541 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
541 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
||
|
|
-----------------------------------
|
||
|
|
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
|
||
|
|
-- --
|
||
|
|
-- --
|
||
|
|
-- poems from --
|
||
|
|
-- --
|
||
|
|
-- HOME --
|
||
|
|
-- --
|
||
|
|
-- by --
|
||
|
|
-- --
|
||
|
|
-- TOBY OLSON --
|
||
|
|
-- --
|
||
|
|
-- --
|
||
|
|
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
|
||
|
|
-----------------------------------
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
2.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
It could surely become more involved: we'd
|
||
|
|
say things about structure
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
the sexual possibilities
|
||
|
|
of every flat surface in the house
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
and the round surfaces also
|
||
|
|
and the pointed ones: all
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
the possible pleasures of invention.
|
||
|
|
There are new objects constantly:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
this week
|
||
|
|
a table and a chest
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
We walk out in our new coats:
|
||
|
|
we become more involved with each other.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
4.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I cannot altogether formulate what I mean
|
||
|
|
Our love is bondage or a migraine
|
||
|
|
headache we possess in common
|
||
|
|
Slow poison of my stomach
|
||
|
|
I cannot for long eat food in another place
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
And then too, you come, sideways
|
||
|
|
often at the wrong times into my life
|
||
|
|
my thoughts
|
||
|
|
Agent
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
who would not like a fist fight
|
||
|
|
with someone he did not know
|
||
|
|
You have to touch them
|
||
|
|
which is intimate.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
5.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Sometimes, when we have spoken,
|
||
|
|
you have carried those things with you,
|
||
|
|
however foolish: to work
|
||
|
|
in the lunch room -- I have
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
taken them too: the specific
|
||
|
|
touch of your body, whatever woman
|
||
|
|
I talk to, and you
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
are doing the same
|
||
|
|
with the men: we
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
enter the conversation
|
||
|
|
together.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
6.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Outside the wind is serious
|
||
|
|
that which enters
|
||
|
|
the cracked window
|
||
|
|
is tentative. we believe that
|
||
|
|
we have controlled something
|
||
|
|
tangible. in our lives, we say
|
||
|
|
we live in the eye
|
||
|
|
of a hurricane.
|
||
|
|
down
|
||
|
|
bay-side, the wind is furious.
|
||
|
|
unaccountably: the ocean
|
||
|
|
is flat and calm: at the same time
|
||
|
|
in our lives, we say
|
||
|
|
hard things to one another: hate,
|
||
|
|
and then we love each other:
|
||
|
|
out, at the Cape's end
|
||
|
|
it comes together.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
17.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Fresh blossoms
|
||
|
|
as if it weren't enough
|
||
|
|
that you left this morning
|
||
|
|
and I discover them
|
||
|
|
alone, and can't give them a name.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
It's Fall already
|
||
|
|
the blossoms seem new though,
|
||
|
|
yellow, possibly
|
||
|
|
Queen Anne's Lace? or King Henry's
|
||
|
|
Venerable Crawler --
|
||
|
|
who knows
|
||
|
|
what evil lurks in a name?
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The wind
|
||
|
|
is no longer warm
|
||
|
|
it goes _through_ the weeds
|
||
|
|
and not over them as before,
|
||
|
|
tho the sun's still bright.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Gone,
|
||
|
|
and so I have to write this lament
|
||
|
|
doubly for the two of us: myself yesterday
|
||
|
|
and the one who is here now
|
||
|
|
not knowing the names of flowers
|
||
|
|
foreign in his posture
|
||
|
|
bent down over them,
|
||
|
|
a gesture of protest against
|
||
|
|
absence.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Who is it that shakes his head then
|
||
|
|
and stands up?
