Fifty Contemporary Writers

by Bradford Morrow

  Steps as silent as those songs

  Along the cratered dark

  Where Jews do Jewish things

  No one pretends to understand

  Or are they pilgrims on this night

  When the fear and the hum are one?

  WON’T YOU GIVE UP THIS POEM TO SOMEONE WHO NEEDS IT?

  Remember what I told you about purgatory?

  Limbo? How all that’s happening now is just

  this waiting around till the big cheese makes up

  her mind about you? She makes you the way

  you are and then decides if it panned out; for

  every ten half-baked cookies there’s a gem

  &, you know, just maybe you’re one of those.

  Then there’s those take her name in vain—

  whaddya call them?, the religious moralists;

  she don’t much cotton to them, not when

  they try to take away a woman’s right to choose

  or bad-mouth folks almost as queer as she is.

  Well, everyone makes mistakes. That’s what

  purgatory’s for. Sometimes it happens that

  while you wait you see what’s what—start

  accepting you’re in a long queue for God

  only knows what. And neither of you has

  any idea what the hell the matter is or what

  to do about it.

  Contact

  Paul La Farge

  J. ALWAYS KNEW THAT they were coming, had always known it, even before the band days, only he had always thought they were coming for him. When they came then, when they actually came, and it turned out that they were here for more or less anyone but him, J. took it hard. He stayed drunk a long time and when he was not drunk anymore, he took the bus to Detroit, which was the last place he could remember having seen anyone from the band. J. didn’t know just what he hoped to find; the trails that led away from that last gig were fifteen years cold, but he didn’t know what else to do or where to begin doing it. And in fact, in a saloon on Upper Michigan Avenue, not far from the place where they’d played that gig, which was gone now, along with so many other things, he found, propped against a sunny wall by the plate-glass window, a person who could have been the drummer, M., fifteen years later. He couldn’t be sure it was him. M. had been small and lithe and clean-cut, had had a thing, actually, about hair, and would, from time to time, if J. remembered right, actually tweeze out his own body hairs, or cover his chest with masking tape and r-r-rip, that had happened once, J. thought. This person was the right height but shaggy, unshaven, mustached, bellied. It could have been him. J.’s memory was not all that it had once been. There had been some difficult years. J. got a beer from the barman and sat at a table by the window, facing the stranger who might have been M. He lifted his glass. The stranger lifted his glass.—Hell of a time, said J. The stranger grunted. He gave J. a familiar look. His eyes were blue, unexpectedly. Not eyes that went with the rest of him. Had M.’s eyes been blue? The thing was, in those days, the band days, they all wore enormous glasses, and it was hard to tell much about them. Especially as they did not take the glasses off, not even, some of them, to sleep. Those had been enormous days.—Didn’t think I’d live to see the goddamn aliens come, J. said. The stranger nodded, or seemed to nod. He might be a junkie, J. thought. M., the drummer, had definitely had that problem, among others. J. looked at the stranger’s arms. It wasn’t possible to tell, at this distance.—What’s your name, friend? J. asked.—Michael, said the stranger. That was not M. the drummer’s name, J. was pretty sure. Not the name he was born with. They had all changed names, sometimes they changed names around, so that J. became M., and M. became L., the bassist, and L. became … it made you dizzy even to think about. And it was amazing that they had managed to keep track of who was who, although mostly that kind of accounting wasn’t necessary. They only had to know which instruments to play and sometimes not even that. They had gone on without instruments.—I’m Jay, J. said. Like jaywalking, or a jaybird. An introduction that he hoped did not sound too friendly, just in case the stranger was really just a stranger. God, it was hard to tell, with people, what you were doing. It had always been hard to tell. Even before band days, in the little bright past that J. kept somehow out of the general murk, it had been hard to tell; there were people like his stepmother who were good to you one day but the next were suggesting that you’d be better off in prison, or trying to keep you from taking any food. Don’t touch that! she said. It’s not for you! But later when J. went to the icebox and helped himself to it, and ate it in front of her, she didn’t say anything. The stranger didn’t say anything. He did look about the right age, though, and the sun got through the thin hair on top of his head, and lit up a golden arc of scalp.—Have we met before? J. asked. I’m thinking, I might know you already.—Live in Detroit? asked the stranger, Michael.—Not really, J. said. I just came here on the bus.—I been here fifteen years, Michael said. I guess I probably don’t know you.—What do you do? J. asked.—Do? Michael said vaguely. You know, I get a check, every month. This was J.’s situation also. Actually two checks. One from the government, because he had taken the trouble to fill out some forms, to keep some appointments, to be certified, disabled, on account mostly of his back. The other from a record label he had never heard of. They had reissued one of the albums. Every time it sold J. got forty cents. Strange times. The music on compact disc, in stores J. didn’t ever visit, because they pissed him off. Then the aliens coming. No connection, doubtless, probably.—That’s a good life, J. said. Michael shrugged.—Were you ever in the music business? J. asked.—That’s a strange question, Michael said. Not particularly. That’s a strange answer, J. thought. What would it mean to be particularly in the music business? His glass was empty. Of course they hadn’t thought of themselves as being in the business, or, really, as making music. They were making contact. Not with other worlds, at least, not at first. Just with people. J. remembered a long conversation he had had with someone, possibly M. the drummer, about how this was supposed to work. Our sound is like a plant, growing out into the room, that’s why it’s slow, man, J. had said. This must have been with a reporter. It was the answer to the kind of question only a reporter would have asked.—Plants take time. Contact takes time. We’re growing outward, toward you. He reached his hands out to this reporter, who shrank back, the twit. That was in the middle period, when they played music. Afterward they would give up the instruments. Then the last concert, in Detroit. Then: dissolution. Now, aliens. Finally. Aliens.—I played a show here once, J. said. Why did he sound so wrong when he spoke? Played a show. They had made an attempt here was what they did. They had taken on a responsibility. To call it anything else was to belittle it. Even if what they did was run around in those glasses and not much else, and try to speak in the language that had occurred to them, the language of contact.—Is that so? Michael asked. Would that have been recently?—About fifteen years ago, J. said, leaning forward to catch if there was a response.—Might have seen it then, said Michael. I used to go out for a lot of music.—Might have seen it, man, you might have been in it, J. said. There, now he’d know. But Michael just shrugged.—Might have, he said. I did a lot of crazy things. Got up on stage, sometimes, probably. Now it was J.’s turn to doubt. Had the show been in Detroit? Had it even been J. playing? Maybe he was one of the people who climbed upon the stage, just a person in the crowd. It had seemed real but his memory was fucked. And real in those days meant something different, more like, real to you. That was how it had all been possible. Because they got away from what was just real. So, J. thought, let’s just say that this is M.—Can I get you a drink? he asked.—I guess so, said Michael.—You’re not a faggot, are you?—Not particularly, J. said, turning back just long enough to say it as he walked to the bar. And he hoped it stung.

