Kiss Off

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  This is what we hope for all of us who have been through the pain of loss—that one day we'll be able to look at our lives with the contentment of the grandmother in her garden, that we'll be able to ask ourselves, “How did this happen?” and answer, “Well that's who I wanted to be.”

  Sadie's Poem

  Eenie, meenie, minie, moe,

  There's a fire in my toe.

  Grab your butt and don't let go!

  SADIE LISK HIGHSMITH

  To a Poor Old Woman

  munching a plum on

  the street a paper bag

  of them in her hand

  They taste good to her

  They taste good

  to her. They taste

  good to her

  You can see it by

  the way she gives herself

  to the one half

  sucked out in her hand

  Comforted

  a solace of ripe plums

  seeming to fill the air

  They taste good to her

  WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

  Filling Station

  Oh, but it is dirty!

  —this little filling station,

  oil-soaked, oil-permeated

  to a disturbing, over-all

  black translucency.

  Be careful with that match!

  Father wears a dirty,

  oil-soaked monkey suit

  that cuts him under the arms,

  and several quick and saucy

  and greasy sons assist him

  (it's a family filling station),

  all quite thoroughly dirty.

  Do they live in the station?

  It has a cement porch

  behind the pumps, and on it

  a set of crushed and grease-

  impregnated wickerwork;

  on the wicker sofa

  a dirty dog, quite comfy.

  Some comic books provide

  the only note of color—

  of certain color. They lie

  upon a big dim doily

  draping a taboret

  (part of the set), beside

  a big hirsute begonia.

  Why the extraneous plant?

  Why the taboret?

  Why, oh why, the doily?

  (Embroidered in daisy stitch

  with marguerites, I think,

  and heavy with gray crochet.)

  Somebody embroidered the doily.

  Somebody waters the plant,

  or oils it, maybe. Somebody

  arranges the rows of cans

  so that they softly say:

  ESSO—SO—SO—SO

  to high-strung automobiles.

  Somebody loves us all.

  ELIZABETH BISHOP

  A Blessing

  Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

  Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

  And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

  Darken with kindness.

  They have come gladly out of the willows

  To welcome my friend and me.

  We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

  Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

  They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

  That we have come.

  They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

  There is no loneliness like theirs.

  At home once more,

  They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

  I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

  For she has walked over to me

  And nuzzled my left hand.

  She is black and white,

  Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

  And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

  That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.

  Suddenly I realize

  That if I stepped out of my body I would break

  Into blossom.

  JAMES WRIGHT

  Pied Beauty

  Glory be to God for dappled things—

  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

  For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

  Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

  Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

  And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

  All things counter, original, spare, strange;

  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

  With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

  He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.

  GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

  The Pope's Penis

  It hangs deep in his

  robes, a delicate clapper at the center of a bell.

  It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish

  in a halo of silver seaweed, the hair swaying in

  the dark and the heat—and at night,

  while his eyes sleep, it stands up in praise of God.

  SHARON OLDS

  Immigrant Picnic

  It's the Fourth of July, the flags

  are painting the town,

  the plastic forks and knives

  are laid out like a parade.

  And I'm grilling, I've got my apron,

  I've got potato salad, macaroni, relish,

  I've got a hat shaped

  like the state of Pennsylvania.

  I ask my father what's his pleasure

  and he says, “Hot dog, medium rare,”

  and then, “Hamburger, sure,

  what's the big difference,”

  as if he's really asking.

  I put on hamburgers and hot dogs,

  slice up the sour pickles and Bermudas,

  uncap the condiments. The paper napkins

  are fluttering away like lost messages.

  “You're running around,” my mother says,

  “like a chicken with its head loose.”

  “Ma,” I say, “you mean cut off,

  loose and cut off being as far apart

  as, say, son and daughter.”

  She gives me a quizzical look as though

  I've been caught in some impropriety.

  “I love you and your sister just the same,” she says.

  “Sure,” my grandmother pipes in,

  “you're both our children, so why worry?”

  That's not the point I begin telling them,

  and I'm comparing words to fish now,

  like the ones in the sea at Port Said,

  or like birds among the date palms by the Nile,

  unrepentantly elusive, wild.

  “Sonia,” my father says to my mother,

  “what the hell is he talking about?”

  “He's on a ball,” my mother says.

