The Iliad

For J.M.

Death changes nothing. Priam still is king.

Horses run. Fresh flowers—lilac, rose—

still lift the spirit out of time to sing

an everlasting song. No heroes

here. Only towers made of sound. The wind

sweeps across their breastworks like a hand

across a harp: a vortex twisting in

agony across a devastated land—

a land hard to define. A voice. Not

one in particular: the voice of dust,

one speck among millions; an arrow shot

into your throat; remains of a man who lost

his life in a long-silted river, drowned,

as a great battle raged all around.

Bringing Home the Bacon

“Grub first, then aesthetics”

            —Bertolt Brecht*

I am not sure if you have ever felt this way before, but if you should find yourself in possession of an appetite and a few hours to fritter away on seventeenth century literature some night after supper, I would like to recommend this book.

The perfect time to read it is when you are twenty-four and still foolish enough to take the things you read seriously.

The perfect place to read it, of course, is in Boston: in the evening, around seven, sitting on a cool and comfortable concrete pilaster on the banks of the River Charles; in between paragraphs, perhaps, puffing a cigarette, watching the smoke drift off—like the white sails on the rentable boats from the Community Boathouse, those you see scudding across the copper-plated water. I found myself in this situation once, twenty years ago, in the waning days of the twentieth century, when History was on the verge of being abolished.

Even though History continued—in some quite shocking, though entirely foreseeable ways—I did give up smoking, I am pleased to say, and eventually took up running. And for that, I thank History. I am also proud to note that Boston has continued being beautiful in the summer—much more beautiful than New York. So, if you are twenty-four and are in the Back Bay today—or if you are able to make such an imaginative leap—and if the breeze is right, and the angle of the sun is correct at dusk, you may be able to reconstruct some of what I call “The Bacon Effect” even now. Think of it as a thought experiment.

A lot of ifs there, I know. The cumulative effect of all of these contingencies may seem a bit daunting for someone in his early twenties. Dark as it seems, do not let yourself be deterred from a dip into uncertainty: the future belongs to those who show up for it without preconceptions.  I am here to testify to that fact. So is Bacon. And Bacon is worth a try. Recipes involving bacon usually are.

One phrase from Bacon’s essay ‘Of Studies’ has never been very far away from my thoughts since the day when I first read it:

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

“Weigh and consider.” That phrase took on a new and more painful meaning for this writer a few years ago when he was laid off and found himself carting large portions of his library off to The Strand Bookstore to be sold to pay for food and rent. I think I might have earned $2000.00 from the sale of those books that summer. I have no idea what I paid for them originally. But it frightens me to think about it.

To what conclusion does this wretched anecdote lead? Probably a shrug, if you are lucky. Still, it said something to me in very practical terms—something I had always suspected about poetry, but I had never fully internalized, as a poet, until I actually started looking at the worth of words in terms of how effectively they feed you. Hence the title of this essay, ‘Bringing Home the Bacon’.

Because, bringing home the bacon, more than any dubious truth or heart-rending beauty you wish to express, is all that really matters in the end. If you eat. Or pay rent.

Rent

I run my index finger down each spine

in my apartment, choosing books to sell:

Collected Tales and Sketches of Mark Twain,

Pierre and the Piazza Tales, Melville;

A fine translation of Montaigne’s Essays;

The Plays of William Shakespeare, bound in green.

A dozen pages flutter from Rabelais’

Gargantua: a paperback so lean

it looks like Death—all skin and bones. It’s best

to leave him here. Now, Giovanni’s Room,

I take; and To the Lighthouse, Tacitus,

and Mr. Gibbon’s history of Rome.

That’s everything, I guess, but poetry.

Nobody seems to buy that shit, but me.


*Bertolt Brecht, sort of.

Ghost Limb

It seems ridiculous, but I can feel
phantom fingers tickling my thigh.
That sensation on my skin’s so real,
I reach out for your hand. Don’t ask me why

I reach for you. I am a lunatic
for dwelling on your presence in this way—
way past the time of your departure. It
must be nerves playing tricks. Nerves love to play.

Everything suggests you’re here right now.
Everything beyond my leg is numb,
calm, relaxed, like after laughter. How
infectious some good memories become:

golden, green, then gangrenous. I’m sure
I should have cut your arm off.

I am sure.

To Shakespeare

Since it is the old boy's birthday, I thought I would write a sonnet in his honor.


To Shakespeare

One name always flits across my lips,
whenever I pick up my pen to write;
the face of Helen launched a thousand ships,
but who will I fall asleep with tonight?