  A Bit of Nocturnal History

  Lyn Hejinian

  A straight rain is rare and doors have suspicions

  and I hold
that names begin histories

  and that the last century was a cruel one. I am pretending

  to be a truck in Mexico. I am a woman with a long neck and a good burden

  and I waddle efficiently. Activity never sleeps and no tale of crumbling cliffs

  can be a short one. I have to shift weight favorably. Happiness

  can’t be settled. I brush my left knee twice, my right once,

  my left twice again and in that way advance. The alphabet

  and the cello can represent horses but I can only pretend

  to be a dog slurping pudding. After the 55 minutes it takes to finish

  my legs tremble. All is forgiven. Yesterday is going the way of tomorrow

  indirectly and the heat of the sun is inadequate at this depth. I see

  the moon. The verbs ought and can lack infinity and somewhere

  between 1957 when the heat of the dry sun struck me

  like an erotic secret and now when my secrets erupt in the ecstasy

  of cold rains and night winds a lot has happened. Long phrases

  are made up of short phrases that bear everything “in vain” “all in fun”

  “for your sake” and “step by step” precisely, I can only spring slowly.

  *

  It is the 73rd night of 1873, the year in which cowboys all wear baby blue hats and long baby blue coats to match. Some cowboys come galloping toward me over the horizon like bits of leaping, dust-raising embodied sky. They are as free of the sky as they are of the false idea of them we’ve received from old black-and-white photos. Their freedom is greater than what occurs during free association. Their freedom surpasses everything that occurs during a flirtation. The cloud of baby blue riders sweeps past me and they “pay me no mind,” their freedom is greater than my rosy longings and yearnings and ochre desires, which are less great than my rising sense of failure, or remorse, of spreading shame. The cowboys recede.

  *

  For the Timtarians oppressed by the Planch, the claims of the dissident Planch intellectuals are unconvincing. “Where was your magnanimity,” asks a dark Timtarian named Gus, “when our poor marched into your cornfields?”

  Dissidence, when it has entered historical memory, can only be represented by fragility and mournfulness.

  The Planch plutocracy will in the end be brought down by fragility and mournfulness.

  *

  the sky gaily nods

  … eggs

  to yield!

  naked

  overjoying indifference

  its honors hairs

  anywhere

  the assassin feathers

  eight minutes

  after an instant’s hesitation

  *

  I insist that I didn’t say “political club” but “political run.” We wanted to address all of those little irritations that distract one just at the moment the sunset is the most beautiful.

  I believe that there has never been a historical moment more in need of lawns and gardens for the little ones to run around in after fighting both ideologically and practically against CEOs than this. The lives of the little ones are in a state of transition but they shouldn’t be thrown into a state of upheaval.

  Transition is fun, after all, though little ones need reassurance during it.

  And, of course, one can’t accomplish it in a single burst—that would upset the little ones. And, by the way, it’s not something that will make you rich.

