Have you?
Good shot! With this body? I think I’m more horse than woman. Did you ever see such skin as mine? Speckled like a Guinea hen .
Only their speckles are white.
More like a toad, perhaps?
I didn’t say that.
Why not? It’s the truth, my little Oread. Indomitable. Let’s change names. You be Corydon! And I’ll play Phyllis. Young! Innocent! One can fairly hear the pelting of apples and the stomp and clatter of Pan’s hoofbeats. Tantamount to nothing .
. . . . . .
Phyllis & Paterson
Look at us! Why do you
torment yourself?
You think I’m a virgin.
Suppose I told you
I’d had intercourse. What
would you say then?
What would you say? Suppose
I told you that .
She leaned forward in
the half light, close to
his face. Tell
me, what would you say?
Have you had many lovers?
No one who has mauled me
the way you have. Look,
we’re all sweaty .
.
My father’s trying to get me a horse .
.
I went out, once, with a boy
I only knew him a short time
He asked me . .
No, I said, of course not!
He acted so surprised.
Why, he said, most girls
are crazy for it. I
thought they all were .
You ought to have seen
my eyes. I never heard
of such a thing .
.
I don’t know why I can’t give myself to you. A man like you should have everything he wants . I guess I care too much, that’s the trouble .
. . . . . .
Corydon & Phyllis
Phyllis, good morning. Could you stand a drink at this early hour? I’ve written you a poem . and the worst is, I’m about to read it to you . You don’t have to like it. But, hell take it, you damn well better listen to it. Look at me shake! Or better, let me give you a short one, to begin with:
If I am virtuous
condemn me
If my life is felicitous
condemn me
The world is
iniquitous
Mean anything?
Not much.
Well, here’s another:
You dreamy
Communist
where are you
going?
To world’s end
Via?
Chemistry
Oh oh oh oh
That will
really
be the end .
you
dreamy Communist
won’t it?
Together
together
“With that she split her girdle.” Gimme another shot. I always fell on my face when I wanted to step out. But here goes! Here it is. This is what I’ve been leading up to. It’s called, Corydon, a Pastoral. We’ll skip the first part, about the rocks and sheep, begin with the helicopter. You remember that?
. . drives the gulls up in a cloud
Um . no more woods and fields. Therefore
present, forever present
. a whirring pterodactyl
of a contrivance, to remind one of Da Vinci,
searches the Hellgate current for some corpse,
lest the gulls feed on it
and its identity and its sex, as its hopes, and its
despairs and its moles and its marks and
its teeth and its nails be no longer decipherable
and so lost .
therefore present,
forever present .
The gulls, vortices of despair, circle and give
voice to their wild responses until the thing
is gone . then, ravening, having scattered
to survive, close again upon the focus,
the bare stones, three harbor stones, except
for that . useless
unprofaned .
It stinks!
If this were rhyme, Sweetheart
such rhyme as might be made
jaws would hang open .
But the measure of it is the thing . None
can wish for an embellishment
and keep his mind lean,
fit for action .
such action as I plan
— to turn my hand up and hold
it open, to the rain .
of their deaths
that I brood . and find none ready
but mine own .
Nuts! After that, how about a story that’s a little recherché, a little strong? To hide my embarrassment? O.K.?
Sure.
Skip it.
A ring is round
but cannot bind
though it may bound
a lover’s mind
Phyllis, I think I’m quite well now . . How would you like to go fishing with me somewhere? You like to fish .
Can I bring my father?
No, you can’t bring your father. You’re a big girl now. A month with me, in the woods! I have a concession. Don’t answer at once. You’ve never been to Anticosti . ?
What’s it like, pizza?
Phyllis, you’re a bad girl. Let me go on with my poem
. . . . . .
Dear Pappy:
How yuh doin’? Are you behaving? because she wants me to go fishing with her. For a month! What do you say? You’d like that.
Is that so? Well, you know where you can get off at. And don’t think you can start coming in here. Because if you do I’ll never go home. And you haven’t stopped drinking! Don’t try to kid me.
Alright, if you think I’m in danger then learn to behave yourself. Are you a weakling or something? But I won’t go through all that again. Never. Don’t worry, as I told you, I can take care of myself. And if anything happens me, so what? Blame it on I’ve got a father who is a drunk.
Your daughter
P.
. . . . . .
Phyllis & Paterson
This dress is sweaty. I’ll have
to have it cleaned
It lifted past the shoulders.
Under it, her stockings
Big thighs .
