D A V I D   N E E D
__________________________________________________________

TWO SEQUENCES

 

 

You

I

“Oh, you are angry,” she said,
           so he said, “Is that enough of
a word for this menstrual
          sediment webbed by ligaments?” or

“I would have to begin counting species of snails
          to begin to say it.
It is not that I am evasive, but that
          the days are so many

back over my shoulder…”
          And she said, “Oh, you are sad.”
But he went past, “No, It's that something
          like the stars

looks at you from all directions.
          Feeling that involves explaining
a conjunction of ridges

a confusion of the north/south line
          of continental weather.
Sometimes this makes a shelter

where laurels catch a bit of sun

other times it means it never rains.

II

“So”, she said, “you're sad”
          and he's like, “Is it proper
to call a thing that lasts decades
          something like sad?

I am thinking ‘sad' is like
          a late afternoon, or
perhaps a few weeks of travel
          at best a moon,

because after that, sad starts
          to face a little into the weather.
I don't move fast enough.

The dust settles where
          it's not disturbed for years,
a dead fly lies on the sill.

 

III

So, she said, “you're always
          talking about the clouds
and berries, and other seasonal dimensions--
          is that a masculine kind of thing?

‘Cause I was looking for
          a more immediate exchange,
something with sun and gingham
          and flashing legs

But he goes,
          “somehow what I learned from breathing
demands that I be this slower

flower.
          Do you see? Years later
It's opened a little more.”

 

IV

But, she said, “you are angry”
          So, he counters, “Does being at stake
constitute a threat? Wouldn't we want
          a word for that too?

Something different than “metal pail”
          and “black cat”
in the paint box? If being immediate
          were really an escape

why would we remember the past?”
          So, she says, “You dreamer, you
out of time boy.

Don't write me no more poems, no.”
           So he says, “Do you want to know me
or what?”

 

V

So, she says, “Tell me this:
          Aren't you hidden by the whole sky
The same as sitting under a tree?
          I like to lay in rivers too.

All along the banks there's
          bunches of flowers and cities' refuse
You want to ride the wave
          without letting go of the wreck.

That's a good thing, but it makes your arms long.
          The body only gives so much,
so you have to take it.”

He looks off, “I can almost see what you mean,
          but what's happening over here
doesn't seem like that."

 

VI

"This long slumbering thing you say you are feeling,
          this insistence on saying snow winter straw flax field sky--
its sweet, but perhaps too brown. What I like best about Wyeth
          are the blues. He was a slow field too,

but also a cornflower door and lace. These things made
          it possible to sit in the kitchen with him."
He was looking away while she said this
          wondering, "Is it just that I focus too much

on one element? Fire for a long time
          and then water. Then fire. I am trying
to pull my way along a string.

I am not sure if it is a "D" or a "G"
          I am hoping that somewhere at the end
there's a splash."

 

VII

Then he noticed her and said,
          Oh, you're angry. So, she says
"Ventriloquism is not a solution.
          What you think is a light under the door

has been under the stairs a long time;
          no one's there but your arm or
perhaps that place under your shoulder
          where the dam burst last year.

Besides since I am at least double
          I am simply in a brief exposure
between frames. Not really angry

but getting stuck.
          The images you think are feeling
leak only a little.

 

VIII

Then, he says, "So you are angry. See?
          It is the same kind of stringing out
along the fence as me, this careful walking
          a thin pursed—the example set by

the horizon makes looking past
          your lips and face more difficult. Somewhere
out beyond the earth's curve, perhaps there's
          a pure feeling, but the sunrise

is so much larger.
          Seeing the tawny cattle lowing near the creek
and the infinite details of wind and grass,

I'd rather say that.
          Then, on my hands and knees,
the count gets lost.

IX

She says, "When you talk this way about breath,
          I wish you were Daphne.
then perhaps you would understand
          what it means to share a world.

You could look at day and night a long time
          without understanding I will
never arise. The sky and sun are
          raptures that fall over your face

like a mother's hair. In the morning
          when you go to the window
all you see is a prisim'd display."

And he says, "Do you know what you
          are looking for?" And she:
"Always".

 

X

So then you say, "So you're angry",
          and I say, "You got me, tell me
What you want? I'll be your wash,
          something that stands in the closet twenty years.

Let me be the first to throw a stone.
          Please, before you say another word--
See? I have already become wood
          an Alaskan dancing bear souvenir

that stands beside his reading chair.
          Or let me recite my journals for years
like an apple tree. I'll just sit there

and go through this thing over and over.
          Meanwhile its Sunday, when you two fuck
And we all have to be quiet."

XI

So she says, "Doesn't that go without saying?"
          And you say, "No, that is precisely what cannot happen.
If anything it must be said as if you were pulling
          A long string of boats from my mouth.”

Someone always needs saving.
          You think because you've become a tree
The story ends--a great ironwood slumbering through summers,
          shrieking. I say there's the river bed

and the water moving.
          Long ago the reflections of the branches
became ink stains,

the branches became clouds.
          It all moved off
or was said different on the page.

