THE CHAIR
Copyright © 2014 by Richard Garcia
All rights reserved
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First Edition
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Publications by BOA Editions, Ltd.—a not-for-profit corporation under section 501 (c) (3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code—are made possible with funds from a variety of sources, including public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; the Literature Program of the National Endowment for the Arts; the County of Monroe, NY; the Lannan Foundation for support of the Lannan Translations Selection Series; the Mary S. Mulligan Charitable Trust; the Rochester Area Community Foundation; the Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester; the Steeple-Jack Fund; the Ames-Amzalak Memorial Trust in memory of Henry Ames, Semon Amzalak and Dan Amzalak; and contributions from many individuals nationwide. See Colophon on page 94 for special individual acknowledgments.
Cover Design: Sandy Knight
Interior Design and Composition: Richard Foerster
Manufacturing: McNaughton & Gunn
BOA Logo: Mirko
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Garcia, Richard, 1941–
[Poems. Selections]
The chair : prose poems / by Richard Garcia. — First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-938160-44-8 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-938160-45-5 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS3557.A71122A6 2014
811'.54—dc23
2014004779
BOA Editions, Ltd.
250 North Goodman Street, Suite 306
Rochester, NY 14607
www.boaeditions.org
A. Poulin, Jr., Founder (1938–1996)
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Matchbook
A Portrait of My Childhood Painted by Goya
Day at the Beach, 1958
The Unstucks at the Gates of the Desert Folly Garden
The History of Umbrellas
The History of White Anklets
The History of the Minstrel Show
Little Known Fact Number One
Little Known Fact Number Two
Little Known Fact Number Three
The Religious Brain
His Last Night
My Angry Mob
My Fog
Helen’s Birthday
Susan
Christina
Miss C.C.
October
November First
Former Lovers
Footsteps
The Masked One
Sappho
The Poker-Playing Dog Poetry Workshop
The Poetry Lesson
The Expert
Useful Phrases for Business Letters: Example One
The Typewriter of Transcendence
The Pencil of Transubstantiation
The iPod of Pithy
Page
History
Gotta Have
Tripod
Little Sister
The Drummers
The Mysterious
The Mysterious Brassiere
Postcard from Pink
Postcard from Lake Manzanita
Postcard from a Nude Beach
Postcard from the Library Fire
Postcard from a Civil War Reenactment
Nightstand
The Chair
Felsenfeld
The Alibi Room
The Felsenfeld Movement
Confusion
No One
Vowelville
Missing One
Hemlock 1-7563
The Three
83
It’s Like
Like Two People
Just Like Two People
Tristes Tropiques
Undecided
Subservient Chicken
The Case of the Disappearing Blondes
The Rory Calhoun Film Festival
Dollar Theater
Hackers and 70s Hit Songs
Take
A Man Leaned Back
Tanglewood
Upraised Arms
The Abandoning
The Duration
The Waiting
The Aftermath
The Pants Dance
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Colophon
MATCHBOOK
My footsteps are loud, as if I were in a large room. I find a book of matches in my pocket and light one. I almost burn my fingers as the light goes out, leaving a trace of sulfur in the air. I try another and hold it high. Ropes. Curtains. I kneel, holding the match low. Wooden floor. I walk ahead slowly, sliding my feet, and almost step off into space. I hear a gasp. Someone chuckles. Apparently I’m being watched. I count the matches. I don’t want to waste any. Maybe I can find a candle. A flashlight. A light switch. I prepare myself to light the next match. I’m getting better at this.
A PORTRAIT OF MY CHILDHOOD PAINTED BY GOYA
In the kitchen an infant is standing in a corner as if he were shackled upright. He hears his mother calling softly, Camínate, niñito. Older now, he is trying to count to five. A hooded inquisitor from the Church stands over him. The boy cannot seem to get past five. The Inquisitor slaps his belt against a table: Count! The boy counts, rapidly from one to ten in English, then rapidly from ten to one in Spanish. The shadow of a wolf disappears into the wall. A slow pan of the kitchen: colander, knives, a cleaver. Voiceover: Bombs away! Geronimo! Ai Cisco! Ai Pancho! Hi-ho Silver, away! The boy opens his eyes many years later but he is still in the kitchen. His father is wrestling with a huge bird. Is it a turkey, a chicken? His father is behind the bird holding its wings out, laughing. The boy closes his eyes. Through the smoky sky, an old man clings to the back of an enormous bird.
