk.
It would be a swell world,
we could name it Pop-up,
in a universe called Infield,
and when it named us
back it would either call us
Careful or Hey You.
2.
Speech Impediment
Long ago she’d given up on Virgo,
the Greater and Lesser Bears,
the Twins, the Hunter, all those
favorites
of the old men. Now when she
raises her head
she sees the Crack Baby, the Beaten
Wife,
the Pimp and Whore, the Big
Needle, and,
on his toilet-throne, the
Drunken Husband.
Even the moon’s gone soft on her—she
calls it
Glans Minoris, or Doc Flaccid. She
says
What’s the harm of goofing on the sky?
It’s laughed at us forever. She also feels
the night sky’s better than
the day:
at least the fucking horrors are
in view.
She looks in her son’s eyes for light
and calls him High Noon. Her
daughter
is Miss Janus,
and her husband’s Babylon Bill.
Lately she feels she’s been winning little
victories.
She has the television nailed, it’s
Pig’s Cerebrum.
The bathroom is the Porcelain Gallows
and the sink is named the Sink.
The street she lives on is the
her house God’s Dump, the
telephone
the Road to Hellville.
She thinks if she
can name herself, the rest will
go away.
She keeps trying, but it’s tough. She tried
the Mirror’s Sphincter,
Miss Evisceration,
and Princess Rubberbones,
but nothing’s vanished yet.
Morton
Feldman’s Rothko Chapel
Once at once should happen
at
poker the gazes
freezes unitary there
and right now Jim’s jacks Joe’s
josh Jerry’s
jive Jenny’s
joker start to cry
out to one another solitary
stations
of
the bluff
the
bluff bluff bluff bluff
bluff and that
enough
to make a solitude
there nothing
but sound several
sigh as one sighs
that
moment still monochrome
mono
textured mono timbred
each
bluff each sigh
surrounded till it’s mono itself
a mono mono mono
mono tone no more
song
strung among the hours but
chant chants chants chantschants
chants by itself
by itself neither
vertical nor horizontal
by itself not
laid out by itself or laid on itself but
laid
in
itself bluff
bluff
bluff
mono
mono sigh sigh sigh sigh
chants
chants chants as for measure
sustenance grace
for grace in
time begin again
BURRITO
VALENTINE
for Paige DeShong
I cannot truly
hold you to my heart—
that heated place where all
desires melt together—
Nor press my
face upon your breast—
Something might
stick,
pull apart in shreds
In fact to hold
or not to hold you
that is a question
that twists my stomach
like pretzels
To take you in
my hand
or in my mouth, or leave
you there to sweat it out
while I ready knife and fork,
forks and knives—
to think you might
unwrap yourself, expose
your inner bean, your
hidden beef, to hear
you beg for your pathetic life in
which
the only real event
to speak of is this hungry
moment, all pretensions dropped,
I grab and put
you right where you belong,
inside me, in among my own
untasty secrets—
this is a consuming
doubt that gnaws me deep.
I have you now.
I have a bowl
of sauce.
I have you yet.
Just one quick
feel,
before we start, of this
cool beer. Somehow,
we both begin to sweat.
They finally killed
the redeyed greenfaced goldtoothed devil
with a chicken-bomb, first
stuffing
the fat hen with enough threepenny nails
to board an outhouse, then
stopping her hole
with a nitro suppository. The
devil
never suspected that this wobbly
creature,
her beak giving nothing away by
way
of smile or frown, could rupture
the wall
between our world and his and stop
his constant fucking with us.
Dim as a pigeon
but without a peep, she seemed to be dancing,
shaking a tailfeather
in his general direction.
As she went to
pieces the sky cried out,
its pretty blue face now pocked
with liver and egg,
and the devil, just an empty
space now,
kept on smiling out of his fargone eyes
"Will we ever see, ever even think of
each other again?
This night, this moment:
impossible to feel it all." (Li Po)
Cold and clear, the nights now
a net of stars hung in blue-black water
through which the huge, ancient fish
are moving.
My father is dying. He knows
this, but doesn't understand it yet. The leaves
of the five hundred soft- and
hardwoods on the hill
have had their strange and
wonderful days, red and silver, orange and gold.
The only ones left now are
crisp, pale brown,
and shuffle the wind all night in
their frightening game of cards.
What is happening now is small
and quiet, yet sharp as the edges of that wind:
too sharp to deny, too persistent
to turn off.
