Collected Earlier Poems (19 page)

    Of these, two were persistent. In one of them

She was back in the first, untainted months of marriage,

Slight, shy, and dressed in soft ecru charmeuse,

Hopeful, adoring, and in return adored

By her husband, who was then a traveling salesman.

The company had scheduled a convention

In Atlantic City, and had generously

Invited the men to bring along their wives.

They were to stay in triumph at the Marlborough-

Blenheim, a luxury resort hotel

That ran both fresh and salt water in its tubs,

And boasted an international string ensemble

That assembled every afternoon at four

For
thé dansant
, when the very air was rich

With Jerome Kern, Romberg, and Rudolph Friml.

The room they were assigned gave on an air shaft

But even so they could smell the black Atlantic,

And being hidden away, she told herself,

Was just the thing for newlyweds, and made

Forays on the interminable vista

Of the boardwalk—it seemed to stretch away

In hazy diminution, like the prospects

Or boxwood avenues of a chateau—

The more exciting. Or so it seemed in prospect.

She recalled the opulent soft wind-chime music,

A mingling of silverware and ice-water

At their first breakfast in the dining room.

Also another sound. That of men’s voices

Just slightly louder than was necessary

For the table-mates they seemed to be addressing.

It bore some message, all that baritone

Brio of masculine snort and self-assertion.

It belonged with cigars and bets and locker rooms.

It had nothing to do with damask and chandeliers.

It was a sign, she knew at once, of something.

They wore her husband’s same convention badge,

So must be salesmen, here for a pep talk

And booster from top-level management,

Young, hopeful, energetic, just like him,

But, in some way she found unnerving, louder.

That was the earliest omen.

                                        The second was

The vast boardwalk itself, its herringbone

Of seasoned lumber lined on the inland side

By Frozen Custard booths, Salt Water Taffy

Kneaded and stretched by large industrial cams,

Pinball and shooting galleries with Kewpie Dolls,

Pink dachshunds, cross-eyed ostriches for prizes,

Fun Houses, Bumpum Cars and bowling alleys,

And shops that offered the discriminating

Hand-decorated shells, fantastic landscapes

Entirely composed of varnished star-fish,

And other shops displaying what was called

“Sophisticated Nightwear For My Lady,”

With black-lace panties bearing a crimson heart

At what might be Mons Veneris’ timber-line,

Flesh-toned brassieres with large rose-window cutouts

Edged with elaborate guimpe, rococo portholes

Allowing the nipples to assert themselves,

And see-through nightgowns bordered with angora

Or frowsy feather boas of magenta.

Here she was free to take the healthful airs,

Inhale the unclippered trade-winds of New Jersey

And otherwise romp and disport herself

From nine until five-thirty, when her husband,

Her only Norman, would be returned to her.

Such was this place, a hapless rural seat

And sandy edge of the Truck Garden State,

The dubious North American Paradise.

    It was just after dinner their second evening

That a fellow-conventioneer, met in the lobby,

Invited them to join a little party

For a libation in the Plantagenet Bar

And Tap Room; he performed the introductions

To Madge and Felix, Bubbles and Billy Jim,

Astrid, and lastly, to himself, Maurice,

Whose nickname, it appeared, was Two Potato,

And things were on a genial, first-name basis

Right from the start, so it was only after

The second round of drinks (which both the Carsons

Intended as their last, and a sufficient

Fling at impromptu sociability)

That it was inadvertently discovered

That the Carsons were little more than newlyweds

On what amounted to their honeymoon.

No one would hear of them leaving, or trying to pay

For anything. Another round of drinks

Was ordered. Two Potato proclaimed himself

Their host, and winked at them emphatically.

There followed much raucous, suggestive toasting,

Norman was designated “a stripling kid,”

And ceremoniously nicknamed “Kit,”

And people started calling Shirley “Shirl,”

And “Curly-Shirl” and “Shirl-Girl.” There were displays

Of mock-tenderness towards the young couple

And gags about the missionary position,

With weak, off-key, off-color, attempts at singing

“Rock of Ages,” with hands clasped in prayer

And eyes raised ceilingward at “cleft for me,”

Eyes closed at “let me hide myself in thee,”

The whole number grotesquely harmonized

In the manner of a barbershop quartet.

By now she wanted desperately to leave

But couldn’t figure out the way to do so

Without giving offense, seeming ungrateful;

And somehow, she suspected, they knew this.

Two Potato particularly seemed

Aggressive both in his solicitude

And in the smirking lewdness of his jokes

As he unblushingly eyed the bride for blushes

And gallantly declared her “a good sport,”

“A regular fella,” and “the little woman.”

