Mar '04 [Home] Poetry Feature First Green is Gold

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A Morning ~ Sally Bliumis | Chibalaya ~ Early Naughty & So Modern ~ Patricia Brody | the bird watchers ~ Denver Butson | At the Stoplight ~ Robert Klein Engler | Lucy Dillard ~ Paul Espel | Advice ~ Andrew Glaze | Almost at the Corner ~ Shelley Hainer | The Burning Girl ~ Kythe Heller | The Art of Sleeping ~ Michelle Herman B The Experimental Plane ~ X-Ray Visionary ~ Ian Kahn | Ghazal ~ Sybil Kollar | Arnold's Meadow ~ Deena Linett | A Box of Fresh ~ Michael Morical | Golden ~ Van Gogh's Self-Portraits ~ What Do You in an Empty Room? ~ Stella Padnos | Truth Ghazal ~ On Desire ~ Margaret Peters Schwed | Jacalope ~ Mary Austin Speaker | A Look at the Moon ~ Inspiration ~ Stephen Stepanchev Contributor Notes Morning Sally Bliumis your deliberate slicing of the banana into soft even discs that slide from the blade — a certain slowing of time, expanding each thing until it is something else, like the milk you steam each morning, out of its liquid heaviness: it becomes part light, part air; and the press of you, slow like a root inside me until I feel my body layering layering into sheer delicate petals ~ . ~ Chibalaya Patricia Brody This I told you: School was not for girls. My mother — who was she — let me carry my basket filled with fresh eggs to the goyim. I was maybe ten, near Minsk. I made money. 1. I had no given name, that luxe-custom of the New World     of which I am not     truly I am not Betsy, Rivka or Chibalaya paying my all-night ride, leaving my brood of six. Yes, I opened my front door — did I have a choice? — but not my arms to the poor half-wit Chaim brought. He never said a word from over sea. Five hundred dollars he had in his pocket and this little secret, five hundred dollars, he came calling. He was meant to marry Fannie, then saw me. 2. He was meant to marry Fannie, then saw me, I had no given name, Rivka or Chibalaya, she must have named me something at my birth. It snowed     who was my mother? All night I rode who am I, I sat up on the board-bench in the train; for my comfort I would never slip a penny, I had to stay awake lest the shysters and paskutzva touch my dress. Did I smell of my chickens and my cows of my youngest child, Selig, crying, still wrapped-up in his mama's bed? 3. Crying, underneath my layers my crumbling silk black with coal and Selly's tears, he could still smell milk; I sat up all night, the locomotive chugging south from Halifax to Orchard Street. The money from my eggs sewn in my slip, the cream and butter of my toil and sweat and I bought cloth: foulard, lawn, worsted, hats, garters, stockings, linens, girdles, and where I stayed — Delancey Street, whose house? Then the journey back, two nights again sitting up, the dry-goods for my pillow, the child sobbed they said, that whole week without me. 4. Curled in my feather bed without me, he grew wary; wary he would stay. For the first time we had money. We bought a building, there's a sign marks the alley. Chaim tried to make a club for dancing. It was in the finest house death came calling, whiskey on its breath; did my foolish man sell the stuff that killed us? Copp-er-man, face like beets yeah, far from his green home he was, full of rage and rye — No Jew would bother him again, he screamed. 5. My boy — they spat on him, Jew — weeping, stained my silk black sleeve, I'd no choice but to open up my door, though not my heart, to that simple-simon girl your pa brought me from over icy sea. His from Gott knows what lost barn-hour rolling in the rotted Russian hay. Here we lived, shivering in Glace Bay, kinder rode on glaciers, scorned the snow. Lily, Esther, Joe,     you left us and we perished in the kitchen, where candles burned on     Shabbat.     Rafe, Moishe, Selly I meant to scream, the bullets tore me     near in half I alone tried     crawling     for the door 6. My blood on fire     they found me by the door No Yid would get the best of him, he swore. Never did I lie in my own room sea breeze at the glass, sun on my clean muslin fresh water in the basin           a jar for my ashes. They let him off you bet; who should pay for two Yids shot to bits? Chaim fell before me.           