in a many-mirrored room;
he promised her protection
for the issue of her womb.
She moved her body hard
against a sharpened metal spoon,
she stopped the bloody rituals
of passage to the moon.
She took his much-admired
oriental frame of mind,
and the heart-of-darkness alibi
his money hides behind.
She took his blonde madonna
and his monastery wine.
“This mental space is occupied
and everything is mine.”
He tried to make a final stand
beside the railway track.
She said, “The art of longing’s over
and it’s never coming back.”
She took his tavern parliament,
his cap, his cocky dance;
she mocked his female fashions
and his working-class moustache.
The last time that I saw him
he was trying hard to get
a woman’s eduction
but he’s not a woman yet.
And the last time that I saw her
she was living with a boy
who gives her soul an empty room
and gives her body joy.
So the great affair is over
but whoever would have guessed
it would leave us all so vacant
and so deeply unimpressed.
It’s like our visit to the moon
or to that other star:
I guess you go for nothing
if you really want to go that far.
MY WIFE AND I
My wife and I made love this afternoon. We hid together from the light of our desire, forehead to forehead. Later she asked me, Did I taste sweet for you? Dear companion, you did. This evening I watched with pleasure as she undressed and put on her flannel pyjamas. I held her closely until she went to sleep. Then I closed the light and left the room carefully and I came down here to you.
COMMENTARY – MY WIFE AND I
Who can go beyond the first four words? Who can hurry past the final six?
Poet of the two great intimacies, you have appeared again to unify our grave concerns.
Where is she now? Where are these flannel pyjamas? Where is your tenderness to Woman and to G-d?
I know you are cheating somewhere; nevertheless, I consent to be profoundly touched by the exquisite accident of this paragraph.
I did not have this work in mind as a child, but I am not ashamed to be your exegete.
THE NEWS YOU REALLY HATE
You fucking whore, I thought that you were really interested in music. I thought your heart was somewhat sorrowful. I might have gone with you under the desk and eaten a soft-boiled egg. I’m going to tell my baby brother not to do what I have done. I’m going to tune you until the string breaks. The Communists do not know how evil you really are.
We are different from you. That’s the news you really hate. That’s the news to ring the bells and start the fires while your boyfriend serves you the hairball lunch. I have been admitted through the stained-glass shadows where your stench is unwelcome. How dare you pay us any attention? I’m going to eat now. I have declared war on you forever and ever. Disguised as a hat I will rip off your eyebrows. I am going to be here in the sun for a long time. The fragrance comes up again. It does not reach you. It does not invite you to close your eyes in the storm. The trumpets cry up inside me and my king is home. I am judged again with mercy.
COMMENTARY – THE NEWS YOU REALLY HATE
It is sometimes refreshing to embrace a position of uncompromising unforgiveness. As the poet shows, there are surprises and rewards that follow in the wake of the undiluted expression of one’s hateful seizures. However, if you are unskilled in the subtle transformative processes of language, it is best not to write down your ugly thoughts. If you must, do not show them to one who has the power to transmute. He will not be able to help you. He cannot recover from what he himself has begun.
I DECIDED
I decided to jump literature ahead a few years. Because you are angry, I decided to infuriate you. I am infected with the delirious poison of contempt when I rub my huge nose into your lives and your works. I learned contempt from you. Philistine implies a vigour which you do not have. This paragraph cannot be seized by an iron fist. It is understood immediately. It recoils from your love. It has enjoyed your company. My work is alive.
THE BEETLE
Do not be frightened. Where is the beetle I gave you? It is a companion for you somewhere in the room. Here is my peace. These tears will help you. I placed you at a table in the middle of the night. I let you move toward your pain. I let you come near. I let you come in. Now you have no names for yourself. Now you are my creature. This is the mercy. These are the clean tears. You may speak to me now. I will not take your work from you. Have you tired of my mercy? Have you wept enough? Have you seized an image of me? This is the voice of one turning aside. This is my holy work. It has changed the world since you began this word and you are still reading the instructions. Where is your beetle? It pleased you not to want to murder it. An oath of friendship between you and your beetle came to your lips. It was touching. You are the beetle I do not crush, so busy in the light of my eyes. This is the room I prepared for you. It is here you will prepare the marriage. You will untarnish it. You will sweep the chamber where I form my worlds. Now you may have back your stone heart. Someone walks by your window, a slight limp in his step. You cannot see outside and this is my world also. Come to me again when you are not tired, when your panic makes you alert to me, and the perfection of my world bends you down in shame.
COMMENTARY – THE BEETLE
Is there a modern reader that can measure up to this page? Is there one quiet enough? Is there
