All the Worms Are Out
& the robins are out, efficient & purposeful,
& the sinister ravens, too,
checking the just-clipped grass, & noisy,
you wouldn't believe.next to them, the pigeons
look like waddling, scruffy fools.all the robins are home typing
away, putting the finishing touches
on their masterly manuscripts& all the ravens are here,
ripping success from someone else's beak.the pigeons trundle
by the park, watching,
& occasionally talking to themselves
in a low voice, whichin a bird, even a pigeon,
is called cooing
in which I had to quit way
too soon, producing a bad
score, & I should have kept going
longer, except I hated being wired for
sound, hated the noise, relentless
pressure, being trapped
at someone else's speed--I wanted
to say stop as soon as it started--the nurse smelled of garlic, although
it was morning, the doctor of milky
coffee The doctor wore some kind
of alternative clogs & his hair hung down
his back in one long, attenuated braid
He asked when I got dizzy, & I said,
"If I try to do yoga," a true but misleading answer
brought on by his apparent persona,
since I haven't done yoga in years
because I get dizzy,
but I thought that might please him so
he'd feel friendly but instead this treacherous man
said, "You didn't last long,You're
not in very good shape--"My friend said,
"You mean you
failed the stress test?"well, I know it's better than having something wrong
with me, but, sheesh, I think I'm still twenty-three
except for how I look, & how I feel, & what
I forget--but I never felt out of shape----& I don't want to know about the cholesterol
test--
& do I have to join a gym?& if you have an anxiety
attack while on a treadmill,
does that mean you are also
out of shape in your head?& now, several hours later, I'm coming up
with reasons, anecdotes, extenuating
circumstances: at least I'm still more
or less thin, that was
a bad test, who cares,
anyway, fuck it--& that doctor
was drinking coffee, what's so
healthy about that--I'm carefully bundling up my little
incident, the way movers wrap sharp-
edged furniture in padded cloths, to keep
them from scratching anything else
that is traveling with them
I was required to watch a performance:
Sometimes it was the Magic Flute by Rogers
& Hammerstein Sometimes it was South
Pacific by Mozart, & either way
it was put on by an amateur group of
South Africans & I knew I had to get
out of it but couldn't figure out how,
partly
because the producer was the black woman
I regularly dream about: warm, evolved, simply
better, & I wanted to support her, though not
by attending such an event& there was also a dreadful scrawny woman
who followed me around, talking non-
stop, finally sat down next to me
& I shoved her off her seat--& you know there's a sticky
floor, inadequate air, a mildewed smell--
not to mention an audience of thousands
stamping their feet for the cartoon version
of Les Enfants du Paradis--& I'm trying
to keep track of everything, every infraction,
aesthetic or moral, in case we need a record,
& my back's starting to hurt from the funny seats,
if there's coffee, it will be indescribably
bad, there's a dog barking,
& the neighbors are giving a party--& you also know
I have two female figures here, black
& white, welcomed & rejected, ideal &
other, an other whom I wish to deny but
who soldiers on, trying to get my attention,
to explain the performance we are about
to see,featuring "I'm Going to Wash That Man Right Out
of My Hair," sung by the Queen of the Night,
a mostly-mezzo with imperfect pitch& I'm wondering once again, what is the point
of this incarnation, which the pushy woman,
again seated next to me, is struggling to tell
me, as I hiss at her, "Shut up! Pagageno
is about to sing 'Some Enchanted Evening'
& I don't want to miss a note"
Now That I'm No Longer
Channeling Rilke
life is easier, if less dramatic. I was reminded
of him, though, this morning, felt that prickly lift
of the senses, yearning of the highest,
most attenuated nature--
what a nature his was & mine, too, for a few fervent years.
He used to like to walk downtown--& today
it seems like old
times. I stop to buy a pastry, the kind
he favors, & place it in my pack
for later, later
being a concept he approves whole-
heartedly--the heart, mein herz--
being one of our favorite
words--I don't speak German, but no matter--
I speak the language of the heart breaking--
much nicer, less gutteral--
more, shall we say, French--& oh, how voluptously unhappy
we were in Paris, in 1903,
we must never forget--it almost made up
for my childhood in Chicago, in the 1940s, without
him--"how homesick
I am," I told my mother, who longed
to slap me--but he whispered consolingly in
my ear, "You will be
a great artist," & I listened,
seduced by his sighing
at my ear--great, great--I would live in Paris--
I would take lovers--
I would paint--
that's what an artist does--but everyone said oil paints were old-
fashioned, acrylic dried so fast
& what about a job
in advertising, what about making
a living--"le coeur hesitant,
the hesitating heart"--
I never got further
than LA--where had my secret
friend gone--
he was gone--& when I saw
Paris, I was married, badly--
but after I'd been alone long enough, with too many
wrong men to inspire me, he
returned & whispered, "douceur
qui nous acheve, sweetness
that wrecks us--"He was back--
of course he had
others, I'm sure--
to how many sleeping
women did he whisper, great--& how many
listened--his voice the antidote
to what was killing us--Seven years ago I vowed to relinquish
desire after a life-
time devoted to its refinement &, particularly, to writing
about its pangs, pains of the heart, mein
herz, the only words of German I know--
he & I dreamed French,
spoke English--
he never surfed
the net, he hated my gospel CDs--
he only came to the city,
he claimed, to visit me, as he said, I'm sure,
to all the poetsI'm too old for him now,
but here he is back, steering me through
North Beach, the edge of Chinatown, sniffing
delicately at garlic, espresso, five-spices.
He says he doesn't care how
old I am, I'll always be
his special girl, his jeune fille aux yeux
enormes et tristes, whom he first saw
in Chicago, in 1945, after he'd fled
Europe for exile--
What consolations he needed then, ghost
as he was. As I needed him,
South Side girl dreaming
of sidewalk cafes, a misunderstanding
waiting to occur--And now,
at the century's
end, I am no longer
his, no longer
anyone's, the former princess
of ever-unrealized desire, no more
makeup on her formerly doe
eyes, her lithe figure
thickening into indifference, who
is she now, if not calm, well,
calmer--not great--never, a mis-
translation from the original--
a letter returned to sender--oh,
the bliss, relatively speaking--but where is he
whose work I never read
in the original--the moment when yearning spins itself
out into boredom, gold
into straw--And where, once
again, is my channeled poet? don't
laugh. A bad influence,
perhaps, but sublime
while it lasted.It's still going on. Garlic, soy,
basil, cars honking, the violent noon
whistle almost stopping both
of our exhausted hearts,
the tourists stopping dead
in the middle of the sidewalk, conferring
in seven languages. The moon going dark. "La mort
provisoire, provisionary death."
The California winter coming,
dimming.
This
is what we
did, what we
almost
made. He made.
Arthritis of the
Hands, Which Only
allows her to write a word
or two--Maybe in her place,
I'd say, too many words--
offer two or three at a time,
hoping for mystery & depth--
but we require a context,
a story--we don't want to do every bit
ourselves, why should we--
that's the poet's job--
my job, supposedly--If I could only write so
slowly & painfully,
they'd have to come three words
at a time--
& three--& three: link up, tell
something: my heart, again, past
lives, again, the air
in France--the same ones
I write over & over,
helplessly, spilling words
as though they were free--or, maybe not--if four
are allowed, here's a context:
the ancient North Beach bookstore,
getting an earthquake retrofit but still open
for business, half the windows
boarded, one door blocked, &
the other, proclaiming in fresh
white paint on old black paint:
I AM THE DOOR
--Rebecca Radner