She knew when the next round of drinks appeared

That she and Norman were mere hostages

Whom nobody would ransom. Billy Jim asked

If either of them knew a folk-song called

“The Old Gism Trail,” and everybody laughed,

Laughed at the plain vulgarity itself

And at the Carsons’ manifest discomfort

And at their pained, inept attempt at laughter.

The merriment was acid and complex.

Felix it was who kept proposing toasts

To “good ol’ Shirl an’ Kit,” names which he slurred

Both in pronunciation and disparagement

With an expansive, wanton drunkenness

That in its license seemed soberly planned

To increase by graduated steps until

Without seeming aware of what he was doing

He’d raise a toast to “good ol’ Curl an’ Shit.”

They managed to get away before that happened,

Though Shirley knew in her bones it was intended,

Had seen it coming from a mile away.

They left, but not before it was made clear

That they were the only married couple present,

That the other men had left their wives at home,

And that this was what conventions were all about.

The Carsons were made to feel laughably foolish,

Timid and prepubescent and repressed,

And with a final flourish of raised glasses

The “guests” were at last permitted to withdraw.

    Fade-out; assisted by a dram of gin,

And a soft radio soundtrack bringing up

A velvety chanteur who wants a kiss

By wire, in some access of chastity,

Yet in a throaty passion volunteers,

“Baby, mah heart’s on fire.” Fade-in with pan

Shot of a highway somewhere south of Wheeling

Where she and her husband, whom she now calls Kit,

Were driving through a late day in November

Toward some goal obscure as the very weather,

Defunctive, moist, overcast, requiescent.

Rounding a bend, they came in sudden view

Of what seemed a caravan of trucks and cars,

A long civilian convoy, parked along

The right-hand shoulder, and instantly slowed down,

Fearing a speed-trap or an accident.

It was instead, as a billboard announced,

A LIVE ENTOMBMENT—CONTRIBUTIONS PLEASE.

They found a parking slot, directed by

Two courteous State Troopers with leather holsters

That seemed tumescent with heavy, flopping side-arms,

And made their way across the stony ground

To a strange, silent crowd, as at a grave-side.

A poster fixed to a tree gave the details:

“Here lies George Rose in a casket supplied by

The Memento Morey Funeral Home of Wheeling.

He has been underground 38 days.

[The place for the numbers was plastered with new stickers.]

He lives on liquids and almond Hershey bars

Fed through the speaking tube next to his head,

By which his brother and custodian,

John Wesley Rose, communicates with him,

And by means of which he breathes. Note that the tube

Can be bent sideways to keep out the rain.

Visitors are invited to put all questions

To the custodian because George Rose

Is eager to preserve his solitude.

He has forsworn the vanities of this world.

Donations will be gratefully accepted.”

At length she wedged her way among the curious

To where she saw a varnished pine-wood box

With neatly mitred corners, fitted with glass

At the top, and measuring roughly a foot square,

Sunk in the earth, protruding about three inches.

Through this plain aperture she now beheld

The pale, expressionless features of George Rose,

Bearded, but with a pocked, pitted complexion,

And pale blue eyes conveying by their blankness

A boredom so profound it might indeed

Pass for a certain otherworldliness,

Making it eminently clear to all

That not a single face that showed itself

Against the sky for his consideration

Was found by him to be beautiful or wise

Or worthy of the least notice or interest.

One could tell he was alive because he blinked.

At the crowd’s edge, near the collection box,

Stood a man who was almost certainly his brother,

Caretaker and custodian, engaged

In earnest talk with one of the State Troopers.

It crossed her mind to wonder how they dealt

With his evacuations, yet she couldn’t

Ask such a question of an unknown man.

But Kit seemed to have questions of his own

And as he approached John Wesley she turned away

To the edge of a large field and stood alone

In some strange wordless seizure of distress.

She turned her gaze deliberately away

From the road, the cars, the little clustered knot

Of humankind around that sheet of glass,

Like flies around a dish of sweetened water,

And focused intently on what lay before her.

A grizzled landscape, burdock and thistle-choked,

A snarled, barbed-wire barricade of brambles,

All thorn and needle-sharp hostility.

The dead weeds wicker-brittle, raffia-pale,

The curled oak leaves a deep tobacco brown,

The sad rouge of old bricks, chips of cement

From broken masonry, a stubble field

Like a mangy lion’s pelt of withered grass.

Off in the distance a thoroughly dead tree,

Peeled of its bark, sapless, an armature

Of well-groomed, military, silver-gray.

And other leafless trees, their smallest twigs

Incising a sky the color of a bruise.

In all the rancid, tannic, mustard tones,

Mud colors, lignum grays and mottled rocks,

The only visible relief she found

Was the plush red velvet of the sumac spikes

And the slick, vinyl, Stygian, anthracite

Blackness of water in a drainage ditch.

