Читать книгу Selected Poems - James Tate - Страница 8

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from The Oblivion Ha-Ha

(1970)

Poem

High in Hollywood Hills a door opens:

a man disguised as a man appears,

sunglasses on his nose, a beard.

He can smell the flowers—camellia,

bougainvillea—the word,

itself a dream; the reality of the scene

was in the Chinese girl

who swam in the pool beneath

the rail he leaned on:

she was something else indeed.

She was the dream within

the dream within. He shouted: hallo,

halloo.

He did the handkerchief dance all alone.

O Desire! it is the beautiful dress

for which the proper occasion

never arises.

O the wedding cake and the good cigar!

O the souvenir ashtray!

Rape in the Engineering Building

What I saw on his face scared me—ants

on jelly; two cars ducked as he zigzagged

past the library up to the tracks

where the other students were just falling

from classes. One big man yelled,

stop him stop that man, but I thought

it was personal and got out of their

way. Finally the aproned man told us

in a high stuck voice it was rape

in the engineering building, and

the rapist was chugging farther up

the inclined edge of town into

the shadowy upright garden.

Full of thanks, we took after him.

The Blue Booby

The blue booby lives

on the bare rocks

of Galápagos

and fears nothing.

It is a simple life:

they live on fish,

and there are few predators.

Also, the males do not

make fools of themselves

chasing after the young

ladies. Rather,

they gather the blue

objects of the world

and construct from them

a nest—an occasional

Gaulois package,

a string of beads,

a piece of cloth from

a sailor’s suit. This

replaces the need for

dazzling plumage;

in fact, in the past

fifty million years

the male has grown

considerably duller,

nor can he sing well.

The female, though,

asks little of him—

the blue satisfies her

completely, has

a magical effect

on her. When she returns

from her day of

gossip and shopping,

she sees he has found her

a new shred of blue foil:

for this she rewards him

with her dark body,

the stars turn slowly

in the blue foil beside them

like the eyes of a mild savior.

The Pet Deer

The Indian Princess

in her apricot tea gown

moves through the courtyard

teasing the pet deer

as if it were her lover.

The deer, so small and

confused, slides on the marble

as it rises on its hind legs

towards her, slowly, and with

a sad, new understanding.

She does not know what

the deer dreams or desires.

Up Here

The motel was made for love

as you were. I undressed you

with grace and tenderness,

kissing each newly bared part.

There you lay, your small, white

body throbbing in my hand

like a bird. We were silent.

The right word was not needed.

Supple. What was I doing

suddenly pacing around

the bed, scratching my head,

staring down at your gaze up

at me? Recognition.

I would not call you svelte.

Your breasts were barely a hand-

ful; I like small breasts, which fit

a hand. Your thighs were a feast,

though, and, walking, now and then

I would dip down to nibble

them. They were good: wholesome.

They were the bread of life.

Now your lips are moving, now

your hands reach up at me.

I feel as if I might be one

or two thousand feet above you.

Your lips form something, a bubble,

which rises and rises into

my hand: inside it is a word:

Help. I would like to help,

believe me, but up here nothing

is possible, nothing is clear:

Help. Help me.

Prose Poem

I am surrounded by the pieces of this huge

puzzle: here’s a piece I call my wife, and

here’s an odd one I call convictions, here’s

conventions, here’s collisions, conflagrations,

congratulations. Such a puzzle this is! I

like to grease up all the pieces and pile

them in the center of the basement after

everyone else is asleep. Then I leap head-

first like a diver into the wretched confusion.

I kick like hell and strangle a few pieces,

bite them, spitting and snarling like a mongoose.

When I wake up in the morning, it’s all fixed!

My wife says she would not be caught dead at

that savage resurrection. I say she would.

Coda

Love is not worth so much;

I regret everything.

Now on our backs

in Fayetteville, Arkansas,

the stars are falling

into our cracked eyes.

With my good arm

I reach for the sky,

and let the air out of the moon.

It goes whizzing off

to shrivel and sink

in the ocean.

You cannot weep;

I cannot do anything

that once held an ounce

of meaning for us.

I cover you

with pine needles.

When morning comes,

I will build a cathedral

around our bodies.

And the crickets,

who sing with their knees,

will come there

in the night to be sad,

when they can sing no more.

The Tryst

In the early evening rain

I leave the vault

and walk into the city

of lamentations, and stand.

I think it is September, September.

Where are you, Josephine?

It is one minute until you must appear,

draped in a grass-green serape,

shorter than most people,

more beautiful, baleful …

pressing a hand to my forehead,

slipping into my famished pocket

the elixir, the silver needle.

Pity Ascending with the Fog

He had no past and he certainly

had no future. All the important

events were ending shortly before

they began. He says he told mama

earth what he would not accept: and I

keep thinking it had something to do

with her world. Nights expanding into

enormous parachutes of fire, his

eyes were little more than mercury.

Or sky-diving in the rain when there

was obviously no land beneath,

half-dead fish surfacing all over

his body. He knew all this too well.

And she who might at any time be

saying the word that would embrace all

he had let go, he let go of course.

I think the pain for him will end in

May or January, though the weather

is far too clear for me to think of

anything but august comedy.

Pride’s Crossing