Stranger Music

probably Spring. You can give away your money for an hour. You can resume your childhood plan. You’re naked and the snake is hungry but the vicious thing won’t sting because it’s probably Spring. All the poison clouds have settled in a thimble which you nearly make me drink but then you smash it in the fireplace because it’s probably Spring. But let’s be quiet so we can hear the naval band. They’re fine looking lads and they’re playing the National Hymn. Their sweat is sweet beneath the woollen uniforms, it’s hot and scratchy but they’ll be in white tomorrow because of it’s being probably Spring. It is the passion of our Lord. It is the ladder through her hair. It is a lovely field which you cannot find in the city. It is what you can never find again so tender and so wild, so do kneel down and honour what the Name makes manifest because it’s probably Spring. O stand in due respect for that which flings your wife into another’s arms, which heaves the poppy shrapnel through your heart, which invites you to forgive some shabby crime you’re likely to commit because it’s probably Spring.

COMMENTARY – IT’S PROBABLY SPRING

I would like to lose my faith in this poet, but I can’t. I would like to say that I have discovered in him something glib. I want to disqualify him. He comes too close to betraying me. He comes too close to reeling me in. I want to say that he was too rich. I want to prove that his marriage was happy. I want to say that I only thought he was that good because I misunderstood him. But I am afraid I do not misunderstand him. I understand him. Tonight I understand him perfectly as I sit here heavy with Chinese food under the royal-blue sky of the Los Angeles night, with very little going for me (as they say down here), with much gone sour, but never mind, I do not know how to begin to earn your attention. There is a mood for which Beethoven is too loud, and Bach too wise, and silence too good for a filthy heart such as beats in my breast, but I take my comfort from the creaky hurdy-gurdy tune cranked out uselessly by the one I follow morning and night on a whim of love and a gambler’s chance. I read the piece again and again, so pleased that the poet has taken such pains not to touch me. If only I had touched her this lightly, I might not be sitting here now.

ANOTHER FAMILY

Sister in the snow, I took another family

and you did not, I took two children out of my knee.

Your brother has fallen down to be cold again —

on his palm he offers two small figures to the white storm

I couldn’t get away, I took another childhood,

I broke my promise not to go back, and it’s cold.

I broke my promise not to suffer, and now

I have to start all over again to earn my solitude

Your mistake is elegant, mine is clumsy,

my scarf is wet and I can’t think about myself.

Please be proud of your crystal, your well-made crystal

which does not leak and where you don’t shiver

You can be no one and I must be my father,

haunting another childhood with my panic,

and I was meant to be frozen beside you, frozen upright

above the goldfish in the solid silver waterfall

and I have to forget what I hate, I have already

begun to forget, it is not hatred any more, it is

the old childhood, my father’s heart attack,

and long instructions about my buttons and my shoes

I left my lover to sit at the head of the table.

My wife has to wonder where I’ve been

and I have to explain that she was wrong, I was

never strong, I was merely frozen with my sunlight in the ice

Now you are alone, you are truly alone,

you were the one who remained standing,

and I betrayed the ending, I fell down under the big snowflakes

just like my father, just like his father

and I don’t care about anyone again, they can all

go to hell, it is the only luxury down here

where everything changes into nothing new, and you

wait to be cut down in revenge by your duplicate

THE ASTHMATIC

Because you will not overthrow your life. You cannot breathe. Because of the panic of homelessness. You cannot breathe. Because you have begun to worship time. You cannot breathe. Because you will never have the beautiful one. You cannot breathe. You cannot breathe. Because your sorrow will not return to its birthplace. You cannot breathe. Because you believe you were not meant to be so far away. You cannot breathe. Because this is the valley of the shadow of death. You cannot breathe. Because you cannot be here.

Because you do not know what is coming. You cannot breathe. Because this world is yours and it is not yours. You cannot breathe. Because you rest, because you strive, because you do not work. You cannot breathe. Because you let the world come between you and me. You cannot breathe. Because of an idea of the calm breath. You cannot breathe. Because you want to choose a way. You cannot breathe. Because you find the language to welcome me. You cannot breathe. The sun is sparkling all over the blue water. The stony shore is laved by the sea. Yellow curtains are sucked against the portholes. The propeller wants everyone to go to sleep. You separate yourself from an unknown woman in a green sweater. Because of your love of conquering. You cannot breathe. Because you will not address me as an equal. Because you have commanded the guards to shut down the doors and take away breathing. Because the world is stamped with order, like a seal in formless wax. Because you have a G-d of justice. Because the justice is immediate and flawless. You cannot breathe. Because you cannot uphold your separation. Because your strangerhood