I've come to stand alone,
still as these old vines, still as the stars, and listen,
in this frozen instant hearing a
car purr two dirt roads over,
while the creek down the hill
precisely ripples to itself,
the birds have all gone quiet,
and now, a mile away, two farmhouses down,
one disconsolate dog tied on his
run howls at these stars
that mean so much to both of us,
and another across the creek
replies as if she were his dark ink
soaked through this darker page,
bled clean to the other side where
it is read
by an eye, the great reverse of
ours, which knows how to read these things.
I wish, now that those howls
have come and gone,
that I could howl myself, make
myself their brother and their blood.
But I stand here only my
father's son, listening in his garden
to the careful recitation of the
night, my hand full of his little blue moon grapes,
nearly frozen and slightly sour. I
steal one handful,
one mouthful of cold juice from
the crop from which he'll make
his last batch of slightly sweet,
slightly sour wine.
Christmas night, 1997
for Joe and Gail Andriano
1
There were in the first days three moons, who were sisters. One sister was blind. She saw by being perfectly quiet and letting others describe everything to her. Another sister was deaf. She heard with her fingers, which were the winds that she ran over the surface of the world. The third sister was dumb. She spoke by opening her eye so wide, everything poured out of her like light. One day the sisters argued over their lover, the sun. But as two of them did not speak, and one did not hear, they never new it. And that is how our fathers learned to live.
2
One day in the first days two
of our fathers met by a pond, where both had come to find something to eat.
They decided that they would eat frogs. They talked together and smoked,
because they had never eaten a frog and did not see one. While they waited,
some deer came to the pond and had a drink. One said to the other, Is that a frog? and
the other said, No, that is a deer. So they paid no attention, because
they wanted to eat frogs. Later, a bear came, very close by, and snatched a
fish and ate it. Is this one a frog? asked one
of our fathers, and the other said, No, this one is a bear. So the two still waited to see if some frogs might come. A
pair of mink came, slid into the water, and came out with crawfish in their
mouths. The two kept talking. No, said one, these are minks, and
those are crawfish. Finally, the sun set and they made a fire. Then a frog
came along, as big as a buffalo, and said to our fathers, Why
are you sitting here beside my pond? Don't you have a fire in your own homes?
The two of them, thinking the frog would eat them, said that they had come to
see the Great Frog and to bring him a gift. What is this gift? asked the frog, because he thought he might take it. Oh,
they said, we put it in the pond already. It is a tub of honey with nuts and
berries in it. Hearing this, the frog jumped in the pond and dove down
looking for his present. But because it was not there, he never came out of the
pond again, and the water shrunk him until now all frogs are small. Meanwhile,
our two fathers saw that they were very lucky, so they did a dance around the
fire until it burned out. They went to sleep, and when they woke up, they saw
that waiting and talking and smoking together had made them exactly the same. Well,
they said, all right, then. Let us do the same today. And that is
how our fathers came to live together in one place.
3
Squirrel,
Fox, Eagle, Coyote, and Rat called a meeting in the first days to talk about
Man. Squirrel said, He is a fool. He can't climb at all. Instead of saving his
acorns in a tree, he eats them all at once, then goes
hungry all winter. I think we should leave him to his own kind and never
talk to him. Fox spoke up then. I agree, he said, and then he ate
Squirrel up on the spot. Yes, said Fox, Man is a fool. He is
afraid of the dark, so he's a terrible hunter. Big as he is, he is slow
of foot, weak of eye, and dull of brain. He's dangerous in close
quarters, but we can easily avoid him, and that is what we should do. Just
then Eagle dove from his perch, killed Fox, and ate him on the spot. You are
so right, he said, Man is a fool. He makes fires, weapons, and
tools, yet has no imagination. When he tells stories he scares himself
and does not understand them. He is not noble, because he cannot think himself
noble. Noble! exclaimed Coyote, and bit
Eagle's head off and ate him on the spot. You are so right! Even worse, he
changes his mind. When Partridge sits sleeping on a rock he thinks, How beautiful Partridge looks, sleeping there, and Partridge
wakes and flies away, while Man's children go hungry. He goes to fish
and stares at the moon while the fish eat his bait. And then he looked at
Rat and thought he would eat him, too. But when he pounced Rat jumped back, and
Coyote fell in a pit where Rat had been standing. Coyote looked up, and Rat and
Man were standing there. That's right, they said together, and they both
urinated on Coyote. But if Rats and Men work together, we will kill all the
other animals. And that is what our fathers have learned to do.
