Blessed as We Were

Home > Other > Blessed as We Were > Page 16
Blessed as We Were Page 16

by Blessed as We Were (retail) (epub)


  Elder blues, right?

  Under Your Wing

  for PAUL CELAN

  Blue rolls over me

  as it always did

  even against my will

  and I am leaning again

  against one of the fake pillars

  of the House of God

  and later the House of Peace

  House of Good Morning, House of Good Night

  sitting on a red pipe

  in the September sunlight

  in my new wool suit

  among the helpless and bored

  a Clark bar in my pocket

  part of the debris too

  of my existence—

  or would you prefer

  the anguish I

  carried from place to place

  neatly folded and perfectly creased

  in my small velvet bag?

  Punching Holes

  There’s no right and wrong here

  but I just want you to know that

  Tu Fu in the eighth century

  and two of my students in the twentieth

  confounded fireflies with distant stars

  whereas my first take was to conflate them

  with the holy sparks buried in the physical,

  a figure basic to southern French Kabbalah

  though I see now that the star collusion

  was more literal and mine more in the realm of Thought

  and is more a stretch, even as it’s nice to think

  of the small insect as a part of Jewish mysticism.

  Think of the bottle as containing everything.

  Think of the lid and how we punctured the holes.

  This had to be the first zoo, although there were no leopards.

  Never

  No sense burning the red ants

  with your father’s Zippo lighter

  when the freezing weather will do it,

  and both red and black will soon be curling

  and freezing, your friends, your enemies,

  as the Fahrenheit goes from 80 down to

  28 overnight in a shift that amazes

  the weather gurus in front of their maps.

  It’s better to sink with Ophelia

  in her crown of weeds

  singing, in my case, songs from the thirties

  or better yet to lie down with Lear

  on Chalk Mountain, repeating what the Galilean said

  and give, if you can, your last dollar

  to a good cause or a half an apple

  to someone living on garbage

  or lying down to sleep

  on the steps of St. Patrick’s

  or the First Romanian Shul on Rivington

  saying again and again

  in your grandfather’s language,

  he of the greasy white curls,

  never, never, never, never.

  The Late Celan

  The late Celan

  eating God

  eating Jews eating

  flies eating

  corpses eating mud

  eating blood eating

  paper eating

  Kafka eating

  das Schloss eating

  Melina eating

  the clock eating

  the Germans eating

  their supper in the square

  essing and fressing

  eating worms eating germs

  eating ham eating flan,

  eating Clarissa, pig of my heart

  thanks to my love

  and her darling son

  thanks to Celan

  thanks to August

  thanks to May Day

  not Labor Day

  and white shoes

  and the news

  down with Ronald

  down with Donald

  down with priests

  down with Cohens

  down with tweets

  and student loans

  and what did he love

  he loved the field mouse

  and the lizard

  he loved the snow

  and the blizzard

  and the breaststroke

  the legs that scissored

  and ah, the Seine

  his death again

  and he loved she

  Ilana Shmueli

  and Mandelshtam

  and a cat named Lily

  and she loved him

  and sometimes they kissed

  Friday cold noodles

  Friday cold night

  Shabbos dinner

  by candlelight

  who knew my gimp

  all day Saturday

  who knew my limp

  a davening imp,

  a demon, a wizard,

  again the lizard

  with bulging eyes

  freezing to death

  no surprise

  how wounded he was

  performing for Heidegger

  a friend of Goebbels

  John Skelton

  an early rimester

  I’m writing like

  gefilte fish

  Lake Erie pike

  Mel Brooks

  hotsy-totsy

  a sick and brilliant Jewish poet

  reading to a Nazi.

  Warbler

  The dead warbler started to sing

  as she whom I love

  bent down to pick him up with two reluctant fingers,

  maybe the small finger (of the left hand)

  curling, as at dinner,

  and carry him home

  and quietly put him

  into a see-through plastic bag

  as she did for salmon and roast chicken and pie.

  I want to say “alas, poor warbler”

  but warblers die too,

  of disease, of age, of accidents,

  as all birds do.

  And like all birds

  they sing when they’re buried,

  in this case in the freezer,

  a cold graveyard,

  two cartons of ice cream,

  one vanilla, one dulce de leche,

  to remember him by.

  He was lifelike stiff and unapologetic

  and he sang from time to time, dead or not,

  a “rising trill,” as the book says,

  in the upper levels where the worms are.