The hulls of Homer’s ships are mussel shells
shattered on a rocky shore. His words
sigh at the salty surf, turning vessels
over to scavengers, insects, hungry birds

investigating skulls and skeletons.
But you are different, Will. When you speak,
you seem to talk to me. My finger runs
along your margins now, along your cheek,

retracing in your features all I’ve kissed
goodbye. You are the only man I miss.

Crossing Legs

For Gavin

Help me hold it. If I wake tonight,
will you place your thigh against my crotch?
I'll pillow you in pubic hair, so light,
so curly and so warm. Let me watch

your silver chest descending as you sleep,
illuminated by a square of moon.
Shift your weight slightly, should I creep
up with an erection. It’s too soon.

Move again and bring your leg to rest
a little higher. Close to tears, un-
able to dissolve, I will confess—
I’ve got to go, to piss, I’m dying. None

could endure such torture. “Hold it in,
babe. This is love,” whisper with your shin.

Five Months

The last time it was sunny was the first
full day we spent together in Japan.
It started with a cigarette, a burst
of flame, a yellow lighter, your right hand.

Another puff at Denny’s. Maybe two
o’clock we stopped to read a sign inside
Shinjuku Park: “shin” meaning “new.”
I pointed to the character with pride.

You laughed. The cherry blossoms were not gone:
beneath those black, twisted boughs there lay
these soggy little pastel piles. How long
they looked like crumpled Kleenex, I can’t say.

To me, that afternoon seems like the last
nice day on Earth. It’s been so overcast.

Memories

I see them as a system: counterweights
Hidden in a wooden window frame
Long painted shut, where a ghostly face
Grins and grimaces. It’s not the same

Face for you, but you will recognize
The basic features: the squashed, greasy nose
Print left on the pane, the two crossed eyes,
The pink tip of a tongue, thrust so close

Against the surface, you can almost taste
The cold—that lingering ammonia
Zing. It never quite evaporates—
That tangy flavor. Blue. Millennia

From now, I bet, whatever lights glide past,
Memories taste sharp like that. Clean glass.

The People of Pompeii

How vigorous their bodies still appear,
How beautiful. How the volcanic ash
Freezes, softens, then erases fear,
Like snow. They’re running for their lives: their last

Meals still digesting, still flexing muscle,
Still fending off bacteria, as if
All this activity was quite normal.
Pompeian life continues: fountains lift

Sparkling water up toward the sky,
Naughty boys chalk penises on walls,
Slaves hold cosmetic mirrors, dishes dry.
Perhaps a bowl left on a table calls

A hungry fruit fly down, his greedy eyes
Full of figs the air will fossilize.

Death

For you and I, it’s theoretical
Right now. I’m writing, you are reading this.
Unless I’m much mistaken. Possible—
But still—highly unlikely. I exist,

You exist, this ink exists, we are
A product of the squiggles on this page.
This is a Birth Certificate. Bizzare
As that sounds, there it is. Go and rage

Against me down at City Hall, go change
Your name, call in the army or police:
I tell the truth. If you find it strange,
Your opinion doesn’t matter in the least.

I might have written Death Certificate
Up there. I gave you life. Enjoy it.

Math

It is the language of the universe,
the A and Ω of our tongues,
we take in mathematics as we nurse,
it reduces us to tears, to thumbs,

to fingers, toes, that all we count upon.
Our knowledge first is basic, little sparks;
but very soon we’re dancing round the sun,
sizing up each other’s private parts.

The disco ball obeys its rules, the bomb
bows down before it like a vassal king,
math monitors the heartbeat in the womb,
it stands behind each pendulum, each swing,

each note of music throbbing overhead,
when all our other languages are dead.

Necessary Lies

Beneath what we find necessary lies
A world of things that we could live without:
Alarm clocks, canned asparagus, flies,
Venereal diseases, death and doubt.

The scent of certain strangers, I could lose.
I’d execute my neighbor’s yippy dog,
My neighbor—all my neighbors—who refuse
To pick up poo. There is a catalogue

Of ships in Homer’s Iliad, Book II,
I am just itching to eliminate:
Let Helen rot. Yes, love, even you,
When you do something that I really hate,

I think about eliminating. But
I usually just slam a few things shut.

Them

They were not born nuclear mutants,
Ants the size of houses, creaking, shrieking,
Causing Americans to flee, pants
Damp, soiled, on fire. I wasn’t seeking

Them: that insect, sinister pronoun,
A word with huge antennas hung from wires
Loping around a large Hollywood sound-
Stage in the 1950s. My desires

Were different. I was different. They
Would not exist as insects—large or small.
But there they were, these larval lumps of clay,
Darting between their parents at the Mall.

