3/23/19

A BIRD IN THE HAND: TWO SOLOS - Richard Shelton


Wife:               there was nothing wrong with our dreams
                        they fit us like scales on a fish

                        our dreams of patience and goodness
                        were not beyond our abilities
                        and our dreams of sex were harmless

                        there was nothing
                        wrong with our dreams except
                        they were the wrong dreams for us

                        now we see we had little choice
                        and once we had chosen each other
                        even that was taken away

Husband:         when I reached out with my right hand
                        and touched you
                        I knew everything had been planned
                        even what I am saying now
                        had been prepared
                        for me to say
           
                        and if I had reached out
                        with my left hand
                        at a different time on a different day
                        you would have been there
                        and everything would be the same

Wife:               coming of age
                        I found myself in the desert
                        following the wrong leader
                        but how could I have abandoned you
                        when I knew you would perish without me

                        so I said let it ride
                        and I rode with it
                        through a godforsaken land without trees
                        or flowers or anything beautiful
                        while the wind played my ribs like a harp

                        I don’t enjoy being laughed at
                        but I have learned
                        to practice a certain amount of madness
                        most difficult of the arts
                        and the least rewarding

Husband:         before we realized what they were
                        they were over 
                        those days when we lived
                        in furnished rooms and could laugh
                        at their ugliness

                        later
                        well on our way
                        and established in our own shambles
                        drinking good wines and eating good salads
                        we gave up bread and butter
                        and those private days those brief
                        beautiful days

                        gladly
                        as if we had a choice

Wife:               I keep busy all day
                        but when the sun goes down
                        I seem to go with it

                        once I walked out the door and entered night
                        because it was there
                        and because it promised everything
                        but what because of the promises
                        we didn’t live up to

                        only the young are aware of life
                        burning at their shoulders
                        only they know his touch

                        later it is all speculation
                        and empty phone booths
                        waiting for violent acts of love

                        I keep telling myself I will
                        feel better tomorrow
                        but I don’t believe it
                        there is always tomorrow night

Husband:         I saw you sleeping
                        knees bent to the right a little apart
                        head turned to the left
                        right arm at your side and left arm
                        above your head with your hand
                        caught in the wildness of your hair

                        until I saw you like that
                        I never understood why
                        there were so many paintings of nudes

Wife:               we are separate people
                        each what he fears most each his own
                        trap his own bait his own victim
                        I am not responsible for your life
                        and you are not responsible for mine

                        I wanted to get married
                        and you thought that meant I loved you

                        now you are going deaf and I pity you
                        how hard it must be for a man
                        who has been blind all these years

Husband:         there are others
                        who had all the advantages I had
                        and kept them
                        but deafness grows
                        on my family tree like a vine
                        choosing one limb and avoiding another

                        now that my ears
                        have started to go blind
                        I find myself among the chosen
                        and someday I will hear the true sound
                        of darkness

                        I have learned to expose my eyes
                        to the lips of strangers
                        and understand what they cannot say

                        living as I do
                        with my secrets unheard
                        and listening always with my eyes
                        how can I blame you
                        if you turn your face away

Wife:               all afternoon
                        your shadow your only child
                        grew taller
                       
                        now he is leaving and you will be alone
                        in the darkness that has been
                        and the darkness that is coming
                        the same darkness

                        bright moons in the blood move on
                        as water moves in the bed of a river
                        sleeping at night and waking
                        somewhere else

                        once I turned quickly and saw you
                        looking only at me

                        even if I could explain I wouldn’t
                        even if I could explain to you
                        I would oh I would

                        how any love story is a sad story
                        and we kiss ourselves goodby
                        each time we kiss each other

Husband:         those who have no children
                        become the children they were
                        and those who have several children
                        extend themselves like fingers
                        stretching into deep grass

                        but we have only one child
                        and both of us must crowd into his body
                        elbowing each other for space

Wife:               I remember
                        when this photograph was taken

                        the aperture opened on my life
                        as it was as it appeared to be
                        with the eyes of a deer on the wall
                        and a tongue which could tell
                        the truth
                        but the other was easier

                        my life created for me
                        and I like a fool accepted it
                        with its hand over its mouth
                        to hide the bleeding

                        waiting on the steps
                        of the front porch for years saying
                        you are young you will find somebody

                        my life with a life of its own
                        daring me to leave it
                        saying I am all I have it isn’t enough

Husband:         waiting is hardest but we have to wait
                        for the good things to come to us

