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BARBARA GOLDBERG--BERTA BROADFOOT
AND PEPIN THE SHORT:
A MEROVINGIAN ROMANCE
Barbara Goldberg is the author of six books poetry, three
in Hebrew translation. She is the first winner of the Washington
Prize for an individual poem. Berta Broadfoot
and Pepin the Short: A Merovingian Romance
was published by The Word Works in the United States, and
simultaneously in Canada by the Porcupine's Quill.
Her most recent book, Marvelous Pursuits,
won the Violet Reed Haas Award (Snake Nation Press, 1995).
Goldberg has also edited with the Israeli poet Moshe Dor
two anthologies, the latest being After the First
Rain: Israeli Poems on War and Peace, with a foreword
by Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres (Syracuse University
Press in collaboration with Dryad Press, 1998). She is the
recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment
for the Arts, three individual artist's grants from the
Maryland State Arts Council as well as the Emily Dickinson
Award and the Armand G. Erpf Award from the Translation
Center, Columbia University. She has also twice won
the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award, was the 1998-1999
Poet-in-Residence for Howard County, Maryland, and her work
has appeared in such magazines as Poetry, The Paris Review,
and Harvard Review.
The subject of Berta Broadfoot relates to
an event that transpired in eighth-century France -- the
marriage of Princess Berta of Hungary to Pepin the Short
of France. The story concerns an evil servant,
Margiste, who substitutes her own daughter in the bridal
bed. Margiste orders Berta to be slain in the woods.
The heart of a wild boar is brought back to Margiste as
proof of Berta's death. For seven years, Pepin is
unaware of the hoax. Berta's mother, Queen Blanchflor
of Hungary, has a disturbing dream, after which she travels
to see her daughter and discovers the ruse at once on seeing
the imposter's feet. Margiste is burned on the stake.
Pepin and Berta are reunited and become the parents of Charlemagne.
The selections from the book include "Margiste Protests"
and "The Soothsayer Is Summoned To Interpret Blanchflor's
Dream."
Margiste Protests
If I were a man they would sing
of my daring, call me Margiste the Bold.
No lioness did more for her cub. Gladly
I'd give my scarlet hose for a song
of my daughter, Aliste of the Narrow Feet.
Instead they sing of Bert aus Grans Pies,
Bertha Broadfoot, Berta the Debonaire.
Why should she have been Queen of France,
were both girls not blonde, not fair?
Both dimpled, both winsome, both mantled
with golden hair? Both sired by Hungarian
King Floire? (His wife, Blancheflor, so noble,
so pure, she always gave to a fault to the poor.)
Berta was Highborn, Aliste a mere serving girl.
Yet for eight years she played Queen to Pepin
the Short. He was well-satisfied.
My cousin Tibert (incompetent dolt)
swore that Berta was slain. I piss
on Berta! I piss on her big feet! Fooled
by a pig's heart! Burned for bearing a girl
with narrow feet! I don't care a mint leaf
what Pepin calls me now (‘old hag, the Antichrist’).
He once covered my daughter from evening till dawn.
Let them kindle for me a great fire with thorns!
__________________
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The Soothsayer Is Summoned To Interpret Blancheflor'sDream
i. The Dream
In this dream the dreamer knows
she is dreaming. Holds a wide-
toothed comb in her hand. Soft
thump at door. Enter a bear.
She pulls comb through dark fur.
Strong odor of musk, honey,
cloves. Dreamer sings lulla,
lullaby, go to sleep my plump
sweet. Bear sucks on paw.
Paw becomes raking claw.
Tears cheek, rips right arm,
begins to gnaw at dreamer's
rib-cage. Scatters bones on floor.
Dreamer finds mirror. Torso
a carcass. Right arm dangles
from its socket. Face half-
gone. Bear sees bear. Mirror
mirror. Bear bear. Thump thump
ii. The Interpretation
I bind phylacteries with ribbons
to my arms, with cords to my legs.
Combine letters of dreamer’s name.