I had a comb my hair pulled back and tight, my daughters gone to Calgary, so far they went to marry. In my wedding photo, my cheekbones shine in the light. Serious, I clasp your father's shoulder. Närish boy was s'posed to marry Fannie, but got me. 7. On the floor, he got me. Of course they let him off. All of you came weeping to the trial. Rarely did we talk of love     your loss, you all did good for me, better than your papa, I wanted… Now we lie freezing in this ground, the blackened stars, the airless mines shut down.           I crawled to earth our gravestone smashed     blanked out, who's to guard this corner of the graveyard? They shoveled us like coal into the dirt cold     we are cold until our blood runs out 8. I tried to scream     the blood filled my mouth they pushed us in the ground the sky     winged with violet smoke and gold and coal-blue dusk I could not look up I had to stay awake! My youngest saw the ocean from my window the wind-hurled green, this north Atlantic hole I never touched it           did I smell the salt? Fridays, I would bake the sweetest brot, braided gold, the challah for my blessing. Other nights was "Soup again?" and you all cried for challah… My own eggs gave the bread that pretty color. Chibalaya Cohn married Chaim Brody, 1894, Henry Street, then journeyed to Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, a dying coal-mine town. She bore six children, raised a seventh, Molly, who was not her own. Using money from homegrown dairy products, she opened a women's/children's drygoods store. All the children worked in the store and the business thrived. In June, 1941 Chibalaya, 67, and Chaim, 77, were torture-murdered by a policeman to whom they rented a room. Although the officer was brought to trial for the murder, charges against him were soon dropped. (Prior publ.: Poet Lore) ~ . Early Naughty & Oh So Modern Patricia Brody What elegant graves: Heloise with her mister at Père Lachaise, Margaret, less undressed, well-wedged beneath Westminster (where even Byron was forbidden). Oh lady seers/ how bold thy tracks. Your outcries your laments, your Latin & your science, there's not a patch of grind. Take your places, rose-thorns, waft your wisdom. All you wished for hovers. Fragrance, river, synapse, your energy lifts you from humus to vapor, you get the full sky-swim; you get the arc. Two robed refulgences. Heloise exhorts, Margaret brays, their wit amazes in the Book of Days: Heloise black, meek nun's pose, Margaret velvet, atomic headgear, matching hose. They called her mad, but Heloise they didn't call. Her "seducer," he was called, come to the window oh unhorned putrefaction. What waggle will you now? You call yourself unique, Eunuch? Never doubt, the blood dries, but the wound's livid. What will you do, knock her up and bolt the key? (He wrote songs!) She ain't going nowhere: the baby's in the casement, mixing up the raiment; Hel, the mother, prepares evening makeovers: chism? clism? What will she / will we/ next pray? Compose him-less hymn, break holy-bread, as well thy comely leg, Sisters moony. Slouch toward homecoming, soul-queen duet: Twice lovely, fresh-as-morn, hey-nonny-day, Right Blazing World; so green we met. ~ . ~ the bird watchers Denver Butson when my wife and I woke up this morning they were there again standing still against the bedroom wall binoculars around their necks canteens on their belts socks pulled up way too high Honey just ignore them I said what do they want? she asked they're bird watchers I said ornithologists and make-believe ornithologists and then one of them gave the signal and the binoculars all went up at once I feel like we're being toasted at a party my wife said I feel like we're in front of the firing squad I said one old woman had a small telescope her hand trembled slightly from its weight our bedroom is so small that we can see tiny versions of ourselves reflected in the glass it wasn't until my wife said I thought you said we should ignore them that I realized I was squawking I can't I squawked I can't either she squawked back and then we both raised up our arms under the sheets to scare them away with our giant white wings (From illegible address, the author's new collection.) ~ . ~ At the Stoplight Robert Klein Engler See him by the campus corner, backpack slung over one shoulder, jet hair bright with youth. Not long will beauty wait upon a cliff of curb. When nature blooms like this, it is either reason or waste, and all philosophy is dumb to say. Poised in thought, ready to marry his limbs to the world, what will it be, what calls beyond the pause? Our war against the Persian hordes, damp days scribbling books, a season in hell, or looking into pools to gather beggars' coins; the pursuit