The Poetry Marathon

They sang the virtues
of the road less traveled

and said you are free
spirited, don’t let others

tell you what to do,
and I made my decision

under a loving parasol,
under warm guidance,

but they did not warn me
about the thickets of brambles,

and I wore the wrong
shoes for the job.

Let’s get one thing out of the way:
the dance is eternal.

Now that that’s cleared up,
I would like to advise you
on the particulars of your participation.

We cover certain moves in this class.
We do things considered acceptable
within the boundaries of a dance studio,

because that is how you begin,
even if your inner fire or whatever
wants to fling itself about with abandon.

This class is not on abandon.
Today, we learn how to step.
You groan. I assure you, it’s essential.

Where would we be if we could not
step? From the step grows the hop,
from the hop the jump, the leap,

and all have their place in the great
universal cycle of dance. I only teach
because I have touched the gears

that keep this contraption running,
and I have seen that our feet,
properly applied, keep it going.

Like I said, the dance is eternal.
If you don’t know the basics,
you fail to oil the machine.

With that, let us begin.

We’ve squashed you
to suit our whims,

replaced wild ugly with
domestic ugly, the kind

that makes you shiver
and gives you gout.

And yet you still yap,
still howl as if cued.

Even if your noses
have been shrunk,

even if you’re chained
to laps and purses,

if you cannot give birth
without being cut open,

your ancestors were not
completely bred out.

I pick at my skin. Right now there is a small hole
next to my mouth, just below my left cheek.

I say “hole.” I think of deeper, darker holes
in friendlier ground, soil that does not erupt with blood.

This isn’t a hole in my face, then, but a simple
depression. It is a blemish, an irregularity.

Ironically, it was with the intent to rid my face
of a blemish that it arose. One iteration of a cycle.

The smart thing to do would be to bandage it
and leave it alone. Instead, my fingers wander

like ivy on a brick wall, clinging, grasping, searching
for imperfections to root into, deepen, and destroy.

When I learn other languages it takes time for the words to rise along my throat and tongue the way I want them to, lined up like children in a museum holding hands, or like dogs along an obstacle course jumping, leaping, point A-to-B-ing for the prize. There is a small art to the success of pronunciation. The tongue and throat and teeth and nose and cheeks and even the fingers and the eyebrows and the way you pull back your hair or arch your back and flex your shoulders as you step up to the podium in your mind all affect the delivery, not only in tone but in the access you have to the most basic sounds. If you stand wrong some sounds are cut off completely and you have to readjust your posture. Sometimes you need to go to a chiropractor and have them put their fingers in your back to unleash an a, a u, a gh, a Welsh ll, an Irish string of consonants with no direct English equivalent, the waterfall of a Finnish verb, sharp Russian rs, the French glottal, the Spanish everything, the Swahili you speak with your head raised high. Be mindful of the clothes you wear, the jewelry you choose, the way you sit down to write. The kind of breakfast you had. The air you breathe, what smells you are used to and the smells you are not familiar with. The way you interpret a dog’s bark. The light. The air conditioning. What is on television. Learn about the world around you and observe, because when you learn a new language, you lose track of who you are and what you might become. It puts your body in danger and scrambles your memory. The act of learning a language is an axe. The act of learning a language is a sledgehammer to the brick wall of the self. The act of learning a language divides you.

We need light rain every morning at five,
lasting for an hour and a half
so that we can go out that day without worrying
about watering our lawns.

We need an infinite supply of charcoal
for weekend barbecues:
we are sure you can manage the felling and burning
of eligible trees for this task.

We need a widescreen television
in every house in this subdivision,
and we need a subdivision-wide subscription to
Netflix and HBO.

We need a large, bulletproof
plastic dome to be installed
around the perimeter of the subdivision
to keep out thieves. And bears.

We need you to cooperate with us
so that our community thrives
our children stay home at night
and our scary thoughts dissolve.

Green plastic lawn chairs on an iron-railed
black-rolled roof converted to a balcony,
green tennis courts diagrammed with white,
chain-link fences radiating heat,
concrete columns and lush, tenuous vines,
two stone lions in repose,
diagonally woven brick sidewalks
brimming with tough green and
I

pay respects to sudden rain.

I am climbing the Irish skill tree
on Duolingo. I’m still on the basics.

Na cailiní, na fir, óleann uisce,
tá úll agat, that kind of thing.

I’ve been told I have Irish blood
in me, somewhere. I like to think

it’s concentrated in my shins,
the tibia and fibula, the marrow.

I was passed up for a college-sponsored
trip to Ireland two years ago.

I was too irritable, had already
gone abroad, and I was full of hate.

Now that I am a bit closer to full
of an old language, even its slightly

duller official version, and this tongue
belongs to people who precipitated me,

I might make my own leap across
the ocean this time, go where the stones

are still wreathed in life, where grass
is not greener per se but there is a

certain sense of history about the earth,
the lingering myth, whispers of the dead.

Sometimes I think the game is rigged.
Have you ever really seen a happy actor?

And I don’t mean a rich one, I mean
a truly happy actor, content with his lot,

a lot that (ironically) constantly shifts.
One production after another, one script,

one hotel, one mistress after another
(though I could stand to settle down),

and I keep wondering if women are magic,
if films are magic, too–in film things go

so smoothly, it has been said to me that
they go like trains in the night. The picture

is more desirable than the process
we put ourselves through without regard,

it seems, as to whether this will be
the last film we make, whether we will

find women disgusting, life disgusting,
decide to leave, decide to live alone.

This poem is based on the film La Nuit Americaine (Day For Night), told from the perspective of Alphonse, who is played by, and who is a fictional surrogate of, Jean-Pierre Leaud.

The young urban woman longs.
She doesn’t know for whom yet.

The young urban woman has friends.
They tell each other which dresses not to buy.

The young urban woman has money.
This helps her buy dresses she doesn’t wear.

The young urban woman has a walk-in closet.
This is where she puts the dresses she doesn’t wear.

The young urban woman looks out the window.
She rented the apartment for the view of the city.

The young urban woman feels empty.
Because she has so much already, this confuses her.

The young urban woman calls her friends.
They advise her to find a young urban man.

The young urban woman feels inadequate.
In spite of her cornucopia of dresses, she has nothing to wear.

The young urban woman meets a young urban man.
He doesn’t know what kind of shoes she’s wearing.

The young urban woman takes the young urban man to a bar.
There are neon lights, expensive cocktails; the music is popular.

The young urban man buys the young urban woman a drink.
It’s fruity and goes down easily, so he buys her another.

The young urban man read Sartre in college.
If he hadn’t written a paper on the bastard, he would have forgotten him.

The young urban woman also read Sartre in college.
She needs reminding about the points he made.

The young urban man explains Sartre to the young urban woman.
She can see a prideful glint behind his designer glasses.

The young urban woman thinks she likes the young urban man.
Could this be the whom of the question?

The young urban man suggests they get out of this place.
The young urban woman is curious as to this development.

The young urban woman takes him up the elevator to his apartment.
They giggle, adolescent again, anticipating a thrill.

The young urban woman fucks the young urban man.
The young urban woman thinks she has found the answer.

The young urban man wakes up before the young urban woman.
He leaves a note on the breakfast table with his number.

The young urban woman wakes up, makes coffee, finds the note.
Something clicks, and something else falls out of place.