The air sang with the cold of empty caves,

Of mildew, cobwebs, slug and maggot life.

And at her feet, among the scattered stubs

Of water-logged non-filter cigarettes,

Lay a limp length of trampled fennel stalk.

And then she heard, astonishingly close,

Right at her side, the incontestable voice

Of someone who could not possibly be there:

Of old Miss McIntosh, her eleventh grade

Latin instructor, now many years dead,

Saying with slow, measured authority,

“It is your duty to remain right here.

Those people and their cars will go away.

Norman will go. George Rose will stay where he is,

But you have nothing whatever to do with him.

He will die quietly inside his coffin.

From time to time you will be given water

And a peanut butter sandwich on white bread.

You will stay here as long as it shall take

To love this place so much you elect to stay

Forever, forsaking all others you have known

Or dreamed of or incontinently longed for.

Look at and meditate upon the crows.

Think upon God. Humbly prepare yourself,

Like the wise virgins in the parable,

For the coming resurrection of George Rose.

Consider deeply why as the first example

Of the first conjugation—which is not

As conjugal as some suppose—one learns

The model verb forms of ‘to love,’
amare
,

Which also happens to be the word for ‘bitter.’

Both love and Latin are more difficult

Than is usually imagined or admitted.

This is your final exam; this is your classroom.”

    Another voice drowns out Miss McIntosh.

It’s Mel Tormé, singing
Who’s Sorry Now?

Followed by a Kid Ory version of

Quincy Street Stomp
, and bringing back in view

The bright upholstery of the present tense,

The lax geography of pillows, gin-

And-bitters with anesthetic bitterness.

It must be three
AM
, but never mind.

Open upon her lap lies
The New Yorker
,

Exhibiting a full-page color ad

For the Scotch whiskey-based liqueur, Drambuie,

Soft-focus, in the palest tints of dawn.

Therein a lady and a gentleman

Stand gazing north from the triumphal arch

That Stanford White designed for Washington Square.

She wears an evening gown of shocking pink

And a mink stole. Her escort, in black tie,

Standing behind her, his arms about her waist,

Follows her gaze uptown where a peach haze

Is about to infuse the windows of the rich.

Meanwhile, this couple, who have just descended

From a hansom cab departing towards the east,

Have all Fifth Avenue stretched out before them

In Élysée prospectus, like the calm fields

Where Attic heroes dwell. They are alone

On the blank street. The truths of economics,

The dismal (decimal) science, dissolve away

In the faint light, and leave her standing there,

Shirley herself, suddenly slim again,

In the arms of a young nameless gentleman.

To be sure, the salmon hues up in the eighties,

Flushing the Metropolitan’s facade,

Glinting on silver tops of skyscrapers

As upon factory-made, hand-polished Alps

(Though the deep canyons still repose in darkness)

Bespeak the calm beneficence of dawn

When they shall both raise up their brandy glasses

Filled with that admirable Scotch liqueur

Or else with gin and tolerable bitters

And toast each other in some nearby penthouse.

But meanwhile her attention is wholly drawn

To the carriage lantern on the hansom cab.

A kerosene lantern with a concave shield

Or chrome reflector inside a box of glass.

The quivering flame of the broad ribbon wick

Itself presents a quick array of colors,

All brilliance, light, intensity and hope.

The flames flow upward from a rounded base

Like an inverted waterfall of gold,

Yet somehow at the center, the pure kernel

Of fire is pearly, incandescent white.

Out of that whiteness all the celestial hues

Of dawn proliferate in wobbly spectra,

Lilac and orange, the rust of marigold,

The warm and tropic colors of the world

That she inhabits, that she has collected

And stuffed like assorted trophies of the kill.

The shape of flames is almond-like, the shape

Of Egyptian eyes turned sideways, garlic cloves,

Camel-hair tips of watercolor brushes,

Of waterdrops. The shape performs a dance,

A sinuous, erotic wavering,

All inference and instability,

Shimmy and glitter. It is, she suddenly knows,

The figure
redivivus
of George Rose,

Arisen, youthful, strong and roseate,

Tiny, of course, pathetically reduced

To pinky size, but performing a lewd dance

Of Shiva, the rippling muscles of his thighs

And abdomen as fluent as a river

Of upward-pouring color, the golden finish

Of Sardanapalus, emphatic rhythms

Of blues and body language, a centrifuge

Of climbing braids that beautifully enlarge,

Thicken and hang pendulous in the air.

Out of these twinings, foldings, envelopings

Of brass and apricot, biceps and groin,

She sees the last thing she will ever see:

The purest red there is, passional red,

Fire-engine red, the red of Valentines,

Of which she is herself the howling center.