Going There
What I used to say to my acting students
was Go There—though acting is artifice!
Yes, generating “real” belief, emotion,
suspense, surprise, and wonder in the audience
is paramount: doing it in yourself
is only one technique. Still, there’s investment,
like caring for the circumstance and plight
of any role you’re playing.
When it comes
to writing, poetry is fictive, like
the novel or short story. Notwithstanding
appelations like Confessional,
“poetic truth’s” the issue of Invention.
Lately, in memoir pieces, I have learned
that Going There’s not quite The Hardest Thing,
but trusting that “I” will be interesting.
Diogenes
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod . . .
—Gerard Manley Hopkins
Today I learned my hero is a fraud.
There is no doubt because he told me so
himself—and thought it not the least bit odd.
A rapist may repent and roll in God;
he will forever be a rapist, though.
So how about the hero who’s a fraud
and, with a silent wink and sideways nod,
displays a life of trophies in a row,
not thinking it the least bit odd
that none, nor framed diplomas that once awed,
is genuine: should he repent, too? No?
You tell me every hero is part fraud
and congregations nonetheless applaud,
vote for the villain, hail him a hero,
and think it not the least bit odd.
But haven’t generations who have trod,
trod with the hope that one day we might know,
if not one hero who is not a fraud,
at least one human who might think it odd?
Who loved the other first?
Who loved the other first? It could have been
you. I recall the more than gracious thing
you said when I first mispronounced your name
the British way, i.e., with a long e;
namely, “You can say anything to me
in British.” Or, when I deigned—dared—to sing
your name, long-e again, and in the same
lame aristo-accent, if you fell in
love then, you also have me beat. Maybe.
But I believe that even before I
saw you or you, me, we were already
loved. How? By whom? By God, of course. For She
He They made sure we met. So it’s no lie
to answer “Who loved first?” with—why, All Three.
“Celibacy” : On Trial
Celibacy claims the rights due any wife,
clinging to common law. Bitch. But of late
(since I’ve met you, that is) I’ve grown to hate
her: Constancy, the humdrum henpecked life—
She’s kept me for herself, kept me unknown.
I’m filing for divorce tomorrow. And
as you’ve shown up, gladly willing to stand
as co-respondent, I won’t stand alone
for long. Don’t perjure yourself, but allow
me to ask you for help from the pit of
my gut, or wherever it is that love
springs from, gurgles, boils, burns—for even now
she’s slipped over my heart, fit as a glove.
I will be free, though, if you show me how.
Blank Sonnet with Simile
She scanned the scattered rays of sheaves around her,
seated at our U-shaped table/desk,
face bathed in the cool fire of inspiration/
imagination swathed in solitude,
then looked up as I toed into the room.
Her rhinestoned retinae, her upturned lips,
as if about to smile or even laugh,
brought to my mind something I’d never seen
as simile: some demi-deity
deciding where to dedicate her next
project—whether of mischief or a blessing
was not for me to know. That’s how it is
with goddesses and gods, I would assume,
as with my wife, in moments such as this.
The Calculus of Revenge
There’s more to it than simply keeping cool.
Revenge served cold feels hot, and vice versa;
served bland, feels piquant, peppery, even hot;
sprinkled with spice, tastes bland or non-existent;
in the end, may not taste sweet the least bit
though doused in honey, sugar and syrup;
and, never served at all, is often healthier.
Still, you might one day write a poem about
what the jerk did; or hire me to do so;
if it gets published, copy it and send
or print and mail it to the malfeasor.
Whether you do or don’t, it’s knowing you
have all that power that more than compensates
for the loss and hurt they know you never deserved.
An LOL imogee underneath
the text may help, especially if you
send it to lots of people you both know
in a mass-mailing or an email blast.
I leave all that to you. I bet you’ll find
that just thinking about it, reading this,
you’ll start to feel, if only a little, better.
Mon Semblable, Ma Soeur
Fraternal twins can’t be identical.
But that proved no deterrent to the twins
Sebastian and Viola, both born
in one act of a shipwreck on Twelfth Night.
She, torn from her brother, became a lad
for (almost) the remainder of her life.
Of course a play is fictional. And yet
my son loves his twin sister likewise. So
he’s started to identify as “she,
her, hers” and she as “they” and “them” and “theirs.”
But I have known them all their lives, and neither
one is cruel or the least bit unkind.
Both volunteer for suicide prevention
and answer hot-lines on the darkest nights,
the eves of holidays, because they’ve learned
that everyone who calls for counseling
is actually a sort of distant sibling;
and they have known the shipwreck, the despair.