I climb to the rooftop, pay heed
to the direction of smoke. Examine
the excrement of a cat. Study
the sky. Make note that moon
in fourth quarter. Omen of death.
Comet appears in sign of Scorpio.
Open book at random. Scrutinize
all data. Interpretation: extreme
danger to dreamer's daughter. Long
voyage required. Dreamer pulls hair
in lamentation. There is no pleasure
to such work.
© Copyright Barbara Goldberg from
Berta Broadfoot and Pepin the Short: A Merovingian
Romance
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Elaine Magarrell, author of two books of poetry, On
Hogback Mountain and Blameless Lives,
has published work in hundreds of journals and texts. Her
most recent publications appear in "Coal City Review"
and "Passager." She is a retired teacher and lives
in Washington, D.C,. with her husband Jack. They have been
married more than 50 years.
Elaine Magarrell's poems turn an uncommon sensibility to
the commonplace; husbands, wives, old boyfirends, children.
Gossip and whimsey formalizes into wisdom. The selections
from the book include "Anniversary Poem" and "Brain
On Its Own."
Anniversary
Poem
Suppose, that time I got mad
and ran away
to Grinnell, I had not come back, but took a room
over Surley's Bar and Grill, so lonely
I befriended the mice, confiding in them
my advanced ideas on family life as they listened
attentively at the cold air register. I might have
worked at flattening burgers, been satisfied to switch off
lights after the last farmer said goodnight and adjusted
his seed-corn cap, revved the pickup, drove home
to a sleeping wife. Then, up the unvarnished
steps, I'd peel open a can of anchovies, hog
the whole bottle of Chardonnay, reheat Kentucky Fried
over a hot plate. Memorize Dickinson.
I'd give it up late on a narrow cot, pile my coat
on my feet instead of wedging them
between your thighs. You would raise the children
single-handed for a week or so
and then find someone-a match for you
at tennis. An enthusiastic sailor.
A no-nonsense woman, not necessarily
a mistake. And one day you would recognize me
in Grinnell. I'd be stopping the door
of the bar with my hip while I mopped up.
You'd grab my wrist. "Is this the best
job you could find?" We would experience
that old sense of electrification, all
the elapsed days spilling over,
and we would disappear into the bar. Surley
would set them up, and you'd show me
photographs of our beautiful grownup children.
_____________
The Brain on its
Own
It was the brain's idea to leave
the body. Finally it could forget
the conundrum of marriage, the need
to be close and the need to be separate.
It would jet to Paris, maybe shop
for an outrageous thesis. But without
the body it could only dream of pleasure-
the brain was denied the special dispensations
of sex. Weather ceased to be an event.
How it longed for the hair's experiments.
The brain was bored. Given another
chance, it would squander every thought
on the flesh. It sought out the body,
serene in a bubble bath. The body
was stiff having danced all night
without feeling self conscious.
And it was in love with another body.
© Copyright Elaine Magarrell-- Blameless Lives
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Christopher Bursk is the author of six books, most recently
The One True Religion and Cell Count.
Bursk is a winner of NEA, Guggenheim, and Pew Fellowships.
He teaches at Bucks County Community College and, as a volunteer,
at the Bucks County Correctional Facility. The Word Works
published The Way Water Rubs Stone. This book,
which won the Washington Prize, includes the poem, "Trial
and Error," set forth below.
TRIAL AND ERROR
It's not even been a week since the operation.
Most of my body is water
like a planet. It'll take a while to exhaust me
of all life-bearing seed.
Loving this boy undressing by the creek, my son,
his helpless, foolish belly,
his small buttocks,
my three-year-old daughter's toes, so white and huge
in the water, she cries out,
I imagine one more child
conceived just before the last sperm swims free.
At night, when my wife touches me, I almost believe
the dark universe is flowing
under me, around me,
and I am lifting with its high tide
like that small, perfect ship Eden, rigged
and set afloat in time.
I am riding with a wave to its crest.
I've never understood why the God of the Bible
was so impatient with Adam.