  “That's roll!” I say, throwing up my hands,

  “as in hot dog, hamburger, dinner roll.…”

  “And what about roll out the barrels?” my mother asks,

  and my father claps his hands, “Why sure,” he says,

  “let's have some fun,” and launches

  into a polka, twirling my mother

  around and around like the happiest top,

  and my uncle is shaking his head, saying

  “You could grow nuts listening to us,”

  and I'm thinking of pistachios in the Sinai

  burgeoning without end,

  pecans in the South, the jumbled

  flavor of them suddenly in my mouth,

  wordless, confusing,

  crowding out everything else.

  GREGORY DJANIKIAN

  We Take Our Children to Ireland

  What will they remember best? The barbed wire

  still looped around the Belfast airport,

  the building-high Ulster murals—

  but those were fleeting, car window sights,

  more likely the turf fires lit each night,

  the cups of te
a their father brought

  and the buttered soda farls, the sea wall

  where they leaped shrieking into the Irish Sea

  and emerged, purpling, to applause;

  perhaps the green castle at Carrickfergus,

  but more likely the candy store

  with its alien crisps—vinegar? they ask,

  prawn cocktail? Worcestershire leek?

  More certainly still the sleekly syllabled

  odd new words, gleet and shite,

  and grand responses to everyday events:

  How was your breakfast? Brilliant.

  How's your crust? Gorgeous.

  Everything after that was gorgeous,

  brilliant. How's your gleeted shite?

  And the polite indictment from parents

  everywhere, the nicely dressed matrons

  pushing prams, brushing away their older kids

  with a Fuck off, will ye? Which stopped

  our children cold. Is the water cold,

  they asked Damian, before they dared it.

  No, he said, it's not cold, it's

  fooking cold, ye idjits.

  And the mundane hyperbole of rebuke—

  you little puke, I'll tear your arm off

  and beat you with it, I'll row you out to sea

  and drop you, I'll bury you in sand

  and top you off with rocks—

  to which the toddler would contentedly nod

  and continue to drill his shovel

  into the sill. All this will play on

  long past the fisherman's cottage and farmer's

  slurry, the tall hedgerows lining the narrow

  drive up the coast, the most beautiful

  of Irish landscapes indelibly fixed

  in the smeared face of two-year-old Jack—

  Would you look at that, his father said

  to Ben and Zach, shite everywhere, brilliant.

  Gorgeous, they replied. And meant it.

  LYNNE MCMOHAN

  Emily Dickinson and

  Elivis Presely in Heaven

  They call each other E. Elvis picks

  wildflowers near the river and brings

  them to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him.

  In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sports

  Levis and western blouses with rhinestones.

  Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers

  and T-shirts, a letterman's jacket from Tupelo High.

  They take long walks and often hold hands.

  She prefers they remain just friends. Forever.

  Emily's poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs,

  Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and Richard

  Nixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile.

  Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoon

  he will play guitar and sing “I Taste a Liquor

  Never Brewed” to the tune of “Love Me Tender.”

  Emily will clap and harmonize. Alone

  in their cabins later, they'll listen to the river

  and nap. They will not think of Amherst

  or Las Vegas. They know why God made them

  roommates. It's because America

  was their hometown. It's because

  God is a thing

  without feathers. It's because

  God wears blue suede shoes.

  HANS OSTROM

  Sister Lou

  Honey

  When de man

  Calls out de las’ train

  You're gonna ride,

  Tell him howdy.

  Gather up yo’ basket

  An’ yo’ knittin’ an’ yo’ things,

  An’ go on up an’ visit

  Wid frien’ Jesus fo’ a spell.

  Show Marfa

  How to make yo’ greengrape jellies,

  An’ give po’ Lazarus

  A passel of them Golden Biscuits.

  Scald some meal

  Fo’ some rightdown good spoonbread

  Fo’ li'l box-plunkin’ David.

  An’ sit aroun’

  An’ tell them Hebrew Chillen

  All yo’ stories.…

  Honey

  Don't be feared of them pearly gates,

  Don't go ‘round to de back,

  No mo’ dataway

  Not evah no mo’.

  Let Michael tote yo’ burden

  An’ yo’ pocketbook an’ evah thing

  ‘Cept yo’ Bible,

  While Gabriel blows somp'n

  Solemn but loudsome

  On dat horn of his'n.

  Honey

  Go Straight on to de Big House,

  An’ speak to yo’ God

  Widout no fear an’ tremblin’.

  Then sit down

  An’ pass de time of day awhile.

  Give a good talkin’ to

  To yo’ favorite ‘postle Peter,

  An’ rub the po’ head

  Of mixed-up Judas,

  An’ joke awhile wid Jonah.

  Then, when you gits de chance,

  Always rememberin’ yo’ raisin’,

  Let ‘em know youse tired

  Jest a mite tired.

