i remember the first time i saw you
at the standingroomonly studentshangingoutthewindows poetry reading
in some big hall yale new haven, 1959,
when crazy stuff like that really did not happen—
not yet—when decorum prevailed
and we were waiting and didn’t know it.
ginsberg there, on the edge of the stage, legs dangling,
ringing Tibetan finger cymbals
(we’d never seen before);
paying no attention, everyone guessing
what was supposed to happen next.
and you came striding down center aisle,
yelling words we couldn’t make out,
an intruder deciding it’s time to have his say;
italian curls and big, startling black eyes,
a crazy man for sure. but no,
it was the other poet, and you climbed on stage,
goony and boyish, laughing, probably stoned
and read to us from a bunch of crumpled-up pages
you took out of your pocket
and from that little red-and-white text GASOLINE.
strange damn poems—funny, odd, off the map we
had been taught to follow, some other territory.
or maybe it was you yourself
and not the poems. you, so unlike
the poets we’d studied; too zany, too close to us, too
flawed and coarse, too much strange delight,
or, maybe the sense of some
approaching wildness we couldn’t grasp,
a confused ecstasy, a decade unscheduled,
disasters waiting, heroin they tried to pry
from your endless hand,
and the “being-torn-apart-haunted-with-meanings,”
searching for the beautiful worlds.
and now new century, swifter than delight, meanings
sogged out, beaten by information,
and he’s gone, the black-eyed boy,
Mrs. Corso’s kid—
Wow!
we’re a memory.
—From if this world falls apart (Lynx House Press, 2011), a collection of
poems by Lipsitz which won the 2010 Blue Lynx Prize; reprinted here by author’s
permission
—Poem previously published as “Elegy for Corso and So Much Else”
by the North Carolina Arts Council
“Retinitis pigmentosa is an eye disease in which there
is damage to the retina. The damage gets worse over time.
There is no effective treatment for this condition.”
1.
One of your old students called last night.
He’d just heard and wanted to talk.
By the end of the conversation
we were saying we loved each other.
We’d never thought to say that long ago
when we’d felt it and were embarrassed by it.
Now that we’re older, losses, life’s torturers,
loosen our tongues.
I could say death brings love out,
the way the hounds root out the fox.
I could say that, but we both know
love is the grass the horses trample down
and piss on. The fox is our amazing,
confused intelligence that in this moment
can do nothing but dig deeper
into the dark.
2.
So, dear friend, for you, no more struggles,
no more retinitus pigmentosa—
eyesight ebbing away as if a wire screen,
you said, grew thicker, blocking out the light—
no more bumping into objects, bruising
your shins on your way to the kitchen
for a midnight snack; no more hand on my shoulder
as I guide you through the dark restaurants;
no more bourbon, no more twilights, no more loneliness;
no more challenging questions to your students,
no more wondering about Kafka’s Penal Colony
where the great machine inscribes punishments
on the flesh of the condemned.
No more misunderstandings, rages,
memories of your depressed, suicidal sister;
dreams of your alcoholic mother
who grabs you and forces you to dance with her,
breathing in your young boy’s face;
no more stories about your bullying father
who cared so much about you
he relentlessly pushed you around.
No more worries about money,
no more ex-wife, ex-house,
no more plans, no more sex,
no more thinking about sex, no more forgetting
about sex, no more anxiety about sex, no more
laughter about sex, no more memories of those girls
you wish you’d known what to do with
when they offered themselves to your hesitant touch.
No more thinking of C, arguments with C,
struggles with intimacy; no more loving nights
in the large, soft bed, your hand
reaching toward her, finding the dear bone
of her shoulder; no more wondering
how it would be to go blind.
3.
You didn’t want a funeral, or a memorial,
but on Sunday we gathered anyway,
not sure what we’d do or say.
It was easy to recall your wild, inspired dancing,
how you loved your kids and your students
and loathed the indecencies of our lying world.
Of course we ignored the tougher things,
kept stuff to ourselves and did a lot of laughing;
we were like a flock of small birds
unsure where to fly when those cold winds arrive.
We’d lost our radar. We couldn’t read the stars.
We laughed because we were lost.
You and I had good times I wouldn’t tell about
either: moments of strange delight
and mute brotherhood. And there was
your rage at me when I told you to learn braille
so you could read Kafka in your darkness.
Instead, I am learning the searing symbols of departure.
In dreams, you pack a suitcase.
I imagine seeing you, unsteady, weaving down the street.
There are hard ancient pathways inscribed in us.
Logics that address me, but I don’t understand.
A language of those left behind.
It’s all we have.
—From if this world falls apart (Lynx House Press, 2011), a collection of
poems by Lipsitz which won the 2010 Blue Lynx Prize; reprinted here by author’s
permission
Have a nice day. Have a memorable day.
Have (however unlikely) a life-changing day.
Have a day of soaking rain and lightning.
Have a confused day thinking about fate.
Have a day of wholes.
Have a day of poorly marked,
unrecognizable wholes you
cannot fathom.
Have a ferocious day, a bleak
unbearable day. Have a
riotously unproductive day;
a grim jaw-clenched, Clint Eastwood vengeful
law enforcement day.
Have a day of raging, hair-yanking
jealousy and meanness. Have a day
of almost grasping
how whole you are; a finely tuned,
empty day.
Have a nice day of walking and circling;
a day of stalking and hunting,
of planting strange seeds and wandering in the woods.
Have a day of endearing nonsense,
of hopelessly combing your hair,
a day of yielding, of swallowing
hard, breathing more deeply,
a day of fondness for beetles
and macabre spectacles, of irreverence
about anything you want, of just
sitting and wondering.
Have a day of wondering if it’s
going to help, or if it just doesn̵t matter;
a day of dark winds
and torrents flowing through the valley,
of diving into cool water
and gasping for breath,
a day of sudden hunger for communion.
Have a day when the crusts you each
were given are lost and you stumble
with your fellows
searching endlessly together.
—From if this world falls apart (Lynx House Press, 2011), a collection of
poems by Lipsitz which won the 2010 Blue Lynx Prize; reprinted here by author’s
permission
was born in Brooklyn in 1938 and was for many years a professor of political science
at the University of North Carolina, where he taught democratic theory and political
psychology. He is currently a psychotherapist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with
a focus on men’s issues.