I want another son or daughter,
a stowaway, a mistake,
a child with thin wrists and weak eyes
and surprising strength
in the ankles, a fast runner,
a boy or girl so beautiful
I might trust again
in her immortality, in his. Unlike God,
with none of His premeditated designs on the world,
His permanent dissatisfactions,
I'd welcome a little carelessness in a son,
a daughter's wild curiosity,
these children tearful and stubborn after falling
from a recklessness
that returns them over and over to one more
brave try.
© Copyright Christopher Bursk -- from The Way Water
Rubs Stone
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GRACE CAVALIERI--CREATURE COMFORTS
& SWAN RESEARCH
Grace Cavalieri is a poet, playwright, and fiction writer.
She is author of eight books of poetry, the most recent
Migrations (1995). Her newest collection of
poetry is produced on audio tape, Pinecrest Rest Haven
(1997). She has had numerous plays produced throughout
the country and has written texts and lyrics for opera,
stage, and film. For twenty years, she produced and hosted
a weekly radio program, THE POET AND THE POEM, for public
radio via Pacifica and WPFW-FM in Washington, DC. Among
the many honors Grace has received are the Pen-Syndicated
Fiction Award, the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting Silver Medal, and awards from the
National Commission on Working Women and the American Association
of University Women. Her poem "How to Obtain"
from Creature Comforts and the title poem
from Swan Research are set forth below.
HOW TO OBTAIN
lt'll happen when you least expect it
Turning on its socket toward you
On its edge through air to meet you
Gleaming, when you least think it will happen
When you are lifting your leg like a
Stripper, the stocking shining and bright
Something will come your way -- right then
When the priest
Puts a small sun on your tongue
When it is high holiday
When the chicken is cut in half
And a green wilderness pops out
You will notice it
You will start seeing it
One day it'll finally
Come to you, payment in full
The way we mark our calendars
With different days or
The way we want to share a sound
The publicity subcommittee will reach out
To you before you know it
One morning when it seems they won't look at your cooking
And then at night they can't praise your food enough,
It'll come to you the way the songs we sing ourselves,
Humming under our breath, always tell the truth
When the moon goes down
When you're playing crazy eights
When you're telling a friend what you think
Or at the moment right before you call out the police
Or before your worst fear attacks you, working
Its buttocks like a brown horse
Before the spoon sinks into the jelly dish
While the sun is still on your sleeve
As the dog moves from under the window
In a flash
In a kiss
In the distance between further and farther
The payoff will come to you saying
Something that cannot be learned
Quick as a twig
Crisp as a two dollar bill in the jewelry box
Shot through the heart with self knowledge
Before you can say Bobolink, Yellow Warbler
Violet green swallow, you will know it
You always knew it
The inside person and the outside person
Become the same
Like an immigrant traveling wrinkled and free
You will show them what you need
And tell them what you want
And of dying you will say
"Is this all there is to it"
You'll have known it all the time.
© Copyright Grace Cavalieri --from Creature Comforts
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SWAN RESEARCH
1.
Swan research does go on
For all the swans care.
Not knowing this
Is best for swans.
For to want something
And not get it,
I wouldn't wish this
For a swan
or anything like a swan
2.
1 sleep
Like a starting horse
At a race
Whose name is fire and who sleeps.
How can I explain
I have lain
This whole day
Upon my bed
Like any other slab of marble
Lucky for you
You cannot see
The things
Behind my bones
3.
1 realize I have
Limited intelligence
I can only sing
And talk
To God,
The returns are not great.
The rice pot
Which boils over
Overcomes the fire,
What difference
Does it matter
If I inspire
Or what I say.
What I do is folklore,
The near danger of enchantment
Is folklore
4.
Loneliness which is
Exorbitant-
I wish
We were
On a road of blue,
I would dance on a blue road.
It's best to be a dancer
If you are alone,
The requirements are great
Oh great
But at least you can bow
One
Foot
In
Front
Of
The other
You can wear pink crochet
In two layers
You can take off your shoes
With great dignity
And various colors
5.
When I was ten
Someone said
Bring back the change,
Did they think
I'd spend it.
