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The Mutes -Denise Levertov
Adam's Complaint - Levertov
Those groans men use
passing a woman on the street
or on the steps of the subway
Some people,
no matter what you give them,
still want the moon.
to tell her she is a female
and their flesh knows it,
The bread,
the salt,
white meat and dark,
still hungry.
are they a sort of tune,
an ugly enough song, sung
by a bird with a slit tongue
but meant for music?
The marriage bed
and the cradle,
still empty arms.
Or are they the muffled roaring
of deafmutes trapped in a building that is
slowly filling with smoke?
You give them land,
their own earth under their feet,
still they take to the roads
Perhaps both.
And water: dig them the deepest well,
still it’s not deep enough
to drink the moon from.
Such men most often
look as if groan were all they could do,
yet a woman, in spite of herself,
knows it's a tribute:
if she were lacking all grace
they'd pass her in silence:
so it's not only to say she's
a warm hole. It's a word
in grief-language, nothing to do with
primitive, not an ur-language;
language stricken, sickened, cast down
in decrepitude. She wants to
throw the tribute away, disgusted, and can't,
it goes on buzzing in her ear,
it changes the pace of her walk,
the torn posters in echoing corridors
What Lips My Lips Have Kissed,
And Where, And Why (Sonnet XLIII)
Edna St. Vincent Millay
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more
spell it out, it
quakes and gnashes as the train comes in.
Her pulse sullenly
had picked up speed,
but the cars slow down and
jar to a stop while her understanding
He fumbles - Emily Dickinson
keeps on translating:
'Life after life after life goes by
Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow
without poetry,
without seemliness,
without love.'
He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,
Your breath has time to straighten,
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Your brain to bubble cool, -Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul
And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.
In Vain - Emily Dickinson
I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf
The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup
Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.
I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.
And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege?
Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace
Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.
They'd judge us-how?
For you served Heaven, you know,
Or sought to;
I could not,
So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair
Barbie Doll - Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
You Ask Why Sometimes I Say Stop - Marge Piercy
Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.
And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.
You ask why sometimes I say stop
why sometimes I cry no
while I shake with pleasure.
What do I fear, you ask,
why don't I always want to come
and come again to that molten
deep sea center where the nerves
fuse open and the brain
and body shine with a black wordless light
fluorescent and heaving like plankton.
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If you turn over the old refuse
of sexual slang, the worn buttons
of language, you find men
talk of spending and women
of dying.
You come in a torrent and ease
into limpness. Pleasure takes me
farther and farther from the shore
in a series of breakers, each
towering higher before it
crashes and spills flat.
I am open then as a palm held out,
open as a sunflower, without
crust, without shelter, without
skin, hideless and unhidden.
How can I let you ride
so far into me and not fear?
Helpless as a burning city,
how can I ignore that the extremes
of pleasure are fire storms
that leave a vacuum into which
dangerous feelings (tenderness,
affection, l o v e) may rush
like gale force winds.
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning - Adrienne Rich
My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.
They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.
I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control
A red plant in a cemetary of plastic wreaths.
A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say: those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.
To do something very common, in my own way.
A Mother’s Lament – Joe Torra
Living In Sin - Adrienne Rich
She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman's tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night's cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf amoong the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own-envoy from some village in the moldings...
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the minor demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.
Today I squeeze
into a girdle, my
prison for the next four months. Only
my husband and
mother-in-law
know my secret.
My first born –
left in a public park.
They say foreigners
pay high prices
four our daughters.
The weather’s unsettled.
Thunder-cloud clap.
followed by flashing
rays of sun. Each
slight of movement
I send a prayer.
Two Untitled – Martha Carlson
your jealousness of a
me you
never wanted
till you lost
her hurts
only when I see I
could have
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loved you; though
you reject reality
two ancient clichés
that I see remain
(the never-again
and
the might-have-been)
continue to
keep me from
being a lover;
continue to
keep you from
staying a friend
********
the hook bites through my upper lip
and you drag me out of the sea;
dripping,
out of breath,
struggling against your palms
I moan back to my sea,
half in love
with your hook
Waking – Martha Carlson
and breakfast
walked into the bedroom;
by bureaulamp,
indecisions gleam,
silver hoops
that dress the workday:
somewhere you sleep,
curled in what you
don’t yet know
as morning
while dreams of your fingers
still move on my skin –
given just the beginning
I can only look myself
in the eye
while I brush out the tangles
you put in my hair
Success – Martha Carlson
Get down to work –
impale yourself on company property;
Make friends –
swallow your tongue and smile;
Work some more;
your brain can be the puddle
on the big Name’s desk.
