“Goatish, reserved” says much: horny, sure, but when it came
to the real thing, the soul-presence and emotions one hopes for beneath the
trappings and the thrill of sex and romance, well, not so much. That’s reserved
for the work. You don’t get that my dear. The poems get that. You may help
bring them to fruition, but that’s all. It’s not yours. He was not a man, he
was a man on a mission. When you add mission it draws and draws from the man,
who winds up wrecked and a shell. He has laid himself open, but it was for the
likes of somebody like me fifty or a hundred years down the road. My first
response is always: “What the fuck were you thinking?” But on second thought,
if we’re to accept that there was never a real chance at a genuine whole life—what
he essentially claims over and over—then this ambition for fame and legacy is
better than nothing, the fruit of unappeasable disaster.
Ambition
I crave your body’s weight—
your round solid hips and your heavy
breasts pressing me into the floor
till the carpet nap pocks my skin,
and I care to hear whispered how sad
your day was, how it hurt
when your boss’s careless commands
crushed your morning. I would love
to tell you that you’re solid,
how I love it when I struggle to breathe
under the press of your dense flesh
so that I might offer support like earth
soothing the pounds of your cares.
But you’re a tree whose air and minerals
are reserved only for flowers—
never the weighty comfort of wood.
It’s a gaudy show! When a breeze
stirs, pink petals lift to the sky
like snow cascading upwards
and cinematographers record
the rosy spectacle for documentaries
on the airy miracles of nature.
And when the fruits of those flowers
ripen, they float like helium oranges
attracting retired ladies with cameras,
reporters with pencils behind their ears.
Cranes fly by, their thin beaks parted
in surprise, their long legs trailing
their white wings like kite tails
amidst the orange globes floating,
their broad white wings like sails
of air-yachts against the deep blue sky,
and it is such a vision of Aeolian
glory that the ladies drop their cameras
and cry like their infant granddaughters,
and hard-bitten reporters cable their offices
one line: “There are no words to describe
this,” while I stare from the bare orchard
with the grubs and toads and wave goodbye.
KZ
"And when the fruits of those flowers
ReplyDeleteripen, they float like helium oranges
attracting retired ladies with cameras,
reporters with pencils behind their ears."
Nice.