Written by
Stephen Dunn |
Relax.
This won't last long.
Or if it does, or if the lines
make you sleepy or bored,
give in to sleep, turn on
the T.
V.
, deal the cards.
This poem is built to withstand
such things.
Its feelings
cannot be hurt.
They exist
somewhere in the poet,
and I am far away.
Pick it up anytime.
Start it
in the middle if you wish.
It is as approachable as melodrama,
and can offer you violence
if it is violence you like.
Look,
there's a man on a sidewalk;
the way his leg is quivering
he'll never be the same again.
This is your poem
and I know you're busy at the office
or the kids are into your last nerve.
Maybe it's sex you've always wanted.
Well, they lie together
like the party's unbuttoned coats,
slumped on the bed
waiting for drunken arms to move them.
I don't think you want me to go on;
everyone has his expectations, but this
is a poem for the entire family.
Right now, Budweiser
is dripping from a waterfall,
deodorants are hissing into armpits
of people you resemble,
and the two lovers are dressing now,
saying farewell.
I don't know what music this poem
can come up with, but clearly
it's needed.
For it's apparent
they will never see each other again
and we need music for this
because there was never music when he or she
left you standing on the corner.
You see, I want this poem to be nicer
than life.
I want you to look at it
when anxiety zigzags your stomach
and the last tranquilizer is gone
and you need someone to tell you
I'll be here when you want me
like the sound inside a shell.
The poem is saying that to you now.
But don't give anything for this poem.
It doesn't expect much.
It will never say more
than listening can explain.
Just keep it in your attache case
or in your house.
And if you're not asleep
by now, or bored beyond sense,
the poem wants you to laugh.
Laugh at
yourself, laugh at this poem, at all poetry.
Come on:
Good.
Now here's what poetry can do.
Imagine yourself a caterpillar.
There's an awful shrug and, suddenly,
You're beautiful for as long as you live.
|
Written by
Stephen Dunn |
When Mother died
I thought: now I'll have a death poem.
That was unforgivable.
Yet I've since forgiven myself
as sons are able to do
who've been loved by their mothers.
I stared into the coffin
knowing how long she'd live,
how many lifetimes there are
in the sweet revisions of memory.
It's hard to know exactly
how we ease ourselves back from sadness,
but I remembered when I was twelve,
1951, before the world
unbuttoned its blouse.
I had asked my mother (I was trembling)
If I could see her breasts
and she took me into her room
without embarrassment or coyness
and I stared at them,
afraid to ask for more.
Now, years later, someone tells me
Cancers who've never had mother love
are doomed and I, a Cancer
feel blessed again.
What luck
to have had a mother
who showed me her breasts
when girls my age were developing
their separate countries,
what luck
she didn't doom me
with too much or too little.
Had I asked to touch,
Perhaps to suck them,
What would she have done?
Mother, dead woman
Who I think permits me
to love women easily
this poem
is dedicated to where
we stopped, to the incompleteness
that was sufficient
and to how you buttoned up,
began doing the routine things
around the house.
|
Written by
Constantine P Cavafy |
He finished the painting yesterday noon.
Now
he studies it in detail.
He has painted him in a
gray unbuttoned coat, a deep gray; without
any vest or any tie.
With a rose-colored shirt;
open at the collar, so something might be seen
also of the beauty of his chest, of his neck.
The right temple is almost entirely
covered by his hair, his beautiful hair
(parted in the manner he perfers it this year).
There is the completely voluptuous tone
he wanted to put into it when he was doing the eyes,
when he was doing the lips.
.
.
.
His mouth, the lips
that are made for consummation, for choice love-making.
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