morning cracks
and I fall to my feet;
a yellow blanket waits,
rumpled,
and kitchen chairs
stand empty;
outside, the still sea
turns pink;
in halflight,
boats sleep;
but I have coffee,
a white handle ring
around my finger,
a face just washed
Crater Face – Denise Duhamel
is what we called her. The story was
that her father had thrown Drano at her
which was probably true, given the way she slouched
through fifth grade, afraid of the world, recess
especially. She had acne scars
before she had acne—poxs and dips
and bright red patches.
Establish yourself –
Solder your soul
into the Great Chain of Being
in your chosen profession
Grasp the rust with bloody hands
You’re building an obituary
for the end,
of more than just four lines
(you might even get
a headline)
in
TheBostonSundayGlobe.
I don't remember
any report in the papers. I don't remember
my father telling me her father had gone to jail.
I never looked close to see the particulars
of Crater Face's scars. She was a blur, a cartoon
melting. Then, when she healed—her face,
a million pebbles set in cement.
Even Comet Boy,
who got his name by being so abrasive,
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who made fun of everyone, didn't make fun
of her. She walked over the bridge
with the one other white girl who lived
in her neighborhood. Smoke curled
like Slinkies from the factory stacks
above them.
I liked to imagine that Crater Face
went straight home, like I did, to watch Shirley Temple
on channel 56. I liked to imagine that she slipped
into the screen, bumping Shirley with her hip
so that child actress slid out of frame, into the tubes
and wires that made the TV sputter when I turned it on.
Sometimes when I watched, I'd see Crater Face
tap-dancing with tall black men whose eyes
looked shiny, like the whites of hard-boiled eggs.
I'd try to imagine that her block was full
of friendly folk, with a lighthouse or goats
running in the street.
It was my way of praying,
my way of un-imagining the Drano pellets
that must have smacked against her
like a round of mini-bullets,
her whole face as vulnerable as a tongue
wrapped in sizzling pizza cheese.
How she'd come home with homework,
the weight of her books bending her into a wilting plant.
How her father called her slut, bitch, big baby, slob.
The hospital where she was forced to say it was an accident.
Her face palpable as something glowing in a Petri dish.
The bandages over her eyes.
In black and white,
with all that make-up, Crater Face almost looked pretty
sure her MGM father was coming back soon from the war,
seeing whole zoos in her thin orphanage soup.
She looked happiest when she was filmed
from the back, sprinting into the future,
fading into tiny gray dots on UHF.
Bird – Denise Duhamel
(for Denise B.)
Your mother loomed all hips and breasts,
big mad curves like boomerangs
always coming back, while you sat in front of your plate
taking small bites, chewing a bit,
then spitting the food back out.
You were in junior high, starting to read -how women were always on a diet:
refraining from taking late night walks, restricted
from getting their own credit cards, maybe working
construction.
That was pop-politics, your mother said
the day she was tired, and the run in her stocking made her
cry.
You would never be her, you commanded your body
when you noticed your hip jutting from your waist
and the first bit of fat on your chest -straining towards that mortal hour glass,
that sandy digestion. Birds eating rocks
because they don't have knives or forks.
"She eats like a god damn bird," your father complained,
always talking about you in the third person.
"I don't need anyone," you might have said, over and over,
sometimes aloud, sometimes to yourself until your periods
stopped
and your breasts flattened back to how they were
when you were a little girl, running in the front yard
without a shirt. Until you were in the rehab
and you realized your bones would never be hollow,
your hospital smock like a spotless bib tied around your neck.
"This is no bimbo disease," one nurse said absently to another
as she hooked you to the tube, a robin feeding its baby
a worm. And when no one was looking,
you turned your spiny back to winter, the crack of an open
window,
and tried your best to catch pneumonia. A thin
coat of feathers grew over you, trying to save you.
That's Going to Mean Something Later On – Denise
Duhamel
for Kathleen Rockwell Lawrence
"See the way she fumbles for her keys while he keeps talking that's going to mean something later on."
You were whispering to me about the movie on the screen
of the Orson Welles Theater. In your third year of film school,
you said with authority, "Because film is so expensive,
nothing
is shot that isn't connected later..."