DAY AT THE BEACH, 1958
You are on your knees in the sand, praying to Cupid. Diane is making a castle complete with stairwell. Your secret thoughts are longing for Clementine. And Lucy, remember her? You’re in a circular haze. That’s what you get for staring at the whirligig called Spike the Junkyard Dog. Maybe you could grab that propeller for your beanie. But lucky for you, your aviator goggles look great pushed up on your forehead. You want to tell Lucy about your collection of bongos, but she is busy smiling into her compact mirror, just for you. What a waste. What a waist Diane has—and what spindles for legs, that Clementine, but her breasts are the threshold to dreams. That gordito in your bathing suit makes you walk as if you were crippled when you wander off with her toward the Cave of Making Out. The cave where time chills your feet. She, demure beside you, sitting like a lady, offers tea. The teapot, tethered to balloons, floats into the sky. A teapot tethered to balloons floating into the sky. Almost famous. Like Frankie Avalon. That was the day Cupid missed but Anteros smiled. Kissing Clementine goodbye, you even said adios to her parents. Rode off in the back seat sitting between Lucy and Diane. Lucy asleep with her cheek against your shoulder; Diane asleep with head in your lap.
THE UNSTUCKS AT THE GATES OF THE DESERT FOLLY GARDEN
My branch of the family is unstuck-together. On the Mexican vaudeville circuit they were known as Los Desemepegados—The Unstucks. Back in those days there were many offshoots of the family, and they all hated each other. The Barcelona Unstucks hated the Paris Unstucks, all because of a one hundred-dollar bet that a cow would go up and down stairs. The Cyprus Unstucks hated the Jerusalem Unstucks, all because of a key that was hidden and lost. The Las Vegas Unstucks hated the Tijuana Unstucks;
that feud was over who had the right to claim the invention of the Caesar salad. There were circus Unstucks, aerialists, who were known as The Flying Unstucks. They were famous for not catching each other. Every ten years the Unstucks come together, in a manner of speaking, at the Unstucks reunion.
Since the late eighteenth century, the reunion has been held at the Gates of the Desert Folly Garden. There is even a famous photo of the reunion you can get on the Web for a hundred dollars. It is mislabeled “André Breton and the Surrealists at the Gates of the Desert Folly Garden.” Perhaps one of the Unstucks lied about the identity of their party to the photographer.
The Unstucks meet and register for the reunion under false names, at the statue of the giant dangling a large naked woman by the ankles. To avoid conflicts they all don masks and wear the same face the whole time. It is a bald, eyebrow-less idiot face with a blank expression. During the reunion they even sleep with the bald, eyebrow-less, idiot face with a blank expression mask on. If two Unstucks happen to become amorous, say, in the pyramid-shaped icehouse, they leave the masks on. They even make love with the masks on; that way, no Unstuck is angry or jealous during the reunion, and they can go their separate ways without knowing from which branch of the family either one hailed.
Once, a couple of strangers, perhaps an English couple, wore bald, eyebrow-less idiot face with the blank expression masks and crashed the reunion. Apparently they liked it so much that they came back every ten years for the rest of their lives. In fact, it is believed that every ten years, two of their descendants crash the reunion wearing bald, eyebrow-less idiot face with the blank expression masks. But no one knows this for sure.
THE HISTORY OF UMBRELLAS
Like the yo-yo and the boomerang, the first umbrellas were created as weapons. Naked warriors, their bodies painted with streaks of blood, would dance, holding their umbrellas in threatening positions. They would point them at the sky, flapping them open and closed, and stab the air with their umbrellas; however, they soon learned they could trip on their umbrellas during the confusion of battle. Or, as they charged the enemy, they would waste time trying to get their umbrellas open. Worse, as they approached the enemy holding their umbrellas like parasols, like tightrope walkers or ballerinas, the enemy would laugh at them. It was to be centuries before anyone thought of using umbrellas in the rain. Even today, umbrellas lie abandoned at airports, train stations, waiting rooms, hallways, and porticos.
THE HISTORY OF WHITE ANKLETS
The first white anklets fell from the sky during the age of the dinosaurs. Nobody knew what they were because there was nobody to wonder. Dinosaurs poked at them with their snouts, but since they had never been worn, they had no scent. One anklet hung from a branch of the first primordial tree. A volcano erupted, covering the tree with lava. The branch and the anklet became a fossil. Today, that fossil is stored in the basement of the Smithsonian. It has always puzzled scientists. What is it, that thing hanging from what could be a tree branch? One theory is that it is the ancestor of all flowers. In Victorian times poets wore white anklets to bed. The anklets were attached to each other by pearl buttons. It was thought that the anklets, buttoning their feet together, would prevent the poets from walking in their sleep. Even today, you can see white anklets of famous poets in the White Anklet Museum in the very small town of One House, Nevada. Granted, few people visit the White Anklet Museum in One House, Nevada. Few people visit One House, Nevada. But those who take the time to do so are never disappointed.