                        I always have this next thing to do
                        while I am waiting
                        something important that needs to be done
                        a dog to be fed a plant to be watered
                       
                        I had two friends
                        one is gone the other is dead
                        now our son is grown up and no longer
                        needs me and you say I am the cause
                        of all your unhappiness

                        these things are true
                        but there is always this next
                        thing to do something important
                        that needs to be done while I am waiting

Wife:               ambition
                        worm in my bowels
                        the more I starve you the more you grow

                        others have killed their thousands
                        but you have killed your tens of thousands

                        I tell you
                        the stars can see only into the past
                        they do not know what I am doing
                        and do not care and the moon
                        which knows everything
                        cares even less

                        but you answer me with the story
                        about water always running away from home
                        and returning purified

Husband:         years ago I took this woman
                        you took this man
                        and we kept each other
                        but each of us still wants to be a victim
                        as if love were an accident
                        caused by carelessness
                        and we could hold one another responsible

                        in order to get what we need from each other
                        what have we traded except parts of our lives
                        huge parts of our lives

                        and what have we gained
                        except huge parts of each other’s lives
                        love always gives
                        more than we bargain for

Wife:               I heard a bird cry a name
                        and when I looked I found you
                        in the trap of my hand
                        crying a name I could not understand
                        your own or the name of someone you lost
                        it was never mine

                        I tried to find someone to love me
                        before it was too late
                        but there was no one

Husband:         I heard a bird call my name
                        but when I found the bird
                        it was you
                        caught in the trap of my hand
                        and what I heard was your pain
                        it has always been
                       
                        I tried to find a place
                        where I could not hear that sound
                        but there was no place

Wife:               I heard a bird cry a name
Husband:                     I heard a bird call my name
                        and when I looked
                                    it was you
                        in the trap of my hand
                                    what I heard was your pain
                        crying a name I could not understand
                                    it has always been
                        your own or the name of someone you lost
                                    it was never mine
                        I tried to find
                                    a place
                        someone to love me
                                    but there is no other place
                        there is no other one

3/3/19

a haiku about you - lc

i do not need a
flower’s petals to know that
you do not love me

2/6/19

Lines for Winter - Mark Strand

                                                                            for Ros Krauss
Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

2/4/19

Decline - Friedrich Nietzsche

“He sinks, he falls, he’s done”—says who?
The truth is: he climbs down to you.
His over-bliss became too stark,
His over-light pursues your dark.

1/30/19

COLLECTING FUTURE LIVES - Stephen Dunn

Now that everybody was dead
only he and his brother knew
the blood secrets, the unequal
history each nervous system
keeps and rehearses
into a story, a life.
Over the years they’d agreed
to invent and remember
a long hum of good times,
love breaking through
during card games,
their father teaching them
to skip stones
under the Whitestone Bridge.
The smart liar in them
knew these stories
were for their children
who, that very moment
over dinner, were collecting
their future lives.
But sometimes
in their twice-a-year visits
late at night
when their wives had tired
of the old repetitions,
they’d bring up the silences
in the living room
after a voice had been raised,
father’s drinking, mother’s
long martyrdom before the gods
of propriety and common sense.
In their mannerisms
each could see the same ghosts.
And if they allowed themselves
to keep talking,
if they’d had enough to drink,
love would be all
that mattered, the love
they were cheated of
and the love they got,
the parental love
that if remembered at all
had been given, they decided,
and therefore could be given again.

1/29/19

AT HIS HOUSE - Stephen Dunn

In my friend's face it's not easy to separate
what's serenity, what's despair.
What the mouth suggests the eyes correct,

and what looks like acceptance
is a kind of détente, the world allowed
to encroach only so far.

At his house, we put aside
the large questions: Is there? And if so?
replace them with simple chores.

We bring vegetables in from the garden.
We shuck corn. Is it possible
to be a good citizen without saying a word?

Both his wives thought not, wanted love
to have a language he never learned.
He'd make wine for them from dandelions.

Sundays he'd serve them breakfast in bed.
In his toolbox he was sure he had a tool
for whatever needed to be fixed.

The deed reveals the man, he says.
I don't tell him that it's behind deeds
he and I often hide.

I've got a face for noon, a face for dusk,
a fact he lets slide. Both of us think friendship
is about what needn't be said. 

It seems we're a couple of halves, men
almost here, hardly there. At his house less
feels good. I always come back for more.