  Probably you yourself have experienced moments in which a disjuncture between your professional persona (dignified, knowledgeable, experienced) and your persona as a granny (crawling around on the floor honking, pretending to be either a goose or a truck) seems suddenly terrifying to the little ones.

  Then one day you’ll gallop off, crossing a border from which there is no return.

  You’ll lose your personality—you’ll no longer be vain, demanding, deeply insecure, vividly charismatic, and wonderfully intelligent.

  *

  Along comes someone down the street ranting about some “world parrot” and raising her arms as if raising arms to aim and shoot so realistically that she is spun completely around by the imaginary rifle’s imaginary recoil and she

  staggers out of view

  She hasn’t reappeared except in my imagination and that can’t be represented visually to others so she can’t be represented and we will never know how she got to that street at that moment since she wasn’t needed even though her being useful was not impossible

  And much the same can be said of the bulk of things to be found

  *

  synonymous

  … of vegetable

  thinginess everywhere—clutter!

  with vegetables!

  surroundings

  in a vision

  and that explains …

  but what kind?

  and would another mind have …

  with fish fault thought the what be out mind

  free

  spoon halt cups

  bang in space pink

  and hating pink

  lacking pink

  *

  Some people insist on exercising the sincerity of their intentions

  No sunglasses

  I cannot produce any more posterity than my grandparents could and they will not begin to understand

  In the course of a beautiful allegory a coursing god kills a child

  Children return but only if their deaths are individually acknowledged

  Deaths occur in a milieu without laws or so we think, finding them scattered unequally throughout the world

  We have never yet remained all the way through the sequence of vignettes that’s said to be their original

  One death alone is enough to turn one’s brain—we twist our imagination to the maximum

  We are forced to cry stop but the horse trots on

  *

  The spoons have clattered

  Aren’t children little pears and observant birds

  I note that the green blanket is askew again briefly

  I have flung my sweater over the banister again

  The corn cockle is beautiful

  For months I’ve owed someone I’ll call Amy Rossini a letter and tomorrow I’ll write it but I can’t explain

  There was of course the matter of the curious descent into a mine and the terrible ascent of children hauling ore out of context

  Brevity is not child’s play though child’s play is brief but over a long period of time

  Today a man in a green leather hat advised me to sink my shovel

  If I were to write a letter to Knut Handekker now he wouldn’t remember who I was which in any case is not who I continue to be

  Tchaikovsky died when he was 53

  We’ll celebrate my birthday wearing hats in May at the beach

  Taking the espresso I say gracias

  The house in which I toss is known by its address but it might have been named Credulity and called a film

  Believe me

  Long ago I was once in Seville in a blue dress that could be washed and dried in less than an hour

  I want to speak of revolutions in beauty but I hear hordes counting down to midnight

  The tales I used to tell myself no longer do

  None of this is true

  *

  My stomach is important.

  If I tell you that I am nagged by worry at night and suffer from stomach pains as a result, it is something you should remember because later people may ask you about me.

  Because I’m a boa constrictor.

  *

  Sun!

  look ups

  *

  The picture appears suddenly in its entirety

  It begins nowhere, and I’m faced with it

  I’m against the wall opposite it facing an audience and replying to the many objections that the audience is lodging against existentialism

  The picture raises no such objections, being ridiculous in
its own right

  It is there by virtue of a mere fluke with silent placidity

  The picture is of a cow then?

  I have to turn away

  A cow?

  Then?

  There’s a cow on a board?

  Board, certainly, but no cow, and we term that a picture?

  That it’s of a cow rather than a battle is not a disappointment.

  I never see cows in order

  I neglect to do battle willingly out of cowardice

  I’m avaricious, I want the picture

  I would settle for a picture of the picture

  *

  Song giving way again

  Every little narrative henceforth is in particular scientific

  True, today the traveler goes from place to place at very high speeds

  In braids (nice touch)

  Given the requisite two weeks’ notice but fired all the same: like a servant!

  Man in the Moon

  Stephen O’Connor

  YOU STAY AWAY FROM them, Mama said. They don’t like you. You’ve got your big head friends at the school. That’s enough. You just stay here.

  Mama didn’t know anything.

  You got a big head, the girl said.

  No I don’t.

  Yes you do. It’s gigantic.

  No it’s not. It’s exactly the right size.

  Your head is so gigantic, if it wasn’t attached to your body it would float away. You better be careful, or somebody’s going to tie a string to your head and give it to a little kid to carry.

  My head is exactly the right size to be my head.

  The girl just squinched up her eye and looked at me. After a while she gave her head a shake like she was so, so sorry. Then she said, Don’t you have any brains at all? You got all that head and no brains inside?

  That’s what they told us at the Big Head School: your head’s exactly the right size to be your head. There’s no such thing as a normal head, they said. Don’t let anybody tell you different.

  They were all big heads at the Big Head School. The only little head there was Alf. And his head was so little it was more like an elbow. Golf-ball little. They made him do all the stupid work. With the toilet brush and the litter stick.