@3"That all these dyings may be life in death"@1 I was living in San Francisco My heart was in Manhattan It made no sense, no reference point Hearing the sad horns at night, fragile evocations of female stuff The 3 tones (the last most resonant) were like warnings, haiku-muezzins at dawn The call came in the afternoon "Frank, is that really you?" I'd awake chilled at dawn in the wooden house like an old ship Stay bundled through the day sitting on the stoop to catch the sun I lived near the park whose deep green over my shoulder made life cooler Was my spirit faltering, grown duller? I want to be free of poetry's ornaments, its duty, free of constant irritation, me in it, what was grander reason for being? Do it, why? (Why, Frank?) To make the energies dance etc. My coat a cape of horrors I'd walk through town or impending earthquake. Was that it? Ominous days. Street shiny with hallucinatory light on sad dogs, too many religious people, or a woman startled me by her look of indecision near the empty stadium I walked back spooked by my own darkness Then Frank called to say "What? Not done complaining yet? Can't you smell the eucalyptus, have you never neared the Pacific? 'While frank and free /call for musick while your veins swell'" he sang, quoting a metaphysician "Don't you know the secret, how to wake up and see you don't exist, but @3that@1 does, don't you see phenomena is so much more important than @3this?@1 I always love @3that."@1 "Always?" I cried, wanting to believe him "Yes.""But say more! How can you if it's sad & dead?" "But that's just it! If! It isn't. It doesn't want to be Do you want to be?" He was warming to his song "Of course I don't have to put up with as much as you do these days. These @3years.@1 But I do miss the color, the architecture, the talk. You know, it @3was@1 the life! And dying is such an insult. After all I was in love with breath and I loved embracing those others, the lovers, with my @3body."@1 He sighed & laughed He wasn't quite as I'd remembered him Not less generous, but more abstract Did he even have a voice now, I wondered or did I think it up in the middle of this long day, phone in hand now dialing Manhattan | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK by AMY LOWELL FABLES: 1ST SER. 5. THE WILD BOAR AND THE RAM by JOHN GAY THE BALLAD OF BOUILLABAISSE by WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY THE FROGS: A 'EURIPIDEAN' CHORUS by ARISTOPHANES SPRING SONG by JEAN ANTOINE DE BAIF |