of eyes, the victory of loins, a prayer below the copper bowl of stale suburban skies, then years of limping while his children dance, or last, a hopeless love—the world rearranges— all set, and then the red light changes. ~ . ~ Lucy Dillard Paul Espel Lucy Dillard woke up screaming, heard the devil call her name. Her husband couldn't calm her, she ran naked in the rain. She ran calling out to Satan. Mr. Dillard brought her home. But something terrible had risen in the dark unknown. Neighbors offered consolation. Relatives did what they could. Her grown-up children came. It did no harm. It did no good. Doctors ordered pills and potions. Checked for tumors. Found no cause. Friends had their opinions— "mid-life crisis," "menopause." Mr. Dillard kept a vigil after all had had their say— In a ritual of hope, he searched his Bible, and he prayed. Held her hand and tried to soothe her. Kissed her cheek. Combed her hair. Soon Lucy didn't know him. She could only sit and stare. Someone said that time would heal her. Now the years grow very long. Every mind's a foreign land. Lucy Dillard's lost and gone. ~ . ~ Advice Andrew Glaze No fighter, I've spent my life as a waster trying to understand how life rises up. Just when the hard hearts think they have it all and the world is about to fry that tragic farce— so full of murderous autos skidding, hookers and dealers making book on heavenly ministry, crooked bettors making book on straight-up steeds— how did I get to be that double fool born to believe something better is coming? Beethoven worshipped a passel of semi-comical fall-down lies, but in his head, turned them into wonders. The doubtful hope, like amber, is buried in his song. How to befriend hero and monster both? How drum up a better tomorrow from in-grown, stubborn, thoughtless vile todays? Have you a gift for the world? The trick is knowing nothing but instinct rules. Treat this day, like every other day, as a near-dead child abandoned at your door. ~. ~ Almost at the Corner Shelley Hainer It was a case of mistaken identity. Mine. The 300th person I resemble broke his heart. "She was the first," he said. He shook my hand, removing his glove in preparation. "But not the last," I said. Mentioning other tread marks, his eyes, engage mine, even as I notice his midnight blue suede jacket and highly shined brown shoes. They look comfortable. His hand warm at 7 o'clock in the morning. I'd come from the ATM, interrupted midide near the corner. The best part, unexpectedly being called by name. Even the wrong name. ~ . ~ The Burning Girl Kythe Heller           Janus Youth Homeless Shelter           Portland, Oregon An obvious mess this girl casually sprawling next to me on her assigned bed, yawning and burning, bored by her blistered skin, her blood disease, bored by everything, really, pain, concern… She knows it's worthless; I see it in the slow, shameless way she strokes cheap lotion on her fevered shoulders and the tender hollow below her throat, as though this sensuous coolness were the one thing life offered, and that was worthless too—           O God help me but I wanted to be her then, how she burned and never thought to cry out, I wanted all the blazing houses that crowded just under her skin, making her squirm. I could live in that burning if I made myself very small, I could live in the burning city risen up on her skin, streets with lighted windows, doorways and plates steaming, I could eat with waiting silhouettes, I could sleep in their beds and warm my shivering life, we could be a family— But I watched her careless strokes, head lolling back slightly, the way she half-shut her eyes on a thought. What, I wondered. And then I wanted that coolness in her throbbing body, I wanted those few cool seconds when the lotion soothing her skin made her seem like an eclipsed sun circled by a corona of fire, and the motion of her hand was god-like, destroying the city risen up on her skin, erasing years with the sweep of cool lotion. Not that she was a child, I saw, but the world was a child in her, and she destroyed it calmly, the way a child can't help destroying everything it has built. Oh I lived in those few seconds when the city had burned down on her skin, and in the smoking rubble of ashes and charred remains, when the aftermath hush of devastation had quieted everything in her at once: I could hear faintly, from a long way off, the sound of it picking up so close to me, a wind from nowhere stirring her ruined body, the voice