A Certain Light by Marie Howe

A Certain Light

 

He had taken the right pills the night before.

We had counted them out

 

from the egg carton where they were numbered so there’d be no mistake.

He had taken the morphine and prednisone and amitriptiline

 

and florinef and vancomycin and halcion too quickly

and had thrown up in the bowl Joe brought to the bed—a thin string

 

of blue spit—then waited a few minutes, to calm himself,

before he took them all again. And had slept through the night

 

and the morning and was still sleeping at noon, or not sleeping.

He was breathing maybe twice a minute, and we couldn’t wake him,

 

we couldn’t wake him until we shook him hard calling, John wake up now

John wake up—Who is the president?

 

And he couldn’t answer.

His doctor told us we’d have to keep him up for hours.

 

He was all bones and skin, no tissue to absorb the medicine.

He couldn’t walk unless two people held him.

 

And we made him talk about the movies: What was the best moment in

On The Waterfront? What was the music in Gone With The Wind?

 

And for seven hours he answered, if only to please us, mumbling

I like the morphine, sinking, rising, sleeping, rousing,

 

then only in pain again. But wakened.

So wakened that late that night, in one of those still blue moments

 

that were a kind of paradise, he finally opened his eyes wide,

and the room filled with a certain light we thought we’d never see again.

 

Look at you two, he said. And we did.

And Joe said, Look at you.    And John said, How do I look?

 

And Joe said, Handsome.

  

Continuity by Terrance Hayes

Continuity

 

Before getting into the cab, she hands him a cup.
Then, after they kiss, she hands him the cup again.

As they walk, she hands him a man-made substance.
Then, after they kiss, she hands him the cup again.

She hands him a chalice of lightning
& he hands her a chalice of fire.

Then in the next shot, after they kiss,
They exchange chalices again.

When she goes through the metal detector,
She carefully places a pair of hoop earrings in a plastic tray.

When she retrieves them,
They are two silver bangles she fits to her wrists.

When they climb from the cab in the rain, her hair is wet,
But when they kiss on the sidewalk her hair is dry again.

After she takes off her helmet & breastplate,
& enters the water wearing nothing but courage,

She says to him, “You are nude,
But you must be naked to win.”

Or she says, “To survive you must lay bare
The heart,” according to the closed captions.

When they climb from the river, her hair is a river
Where night has fallen, tangled with twigs & stars,

Parting like a path of escape.
But in the very next shot,

As they climb from the river,
Her hair is braided with wire & string.

When he bangs on the rain-streaked window
Of the cab yelling her name in a pivotal scene,

Briefly reflected in the window in the rain
Tangled with wires & stars above a river

Is the hand of a fan or stagehand or bodyguard,
Body double, bystander, interloper, beloved ghost,

& the two of us watching from a bridge on the far side.

 

To Stammering by Kenneth Koch

To Stammering

 

Where did you come from, lamentable quality?

Before I had a life you were about to ruin my life.

The mystery of this stays with me.

“Don’t brood about things,” my elders said.

I hadn’t any other experience of enemies from inside.

They were all from outside—big boys

Who cursed me and hit me; motorists; falling trees.

All these you were as bad as, yet inside. When I spoke, you were there.

I could avoid you by singing or acting.

I acted in school plays but was no good at singing.

Immediately after the play you were there again.

You ruined the cast party.

You were not a sign of confidence.

You were not a sign of manliness.

You were stronger than good luck and bad; you survived them both.

You were slowly edged out of my throat by psychoanalysis

You who had been brought in, it seems, like a hired thug

To beat up both sides and distract them

From the main issue: oedipal love. You were horrible!

Tell them, now that you’re back in your thug country,

That you don’t have to be so rough next time you’re called in

But can be milder and have the same effect—unhappiness and pain.

Théâtre de l'Odéon by Emily Fragos

Théâtre de l'Odéon

I could not rise from the dark and go out into the cool,

night air of that beautiful city,

could not get on with my conniving, young life.

What had been smooth and good became impossible, slowly,

 

mechanically, placing one foot in front of the next, so that legs,

as if buried in snow, might inch along the river

 

and the alleys with the clochards and the cats,

and I might seem a bright young thing again.

 

And all this before the shock of loss, the dying, who linger

with their weak bodies and blank faces,

 

and my own stupid share of human harm

inflicted upon the innocent,

 

and long before Time, that asp,

started laughing, laughing at me.

Minstrel Man by Langston Hughes

Minstrel Man

Because my mouth

Is wide with laughter

And my throat

Is deep with song,

You did not think

I suffer after

I've held my pain

So long.

 

Because my mouth

Is wide with laughter

You do not hear

My inner cry:

Because my feet

Are gay with dancing,

You do not know

I die.

Sonnet: The Wall by Donald Justice

Sonnet: The Wall

 

The walls surrounding them they never saw; 

The angels, often.  Angels were as common 

As birds or butterflies, but looked more human. 

As long as the wings were furled, they felt no awe. 

Beasts, too, were friendly.  They could find no flaw 

In all of Eden:  this was the first omen. 

The second was the dream which woke the woman. 

She dreamed she saw the lion sharpen his claw. 

As for the fruit, it had no taste at all. 

They had been warned of what was bound to happen. 

They had been told and told of something called the world. 

They had told and told about the wall. 

They saw it now; the gate was standing open. 

As they advanced, the giant wings unfurled.

Travel by Frank O'Hara

Travel

Sometimes I know I love you better

than all the others I kiss it’s funny

 

but it’s true and I wouldn’t roll

from one to the next so fast if you

 

hadn’t knocked them all down like

ninepins when you roared by my bed

 

 

I keep trying to race ahead and catch

you at the newest station or whistle

 

stop but you are flighty about

schedules and always soar away just

 

as leaning from my taxicab my breath

reaches for the back of your neck