Simon the Good by Joyelle McSweeney

Simon the Good

 

I’m the matron-king of hell

In yoga pants and a disused bra for a laurel

& shatter the scene inside your simmering year

 

Like a ransom scene filmed through shattered transom

I smear in my glamour

I make as if

to justify the ways of God to man

That’s my ticket in

That’s why God lets me speak here

Crystostoma’d

on his couch

Even though I’m derived from Hell

Hellish Helenish Hellenic  

 

I’m the hanged man

in this version

pegged up

in mine pegged jeans

by mine ancles, an inversion

mine manacles are monocoles

I spit out the key

and squinny through the keyhole

back at the unquittable world  

 

In my rainment

of gummy sunglasses

and crows wings for epaulets

I delicately squawk from the edges of things

balance unsteadily on the bust of the goddess  

 

squawk:

Aeschelus Euphorion Aeschelus Euphorion  

 

&: I’m going to tell you something so bad that when you hear it

        you’re gonna know it’s true.  

 

Like all the worst stories

It comes from the heart

& it goes there too.  

 

Back here in St. Joseph County

a struck duck flies crown first into the asphalt and is stuck there

with its brains for adhesive

like someone licked the pavement and sealed it

a postalette

with its cartoon feet in the air and its Jeff Koon wings

that’s roadkill for you: realer than real

and the cars mill by with their wheels in reverse

heavy as chariots

in a dealership commercial

and I am walking my dog by the river

a matron from hell  

 

look on me and despise

I am like the river:

thick as beer and with a sudsy crown

there polyethylene bags drape the banks like herons

and a plastic jug rides a current with something like the determination

that creases mine own brow

as I attempt to burn my lunch off

the determination of garbage

riding for its drain

hey-nonny it’s spring

and everything wears a crown a

s it rides its thick doom to its noplace  

 

gently brushed

by pollen

by the wings of hymenoptera

like a helicoptera

performing its opera

all above Indiana

bearing the babes away

from their births to their berths

in the NICU in Indie-un-apple-us

Unapple us, moron God,

You’ve turned me Deophobic

the greasy tracks you leave all over the internet

the slicey DNA

in the scramblechondria

the torn jeans

panicked like space invaders

in an arcane video game

oh spittle-pink blossom

the tree don’t need nomore

shook down to slick the pavement like a payslip

you disused killer app  

 

each thought strikes my brain

like the spirals in a ham

pink pink for easter

sliced by something machinic

each thought zeros in

flies hapless and demented

festooned like a lawn dart

finds its bit of eye

spills its champagne

split of pain

June 30, 1974 by James Schuyler

June 30, 1974

       for Jane and Joe Hazan

Let me tell you

that this weekend Sunday

morning in the country

fills my soul

with tranquil joy:

the dunes beyond

the pond beyond

the humps of bayberry –

my favorite shrub (today,

at least) – are

silent as a mountain

range: such a

subtle profile

against a sky that

goes from dawn

to blue. The roses

stir, the grapevine

at one end of the deck

shakes and turns

its youngest leaves

so they show pale

and flower-like.

A redwing blackbird

pecks at the grass;

another perches on a bush.

Another way, a millionaire’s

white chateau turns

its flank to catch

the risen sun. No

other houses, except

this charming one,

alive with paintings,

plants and quiet.

I haven’t said

a word. I like

to be alone

with friends. To get up

to this morning view

and eat poached eggs

and extra toast with

Tiptree Goosberry Preserve

(green) -and coffee,

milk, no sugar. Jane

said she heard

the freeze-dried kind

is healthier when

we went shopping

yesterday and she

and John bought

crude blue Persian plates.

How can coffee be

healthful? I mused

as sunny wind

streamed in the car

window driving home.

Home! How lucky to

have one, how arduous

to make this scene

of beauty for

your family and

friends. Friends!

How we must have

sounded, gossiping at

the dinner table

last night. Why, that

dinner table is

this breakfast table:

“The boy in trousers

is not the same boy

in no trousers,” who

said? Discontinuity

in all we see and are:

the same, yet change,

change, change. “Inez,

it’s good to see you.”

Here comes the cat, sedate,

that killed and brought

a goldfinch yesterday.

I’d like to go out

for a swim but

it’s a little cool

for that. Enough to

sit here drinking coffee,

writing, watching the clear

day ripen (such

a rainy June we had)

while Jane and Joe

sleep in their room

and John in his. I

think I’ll make more toast.

Complaint by William Carlos Williams

Complaint

They call me and I go. 

It is a frozen road 

past midnight, a dust 

of snow caught 

in the rigid wheeltracks. 

The door opens. 

I smile, enter and 

shake off the cold. 

Here is a great woman 

on her side in the bed. 

She is sick, 

perhaps vomiting, 

perhaps laboring 

to give birth to 

a tenth child. Joy! Joy! 

Night is a room 

darkened for lovers, 

through the jalousies the sun 

has sent one golden needle! 

I pick the hair from her eyes 

and watch her misery 

with compassion.

The Ache of Marriage by Denise Levertov

The Ache of Marriage

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,   

are heavy with it,   

it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion

and are turned away, beloved,   

each and each

It is leviathan and we   

in its belly

looking for joy, some joy   

not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of   

the ache of it.