They
Who knew how to have skin
And I didn't?
This fine line
Of speculation
Runs down my arm
To a pen which writes
Don't handle the merchandise.
The meaning
Of all those messages is
Power
And
If I were any more obedient
I still would not
Have
More of that to give you
6.
Amphibians
Go back to the water to mate
Where real giants still
Exist, wandering among
The dinosaurs.
You warn me
Not to get my hopes up.
I won't.
Trust
Is nothing but
A custom, a
Perfect head leaning on a perfect
Arm, unbending.
Our deities choose us, she thinks.
Some have even photographed them.
Strange wonderful creatures,
Like lizards
You can count on
7.
Your hand inside
The curve
Where bone used to be,
A great tenderness
At large
And it is raining.
Water breaks
Rocks
Fills the ocean
And sand the buckets
Before all this wind
8.
Once you are in the rapids
The river takes over,
You must
Respect the river.
Only the walls remain
Water
Sculptured by rock.
© Copyright Grace Cavalieri --from Swan Research
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Edward Weismiller, a Rhodes scholar and twice Guggenheim
Fellow, is the author of three collections of poems. His
first collection, The Deer Come Down, was
chosen for publication in the Yale Series of Younger poets
in 1936, when Weismiller, then just 21, was a junior in
college. No younger person has ever won the prestigious
Yale Series competition. His second collection, The
Faultless Shore, was published by Houghton, Mifflin
in 1946. The Word Works published his most recent collection,
The Branch of Fire in 1980. Weismiller's novel,
The Serpent Sleeping, based on his experience
in counterespionage in World War II, was published by Putnam
in 1962; it is to be reissued in late 1997 by London publisher
Frank Cass in the series "Classics of Espionage."
His poem, "Carpentry," set forth below, is from
The Branch Of Fire.
CARPENTRY
Sibylle, my dear, what ramshackle old
Houses we are, a wall somewhere
Always falling in, the roof
Recommencing to leak.
Tears, maybe.
All I can say is that old things are
What mostly I care about now: the wry
Body, a few
Old friends, and tentatively
God
Also old.
To you one need say nothing
Resolute. But to God I say
Sir: there is a wall that--
She stands for us.
Sir, let us get out the hammers
Of lightning and love.
© Copyright Edward Weismiller --from The Branch Of Fire
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Mac Wellman, poet, playwright, and novelist, has published
three collections of poems, two novels, and a number of
plays. He has received numerous honors, including both NEA
and Guggenheim Fellowships. In 1990 he received an Obie
(Best New American Play) for Bad Penny, Terminal
HIP and Crowbar. In 1991 he received another
Obie for Sincerity Forever. In 1997 he received a Lila Wallace--Reader's
Digest Writers' Award. His poem, "Secret Expedition
to the South in Search of the Perfect Woman," set forth
below, is from In Praise Of Secrecy.
SECRET EXPEDITION TO THE SOUTH
IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT WOMAN
I want to see the world through your eyes,
How music gathered you up and brought you here,
How the Fly was chatting to the Other Bug...
I want you to know what I am doing when I practice myself,
How I resemble you by virtue of loving you,
What small anguish it takes to make up some monster,
And I am sick to death of this double death:
How trivial the distance is, this endless toiling by the
river.
So I am going to steal you away...
It will all happen like clockwork: the guards
Gagged, the old Enchanter enchanted,
And the two of us whistling
Through the cornfield like smoke, feeling what we feel.
I'll tell you what the Fly said to the Other Bug.
Larks will be cruising the tree-tops there.
Some delectable fruit will be dangling there...
My secret wish is secret but it involves
You, and that's all I'm saying...
I can chop wood, am in excellent health, as of
This writing, and can write my name.
I am going to learn your secrets!
I am going to steal you away!
© Copyright Mac Wellman --from In Praise Of Secrecy
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JOHN PAUKER--IN SOLITARY AND OTHER
IMAGINATIONS
John Pauker, is an internationally known American poet;
a playwright; a fashioner of fiction; an editor; critic;
and translator from many language. Before his death,
he described himself as "a propagandist for truth,
beauty, goodness, and love." He attended Yale
University, where he won numerous awards for literary excellence,
and graduated with high honors. Three volumes of Mr.