 

XII

"Whatcha doin'?" you say. So I say,
          "Making a spell about anger.
But it's going slow,
          the olives spilled on the table

and then my arm got wintery
          or the room was digesting.
It wasn't working. He wouldn't talk
          to her, and you were reading

in the other room.”
          So you said, "Maybe
You could just spell it wrong,

Like angle or antler
          or grand. See if that
does the trick."

XIII

So, she said, "Perhaps something other.
          A sado-masachistic dialectic
has only temporary results. That's fine
          when a tourniquet's needed,

but then what do you do with the leg?
          For a long time it's as if it were a mountain.
There are laurels, but the lake's are too much like steel,
          and she keeps visiting your dreams anyway.

Besides, what's the mythic resolution?
          For Narcissus, at least there's a flower,
but after Dionysus is ripped limb from limb

all that's left is asphalt—pressed ashes,
          that would otherwise
fly in the wind.

I mean it.”

 

XIV

"You still want to identify with him",
          she said, "you'd climb right up onto the painting
instead of lifting the tapestry.
          It's just a veil. She wears lots of veils.

Sometimes it's a Botticelli boy,
          other times it's oak leaves;
you are a lake sky in which her face is traced,
          but then

where does the weather enter the picture?
          Even if you go back to the last place it made sense--
by the autumn-yellow locust in Ohio—

even if you made a temple there
          by the sandbox,
the clotheslines would still block your view.

XV

“So, are you angry?” he asks, and she says,
          “No, I am a folded piece of paper in your pocket,
a grocery list you'd been given,
          some set of directions.

When the skin is used
          as a map, it is difficult for it
to bloom. You didn't notice--last night
          under the covers, “La Jete”

played across my back.
          You could have sat up and watched,
but instead dreamt as usual

of bears. One was eating his way
          through a large pile of dried shit;
another was crushing your sister

in his arms.
          The front yard was never again the same.

 

XVI

So you say, “That's a pretty fetish there.
          Does it work like a homing chip
or is it more like a puddle
          that reflects buildings and sky?

There was a party at a painter's loft last night
          but you missed the clues.
You were packing a suitcase instead
          And kept circling the room.

Sometimes grace reaches into closed spaces,
          but don't stake love
on good luck.

Stones fall out of pockets,
          bears disappear from your bed at night.
Then you have to wonder.”

XVII

So you say, “Frost said the road divided,
          and one way is chosen—that's the difference”,
but when we talk it's more that
          a path becomes buried or becomes sky.

Two possible roads arrived in the wood,
          but after awhile, we were only walking along one;
even if you left a trail of crumbs the other way,
          the birds would come—we'd never find it again

what was possible is now parallel,
          abstract, a road into tangled skies
no holding hands…

nothing we say to each other now
          can change
what's become opaque.

 

XVIII

So, if I am bound to this world by fetishes
          small knotted strings,
if memories are teeth
          patches of cloth/desire's skin

weaving the lost paths
          when I try to say “anger”
into a spell …”
          “You just want to be seen,

she says, “so you've tried to turn your body
          into a baroque painting--
you talk about fetishes,

I say the knots are what holds
          the veil up so that it seems
like Christo's Central Park.

XIX

“When you try to become one thing,
          like the weather, or the length
of a continent, all the while there's another alongside
          and, if you are honest,

it needs to be said too.
          Beyond that there may be a third—
For the most part you imagine she is what's been
          shadowing you,

your lover, or familiar,
          but you are not even close
because its not you

who's your twin--
          a horizon stretches
through everything.”

 

XX

“So I just want to say a painting.”
          “Yes, a big one, you could hang
on Manhattan.” “And something is beyond
          that's not echo?”

“She has her own problems.”
          “And Sartre's wrong?”
“There's no isolation.
          In the womb, she swam

a few inches away
          and a whole different light
filtered down.”

“I wasn't angry at her.”
          “She wasn't in your way.”
“Sometimes there was even

a dance.”

XXI

“When they speak of transcendence, of the
          illuminations that fall where a depth occurs,
in terms of transoms or the opening of an eye
          what they mean, badly,

is this sort of neighboring; even the sky
          stretches out alongside us—
this is what is meant by Adam's rib,
          that each breath

is a splitting, the body's integrity torn,
          because beyond the ragged
lost fray of the quilt

she was also writing
          the wind full of pears
and hungers.”

 

XXII

The light falls across the field.
          Black meadowlarks are a sudden shout--
not from beyond--
          the trickles of water and smooth

beige pebbles and yellow-red
          leakage across --
therefore windows and transoms,
          light welling up
         
so the stick short body
          is a stick short, a lot
cast not dream.

I am going to turn this mirror around--
          and lay it on my chest face down
(later I may let go

of this angel armor

spelled dark lady)

and look at last at the passing sky.

 

XXIII

Not transcendence as above
          (the brother's arm falls across
teeth­—horizon and tongue
          and where gothic walls seem

to mark the invisible upwards to clouds
          the magician hands star us—
this is the claim any tremendous chasm makes
          —that we prefer the veil

to what is finally form
          but such form
that space is

shaken
          and leaks light
and opens

stairs
          inside the roof.

 

 

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