|
||
|
|
the flowers
|
||
|
|
yield to the fantasy
|
||
|
|
of a name: Rag Weed, moves
|
||
|
|
in the shared power
|
||
|
|
of the wind.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Miriam,
|
||
|
|
there are platitudes so deep
|
||
|
|
in the heart's core
|
||
|
|
we can't speak them,
|
||
|
|
the way even I stand here
|
||
|
|
is conditional,
|
||
|
|
call them
|
||
|
|
matters of biology:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
flowers are brought up regardless
|
||
|
|
of names,
|
||
|
|
hearts do
|
||
|
|
_cleave_ to one another
|
||
|
|
beyond imagery. brutal
|
||
|
|
& real, locked
|
||
|
|
in the same skin
|
||
|
|
is bondage.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
And you are my twin,
|
||
|
|
converse of the face seen in these buds
|
||
|
|
complement into symmetry
|
||
|
|
light side of the shadow
|
||
|
|
that falls over his shoulder now
|
||
|
|
the clouds closing --
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
it's Fall.
|
||
|
|
I walk toward the house leaving
|
||
|
|
the history of that gesture:
|
||
|
|
the bent body, the look quizzical,
|
||
|
|
the strange buds --
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
and enter the door followed
|
||
|
|
only, by the first drops of rain.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
21.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Last summer, we put in many hours
|
||
|
|
of work around the house.
|
||
|
|
the other night
|
||
|
|
with friends, we talked
|
||
|
|
of all the work we'd done
|
||
|
|
and other things
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
such
|
||
|
|
sad simplicity
|
||
|
|
of time, that splits the distance. you
|
||
|
|
were sitting on the couch,
|
||
|
|
our friends were there
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
and gathered
|
||
|
|
in the matrix
|
||
|
|
of our talk
|
||
|
|
a distance
|
||
|
|
from the things we said
|
||
|
|
and from each other
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
yes
|
||
|
|
in time, but also
|
||
|
|
in the spaces of the room itself:
|
||
|
|
the smoke that made it tangible.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
How hard a thing, and seldom
|
||
|
|
that our faces
|
||
|
|
make an imprint, other
|
||
|
|
than in air . your hair
|
||
|
|
keeps growing longer.
|
||
|
|
what could I expect?
|
||
|
|
but that last summer
|
||
|
|
takes its measurement in hair:
|
||
|
|
the length of it you carry
|
||
|
|
in a changing way, a different
|
||
|
|
tilting of your head
|
||
|
|
your hand
|
||
|
|
that brushes
|
||
|
|
hair away from face.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
And of our friends, their talk.
|
||
|
|
And of myself
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
who's carried back these days
|
||
|
|
to funerals.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
or of another friend
|
||
|
|
who finds it hard to eat:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
that I can see such action in his face,
|
||
|
|
that is his own,
|
||
|
|
but takes me back
|
||
|
|
into my life: my father's
|
||
|
|
inability to eat
|
||
|
|
. . . and saw his death prefigured
|
||
|
|
in his actual face.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The sad
|
||
|
|
simplicity of time
|
||
|
|
we fill with gesturing
|
||
|
|
and sex. the hair
|
||
|
|
grows natural and like
|
||
|
|
a forest
|
||
|
|
or a tumor, is
|
||
|
|
a kind of clock, and yet the words
|
||
|
|
we think
|
||
|
|
can form a closure
|
||
|
|
as in sutures
|
||
|
|
of the skull, or make a fusion
|
||
|
|
as the smoke does
|
||
|
|
standing
|
||
|
|
in the air
|
||
|
|
that only separates,
|
||
|
|
defines the time as distance.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
And of these words I speak
|
||
|
|
I'd form a matrix or a web
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
. . . but not a web, no
|
||
|
|
metaphor
|
||
|
|
or image: but an action
|
||
|
|
so to fix my friends and you
|
||
|
|
in time.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I do not mean this poem.
|
||
|
|
I mean an insult or a real whip.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
We are our faces, certainly.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
we face each other
|
||
|
|
when we talk
|
||
|
|
we love
|
||
|
|
to put our faces close together.
