I am in the mood for a Mark Doty poem tonight, so I found two, quite different ones. Happy Pride.
Brilliance
Maggie's taking care of a man
who’s dying; he’s attended to everything,
said goodbye to his parents,
paid off his credit card.
She says Why don’t you just
run it up to the limit?
but he wants everything
squared away, no balance owed,
though he misses the pets
he’s already found a home for
— he can’t be around dogs or cats,
too much risk. He says,
I can’t have anything.
She says, A bowl of goldfish?
He says he doesn’t want to start
with anything and then describes
the kind he’d maybe like,
how their tails would fan
to a gold flaring. They talk
about hot jewel tones,
gold lacquer, say maybe
they’ll go pick some out
though he can’t go much of anywhere and then
abruptly he says I can’t love
anything I can’t finish.
He says it like he’s had enough
of the whole scintillant world,
though what he means is
he’ll never be satisfied and therefore
has established this discipline,
a kind of severe rehearsal.
That’s where they leave it,
him looking out the window,
her knitting as she does because
she needs to do something.
Later he leaves a message:
Yes to the bowl of goldfish.
Meaning: let me go, if I have to,
in brilliance. In a story I read,
a Zen master who’d perfected
his detachment from the things of the world
remembered, at the moment of dying,
a deer he used to feed in the park,
and wondered who might care for it,
and at that instant was reborn
in the stunned flesh of a fawn.
So, Maggie’s friend —
Is he going out
Into the last loved object
Of his attention?
Fanning the veined translucence
Of an opulent tail,
Undulant in some uncapturable curve
Is he bronze chrysanthemums,
Copper leaf, hurried darting,
Doubloons, icon-colored fins
Troubling the water?
Couture
1.
Peony silks,
in wax-light:
that petal-sheen,
gold or apricot or rose
candled into—
what to call it,
lumina, aurora, aureole?
About gowns,
the Old Masters,
were they ever wrong?
This penitent Magdalen’s
wrapped in a yellow
so voluptuous
she seems to wear
all she's renounced;
this boy angel
isn’t touching the ground,
but his billow
of yardage refers
not to heaven
but to pleasure’s
textures, the tactile
sheers and voiles
and tulles
which weren’t made
to adorn the soul.
Eternity’s plainly nude;
the naked here and now
longs for a little
dressing up. And though
they seem to prefer
the invisible, every saint
in the gallery
flaunts an improbable
tumble of drapery,
a nearly audible liquidity
(bright brass embroidery,
satin's violin-sheen)
raveled around the body’s
plain prose; exquisite
(dis?)guises; poetry,
music, clothes.
2.
Nothing needs to be this lavish.
Even the words I’d choose
for these leaves;
intricate, stippled, foxed,
tortoise, mottled, splotched
—jeweled adjectives
for a forest by Fabergé,
all cloisonné and enamel,
a yellow grove golden
in its gleaming couture,
brass buttons
tumbling to the floor.
Who’s it for?
Who’s the audience
for this bravura?
Maybe the world’s
just trompe l’oeil,
appearances laid out
to dazzle the eye;
who could see through this
to any world beyond forms?
Maybe the costume’s
the whole show,
all of revelation
we’ll be offered.
So? Show me what’s not
a world of appearances.
Autumn’s a grand old drag
in torched and tumbled chiffon
striking her weary pose.
Talk about your mellow
fruitfulness! Smoky alto,
thou hast thy music,
too; unforgettable,
those October damasks,
the dazzling kimono
worn, dishabille,
uncountable curtain calls
in these footlights’
dusky, flattering rose.
The world’s made fabulous
by fabulous clothes.
No comments:
Post a Comment