The circus must be in town, for tonight there's a strong animal
smell in the air, and strange sounds, like crying and laughing, and also the sense
that tonight the village's sons will run away, and all the daughters after
them. We look around and see that yes, the house tonight is full of clowns,
their pale faces covering up the strain, their bright noses flashing it, their
big, tired feet obstructing all the aisles like flung matchsticks. At first it
seems a shame to us that he can't see them, their ragmops
of bad hair, their snaggletoothed false smiles, their
ostentatious awful clothes, but then we see he's tricked us once
again—somehow he knows! and now there is this
silent scene of recognition as all around the room a mesh of quiet hearts falls
into one dark rhythm. They all turn to face him, and he them, like lonesome
wolves around the leader of their pack, resting on their cushioned haunches,
all their noses arced to the same degree, all souls rising as one: the clowns
all howl, they howl as painted men and women might, and the mime, their leader,
not allowed to voice his pain among the general sadness, has never looked so
sad.
From the end of the earth will I cry unto
thee, when my heart is overwhelmed. Peter Abelard
. . . were
more and less at once, can help it. . . . broken, then
pulled together as a dawning. . . . all them handle up
the line, buckets over-topping, the green flames aghast, appall the windows,
many gleeful faces beaming more than. . . . I make the messages, cowered
slightly where the night ended in ruin. . . . what
does the philosopher want today, said the clerk. . . . looked,
said nothing, revealed nothing, took it in her hand, roughly pulled then eased
back and glided it here, there, as if there were holy places to be met with
only in this grasp, while he wondered: is this all it takes? is
this what it means? this is what we were made for? . .
. many mirrors darkling. . . . got
early up, sawed the ends off, polished before breakfast, before the rest could
see them, aimed at his head where he slept, went "poof! poof!"
. . . you the answer, then, and does that pain you so? . . . helped
him into bed, his cold toes white, already dead: but thought only on her all
the while, when she'd call. . . . and hurried to the
window when they heard the shot; the day was not dreary, either, even made them
laugh a little. . . . You're a greening, she said, the sky warps around you
when you get the sniffles, but held him, too, in her arms long after the need
was made quiet. . . . And her mother laid there, the blood drained out of her,
the wax bringing her face back into the shape it bore during the years before
the hard carryings and birthings, the kettle
whistled, the cat went flying, a truck smutted by with a sour muffler, the
phone rang, the temperature dropped another tenth of a degree, a helicopter on
the embattled periphery sputtered for a second, dropped a couple of yards in
the air, then recovered itself and went on nicely about its terrible affairs. .
. . in the park, held his gutted prey, watching them
as they tried to keep their eyes on the ball. . . . for
the third time, then took a deep breath of water and smiled. . . . wagging, as
if for the first time, a puppy, the child's tiny hand—what can that
brittle smallness signify to this stolid ancient Labrador?—the light that
passed between them, the screech of these alien species' sudden collapses into
one another's worlds, more than simple friendship, more than illumination, more
than infinite possibility, more than love . . .
if ants, if bees
then all be aggregate
in complex now and never
ever any other
all one all one all
deployed, already mapped
the center nowhere, everywhere
a movement of parts, all formic
all particulars multiplied
by three, by six, by two feelers
if ants, if bees
the heart does not
assign itself, the route
a code, even
the eye compounded
and death from hunger does not
appall, the travesties of sex
do not amuse, will that tongue
taste
if loosed would scandalize
and hurt, if torn would sing
if ants if bees
the more not merrier
the less not more, everything
exact, even
the dancing strict
some fat thing at the center
being fed, her days alike alike
devour excrete and spill of progeny
each spill identical symmetrical
or else—
what this new and wicked I?
and she the star
ever over where the edges
spill
the green the silver
intricate inflamed
and turning always still
turned incensed palpable
altogether here once and ever
slow empties down pauses is full
smiles its mouth a picture as to
reassure
the next as new as one as to seem
April
blow cold then cool then warm in
wonder
DREAM GIRL
The things that mattered to
the little girl
were angels, fuzzy creatures,
anyone on crutches
or hurt in her heart, the big
boys on the corner,
and Mr. Science after the Karate Kadettes. So nobody
was much surprised to see her
start
sleeping all the day and night, only
waking for a little
sip of mock tea with mock lemon,
Super Booster Sandwiches,
and Karate Kadette
Krackers with jam on the side.
No one was surprised, but some
were worried
that she smiled herself to sleep
and slept on smiling,
then grumbled like a tiny polar
bear the minute
they managed to tease her up for
lunch. Then one day
she started waking up all by
herself, and seemed
to be a normal little girl
again. Except that now
she started ceaselessly reciting
all her dreams,
ditzy dreams of childhood where the
big green crow
dances with daddy while the piggies make supper
for everyone and somehow blowing
mounds of snow
miraculously turn to coconut and almond,
all the soft warm whiteness
wrapped in creamy brown.