|
||
|
|
saving face
|
||
|
|
or facing things
|
||
|
|
that happen
|
||
|
|
or another face, that we
|
||
|
|
should think our faces sacred things,
|
||
|
|
we cover
|
||
|
|
or reveal
|
||
|
|
ourselves. we sit in circles, so
|
||
|
|
to see the faces
|
||
|
|
of our friends, and yet,
|
||
|
|
at times, the face is drained,
|
||
|
|
turned inward
|
||
|
|
into space and time: we make a face
|
||
|
|
to hide it.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
my father's form was rocking
|
||
|
|
in the chair.
|
||
|
|
he was so thin and light
|
||
|
|
the chair
|
||
|
|
would barely move,
|
||
|
|
his eyes would rock, and I
|
||
|
|
would find that I was rocking too,
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
our friend
|
||
|
|
who finds it hard to eat
|
||
|
|
was rocking also
|
||
|
|
on the phone last night;
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
his face is turned to distance
|
||
|
|
we can't enter
|
||
|
|
though we try
|
||
|
|
to form a web
|
||
|
|
or matrix.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The night before
|
||
|
|
that call: our friends were here.
|
||
|
|
we talked of all the work we'd done,
|
||
|
|
and other things.
|
||
|
|
It was no more than this:
|
||
|
|
we spent a simple night together.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I've been
|
||
|
|
only speaking for myself.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
25.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Whatever goes on with us is extendable:
|
||
|
|
the rights of man
|
||
|
|
and not as the crow flies.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
the gull's body in air
|
||
|
|
fluctuates. the state of The Nation
|
||
|
|
is measured in The Nation's garbage.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
my brother talks of the City
|
||
|
|
as if he'd been there:
|
||
|
|
men on the lookout for money only
|
||
|
|
Depraved Seat of Power.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
a man in Detroit
|
||
|
|
vacuums the City's sewers: diamonds
|
||
|
|
false teeth, a string of pearls
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
identification
|
||
|
|
bracelet of fence
|
||
|
|
where the crows sit.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
at the end of sight
|
||
|
|
the gull's body
|
||
|
|
floats on a solid object
|
||
|
|
which is the air
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
my brother taks of the cities he's been to
|
||
|
|
I kiss your legs & knees in the City
|
||
|
|
whatever goes on with us is extendable
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
my brother talks of a fictional city,
|
||
|
|
without you.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
35. _(the dead)_
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The nearness of you
|
||
|
|
tho you've gone to work
|
||
|
|
and I'm alone in these four rooms
|
||
|
|
is evidenced
|
||
|
|
in your blouse lying across the chair
|
||
|
|
the placement of ashtrays & books, even
|
||
|
|
the flat cool breeze sliding
|
||
|
|
under the half-cracked window
|
||
|
|
at my side.
|
||
|
|
outside
|
||
|
|
snow general all over the terrace
|
||
|
|
in its drifts, the brick
|
||
|
|
wall around it and the metal railing
|
||
|
|
snow capped . Paul's
|
||
|
|
too real picture & yours
|
||
|
|
where my eyes go
|
||
|
|
to the wall.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
nearness
|
||
|
|
of friends dead and friends
|
||
|
|
gone to work
|
||
|
|
in your new dress
|
||
|
|
and boots (old boots
|
||
|
|
in the closet
|
||
|
|
a pair
|
||
|
|
left in our house on the Cape
|
||
|
|
where the snow also is general
|
||
|
|
poles marking the land
|
||
|
|
standing in drifts.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
reluctant to start
|
||
|
|
a movement in real time,
|
||
|
|
fixed line
|
||
|
|
of a row of trees, a man
|
||
|
|
stands in them as vector
|
||
|
|
as gesture of open
|
||
|
|
coat, wind down boulevards
|
||
|
|
a row of low buildings
|
||
|
|
passed on a Triumph
|
||
|
|
in West Los Angeles
|
||
|
|
Pasadena . Annie
|
||
|
|
sleeping together
|
||
|
|
waking
|
||
|
|
together, in boredom, in real time.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
the mind goes in its junk
|
||
|
|
to the wall: camera
|
||
|
|
and man standing
|
||
|
|
under a snow bridge
|
||
|
|
in the middle of gesture,
|
||
|
|
his nearness
|
||
|
|
It is not himself. not
|
||
|
|
that a camera lies;
|
||
|
|
the eyes
|
||
|
|
go to the wall --
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
was of stone & blank face
|
||
|
|
Sara
|
||
|
|
holding the rope, Paul
|
||
|
|
hanging below
|
||
|
|
both
|
||
|
|
watching the camera
|
||
|
|
goofing. hat
|
||
|
|
cocked on his head
|
||
|
|
blind light in his glasses. serious
|
||
|
|
Sara.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
the mind throws out junk
|
||
|
|
objects
|
||
|
|
gather in their places
|
||
|
|
ash trays & books, your blouse
|
||
|
|
the nearness of you.
