The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write

by Gregory Orr

  The giddiest ride in the world, they swear.

  When you’re high, you’re high, but where does it end?

  You take your seat and then your seat ascends

  And far below you: bright lights of the fair.

  The wheel swoops you up, swoops you down again.

  When you’re high, stars and neon blur and blend

  But don’t get off, unless you walk on air.

  When you’re high, you’re high, but it will end.

  They look so small down there, your former friends.

  Like ants or insects. Who could really care?

  But the wheel that swoops up, swoops down again,

  And when it does, when the big wheel descends,

  You’ll step off dizzy. You’ll want someone there

  When all your highest highs begin to end.

  Fortune has a zero for a heart—defend

  Against Her, whose wheel is noose and snare.

  It swoops you up to swoop you down again.

  It takes you high, but all highs have their end.

  Dark Proverbs for Dark Times

  In the dark times

  Will there also be singing?

  Yes, there will also be singing.

  About the dark times.

  BERTOLT BRECHT

  The smart hide their claws

  In their paws,

  Then add fur for allure.

  Combining smiles and wiles

  And calling it “style.”

  *

  Dark and deep?

  A dangerous creep.

  *

  A corporation is a person

  And has certain rights.

  A crow is a cow

  And gives milk at night.

  *

  A sword may

  Have a point,

  But a needle

  Is sharper

  And cleaner.

  Less mess;

  Less evidence.

  *

  Does a man with a bow

  Deserve a bow?

  Only if he also has arrows.

  *

  Deep pools lure fools.

  Shallows attract rascals.

  *

  Blood and tears

  Grease history’s gears.

  *

  Minds are deeper

  Than mines.

  And twice as dark.

  *

  Those with towers favor power.

  *

  A good journey calls

  For survive

  As well as arrive.

  Stay alert: sharks

  Don’t bark;

  Nor do bears share.

  When demons

  Appear, be aware,

  But don’t stare.

  *

  Verifiable perils:

  Who lives must lie.

  Too many, and you die.

  *

  Remember: every fist

  Began as an open hand.

  Even a bridge is a ledge

  If you stray to its edge.

  *

  All atrocities

  Breed

  Reciprocity:

  Every murder

  Leads to further.

  *

  Those who praise rage

  Should be made

  To visit more graves.

  Skulls annul.

  All knives should be dull.

  *

  None have done wrong

  Who still have a tongue.

  Even Cain can explain.

  I Don’t Really Care, Do You?

  I don’t really breathe,

  Do you?

  I don’t really

  Think. Do you?

  I don’t

  Actually wake up

  In the morning

  And open my eyes. Do you?

  Do you really?

  How interesting.

  Perhaps you’ve seen

  What’s happening.

  I really don’t care. Do you?

  Maybe you could do

  Something about it—

  Turn the stars inside out,

  Raise the sea level

  Another inch next week

  (in this real-time repeat,

  God’s flood is too slow,

  as if He was trying to give us

  time to think).

  Or why not

  Raise the dead?

  That hasn’t

  Been done for a while.

  (I don’t really care. Do you?)

  You could begin with the dead

  Who bled in the street,

  And then move on to those

  Whose deaths were less obvious,

  Whose lives leaked out

  Invisibly while they were asleep.

  So many of them—

  It would be hard work:

  Dead in the brain, dead in the heart.

  It’s just an idea—somewhere to start.

  Charlottesville Elegy

  There’s a single eye that hovers

  Above this city, hovers

  By day and by night.

  You might assume

  It’s the sun or the moon,

  But I’ve lived here

  Forty years

  And never seen it before.

  It isn’t the bitter eye

  Of racism, which haunts

  Alleys and grocery aisles;

  Nor the icy eye of privilege—

  I’ve seen that many times,

  Shining above the university

  Or gazing down

  On Farmington’s lawns,

  Groomed

  Smoother than golf greens.

  It’s not the Internet’s eye,

  That can’t sleep

  For the fever dreams

  It breeds.