.
Let us read, said the King
lightly. Let us
redivagate, said the Queen
even more lightly
and without batting an eye
.
He took her nipples
gently in his lips. No
I don’t like it
. . . . . .
Corydon & Phyllis
You remember where we left off? At the entrance to the 45th Street tunnel . Let’s see
. houses placarded:
Unfit for human habitation etc etc
Oh yes .
Condemned .
But who has been condemned . where the tunnel
under the river starts? Voi ch’entrate
revisited! Under ground, under rock, under river
under gulls . under the insane .
. the traffic is engulfed and disappears .
to emerge . never
A voice calling in the hubbub (Why else
are there newspapers, by the cart-load?) blaring
the news no wit shall evade, no rhyme
cover. Necessity gripping the words . scouting
evasion, that love is begrimed, befouled .
I’d like to spill the truth, on that one.
Why don’t you?
This is a POEM!
begrimed
yet lifts its head, having suffered a sea-change!
shorn of its eyes and its hair
its teeth kicked out . a bitter submersion
in darkness . a gelding, not to be
listed . to be made ready! fit to
serve (vermin trout,
that eat the salmon eggs,
gaze up through the dazzle . in glass
necklaces . picturesque peasant stuff
without value) . pulp
While in the tall
buildings (sliding up and down) is where
the money’s made
up and down
directed missiles
in the greased shafts of the tall buildings .
They stand torpid in cages, in violent motion
unmoved
but alert!
predatory minds, un-
affected
UNINCONVENIENCED
unsexed, up
and down (without wing motion) This is how
the money’s made . using such plugs.
At the
sanitary lunch hour packed woman to
woman (or man to woman, what’s the difference?)
the flesh of their faces gone
to fat or gristle, without recognizable
outline, fixed in rigors, adipose or sclerosis
expressionless, facing one another, a mould
for all faces (canned fish) this .
Move toward the back, please, and face the door!
is how the money’s made,
money’s made
pressed together
talking excitedly . of the next sandwich .
reading, from one hand, of some student, come
waterlogged to the surface following
last night’s thunderstorm . the flesh a
flesh of tears and fighting gulls .
Oh I could cry!
cry upon your young shoulder for what I know.
I feel so alone .
. . . . . .
Phyllis & Paterson
I think I’ll go on the stage,
said she, with a deprecating laugh,
Ho, ho!
Why don’t you? he replied
though the legs, I’m afraid, would
beat you .
. . . . . .
Corydon & Phyllis
. with me, Phyllis
(I’m no Simaetha) in all your native loveliness
that these spiked rumors may not tear
that sweet flesh
It sounds as tho’ I wanted to eat you, I’ll have to change that.
Come with me to Anticosti, where the salmon
lie spawning in the sun in the shallow water
I think that’s Yeats .
— and we shall fish for the salmon fish
No, I think that’s the Yeats .
— and its silver
shall be our crest and guerdon (what’s a guerdon?)
drawn struggling .
Believe me, some tussle!
from the icy water .
I wish you’d come, dear, I’ve got my yacht all stocked and ready. Let me take you on a tour . of Paradise!
That I’d like to see.
Then why not come?
I’m not ready to die yet, not even for that.
You don’t need to.
. . . . . .
Dear Pappy:
For the last time!
All day today, believe it or not, we’ve been coasting along what they call up here the North Shore on our way to the place we’re going to fish at. It sounds like an Italian dinner, Anticosti, but it’s really french.
It’s wild, they say, but we have a marvellous guide, an Indian I think but it’s not sure (maybe I’ll marry him and stay up there for the rest of my life) Anyway he speaks french and the Missis talks to him in that language. I don’t know what they’re saying (and I don’t care, I can talk my own language).
I can hardly keep my eyes open, I’ve been out almost every night this week. To go on. We have wine, mostly Champagne on board. She showed it to me, 24 cases for the party but I don’t want any of it, thanks. I’ll stick to my rum and coke. Don’t worry. Tell Ma everything’s all right. But remember, I’m through.
. . . . .
Phyllis & Paterson
Do you know that tall
dark girl with the long nose?
She’s my friend. She says
she’s going West next fall.
I’m saving every cent I
can put together. I’m going
with her. I haven’t told
my mother yet .
Why do you torment yourself? I can’t
think unless you’re naked. I wouldn’t blame
you if you beat me up, punched me,
anything at all . I wouldn’t do
you that much honor. What! what did you say?