|
||
|
|
my mind's
|
||
|
|
junk is a history of women
|
||
|
|
in pictures
|
||
|
|
all those things done wrongly.
|
||
|
|
we live wrongly. but
|
||
|
|
that we live _in_ these things,
|
||
|
|
go to the wall --
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
was of stone
|
||
|
|
like a carved placque
|
||
|
|
of the war dead, hand holes
|
||
|
|
of the names in the letters
|
||
|
|
grave stone
|
||
|
|
worn in the weather
|
||
|
|
sight extension of my father's life
|
||
|
|
standing
|
||
|
|
in his body in the general snow.
|
||
|
|
he is 59 now.
|
||
|
|
_click_.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
How then to extract myself
|
||
|
|
from these dead
|
||
|
|
"How rare, the move to center
|
||
|
|
where we live":
|
||
|
|
the nearness of you
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
to be home free of the mind's junk
|
||
|
|
is a history of bondage
|
||
|
|
pictures
|
||
|
|
of women loved wrongly
|
||
|
|
and men.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Go to the wall then
|
||
|
|
there is nothing there
|
||
|
|
but flagellant
|
||
|
|
but stone's message to stone
|
||
|
|
vague scent of bodies in bed or on fire
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
impossible elegance flesh has
|
||
|
|
retreating from muscle and bone.
|
||
|
|
a short distance
|
||
|
|
so much bulk
|
||
|
|
a bundle of sticks
|
||
|
|
the loved corpse
|
||
|
|
technician.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
*
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
the chair sits in the room's center
|
||
|
|
it is free of the wall
|
||
|
|
around it
|
||
|
|
are fixed objects: books
|
||
|
|
and the made bed,
|
||
|
|
a shell on the table beside it
|
||
|
|
In each case the agreement
|
||
|
|
was contractual, "you
|
||
|
|
stay, I'll go"
|
||
|
|
Sun
|
||
|
|
makes the chair beautiful
|
||
|
|
sunlight enters the shell
|
||
|
|
all these things are particular
|
||
|
|
it is a lovely chair. the shell
|
||
|
|
is made ridiculous by the light
|
||
|
|
It is ourselves we love.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
*
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I want constancy
|
||
|
|
I want to live on in the face of death
|
||
|
|
in the face of those dead
|
||
|
|
I want my father
|
||
|
|
I want my fingers
|
||
|
|
gathered in the letters on the stone
|
||
|
|
Want your body, your objects
|
||
|
|
this fixed roof.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
the wall before me
|
||
|
|
is empty
|
||
|
|
beside these closed frames of photographs
|
||
|
|
Isolate
|
||
|
|
Faces of times that are dead now
|
||
|
|
(you were a child then
|
||
|
|
outside
|
||
|
|
snow constant in drifts in the starlight
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
the nearness of you: Home
|
||
|
|
ceases to vibrate
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
It's not the pale moon that excites me
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
you return
|
||
|
|
as the same one
|
||
|
|
who left me.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
HOME was published by Membrane Press, now
|
||
|
|
Light and Dust Books. Light and Dust Books
|
||
|
|
are available from the Grist On-Line Bookstore.
|
||
|
|
Copyright (C) 1976 by Toby Olson.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|