  Not the secret eye

  Of the pine’s cut stump;

  Nor the eye of the poor

  That has seen it all.

  It’s not the black eye

  Of notoriety,

  Nor the blue one of denial.

  It’s not the State’s blank eye,

  Made of papier-mâché,

  Nor the eye of the police

  That was looking the other way.

  It’s not the eye of violence

  That would strike

  Lightning if it could;

  Nor the eye of love

  That sees, but doesn’t judge.

  Neither is it Jefferson’s eye,

  Inert in bronze repose;

  Nor that of Sally Hemings,

  Startled even in eternity.

  (It’s certainly not

  God’s eye—

  that turned away eons ago.)

  It’s not the eye of witness,

  That winced;

  Nor the eye of grief

  That wept briefly,

  Then resumed its journey

  Through

  This ruthless world.

  Undeceived, unassuageable eye;

  Remorseless eye—

  It’s come to remind our city

  Of a proverb

  Older than the Pyramids:

  If you’ve closed one eye to evil,

  You’d better not blink.

  Hector Bidding Wife and Child a Last Good-bye

  Soon enough, the gods will keep their nasty

  Promise and Achilles’ spear will pierce

  His chest. But now, for all its scars

  And imperfections, his body is still whole

  Beneath his wife’s caress.

  It rests

  On the floor—his helmet plumed

  With a horsehair crest that, in battle,

  Shakes wildly and makes him appear

  Taller and more fierce than he really is.

  Only a moment ago, as he took it off,

  It scared his young son,

  Who cried in terror

  And ran from the room, never to see him again.

  Downtown Tour

  Here
’s our park: civic

  Cathedral of trees,

  Green floor where

  Pagan congregations

  Sprawl.

  Tucked

  In a corner (shabby

  chapel dedicated

  to the god of war):

  A bronze colonel

  On horseback, pointing

  East with his sword

  (pity those who

  followed him—

  they ended up in the sea).

  Best, the old Greeks

  Said, never

  To be born at all.

  I’d say: Next best

  Is to lie low

  With someone

  You love

  On a spot like this:

  A raft of grass

  Smaller

  Than the smallest

  Battlefield,

  Bigger than

  The biggest mattress.

  Lyric Revises the World

  According to some, an army

  Marching or cavalry charging,

  Or a raiding fleet under sail,

  Is the loveliest sight

  On this black earth, but I say:

  Whatever one loves most is beautiful . . .

  SAPPHO (FROM FRAGMENT 16)

  Sappho, you started it all off

  With your pithy remark:

  “Whatever one loves most

  is beautiful.”

  Until you

  Spoke up, who knew

  The personal

  And passionate heart

  Was what created value?

  Who knew we each

  Had power

  To say what mattered?

  All around you, the guys

  Jabbered on and on

  About how awesome

  Marching armies are,

  How their hearts fluttered

  When the cavalry charged.

  But you had the nerve

  To disagree

  And insist on details

  Both tender and specific—

  What William Blake

  Would later

  Call the “minute particulars.”

  Not for you, those things

  Hugely violent

  That shook the earth

  And only existed to hurt,

  But rather what was intimate,

  Personal, scaled to the human:

  Your daughter Kleis, “golden

  as a flower,”

  Or Anactoria, your lover—

  The way her hips

  Moved when she walked, her smile.

  Ode to These Socks

  Here I am sitting on the porch

  Of my cottage

  Wearing a pair

  Of bright new socks

  That you might think

  You recognize

  From Pablo Neruda’s ode,

  But these are a pair

  I bought myself

  So my feet could be

  Warm on a cool

  May morning like this.

  The socks aren’t cool at all,

  But “hot,” with swirling

  Bands of red and blue

  Like a psychedelic

  Barber pole except

  There is no white

  And so no irony about

  The American flag,

  Although

  They were probably

  Knitted by some

  Poor son of a bitch

  On a huge machine in China—

  A former peasant

  Who now works

  A fifteen-hour shift

  And sleeps in a small room

  In the factory dormitory

  With ten others who don’t

  Even speak his dialect—

  And all for pennies a day

  And a thousand miles

  From his mountain home,

  While I sit here in Virginia

  And pull on these bright socks

  Against the late May chill.