They seem okay as kids. But let us see
If they mature into a Them. Or we.

Bubbles

They are so hard to catch. These things defy
The laws of physics. Rising from champagne
Flutes, from orchestras, they even fly,
Laughing, from small children. They contain

No real meaning. Bubbles are absurd
Symbolic structures anyone can make
Cheaply from diluted soap. A word
Could not possess less value. If you break

A bubble nothing happens. They don’t curse
Or go upsetting seismographs. The skin
Detects a little something—mist—at worst—
A highly localized cloud burst. But in

Some atomic way, all these events
Lead back to a Big Bang. If that makes sense.

The Illiterati

Confusion is their color, shades of gray
Surround all acts, like ripples in a pond;
They stay away from definitions—they
Make such demanding wives. Black and blond,

Or bald, or clown-like, frizzy Marxist red,
Their heads are full of slogans: War is bad,
Love good, but Sex is better. Come to bed.
Come now. Come fuck a real creative lad.

No answer. Why? For someone with so much
Love to give, rejection seems unfair.
I touch you and so little seems to gush
From you but your intestines. Sad. We share

So much in common—dreams and DNA.
The difference is just poetry, I’d say.

Magic

Searching in my pockets, I produce:
A single linty stick of cinnamon
Dentine, some change, a cell phone number—whose—
Who knows? It’s yours. I have lost a button.

My fingers smell like cinnamon, the change
Amounts to eighty-seven cents—thirteen
Cents shy of one whole dollar. What a strange
Taste those missing pennies give Dentine.

I take my pants off, turn the pockets out,
I shake them by the legs, up and down:
Nothing else drops out. I want to shout:
Where is that button! Then I turn around

To find you naked, groaning, close to tears—
Because I hold my pants like rabbit ears.

Garbage

It sits beside a sad geranium,
The brown remains of my best friend, a fern,
A plastic pot his mausoleum.
I’ll miss our talks. Our walks. The way he’d turn

Into a human, suddenly, and cry,
You’re crazy! I’m a fucking fern! A plant!
We can’t keep having these discussions! I
Refuse! Please, put me down this instant!

What do I do with him? A yellow flock
Of leaves falls from the trees. We stand outside.
Neighbors have lined up around the block
To pay their last respects. I can’t decide

If I should dump him out and keep the pot.
Are ferns recyclable? Are friends? Guess not.

Perpetual Motion

Perpetual motion is still a dream
Pursued by kooks, mad scientists and crooks—
The statesmen of Utopia: a machine
So natural they paint it green. It looks

So good on paper: dark panels unfold
To soak up sun, windmills whirl, and Friction—
The great galactic menace—shivers, cold,
Imprisoned in a cell—in science fiction.

Nothing nuclear, like entropy,
Seems to appear in government designs;
Nor do too many numbers, I can see,
Besides those taxes, surtaxes and fines

We pay to keep Utopia painted
Green, gears greased, politicians sainted.

Certain Names

We cling to them for luck, certain names,
We mutter to the air, iron and clay,
We hope they will protect our homes from flames
Consuming other houses. Every day

We sacrifice good books to them, like goats,
We sentence little doubts to copper mines,
We shake our tambourines, we dance—slit throats—
We lay our minds, like corpses, at their shrines.

Even the iconoclast. The last
Man you might expect to form a cult,
Can flood the streets with fools ready to blast
Themselves to bits in temples. The result:

More misery, more blood, more martyrs, more
Temples raised to him. This is war.

Parents

Colossal flops they can be; and most are
Either bumblers, abusers, or tyrants—
Men and women—huddled around a star
Of zero consequence. These are the giants

Which populate our fables: the nightmare
Titans we wrestle with, gods of such power
We name planets after them. They care
Nothing for what they crush—dream or flower.

The few attempting human form fail
Spectacularly. I have photographs.
Mom sits there in the sea filling a pail
With sand. Here, a lost thumb eclipses mass-

Ive mountains—ridges—off in the distance.
The thumb is dad’s. It has his fingerprints.

Ars Poetica

A poet’s feet can be disgusting things.
I see them at the gym: hairy, bent,
Arthritic sets of bones, adorned with rings
To make each toe look sexier. Their scent

Defies description. While Limburger cheese
Left ripening a bit too long comes close—
A yeast infection closer—even these
Analogies fall short. I hold my nose.

I ask in a squeaky voice, “Why scatter warts,
Instead of rose petals, in the shower?
What kind of gift’s a wart? None. The worst.
A waste of talent and abuse of power.

Give one good reason why your words exist—
Or stop writing. See a podiatrist.”