Pauker's verse have been published in the United States,
one in Iran, two in India, and a book in France. His
play entitled "Moonbirds" was produced on Broadway,
and his translation of The Dukays, a Hungarian
novel, was for six months a nationwide bestseller in the
U.S.A.
His poems "Surprising Poem," "Ill Poem,"
and "Penal Poem" from the book, In Solitary
And Other Imaginations, are set forth below.
Surprising Poem
I looked, and looked again. There were no people.
The people had disappeared. The people were gone.
But the things they had created were still there,
A suit of clothes and a gown walked arm in arm
With a dog at the end of a leash. The dog was there
And snarling. In the street, vehicular traffic
Flowed as usual but without drivers or riders.
Inside buildings, doors opened and closed.
Cigarettes smoked, telephones rang, receivers
Slammed as usual, and on television
Something of all this showed, but without people.
--The fifth of scotch went on diminishing.
Electric razors razed and revolvers fired
As Usual. The things went through their paces
And seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely.
I longed to look in a mirror but did not dare.
© Copyright John Pauker --from In Solitary And Other
Imaginations
Ill Poem
The ills of a poet are dull and routine affairs:
Neglect, misunderstanding.
To liven his life, let's kick a poet downstairs
And hear his head crunch on the landing.
© Copyright John Pauker --from In Solitary And Other
Imaginations
Penal Poem
Of all wrongdoing, to be born is worst.
I sentence you to 60 years of life
With time off for good behavior.
© Copyright John Pauker --from In Solitary And Other
Imaginations
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Paul Revenko Jones continues to rebuild pianos, sail his
28' boat "Pianoforte," and studies aikido, though
he calls himself, "not quite yet a beginner."
In the forward to his book the end of the hand,
Karren Alenier described the book as a "man's literature
that takes responsibility for its sexual differences and
its difficulties in dealing with the opposite sex."
She goes on to say, "(l)ike an ancient technician,
Jones builds a quiet but formidable pyramid of passion.
To appreciate the tenderness of the work, every stone need
be examined in its relationship to the next."
Jones' book includes the poem, "the end of the hand,"
set forth below.
the end of the hand
the end of the hand
for sure
is in the pocket,
touching of hair,
brushing of teeth,
shuffling of cards,
worried fingers
spread at the temple.
the hand that
holds the soil that
pots the plant,
alone at night
turns down the spread,
clasps the other
to still the tremble.
© Copyright Paul Revenko Jones --from The End Of The
Hand
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Shirley Cochrane is a poet and fiction writer. She
has had three books of poems published: Burnsite
(Washington Writers' Publishing House), Letters to
the Quick/Letters to the Dead (Signal Books, Chapel
Hill, N.C.), and Family and Other Strangers
(The Word Works). The major theme of this latter book
is family ties vis-a-vis mysteries, separations, and losses.
Death is a strong element in these poems--and the coming
to terms with grief. Place--whether city, small
town, or country--anchors the subject matter and gives it
bounds. And hope lights up the darker landscape.
The poem, "Bibliophile," from this book is set
forth below.
Bibliophile
Because when it came, that fire,
I rejoiced that the boys all
got out alive, their scant scars
and even the dog that ran back
burnt offerings I could afford
to give the conflagration god;
and because I saw it as symbol
of that other fire I could not
put out and finally succumbed to ---
the books of my father seemed
hardly worth the grieving.
But now, these ten years after,
I want them all back-- notes
and interlinear glosses, spidered
marginalia, his cartoon of Mother
the day she bobbed her hair.
I want the leather bindings,
marbled end papers, uncut
pages of obscure editions
holding their secrets fast, want
them with a child's fierce greed.
For each thing lost or burned
or thrown away too soon, I wrap
a tight fist around another:
the Indian head pennies
my Uncle George hoarded,
the Mercury dimes Anna
his wife would sweeten
with Horn and Hardart sugar
even the stamps bringing
1940 letters from Japan.