that was no one's howling from the very first. ~ . ~ The Art of Sleeping Michelle Herman 1. What does it take? Talent, practice, mastery of technique—craft, that is But finally you Have either got it or you don't. It's just like (no, not just, Unjustly) like writing a poem or painting or composing music—making Art, that is, or making love, by which is meant nothing More elegant or interesting or complex than just (or unjust) sex, which (A coincidence? I think not) is known, too, As sleeping with. In other words (And there are always other words) You can get better at it, but the gift is given By God or it isn't. Or perhaps it isn't God. Perhaps it's parents (close enough). They—my parents —God and Goddess—say I never slept well, even as a child But woke twice, three times, in the night; and rose At five; and fought Bedtime—my flashlight brandished At a romance comic until long after all The other lights had gone out, until there was no one left Awake but me—a child scared stiff, still turning Pages. A lifelong insomniac By nature or by habit, I have never had The gift for falling or remaining Or returning to the state of being (After what for other people would be Only a brief interruption To turn over or to turn The pillow over or to turn The cat out or to glance, just once And quickly, over at the clock) Asleep. Nor has my child, who slept just (Just again!) six hours of The twenty-four the day that she was born And furthermore not more Than twenty minutes at a time. At bedtime now She tells me, "But I don't know how to fall asleep" And when I tell her—hopelessly, Because of course I don't know either—"Just try. Close your eyes, why don't you? You can't fall asleep Unless your eyes Are closed," she says, "That's no good, Mama. That's no help at all." I fail her Every night, and some nights, still Awake after an hour of trying (what she thinks Is trying: flopping all around her bed like a fish slapped Out onto shore), she'll cry—she'll beg me to Tell her what's wrong with her. "What's wrong With you?" I'll say, and she'll say, "You know. Other people fall asleep. I know they do." And if I tell her, sternly, "Other people close their eyes," It shames me, since I know myself That doesn't help. But it's a start— Better than nothing (which is what I tell Myself each night when I close my eyes). "I can't," she says, and I know that too, I know that she's afraid to close Her eyes—just as she's afraid to let me Turn the light off, so I don't. I leave The light on; I lie down beside her, Hold her hand. Sometimes I drift Off before she does—the only way I've ever in my life fallen Asleep instead of flinging myself in— To it by force, hurtling toward it, cheerleading Myself: Go! Now! It's time! (Why it does not occur to me that there is no good Reason on earth Why this might help even In the slightest—I don't know. Night after night, I shout and leap, eyes closed, and don't fall asleep.) 2. For several months, two years ago, I didn't sleep at all. I'd drink warm milk, chamomile tea; I'd bark My worthless silent orders; I'd imagine spiral Staircases and empty boxes, beaches, meadows, water, nothing. Nothing. One, two, three O'clock and I was still awake, just as I'd been At midnight, my daughter asleep—at last, after an hour of weeping Down the hall, since ten, ten-thirty—the sleep of the just, I'd think; Her father at work Out in the garage he turned into a studio the summer He moved in with me, the summer I conceived our daughter. Just five summers later, I lay in our bed, alone, in the thrumming False machine-made air, and suffering (I told myself) the desperate insomnia of the unjust, Turning first one way and then the other, hissing At the cat, turning The pillow to its cool side, getting up to turn The air conditioner way up, then down, cursing its hum, And humming Myself with what felt like electric Want—that Wakefulness, a buzz and hum And crackle over more Than four decades of "ordinary" (But who'd call it that?) exhausted wakefulness. At five I would give up, get up For good; I would be Making coffee as my husband came in, smelling Of oil paint and turpentine, and nodding at me As he passed, as silent as one of his own Still lifes, heading up the stairs to get some sleep Himself now in the bed I'd left unmade for him (we never made The bed that summer: Day or night, there seemed always to be Somebody sleeping in it) and I knew He'd be asleep at once For he—unlike his daughter, unlike me— Was born with the gift for it. ~ . ~ . ~ [B]