  Jesus will find yo’ bed fo’ you

  Won't no servant evah bother wid yo’ room.

  Jesus will lead you

  To a room wid windows

  Openin’ on cherry trees an’ plum trees

  Bloomin’ everlastin’.

  An’ dat will be yours

  Fo’ keeps.

  Den take yo’ time.…

  Honey, take yo’ blessed time.

  STERLING A BROWN

  Here

  Here I am in the garden laughing

  an old woman with heavy breasts

  and a nicely mapped face

  how did this happen

  well that's who I wanted to be

  at last a woman

  in the old style sitting

  stout thighs apart under

  a big skirt grandchild sliding

  on off my lap a pleasant

  summer perspiration

  that's my old man across the yard

  he's talking to the meter reader

  he's telling him the world's sad story

  how electricity is oil or uranium

  and so forth I tell my grandson

  run over to your grandpa ask him

  to sit beside me for a minute I

  am suddenly exhausted by my desire

  to kiss his sweet explaining lips

  GRACE PALEY

  Afterword

  So you've figured out to kiss off the “everything everything everything” that kept you from being your true self. Now you're kissing the sky and the ground and the entire beautiful world because you've found your mojo again, you've learned to be happy. Still, don't be shocked if the old you, Ms. I'm All Alone and Hating It rears her miserable head. Like on a glorious fall day, when you're driving through the park with the radio on and the sun roof open—and suddenly a gargantuan SUV bears down on your tail and you feel that familiar surge of righteous rage. How dare this soccer mom with her car full of snot-nosed yuppie kids try to run you off the road? You have a right to be here too, even if it is just you and your Saturn on the way to get your hair highlighted. Why do you have to get out of her way, Ms. I've Got Everything You. Ever Wanted and Then Some? But you do, and as she speeds past, you flip her off, feel like a jerk, and find yourself back in a funk.

  If it comes to that, then pick up this book. Find a poem to match that moment of fury and frustration, like Ethridge Knight's “Feeling Fucked Up.” Go ahead and think, “Fuck music and clouds drifting in the sky…fuck/the whole mothafucking thing.” And then remember to take a look at Stephen Crane's poem “The Heart.” If you keep flipping off poor harried moms and their kids, it really will just be you and your highlights alone in your Saturn eating your bitter heart out. You know that's not who you want to be. You want to be the fulfilled grandmother with her �
�nicely mapped face,” laughing in her garden in Grace Paley's poem “Here.”

  Obviously, just because you've found yourself and a sense of happiness again doesn't mean that you won't still experience moments and days of Hurting. No one can find an absolutely perfect way to live in this world—heartache and loss can always sneak up on us. And the stages that we describe in Kiss Off aren't absolutely perfect either. If you read all of these poems straight through, you won't necessarily be healed for life. Just because you've made it to Believing doesn't mean you won't find yourself Reeling again someday.

  But this time around you'll have the Kiss Off poems to keep you company, offer empathy, and cheer you on. Let “Sadie's Poem” get you fired up; laugh your way to a fresh perspective with “The Pope's Penis” remember the glorious brilliance of grand responses to everyday events described in “We Take Our Children to Ireland.”

  We hope you take these poems to heart and use them as a source of strength and inspiration. They'll help you recognize what you're feeling and remind you of who you want to be—a true believer in herself, in life, and in love.

  Biographies of

  Contributors

  ANNA AKHMATOVA (1889–1966): Russian lyric poet whose work includes Evening, Rosary, and White Flock. She achieved great popular success in Russia for her work.

  ELIZABETH ALEXANDER (1962– ): Her collections of poems include Antebellum Dream Book and Body of Life. She has taught in many universities in the United States.

  GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE (1880–1918): He settled in Paris in 1898 where he worked as a journalist, playwright, and poet.

  ELIZABETH BISHOP (1911–1979): Highly regarded American poet who won every major poetry award in the United States including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, she served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1966 until 1979.

  STERLING A. BROWN (1901–1989): An influential American poet, he taught at Howard University. His first collection was Southern Road.

  LUCILLE CLIFTON (1936– ): Mentored by Sterling Brown at Howard University, she worked as an actor while writing poetry. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1980 and won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2001 for Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988–2000.

  JOHNNY COLEY (1950– ): He was born in Alexander City, Alabama, and has published three chapbooks of poetry, Good Luck, No, and Peasant Attitudes towards Art.

  BILLY COLLINS (1941– ): According to the New York Times, Collins is currently the “most popular poet in America.” He is currently the Poet Laureate of the United States.

 

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