© Copyright Shirley Cochrane --from Family & Other
Strangers
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edited by Betty Parry
The Unicorn and the Garden is a collection
of poems and prose by writers who participated in the Poetry
and Literature Series at the Textile Museum, located in
Washington, D.C. from 1973 to 1975. According to Betty
Parry's introduction to the book, "[t]he rationale
for the series was to pay homage to poetry in its many forms
throughout history." Most of the poems in the
book were read in performance. Twenty-four programs,
were held over two years, including such writers as Allen
Ginsberg, Galway Kinnell, Eugene McCarthy, and many others..
LINDA PASTAN
Linda Pastan has published 10 volumes of poetry, including
Heroes in Disguise (Norton, 1991) and An
Early Afterlife. (Norton, 1995). PM/AM
was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1982, and
The Imperfect Paradise was a finalist for
the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was Poet Laureate
of Maryland from 1991-1995 and was on the staff of the Bread
Loaf Writer's Conference for 20 years. Carnival
Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968-1998 was published
by Norton in the Spring of 1998 and was a finalist for the
National Book Award. The poem, "A Short
History of Judaic Thought in the Twentieth Century"
from the anthology The Unicorn and the Garden
is set forth below.
A Short History of
Judaic Thought in the
Twentieth Century
The rabbis wrote:
although it is forbidden
to touch a dying person,
nevertheless, if the house catches fire
he must be removed
from the house.
Barbaric!
I say,
and whom may I touch then,
aren't we all
dying?
You smile
your old negotiator's smile
and ask:
but aren't all our houses
burning?
© Copyright Linda Pastan --from The Unicorn And The
Garden
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ELISAVIETTA RITCHIE
Elisavietta Ritchie's In Haste I Write You This Note: Stories
& Half-Stories was a winner in the Washington
Writers' Publishing House's premiere fiction competition,
(2000). Flying Time: Stories &
Half-Stories (1992 & 1996) includes four PEN
Syndicated Fiction winners. Among her poetry collections
are: In the Folds of Abandoned Clothes: Thrift Shop
Poems (2000); The Arc of the Storm
(1998); Elergy for the Other Woman (1996);
Tightening the Circle over Eel County (won Great
Lakes Colleges Association's 1975-76 "New Writer's
Award for Best First Book of Poetry"); Raking
the Snow (won Washington Writer's Publishing House
1981-82 competition); two novellas-in verse Timbot
and Wild Garlic: The Journal of Maria X.
She also edited The Dolphin's Arc: Endangered
Creatures of the Sea.
website: www.elisavietta.com
ELEGY FOR THE OTHER WOMAN
May her plane explode
with just one fatality.
But, should it not,
may the other woman spew
persistent dysentery from
your first night ever after.
May the other woman vomit
African bees and Argentine wasps.
May cobras uncoil from her loins.
May she be eaten not
by something dramatic like lions,
but by a wart-hog.
I do not wish the other woman
to fall down a well
for fear of spoiling the water,
nor die on the highway because
she might obstruct traffic.
Rather: something easy, and cheap,
like clap from some other bloke.
Should she nevertheless survive
all these critical possibilities,
may she quietly die of boredom with you.
© Copyright Elisavietta Ritchie--from The Unicorn And
The Garden
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Roland Flint was the author of many books, including his
last collection of poems, Easy: Poems
(L.S.U. Press 1999). Other works include
Resuming Green: Selected Poems , 1965-1982
(1983); Sicily(1987); Stubborn
(1990); Hearing Voices (1991); Pigeon
(1991); and Pigeon in the Night
(1994). He was a former Poet Laureate of Maryland,
and received numerous honors, including honorary degrees
from N.C. Wesleyan College and his alma mater, the University
of North Dakota. He died January 2, 2001.
And Morning In
On fence post the rooster simply
saying to the sun our father
hello old cock I'm up again
and so are you
© Copyright Roland Flint--from The Unicorn And The Garden.