She'd look you in the eyes and
say, The Donut Pumpkin
came today. It burped. It swam
like in the navy, only
nobody made it come home and make
its bed. It didn't make me
sad, either! It had a baby of its
own, looked just like Mommy.
You might feel compelled to
stroke her then, just down
her head, but then she'd jump
like you'd shocked her:
I always said, don't let anybody touch you.
Never! Never! Never! Never!
Never!
And you go back in your
corner, just to watch. She is normal.
She plays like a puppy with
herself, her things, and things
that are not there. But if she
builds a dollhouse in the air,
she knows it well enough to
forget it any time
some breathing thing breaks in on
her. But then the dreams
erupt again: Miss Cloud! I saw you
take that thing,
that thing, with handles, where
the rain came out? You thought
I didn't see you, I was the
dirt there! I was the puddle!
Now there's one-way glass, and
special toys with sensors.
There are ways to read what's
going on. But it is in
another language. Some other moon! she yells, and she
is laughing. I'm some other
moon, not the same one!
I stay away from her and watch
from safe behind
the blinding mirrors. Only in
that space we stroke each other.
Two blurs on the sensors, we
munch Krackers together.
We both dream without letup,
like hallucinating racers.
We can't get anybody to go in,
anymore. It's just too sad,
they say, to try to speak to her.
She raises up those eyes
like little pumpkins and tells you
that your stones have turned
to things like on a necklace,
and all your buttons were dancing
last night, with little smiley
faces, but they stopped. She says
Don't talk to me! Can't you
see I'm singing! Then she
doesn't make a sound for an hour.
When she does, it's just to say
Hey doc, bring me some crayolas, willya? My friend here
says I'm supposed to draw a long
tail right there
between his eyes, like sparkles. If I
don't, I'll be afraid
that he might go away. I saw you
ride him, too.
But you were just little, and
real real grey.
Let's have a little talk, I
bring myself to say.
Or what do you say we take a
walk together?
We already did, she says, and you were on the ceiling.
It was too steep, though, you
were having trouble breathing.
I try to see her eyes. She
laughs and puts them in her hands.
Are you o.k.?,
I say. Really. Can I get you anything? She says,
yeah, gimme
a book that opens like an eye. And get yourself
some sleep, doc. Really. You look
just like you're gonna die.
A man who had fallen among
shopkeepers,
and also among clerks, jerks,
hacks, flacks, and quacks,
and among petty malefactors and
demographic bookmakers, among
graft-takers, among ball-breakers and
home-wreckers and time-keepers,
this man took to telling himself
that he stood out—he
was no clockpuncher
or hogbutcher, no commercial bootlicker,
digital finger-cracker, stooge,
gopher, or blowboy for the bosses, he
had never stooped to squealing,
shilling, spilling his guts,
or stealing secrets for the
corporate gestapo—
no, he was pure of heart. He
could walk
through the valley of the shadow of
the New Nazi architecture
and breathe clear and never
flinch, look into those walls of shimmering bronzed glass
and see, among all the downturned eyes of the sheep, bugs, and slugs,
the lackeys, the toadies with
beepers, the nerds, noodles, and nobodies creeping there,
his own face upturned, eyes
defiant under that glare and shimmering themselves.
Among that herd of toilers, exploiters,
and despoilers,
forest defoliators, junk retailers,
liars for fee and liars for free,
he saw himself high above the
crowd, a visage and a voice
no dope, dupe, dumbbell, dog, or
drone,
no doppelganger clone of
Management and Administration,
could mistake for one of them!
He thought the world
should be an oyster you could eat
raw without getting sick,
and he thought the thugs, goons, apparachiks, bobos, and bimbos
dangling from their strings—the
gang bosses, section chiefs,
Heads, Chairs, Directors,
Squad Leaders, Presidents,
First and Second and Executive
Secretaries, everyone
who ever roped off awkward paths
to walk through
in a line, everyone who ever
said sign here, and here,
everyone who ever said, you'll have to
go and get the right form,
then, won't you?, everyone who
ever said, I'd be happy to,
but they won't let me, everyone
who ever made
a secret list of
names—they were what
stuck in your throat and made the
whole thing
come back up and spread out around
us this way,
so that the world looks like a
junkyard and smells like a death ward,
where the inmates tear each other
and themselves
and then cry themselves to sleep
in front of the t.v.,
or—even worse—find a way to
bribe the nurses
for some paper to write it all down
on, then fall
asleep with a smile, dreaming that
will show them, that will show them.
