Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful Read online

  outside our door.

  I know she dreams us

  making love;

  you inside me,

  her lips on my breasts.

  WALKER

  When I no longer have your heart

  I will not request your body

  your presence

  or even your polite conversation.

  I will go away to a far country

  separated from you by the sea

  —on which I cannot walk—

  and refrain even from sending

  letters

  describing my pain.

  KILLERS

  With their money they bought ignorance

  and killed the dreamer.

  But you, Chenault,* have killed

  the dreamer’s mother.

  They tell me you smile happily

  on TV,

  mission “half-accomplished.”

  I can no longer observe such pleased mad

  faces.

  The mending heart breaks

  to break again.

  * The assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s mother, Mrs. Alberta King. His plan had been to murder Martin Luther King, Sr., as well.

  SONGLESS

  What is the point

  of being artists

  if we cannot save our life?

  That is the cry

  that wakes us

  in our sleep.

  Being happy is not the only

  happiness.

  And how many gadgets

  can one person manage

  at one time?

  Over in the Other World

  the women count

  their wealth

  in empty

  calabashes.

  How to transport

  food

  from watering hole

  to watering

  hole

  has ceased to be

  a problem

  since the animals

  died

  and seed grain shrunk

  to fit the pocket.

  Now

  it is just a matter

  of who can create

  the finest

  decorations

  on the empty

  pots.

  They say in Nicaragua

  the whole

  government

  writes,

  makes music

  and paints,

  saving their own

  and helping the people save

  their own lives.

  (I ask you to notice

  who, songless,

  rules us

  here.)

  They say in Nicaragua

  the whole

  government

  writes

  and makes

  music

  saving its own

  and helping the people save

  their own lives.

  These are not containers

  void of food.

  These are not decorations

  on empty pots.

  A FEW SIRENS

  Today I am at home

  writing poems.

  My life goes well:

  only a few sirens herald disaster

  in the ghetto

  down the street.

  In the world, people die

  of hunger.

  On my block we lose

  jobs, housing and breasts.

  But in the world

  children are lost;

  whole countries of children

  starved to death

  before the age

  of five

  each year;

  their mothers squatted

  in the filth

  around the empty cooking pot

  wondering:

  But I cannot pretend

  to know

  what they wonder.

  A walled horror

  instead of thought

  would be my mind.

  And our children

  gladly starve themselves.

  Thinking of the food I eat

  every day

  I want to vomit, like

  people who throw up

  at will,

  understanding that whether

  they digest or not

  they must consume.

  Can you imagine?

  Rather than let the hungry

  inside the restaurants

  Let them eat vomit, they say.

  They are applauded

  for this.

  They are light.

  But

  wasn’t there a time

  when food was sacred?

  When a dead child

  starved naked

  among the oranges

  in the marketplace

  spoiled

  the appetite?

  POEM AT

  THIRTY-NINE

  How I miss my father.

  I wish he had not been

  so tired

  when I was

  born.

  Writing deposit slips and checks

  I think of him.

  He taught me how.

  This is the form,

  he must have said:

  the way it is done.

  I learned to see

  bits of paper

  as a way

  to escape

  the life he knew

  and even in high school

  had a savings

  account.

  He taught me

  that telling the truth

  did not always mean

  a beating;

  though many of my truths

  must have grieved him

  before the end.

  How I miss my father!

  He cooked like a person

  dancing

  in a yoga meditation

  and craved the voluptuous

  sharing

  of good food.

  Now I look and cook just like him:

  my brain light;

  tossing this and that

  into the pot;

  seasoning none of my life

  the same way twice; happy to feed

  whoever strays my way.

  He would have grown

  to admire

  the woman I’ve become:

  cooking, writing, chopping wood,

  staring into the fire.

  I SAID TO

  POETRY

  I said to Poetry: “I’m finished

  with you.”

  Having to almost die

  before some weird light

  comes creeping through

  is no fun.

  “No thank you, Creation,

  no muse need apply.

  I’m out for good times—

  at the very least,

  some painless convention.”

  Poetry laid back

  and played dead

  until this morning.

  I wasn’t sad or anything,

  only restless.

  Poetry said: “You remember

  the desert, and how glad you were

  that you have an eye

  to see it with? You remember

  that, if ever so slightly?”

  I said: “I didn’t hear that.

  Besides, it’s five o’clock in the a.m.

  I’m not getting up

  in the dark

  to talk to you.”

  Poetry said: “But think about the time

  you saw the moon

  over that small canyon

  that you liked much better

  than the grand one—and how surprised you were

  that the moonlight was green

  and you still had

  one good eye

  to see it with.

  Think of that!”

  “I’ll join the church!” I said, huffily,

  turning my face to the wall.

  “I’ll learn how to pray again!”

  “Let me ask you,” said Poetry.r />
  “When you pray, what do you think

  you’ll see?”

  Poetry had me.

  “There’s no paper

  in this room,” I said.

  “And that new pen I bought

  makes a funny noise.”

  “Bullshit,” said Poetry.

  “Bullshit,” said I.

  GRAY

  I have a friend

  who is turning gray,

  not just her hair,

  and I do not know

  why this is so.

  Is it a lack of vitamin E

  pantothenic acid, or B-12?

  Or is it from being frantic

  and alone?