You paused when a character was killed, then continued:
"Not like in novels. You don't have time to be sloppy
with description -- will it matter after or not?
"No, I think every word counts in fiction or poetry, too,"
I lamely said, my major English Lit.
We didn't have sex, and though you didn't say,
"That's going to mean something later on,"
it did. The track marks on your arm -- I thought
they were as tragically romantic as suicide bracelets.
You had been in a rehab, and I said,
"Anyone
overcoming such obstacles must be an angel." No one we
knew then
knew anything about AIDS. You said, "Let's not spoil our
friendship," or something like that. And I stayed for the night
anyway, falling asleep on your bed while you were looking
through your books to show me something. You moved to
Belgium
that summer, and I never heard from you again.
Walking home the next day I saw a little boy on the Fenway,
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his mother was whacking him on the back with her purse.
"Son of a bitch," she said, "when will you learn to listen?"
That's going to mean something later on -someone is going to pay for this,
I thought.
But as though karma those days was a boomerang
caught in a whirling wind and coming back off course,
it was easy for me to feel like a victim. I was sure
the witness would pay, or perhaps someone on this block
whose windows were closed, who was cooking supper right
then
for her husband. But maybe if the moon is a projector,
I reason, and our actions are now what happens on screen,
then the karma is all right, though not always a karma
of happy endings. The close-ups might be headlines:
wars, land fills, national deficits. Or maybe
our personal triumphs and tragedies.
More likely we’re players
in a thriller -- the audience watching us knows computers
give us cancer, though the few characters who read about it
in the New Yorker can't get their editorials published
anywhere. And the cancer researcher is not-so-mysteriously
bought out. I pray we are as precious as celluloid,
and someone watching knows all of this means something.
For the One Man Who Likes My Thighs – Denise Duhamel
There was the expensive cream from France
that promised the dimples would vanish
if applied nightly to the problem spots.
Then, when that didn't work, Kiko, the masseuse
at Profile Health Spa, dug her thumbs
deep into my flesh as she explained
in quasi-scientific terms that her rough hands
could break up the toughest globules of cellulite.
I screamed, then bruised over, but nothing
else happened. When they healed, my legs still looked
like tapioca pudding. There was the rolling pin method
I tried as far back as seventh grade,
kneading my lumpy legs as though I was making bread.
Cottage Cheese Knees, Thunder Thighs -I heard it all -- under the guise of teasing,
under the leaky umbrella mistaken for affection.
I learned to choose long dresses
and dark woolen tights, clam diggers instead of short-shorts,
and, when I could get away with it, skirted bathing suits.
The nutritionist said that maybe Royal Jelly tablets
would break up the fat. I drank eight glasses
of water everyday for a month. I ate nothing
but steak for a week. I had to take everyone's advice,
fearing that if I didn't, my thighs
would truly be all my own fault. Liposuction
cost too much. The foil sweat-it-out
shorts advertised in the back of Redbook
didn't work. Swimming, walking in place, leg lifts.
It's embarrassing, especially being a feminist.
I wondered if Andrea Dworkin had stopped worrying,
and how. If Gloria Steinem does aerobics,
claiming it's just for her own enjoyment.
Then I read in a self-help book:
if you learn to appreciate your thighs, they'll appreciate
you back. Though it wasn't romance at first sight,
I did try to thank my legs for carrying me up nine flights
the day when the elevator at work was out;
for their quick sprint that propelled me
through the closing doors of the subway
so that I wouldn't be late for a movie;
for supporting my nieces who straddled, one
on each thigh, their heads burrowing deep into my lap.
I think, in fact, that it was at that moment
of being an aunt I forgot for an instant
about my thigh dilemma and began, more fully,
as they say, enjoying my life. So when it happened later
that I fell in love, and as a bonus,
the man said he liked my thighs, I shouldn't have been
so thoroughly surprised. At first I was sure I'd misheard -that he liked my eyes, that he had heard someone else sigh,
or that maybe he was having a craving for french fries.
And it wasn't very easy to nonchalantly say oh, thanks
after I'd made him repeat. I kept asking
if he was sure, then waiting for a punch
line of some mean-spirited thigh-related joke.
I ran my fingers over his calf, brown and firm,
with beautiful muscles waving down the back.
It made no sense the way love makes no sense.
Then it made all the sense in the world.
My Papa's Waltz – Theodore Roethke
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.