In Defense of Nothing - Peter Gizzi Wesleyan Poetry Series

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walks into my side, where

      the sun sets. It’s a special light this.

      When evening takes a sip off the din

      of long endurance, becalm, be near me

      always—book. So I and I and I we go.

      Together under the elms. Won’t that be nice?

      To watch one by one all the colors

      drain out of the sky into our organs.

      SONG OF THE DEN

      The small heart

      opens out

      to meet the world

      it carries news

      of kindness

      for there is only

      this and

      these small hands

      offering

      the weather

      My street is

      not the same

      since we’ve met

      and darker

      for goodbye

      The fierce

      life is quiet

      tenacious as

      a parlor for one

      where people are

      an effort

      outside

      the walk

      to your house

      is mirrored

      at night

      out my window

      the crowded

      sky

      PERIPLUM VII (A VALENTINE)

      If I could tell you this

      or tell where this is

      or where on a given map

      this being is

      then I would give it to you

      though I will not name it

      which would not serve

      this being the unnamed force

      the absolute unnamed this

      of our experience together

      or to believe that this place

      could be made

      or if belief could make this space possible

      then I will meet you there

      live with you there

      and discover the essential experience

      of being there together

      the irreducible together

      of this being you

      being me

      articulate and lithe

      HARD AS ASH

       On September 20, 1938, Miss Newcombe, 22, combusted before a roomful of people while waltzing in a dance hall in Chelmsford, England. Blue flames erupted from her body and in a matter of minutes she was reduced to a small pile of ash.

      Some trees cannot grow without fire.

      Private catastrophes at the speed of Phaethon.

      What was X? Without faith an integer of light broke

      into cities of geometry. Define Y.

      In the desert it is all calculus. In an overcoat

      in winter, without socks I wandered into night.

      One by one all the bars fell into place.

      The day of the talking stones is

      no longer. The dreams of metamorphosis.

      The morning you woke up and for a moment forgot

      to call them “dead,” it was the morning

      of the poem. The subject is the content into

      which I step lovingly. This lapidary effect

      of all sons sets where houses invest

      the notions of “home” or “hearth” and heat

      gives even as the earth rolls over

      into night and is contained or content

      to remain itself while still breaking

      into flower or streets with cadences of wind.

      Your musics insist to inform me by

      remaining plastic. With you I will revise

      the entire possibility of twilight.

      The day is woven into images we adhere to

      only memory of light against

      a screen door ajar. Then children’s

      faces appear. A thematic see-saw,

      silhouetted now—romantic and real.

      How can we say in this hour, who

      will resolve the interplay of your countenance,

      this ellipsis, the way you come

      to me pictorially, in time, with space

      that is real. Though someone will die

      and I’ll have to wear a tie, again.

      This is only a poem to say I love you.

      I love you too. I’ve been so happy.

      Happy! These sun notes bend the porpoise

      in my eye, quiet the pony inside. You know,

      when the creek meets the little paper hats

      floating out to sea. The cabby goes past

      your stop but the bar on the corner

      wears a preternatural smile, is more

      companionable than what you call home.

      So you discover hospitality in tight pants

      where the traffic goes both ways.

      Has anyone asked you lately

      are you all right in your new homes

      and does your electric bill depress you

      when they cut your powwow?

      I was going to build you a flower.

      Then the day broke apart. Big leaves

      halved and greasy as a waxy stem revealed

      a voice I misplaced when I was a girl.

      It was summer and we were there

      and so was the phonograph

      and the missing relatives drowned

      earlier in the century during the great migration

      of sentences when words were collected

      with a winnowing fan. You should have seen it.

      I did. Then it was another day arrived

      unlike the stubble that had grown up

      before, clear and wide with a glint

      around all the small names

      belonging to the places they are keeping.

      When

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