They move bright red and pale
red through the cities we built
them.
They meet each others’ lashless eyes, shake
hands like men and women,
kiss each others’ scarred
lips, then stand back
and look at one another,
appalled, at peace.
In their bistros they roll up
their sleeves and drink
the coffee we ship in to them,
nibble sweet croissants,
and call out loud for their checks
in their scalded voices.
The meat of their arms is
crimson, scarlet, or charred
off the bone.
The morning paper carries all
the news
about recent burnings: here an
arson,
here a barn burns down, here a
grease fire,
here a carburetor blows up in a
kid’s face.
They sigh from the pits of
their ruined lungs.
Driving through here, one
cannot help
but see their eyes and teeth,
bright
white against the pink, red, orange
faces.
There is a mystery even in
their billboards,
ad after ad for pain
killers and soothing creams.
But if you leave the beltway,
look out.
They’ve made their
ghetto, like the rest of us,
set up like a sideshow, glass
houses,
hidden microphones, extra police,
prayer meetings all week long.
And how they sing! Hosannas and
blues,
reedy quartets, solo bass, child in
a corner.
Not shy, not hesitant, not
even concerned,
they sing as if singing were
neither crime
nor solace, but only burning
need:
not need to say, but need to
show:
bubbled lips, scorched tongues, seared
throats:
lungs full of smoke, blistered
hearts.
Though we have not decided
yet,
although we know the rebels just
have come across the playgrounds
and junkyards
at the edge of the city and now
hold the library
and some parks and a laundromat, even though
we’ve put a price on their
leader’s head, because we know
he is a criminal, he wants to
eat more than we feed him,
he wants to fuck our old women
and harness our lapdogs,
despite the promises we’ve made
him, all the goods
we’ve poured on them while all the
time
they laugh at us and mock the way
we talk,
they hate our art and carbonated
drinks and say
that our legal intoxicants are
something their god despises,
though they are the ones who
act irrationally, eating
with one hand and wiping with the
other,
bending in prayer while we try to
talk sense to them,
wrapping their women in face-towels
and making
their children memorize their ugly
philosophy
while, if they would only smile on
us, show us
one bright impulse of gentle
comprehension,
stop lying and denying and
threatening and insulting,
which they do while we forbear and
go easeful
against them, although they know as
well as we
they lack everything, everything
that could resist us,
all they do is shriek and gabble
while our shells
patter like soft rain in their dusty
villages, and if our own
children are safe and happy with their
mountains
of toys, theirs could be too, if
they would just give
a little, warm to us a little,
and then we would never,
never kill them all, despite all
that we hate
about everything they are, although
we still have not decided yet.
First revelation: that
everything is bent, double:
(only for instance after
passing / which on the ruffled roads has always some distance off twin beams of
light coming on as in a mirror / after getting up the nerve and passing / while
overhead a hawk overshoots a cowbird, goes by screeching / after what the ones
in the long slow lines call passing / as deep underneath, ancient codes pass
from this to that until all hooks up like Christmas lights and suddenly above a
blossom opens / after passing, more passing
Second revelation: the
compound is elemental:
(scarlet dress, on the stairs,
music up, lights dimming, her breath, lips, on my knees, face in her, her sway,
give, come down, pulling at my shirt, now tugging harder, now fierce, then roll
down together, in the corner, someone's short barking laugh, all this as one,
indissoluble, between the last breath and the last pulse
Third revelation: all is one,
but then there is exclusion:
(nothing
opened like a radiant gate.
nowise "ethnic."
someone saying, "See you
later!"
the rest not silence, but low
hum.
nor not musical, either.
someone saying, “You'll be
sorry!”
no refreshments, no commodities.
a metaphor did not flow through
it.
someone saying, “You
promised!”
as a thing of spirit, too quick
to be uplifting, too loud to be profound.
afterward, everything beautiful is
framed by its cage.
Fourth revelation: low riders,
road crosses:
(hear
something faroff emptying. Tense
moment of redrilling, rescraping,
recutting. No evidence disposes any face of
time accomplished. No face either of those first, simplest contortions, eye and
tongue. Trips forth, louder than the heart can handle under an arc of stars
assigned to no real horizon. As in a mirror to see a
stranger. As on the telephone to hear one's own voice answer back: Is
it really you? Did you miss me? Do you love me yet? As on the dark hot
jagged road you make yourself a holy thing, killing your lights and riding on
the beams of the stranger behind you.
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Last updated: March 6, 2006.