  At the Memorial of Al Dazzo, 1939–2017

  for AL DAZZO AND FOR ROSS GAY

  Weird the thing about fathers

  Ross said to me,

  the deacon said his father was talking to him

  in Heaven by which he meant, we thought, the Father,

  but maybe he did mean his father, the deacon’s,

  or maybe Al, his father,

  who sold apples during the Depression,

  in Brooklyn, I think, and I

  seeing the crucifix on the wall, Jesus

  in some kind of skirt, I said

  “that is the craziest Jew of all,” it was

  the moment he cried his cry, the “father

  why have you forsaken me,” the 22nd

  Psalm, first four words, before he drank

  the sour wine, before he turned to smoke,

  before he walked through fire, which purifies

  as it destroys, it is that which nothing else

  is so free as, that which is alive, and quick,

  and quick, for where there’s smoke there’s fire

  and where there’s fire there’s smoke

  and where there’s a shower, in Poland, there’s a smokestack

  and when there’s IG Farbin there’s Zyklon B,

  and what about Heine—his “softly flows the Rhine”

  became my soft the Delaware I used to swim across

  to the island and back,

  I was younger and happier then

  walking up old 611, my towel

  flung over my shoulder, my house lit up,

  hungry, starving, for peach pie,

  a little vanilla piled
on, dear Rossky.

  Acknowledgments

  The new poems in this volume have appeared or will appear in the following journals:

  American Poetry Review: “No Kissing There,” “Hearts Amiss,” “Wet Peach,” “Under Your Wing,” “Knucklebones,” “Frutta da Looma,” “Punching Holes”

  Birmingham Review: “Baby Rat,” “The Cost of Love,” “March 17th”

  Five Points: “Red and Swollen”

  The New Yorker: “Adonis,” “No House,” “Warbler”

  Plume: “Lake Country”

  Poetry Magazine: “Cherries,” “Hebrish,” “Torn Coat”

  I’d like to thank my editor, Jill Bialosky, and her assistant, Drew Weitman, for their guidance and support. I also want to thank my partner, Anne Marie Macari, and my assistant, Chase Berggrun, for their endless help and support.

  Index of Titles and First Lines

  Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.

