Issue
1:2 | Poetry |
Carl Dennis
The way
up, from here to there, may be closed,
But the
way down, from there to here, still open
Wide enough
for a slender god like Hermes
To slip
from the clouds if you give your evenings
To learning
about the plants under his influence,
The winged
and wingless creature, the rocks and metals,
And practice
his sacred flute or dulcimer.
No prayers.
Just the effort to make his stay
So full
of the comforts of home he won't forget it,
To build
him a shrine he finds congenial,
Something
as simple as roofed pillars
Without
the darkness of an interior.
If you're
lucky, he'll want to sit on the steps
Under
the stars for as long as you live
And sniff
the fragrance of wine and barely
As it
blows from the altar on a salty sea breeze.
He'll
want, when you die, to offer his services
As a guide
on the shadowy path to the underworld.
Not till
you reach the watery crossing
Will he
leave your side, and even then
He'll
shout instructions as you slip from your shoes
And wade
alone into that dark river.
DEPARTMENT
STORE
"Thou
shalt not covet," hardest of the Commandments,
Is listed
last so the others won't be neglected.
An hour
a day of practice is all that anyone
Can expect
you to spare, and in ten years' time
You may
find you've outgrown your earlier hankering
For your
neighbor's house, though his is brick
And yours
is clapboard, though his contains a family.
Ten years
of effort and finally it's simple justice
To reward
yourself with a token of self-approval.
Stand
tall as you linger this evening
In the
sweater section of Kaufmann's Department Store
By the
case for men not afraid of extravagance.
All will
go well if you hold your focus steady
On what's
before you and cast no covetous eye
On the
middle-aged man across the aisle
In women's
accessories as he converses quietly
With his
teenaged son. The odds are slim
They're
going to reach agreement about a gift
Likely
to please the woman they live with,
Not with
the clash in what they're wearing,
The father
dapper in sport coat and tie, the son
Long-haired,
with a ring in his ear and a shirt
That might
have been worn by a Vandal chieftain
When he
torched a town at the edge of the Empire.
This moment
you covet is only a truce
In a lifelong
saga of border warfare
While
each allows the other with a shake of the head
To veto
a possibility as they slowly progress
From umbrellas
to purses, from purses to gloves
In search
of something bright for the darker moments
When the
woman realizes her life with them
Is the
only life she'll be allotted.
It's only
you who assumes the relief on their faces
When they
hold a scarf to the light and nod
Will last.
The boy will have long forgotten this moment
Years
from now when the woman he's courting
Asks him
to name a happy time with his dad,
A time
of peaceable parley amidst the turmoil.
So why
should you remember? Think how
angry
You'll
be at yourself tomorrow if you let their purchase
Make you
unhappy with yours, ashamed
Of a sweater
on sale that fits you well,
Gray-blue,
your favorite color.
JESUS
FREAKS
The approval
they get from above is all they need,
So why
should they care if they offend me
Here in
the parking lot of the Super Duper, my arms full,
By stuffing
a pamphlet or two in my pocket?
No point
in shouting at them to keep back
When they're
looking for disapproval. No reason
For them
to obey the rules of one of the ignorant
Who supposes
the perpetual dusk he lives in
Sunny
noon. Their business is with
my soul,
However
buried, with my unvoiced wish for the truth
Too soft
for me to catch over the street noise.
Should
I rest my packages on my car a minute
And try
to listen if I'm sure they really believe
They're
vexing me in my own best interest?
To them
I'm the loser they used to be
When they
sweated daily to please themselves,
Deaf to
their real wishes. Why make it
easy for me
To load
the trunk of my car with grocery bags
When they
offer a joy that none of my purchases,
However
free of impurities, can provide?
Their
calls to attention shouldn't sound any more threatening
Than the
peal of a church bell. And if
I call
On the
car phone to lodge a complaint
Jail will
seem to them the perfect place to bear witness
In this
dark dominion where Herod rules.
In jail,
but also guests at a banquet, while I,
They're
certain, stubbornly stand outside
Shivering
in the snow, too proud
To enter
a hall not of my own devising
And warm
myself at a fire I didn't light
And enjoy
a meal strangers have taken pains with.
Yes, the
table's crowded, but there's room for me.
BASHO
When my
tastes seem too haphazard and disjointed
To compose
a character, it's a comfort
To think
of them as inherited from my ancestors,
Each expressing
through me ancient inflections.
My need
before supper to stroll to the reservoir
May indicate
on my father's side nomadic origins,
The blood
of a captive from Scythia who was sold
To a family
in Lombardy in need of a plowman.
His marriage
to a slave girl from Carthage
Explains
why sea air smells so familiar,
Why I
like the look of whitewashed houses on hillsides
And painted
tile from Tunisia or Morocco.
To be
a vehicle for the dead to speak through,
Surely
that's an improvement over being a showman
Who shifts
his costume to please a moody audience.
It's a
comfort as long as I've many dead to choose from.
Free to
trace my talent for telling stories
At a moment's
notice in the style of Odysseus
All the
way back on my mother's side
To a black-bearded
Smyrna merchant.
His skill
makes me star at the tourist bureau
When I'm
asked for ideas to make Lake Erie
More glamorous
than it is in the current brochures,
The photographs
more arresting, the copy spicier.
Good thing
for the tourists I've also inherited
Truth-telling
genes from the Hebrew prophets
That keep
me from claiming our seagulls special,
As musical
as the nightingale and as retiring.
So many
dispositions, but no reason to worry
About
caulking and splicing them into unity.
Each ancient
voice asks to be kept distinct,
A separate
species of tree in a crowded forest,
Cedar
and pine, oak, ash, and cherry.
It isn't
an accident, as I sit in the yard reading poems
Under
the hemlock, that I'm drawn to Basho.
It's clear
that his blood flows in my veins,
Clear
he's my father or else my twin
Misplaced
at birth in shorthanded village hospital.
How else
explain that a poem of his
Is nearer
to me than the proverbs of seven uncles?
Witness
the first haiku in the new translation
I bought
this morning at Niagara Books:
"Even
in Kyoto, hearing the cuckoo's cry,
I long
for Kyoto."
NUMBERS
Two hands
may not always be better than one,
But four
feet and more are likely to prove
More steady
than two as we wade a stream
Holding
above our heads the ark
Of our
covenant with the true and beautiful,
A crowd
of outlaw pagans hot on our heels,
The shades
of our ancestors cheering us on.
Three
friends with poems at Mac's this evening
Are closer
than one to the truth if we lift our glasses
To the
poet that Mac proposes
We toast
before beginning, Li Po.
Three
votes that the poem I've brought is finished
Versus
one turn of the head too slight
For anyone
not on the watch to notice
As Li
Po demurs.
Is this
America, land of one man, one vote,
I want
to ask, or the China of one-man rule,
Of emperors
who believe they're gods?
Li Po,
now only a thin layer of dust
In Szechwan
Province though somehow
Still
standing inches behind his words.
Five of
my lines, he suggests with a nod,
Out of
the score I've written,
Are fine
as they are if I provide them
The context
that they deserve and speak them
Without
misgivings and with greater gusto.
Five lead
out from the kitchen
Past a
dozen detours to a single bridge
That must
be crossed in order to reach a homeland
Eager
for my arrival.
This is
the message I get from a prophet whose signs
Are a
threadbare coat and an empty cupboard,
Proof
he's never written for anyone but himself
And the
dead teachers easy to count
On the
stiff fingers of one hand.
In memory of Mac Hammond
Carl Dennis
from
Practical Gods