THE HISTORY OF THE MINSTREL SHOW
As little George Washington prepared to chop down the cherry tree, he got an idea. What if he were seen chopping down the tree? So he blackened his face with a burnt cork. Now if he were seen, it would be blamed on one of the slave children. Little George was seen that day, but only by the slave children, who thought this looked like fun. Sneaking into the kitchen, they dipped their faces and hands in flour. Back in the yard, they played at being white people. They stood tall; they spoke slowly, gave each other commands, and danced their version of a minuet. The children were seen by their parents, and by the overseers, and by little George’s father. What fun, they all thought, and thus began the tradition, that one day a year the slaves would paint their faces white and become like the masters. The masters would paint their faces black and become like the slaves. They would take commands from the slaves, slap their knees, tell jokes, dance, and have a good time. And so on through history—Pat Boone became Little Richard and sang a song he thought might be about ice cream. Even across the ocean, Mick Jagger, an accounting student listening to the blues in his dorm, lost his English accent and learned to talk just like Muddy Waters. Oh Mississippi Delta, Oh Africa, Oh harp and fiddle and banjo. Oh young Elvis, visited in a dream by the ghost of his twin, Jesse. In the dream Jesse was black, whispering, Brother, when you sing, sing like a black man, dance like a black man. Elvis quit his job at the trucking company that day, and began to sing as no white man had sung before.
LITTLE KNOWN FACT NUMBER ONE
Perry Como had rabid animal attacks. Backstage, after a performance, he would lie on the floor of his dressing room thrashing about, foaming at the mouth. They had to tie him to a board with ropes, soft ones so they would not redden or bruise his tender skin. Sometimes, when his rabid animal attack was really bad, they would wrap him in two sheets and soak them with water. Even Houdini, who also was known to have rabid animal attacks, had a hard time escaping from wet sheets wrapped around his body. Allow me to introduce myself, I am a character from another poem. Suddenly I woke up in this one, although my presence has no bearing here. The poem I was in was an ode to bodily fluids. It went, O fluids, thou unsung thou miraculous bearers of love tidings, envelopes of DNA—but here I am lying on the floor of what appears to be a dressing room, next to a man whose head is protruding from wet sheets. He is foaming at the mouth. Perhaps that is why I am here, to observe and report on the rivulet of clear saliva sliding down his chin and onto the worn blue carpet.
LITTLE KNOWN FACT NUMBER TWO
Rilke was inspired to write The Duino Elegies while watching Jackie Gleason on The Honeymooners. It was his favorite show. He and Lou, his girlfriend, would sit up in bed in front of their TV.
This was at her place and her bedroom was full of dolls she had won at fairs. Rilke did not like the dolls and Lou always had to make sure all the dolls’ eyes were closed when he came over. Otherwise he thought they were staring at him. Lou had been a patient of Freud’s and she would try and get Rilke to talk about why he did not like the dolls. But he just sat there staring at The Honeymooners. He did not want to talk about the little dresses he had to wear when he was a child, or the dolls his parents gave him for Christmas, or the fact that his middle name was Maria.
The sound on their set was not so good and he did not know English anyway so he thought it was a serious show. He liked the way Art Carney would make exaggerated gestures when he was about to sign his name. He adopted that affectation when he signed his books at poetry readings.
One night Jackie Gleason raised his fist to Alice and threatened to send her to the moon. Rilke interpreted the gesture as a plea for celestial intervention. Just at that moment the eyes of a doll that was on top of the TV came open and stared, it seemed, right into his soul.
All at that same moment Art Carney came down the fire escape and climbed in the kitchen window, the doll stared at him, and the sound of their TV went out. Rilke thought of angels descending through the empty silence of the universe down a fire escape of stars. He thought of angels climbing in the window, of an angel writing something in a book with exaggerated gestures as if it were conducting a symphony.
LITTLE KNOWN FACT NUMBER THREE
Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein always put their left shoe on first. This occurs to you as a clerk in the shoe store brings you the right shoe of the pair you are considering. Sorry, you say, but Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein always put their left sh
oe on first and I always do the same. It is written that Jesus always put his left sandal on first. He also advised his disciples to put their left sandal on first. He said, Verily, if your message is not received, leave that village and shake its dust off your sandals. I assume he meant to shake the left sandal first. Putting your left shoe on first sends a message to your brain. Message to brain: Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein always put their left shoe on first. And you, whoever you are, technician, employee, wife, lover, friend, you who dress me for the last time, please, put my left shoe on first.
THE RELIGIOUS BRAIN
A man’s brain would fly out of his head to attend midnight Mass. This bothered him because he was not religious. Sometimes the man wanted to use his brain after midnight, but it was attending Mass. So he would just sit there, perhaps with a remote in his hand, wondering what it was that he had wanted to do. But how could he wonder without a brain? Well, he looked like he was wondering, sitting there in front of a turned-off TV with a remote in his hand. Besides, he had read somewhere that intelligence was everywhere, that matter itself was formed of intelligence, so who needs a brain anyway? One night, the night custodian at the church mistook the man’s brain for a sponge, and used it to clean up a mess in one of the pews. The brain made a good sponge. The custodian stored the brain in the closet with his other tools. The man whose brain would fly off to midnight Mass hardly missed his brain. After all, how could he know he missed his brain if he did not have a brain?
The Chair Page 1