  59 N. Sitgreaves, 114

  86th Birthday at MacDowell, 159

  112th Street (1980), 183

  1946 there was an overcoat, 111

  1946, 165

  A blind baby rat Luke and Melina tell me, 233

  A part of me eats her fingers and a part of me, 116

  A saltwater pond in the Hamptons near David, 72

  A wet towel so many times you’d think, 175

  Aberdeen Proving Grounds, 1946, 49

  Across a space peopled with stars I am, 80

  Adonis, 249

  After Ritsos, 181

  After the Church Reading Against the War, 182

  Against the Crusades, 8

  Albatross 1, 77

  Aliens, 135

  All she wants is for you to stay away from her egg, 91

  Alone, 51

  Already April, 33

  Always it’s putting two things together, 214

  American Heaven, 72

  Among the whatnots and the barnyard animals, 243

  Ancient Chinese Egg, 220

  Apt. 5 FW I, 161

  As far as clocks—and it is time to think of them—, 56

  As far as love, 251

  As far as the color red, 42

  As far as the hiphole, every night I dug, 196

  As for those who face their death by wind, 127

  As I recall the meal I ate was liver, 32

  As if one poet then who was in his sixties, 124

  As if some creature down there was having a smoke, 114

  Asphodel, 121

  At last I’m taking the accusation, 244

  At the confluence of tea roses and Russian sage, 236

  At the horizon line there was a touch of pink, 217

  At the Memorial of Al Dazzo, 1939–2017, 268

  August 20–21, 35

  Aunt Bess died from forgetting and when I, 204

  Azaleas, 200

  Baby Rat, 233

  Battle of the Bulge, 97

  Beautiful, The, 254

  Because of the pull I ended up swimming in the grasses, 29

  Before Eating, 117

  Bejewels, 95

  Bess, Zickel, Warhol, Arendt, 204

  Bio, 96

  Bio III, 166

  Bio IV, 169

  Bio VIII, 195

  Blessed as We Were, 251

  Blue Like That, 113

  Blue Particles, 197

  Blue rolls over me, 261

  Bolero, 86

  Box of Cigars, 70

  Broken bottles brought him to Mickle Street, 150

  Broken Glass, 150

  Bronze Roosters, 112

  Burning, 63

  By holding the mirror above my head your face, 30

  Camargue, The, 231

  Castro himself—you won’t believe it—ate Wheaties, 225

  Cherries, 238

  Cigars, 93

  Cost of Love, The, 234

  Cost, 65

  Counting, 162

  D., 173

  Day of Grief, 163

  Death by Wind, 127

  Died in the Mills, 144

  Diogenes, 109

  Diogenes for me and sleeping in a bathtub, 109

  Divine Nothingness, 190

  Dolly, 172

  Domestic, 140

  Don’t ever think of Coney Island, 197

  Don’t think that being a left-handed nightingale was all legerdemain, 8

  Driven, 100

  Droit de Faim, 164

  Drowning on the Pamet River, 29

  Dumb, 136

  Durante, 187

  E.P. 1, 76

  Elder Blues, 260

  Everyone gets her day, Maryanne whom I, 185

  Exordium and Terminus, 55

  Fall 1960, 225

  February 22, 133

  Finally daisies and tomatoes, I have settled for, 75

  Fleabane again and I have another year, 136

  For D., 153

  For only three dollars I was able to see, 88

  For sleeplessness, your head facedown, your shoulder blades, 87

  For the Bee, 50

  Forfor, 258

  Free Lunch, 184

  Frogs, 141

  From the beginning it was the money, how I, 65

  From Wackadoodle, 257

  Frutta da Looma, 248

  Gelato, 219

  Ghost, 198

  Gimbel’s, 88

  Given how deer are pests now, 179

  Golden Rule, 91

  Good to lie down in a yard of shadowing bimbo trees, 192

  Gracehoper, 137

  Grand Hotel, 61

  Greece, the light of my life, but there was a man who, 101

  Greek Neighbor Home from the Hospital, 16

  Hamlet Naked, 223

  Having outlived Allen I am the one who, 149

  He kept a hog in Utah, 216

  He reached inside his chest for understanding, 241

  He was dead so he was only a puff, 121

  He who has a forehead, 191

  He Who Is Filthy, 191

  Hearts, 68

  Hearts Amiss, 235

  Hebrish, 236

  Hell, 177

  Hemingway’s House, 81

  Here I am again and what brings me here, 186

  Here’s to your life, 117

  Hiphole, 196

  His Cup, 13

  His song was only a dot—a flash—if anything, 13

  Homesick, 102

  How could I ever lie down like that, 187

  How dumb he was to wipe the blood from his eye, 143

  How dumb it was to put my box of records, 260

  How fitting it was to see a fat and evil cat, 212

  How love of every single human creature, 112

  How on the river the loosestrife has taken over, 135

  How when I cut the giant Norway maple down, 138

  How wrong it was to look at those hearts incised, 235

  How you like these threads, said white spider, 59

  Hydrangea, 58

  I counted wrong in the other poem, 220

  I created an unassailable Utopia amidst Max Factor the powder, 169

  I don’t give a damn who gets a free lunch, 184

  I don’t know one thing from another but I, 152

  I don’t want to go to Hemingway’s house, 81

  I forgave him the debt of having to explain, 249

  I grew up with bituminous in my mouth, 47

  I had to sit on the steel railroad tracks, 82

  I had two uncles who were proletarians, 62

  I have been here so long I remember Salazar, 146

  I have had the honor of being imprisoned, the, 49

  I have slept with a Crow and a Robin and it’s, 157

  I have to say I can’t find the Book of Brightness, 190

  I hung onto her likeness and centered it, 158

  I lost my rage while helping a beetle recover, 154r />
  I loved your sweet neck but I loved your shoulder blades more, 155

  I myself a bottom-feeder I knew what, 90

  I never heard no, 254

  I once planned a room for pure silence, 210

  I said “Dear Larry” as I put down his book, Elegy, 24

  I tried either one or two but they were stale, 70

  I was alone and I could do what I wanted—, 51

  I was eating half a chicken and keeping, 208

  I was forcing a wasp to the top of a window, 163

  I was pleased by blue hydrangea because at, 58

  I was reading again and French apples, 102

  I was thinking about pears—or you were—I, 52

  I was waiting to try out one of my inventions, 238

  I will go down in history without a hotel, 166

  I woke up determined to turn everything, 227

  I wore a black knit hat, 18

  I would be happy if one of them would offer his, 84

  Iberia, 146

  Ich Bin Jude, 199

  If I had to I could have banged my head, 234

  If only the bell keeps him alive though that is, 28

  If you grew rich, as you say, by finding, 257

  In Beauty Bright, 142

  In beauty bright and such it was like Blake’s, 142

  In New York the Second Avenue Deli is on, 258

  In Pittsburgh we used to say, “Tomorrow we strike, 83

  In the age of loosestrife, 35

  In the museum of thumbs there was one red, 232

  In the way Ovid lectured a green grasshopper, 137

  In Time, 56

  In your rendition of The Year 25–25, 55

  Independence Day, 147

  Ink Spots, The, 54

  Iris, 60

  It didn’t work that the bores I grew up with, 160

  It is not knowing what a mulberry sidewalk looks like, 10

  It was a theater west on 47th, 223

  It was another one of his petite visions, 69

  It was as if his gills were going in and out, 140

  It was called the early years in upstate Pennsylvania, 22

  It was easy to call it that because of the, 177

  It was Galway kept talking about the sidewalk, 182

  It was while he was collapsing under the weight of, 213

  It wasn’t me but someone else in his eighties, 180

  It wasn’t only Eleanor I kissed, 239

  It were the ink splats from a writing machine, 95

  It’s not just Larry who keeps going to, 201

  It’s true that in spite of the sign that said, 172

  Journey, 143

  June, 48

  Justice, 71

  Kingdom, 42

  Knucklebones, 247

  L’Chaim, 92

  La Pergola, 75

  Lake Country, 240

  Larry, 216

 

‹ Prev