  Nor is my ode about

  Imperialist guilt

  Or even its dark twin—

  The global economy—

  Because after all, they

  Will win soon, and someday

  His descendants

  Will feel they rule

  This foolish and suffering world.

  So I’m guessing the moral

  Of my ode has more to do

  With the mystery

  Of it all:

  How being alive

  Is probably the best

  That most of us

  Can accomplish,

  Though gratitude

  For what we’ve received

  Is the least we can feel,

  Not to mention compassion

  For those

  Who suffer endlessly,

  And may never get a glimpse

  Or wink of joy.

  And my luck

  Seems double luck

  Because it’s so gratuitous,

  Because I never did a thing

  To earn it, and yet

  It’s come to me, as has

  This morning

  With its early light slanting

  Through the maple trees

  Alive with birdcalls

  And me looking out

  On the innocent day

  With the eyes I was given for free.

  Coleridge and Me

  Old now, nearer my own last

  Poem, I think of Coleridge:

  How much he left unfinished.

  There he was: a young man

  Stoned on opium, glimpsing

  That imaginary garden

  For the first time . . .

  Even then,

  He was beginning to suffer

  Agonies of procrastination

  That would shadow all his days.

  He believed in a Christian heaven.

  I don’t. I prefer Paradise,

  Which comes from a Persian word

  For “walled garden”—

  A green and fountained place

  In a world that’s mostly bleak

  (and which works for me

  as one good definition of poetry).

  I hope Coleridge is there, safe

  From the hell of this world

  Or any other.

  And I hope

  Somehow it’s been completed

  And he lives inside it:

  That stately pleasure dome

  He and Kubla Khan

  Began, so many years ago.

  Emily Dickinson Test-Drives the First Home Sewing Machine

  Rain thrums a tattoo

  On her window, the same

  Excruciating pattern

  Her needle dots into fabric.

  Emily’s bent over the Singer,

  Pumping the treadle

  For all she’s worth

  And look what emerges:

  A white dress stitched

  With black, zigzag

  Lightning seams of language

  And fitful bits of rhyme

  On cloth thin as tissue,

  Thin as skin.

  She’s

  Making another bridal

  Shroud, another festive

  Gown to be packed away

  In the attic, that grave

  That hovers above us.

  Road-dust on her window

  (stuff someone’s journeying

  horse and buggy churned up)

  Mingles now with the rain

  To form soft rivulets.

  It’s thus the dust dissolves

  And when the sun comes again,

  Her mystery’s intact, her pane

  Shines bright and blinding

  To all our prying eyes.

  Into a thousand pieces?

  Into a thousand pieces?

  Must this rending

  Really precede mending?

  Scattered everywhere?

  Some, lost in the dark,

  As if never

 
To be found again?

  Maybe life’s trying

  To tell me

  My heart

  Was too small.

  Now I start to regather,

  And when I’m done

  Maybe it will be larger—

  A thousand and one.

  Some phrases move . . .

  Some phrases move

  Slow as a worm,

  Chewing

  A tunnel

  Through dirt.

  Others, swift as a bird.

  Always, it’s the beloved

  They’re seeking.

  She could be hiding

  Above;

  He could be

  Buried below.

  Sorrow-songs, trying

  Their best

  To digest

  The thick dark.

  Songs of joy—

  Whizzing past

  So fast, they’re

  Gone before we notice.

  Ode to Left-Handedness

  I sat at my kindergarten desk,

  Surrounded by others,

  Either cheerful

  Or bored, who were

  Cutting

  The requisite circles

  With ease,

  Or slicing down

  Straight, penciled lines

  As the teacher directed.

  I did my dutiful best,

  But the scissors

  Hurt my fingers

  In a minor,

  Distracting way,