I said I wouldn’t do you that much
honor . So that’s all?
I’m afraid so. Something I shall always
desire, you’ve seen to that. Talk to me.
This is not the time for it. Why did you let
me come? Who knows, why did you? I like
coming here, I need you. I know that .
hoping I’d take it from you, lacking
your consent. I’ve lost out, haven’t I?
You have. Pull down my slip .
He lay upon his back upon the couch.
She came, half dressed, and straddled him.
My thighs are sore from riding .
Oh let me breathe! After I’m married
you must take me out sometime. If that’s
what you want .
Corydon & Phyllis
Have any of these men
you speak of . ?
—and has he?
No.
Good.
What’s good about it?
Then you’re still a virgin
What’s it to you?
II.
You were not more than 12, my son
14 perhaps, the high school age
when we went, together,
a first for both of us,
to a lecture, in the Solarium
topping the hospital, on atomic
fission. I hoped to discover
an “interest” on your part.
You listened .
Smash the world, wide!
—if I could do it for you —
Smash the wide world .
a fetid womb, a sump!
No river! no river
but bog, a . swale
sinks into the mind or
the mind into it, a?
Norman Douglas (South Wind) said to me, The best thing a man can do for his son, when he is born, is to die .
I gave you another, bigger than yourself, to contend with.
To resume:
(What I miss, said your mother, is the poetry, the pure poem of the first parts . )
The moon was in its first quarter.
As we approached the hospital
the air above it, having taken up
the glow through the glass roof
seemed ablaze, rivalling night’s queen.
The room was packed with doctors.
How pale and young the boy seemed
among those pigs, myself
among them! who surpassed him
only in experience, that drug,
sitting erect to their talk:
valences .
For years a nurse-girl
an unhatched sun corroding
her mind, eating away a rind
of impermanences, through books
remorseless .
Curie (the movie queen) upon
the stage at the Sorbonne .
a half mile across! walking solitary
as tho’ in a forest, the silence
of a great forest (of ideas)
before the assembly (the
little Polish baby-nurse) receives
international acclaim (a
drug)
Come on up! Come up Sister and be
saved (splitting the atom of
bitterness)! And Billy Sunday evangel
and ex-rightfielder sets himself
to take one off the wall .
He’s on
the table now! Both feet, singing
( a foot song ) his feet canonized .
. as paid for
by the United Factory Owners’ Ass’n .
. to “break” the strike
and put those S.O.Bs in their places, be
Geezus, by calling them to God!
—getting his 27 Grand in the hotel room
after the last supper (at the Hamilton)
on the eve of quitting town, exhausted
in his efforts to split (a split
personality) . the plate
What an arm!
Come to Jesus! . Someone help
that old woman up the steps . Come to
Jesus and be . All together now,
give it everything you got!
Brighten
. . the corner where you
are!
Dear Doctor:
In spite of the grey secrecy of time and my own self-shuttering doubts in these youthful rainy days, I would like to make my presence in Paterson known to you, and I hope you will welcome this from me, an unknown young poet, to you, an unknown old poet, who live in the same rusty county of the world. Not only do I inscribe this missive somewhat in the style of those courteous sages of yore who recognized one another across the generations as brotherly children of the muses (whose names they well know) but also as fellow citizenly Chinamen of the same province, whose gastanks, junkyards, fens of the alley, millways, funeral parlors, river-visions—aye! the falls itself—are images white-woven in their very beards.
I went to see you once briefly two years ago (when I was 21), to interview you for a local newspaper. I wrote the story in fine and simple style, but it was hacked and changed and came out the next week as a labored joke at your expense which I assume you did not get to see. You invited me politely to return, but I did not, as I had nothing to talk about except images of cloudy light, and was not able to speak to you in your own or my own concrete terms. Which failing still hangs with me to a lesser extent, yet I feel ready to approach you once more.
As to my history: I went to Columbia on and off since 1943, working and travelling around the country and aboard ships when I was not in schools, studying English. I won a few poetry prizes there and edited the Columbia Review. I liked Van Doren most there. I worked later on the Associated Press as a copyboy, and spent most of the last year in a mental hospital; and now I am back in Paterson which is home for the first time in seven years. What I’ll do there I don’t know yet—my first move was to try and get a job on one of the newspapers here and in Passaic, but that hasn’t been successful yet.
My literary liking is Melville in Pierre and the Confidence Man, and in my own generation, one Jack Kerouac whose first book came out this year.
Paterson (Revised Edition) Page 13