Also, Copyright ©
1975 Reprinted from And Morning, Dryad Press.
____________
Poem Beginning & Ending O
for the cast & crew of "The Exorcist"
0
it was wonderful when
the movies (the makers) came to school,
o it was ivy xmas beverly all the way,
yes it was fibre glass and many special lights,
central casting at the Marriott Motel,
and yes sir starlets like Danish pastry frosted,
still glamorous, still cinemamorous
beneath the layers, and layers,
and when they closed the streets with a
"sizable cash donation,"
to the DC police club for delinquent boys,
and when, for scholarships in a
"large but undisclosed amount,"
they bought the campus -- yard, lock,
and flying buttresses -
when they screwed the virgin blondes
for bit and two line speaking parts,
did another take on day,
and had the campus clergy
saying mass and eating Christ on cue 0
(and when we saw at last how much we loved it - we loved
it)
it was then we knew
they really know
what dreams are all about
© Copyright Roland Flint--from The Unicorn And The Garden.
Also, Copyright ©
1975 Reprinted from And Morning, Dryad Press.
Back to Top
_____________
Turn
When I lie under the tall trees
at this time of year,
no leaves yet but the buds ready to break,
when the separate winds make whole branches
move drift return sway,
I see every possible thing is here,
from the first stir of creation
to the slow unwinding hieratic floods,
branches the shapes of grief or expectation,
infantile and ancient in the same knot,
branches naked as roots.
And I dream the branches into roots -
turn the worlds around,
try to imagine in what underground sea,
in what floating skies of humus
the rooted branches drift, dreaming,
into what clouds of anthracite they stare,
the sea weed branches waved into the nitrogen silent water.
It makes me believe again
in mirror versions of the universe -
somewhere another poet writing this,
lying on his back facing the lovely
unchanging secret at the center,
wondering the other world, dreaming
his dream of me.
© Copyright Roland Flint--from The Unicorn And The Garden.
Also, Copyright ©
1975 Reprinted from And Morning, Dryad Press.
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____________
His Oyster
He lives in Washington, DC, and he goes all the way
to Georgia by car, passing through Virginia, North Carolina,
South
Carolina, then through part of Georgia on his way down to
Savannah, then he goes by bus through Savannah to Vernon
View, then he goes by boat across bays and inlets and sounds
of the Atlantic to Ossabaw Island, then he goes by station
wagon to the main house, then he goes by pick-up truck with
Mr. Jimmie Willard Perkins (nicknamed Middleton) to a tidal
river to fish two hours for trout, with no luck, then he
goes
by foot, with Middleton, one mile down-river through the
woods to an oyster bed Middleton knows about, and there
he
finds an oyster - or a hard, gray-brown shell, covered with
little
stones and carbuncles that looks like it could be an oyster.
He knows there is something in it he wants: an oyster.
He takes a razor-sharp knife that has come from Sweden for
this
(via Sears in DC, trips to Maine, Vermont) and he tries
to
open this thing which has the brave angry face of a petrified
knish. It will not open. He takes a stone and taps easy,
then hard, on the base of the handle, trying to drive it
into
oyster - it doesn't work, the oyster slips away, sideways,
he
tries again and fails again, and then he blows up, and puts
it
on a big flat rock and pounds it with a stone, just trying
to
smash it, and that doesn't work, and he picks the sonofabitch
up and throws it down as hard as he can and he thinks well
now would be a goddamned good time for a miracle, for it
to roll over and just open slowly and teach him something
about the futility of violence, the shame of pride, the
pride
of anger, the surprise of faith where not to knock by Christ
is open wide. Instead it stays tighter than a bull's ass
in
fly-time, teaching him the horseshit of inwit, the agenbite
and
fuck you of fantasy, and the true kryptonite hardness of
an
oyster you can't have even if you're Clark Kent and have
driven 600 miles to get it. Middleton spits some Honey-cut
and says, "ats fuckin oyrsters."
© Copyright Roland Flint--from The Unicorn And The Garden.
Also, from Dryad magazine
Copyright © 1977 by Roland Flint.
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