  “How long does it take you to love someone?”

  I ask her.

  “A hot second,” she replies.

  “And how long do you love them?”

  “Oh, anywhere up to several months.”

  “And how long does it take you

  to get over loving them?”

  “Three weeks,” she said, “tops.”

  Did I mention I am also

  turning gray?

  It is because I adore this woman

  who thinks of love

  in this way.

  OVERNIGHTS

  Staying overnight in a friend’s house

  I miss my own bed

  in San Francisco

  and the man in my bed

  but mostly just

  my bed

  It’s a mattress on the floor

  but so what?

  This bed I’m in is lumpy

  It lists to one side

  It has thin covers

  and is short

  All night I toss and turn

  dreaming of my bed

  in San Francisco

  with me in it

  and the man too sometimes

  in it

  but together

  Sometimes we are eating pastrami

  which he likes

  Sometimes we are eating

  Other things

  MY DAUGHTER IS

  COMING!

  My daughter is coming!

  I have bought her a bed

  and a chair

  a mirror, a lamp

  and a desk.

  Her room is all ready

  except that the curtains

  are torn.

  Do I have time to buy shoji panels

  for the window?

  I do not.

  First I must write a speech

  see the doctor about my tonsils

  which are dying ahead of schedule

  see the barber and do a wash

  cross the country

  cross Brooklyn and Manhattan

  MAKE A SPEECH

  READ A POEM

  liberate my daughter

  from her father and Washington, D.C.

  recross the country

  and present her to her room.

  My daughter is coming!

  Will she like her bed,

  her chair, her mirror

  desk and lamp

  Or will she see only

  the torn curtains?

  WHEN GOLDA MEIR

  WAS IN AFRICA

  When Golda Meir

  was in Africa

  she shook out her hair

  and combed it

  everywhere she went.

  According to her autobiography

  Africans loved this.

  In Russia, Minneapolis, London, Washington, D.C.

  Germany, Palestine, Tel Aviv and

  Jerusalem

  she never combed at all.

  There was no point. In those

  places people said, “She looks like

  any other aging grandmother. She looks

  like a troll. Let’s sell her cookery

  and guns.”

  “Kreplach your cookery,” said Golda.

  Only in Africa could she finally

  settle down and comb her hair.

  The children crept up and stroked it,

  and she felt beautiful.

  Such wonderful people, Africans

  Childish, arrogant, self-indulgent, pompous,

  cowardly and treacherous—a great disappointment

  to Israel, of course, and really rather

  ridiculous in international affairs,

  but, withal, opined Golda, a people of charm

  and good taste.

  IF “THOSE PEOPLE”

  LIKE YOU

  If “those people” like you

  it is a bad sign.

  It is the kiss of death.

  This is the kind of thing we discuss

  among ourselves.

  We were about to throw out

  a perfectly good man.

  “They are always telling me

  I’ve got to meet him! They

  are always saying how superior

  he is! And those who cannot

  say he’s superior say ‘How Nice.’

  Well! We know what this means.

  The man’s insufferable. They’re

  insufferable. How can he stand

  them, if he means any good to us?”

  It so happened I knew this man.

  “You’ve got to meet him,” I said.

  “He is superior, nice, and not at all

  insufferable.” And this is true.

  But the talk continued:

  If “those people” like you

  it is a bad sign.

  It is the kiss of death.

  Because that is the kind of thing

  we talk about

  among ourselves.

  ON SIGHT

  I am so thankful I have seen

  The Desert

  And the creatures in The Desert

  And the desert Itself.

  The Desert has its own moon

  Which I have seen

  With my own eye

  There is no flag on it.

  Trees of the desert have arms

  All of which are always up

  That is because the moon is up

  The sun is up

  Also the sky

  The stars

  Clouds

  None with flags.

  If there were flags, I doubt

  The trees would point.

  Would you?

  I’M REALLY

  VERY FOND

  I’m really very fond of you,

  he said.

  I don’t like fond.

  It sounds like something

  you would tell a dog.

  Give me love,

  or nothing.

  Throw your fond in a pond,

  I said.

  But what I felt for him

  was also warm, frisky,

  moist-mouthed,

  eager,

  and could swim away

  if forced to do so.

  REPRESENTING

  THE UNIVERSE

  There are five people in this room

  who still don’t know what I’m saying.

  “What is she saying?” they’re asking.

  “What is she doing here?”

  It is not enough to be interminable;

  one must also be precise.

  The Wasichus* did not kill them to eat; they

  killed them for the metal that makes them crazy,

  and they took only the hides to sell. Sometimes

  they did not even take the hides, only the

  tongues; and I have heard that fire-boats came

  down the Missouri River loaded with dried bison

  tongues.… And when there was nothing left

  but heaps of bones, the Wasichus came and

  gathered up even the bones and sold them.

  —Black Elk,

  Black Elk Speaks

  * Wasichu in Sioux means “he who takes the fat.”

  FAMILY OF

  Sometimes I feel so bad

  I ask myself

 
Who in the world

  Have I murdered?

  It is a Wasichu’s voice

  That asks this question,

  Coming from nearly inside of me.

  It is asking to be let in, of course.

  I am here too! he shouts,

  Shaking his fist.

  Pay some attention to me!

  But if I let him in

  What a mess he’ll make!

  Even now asking who

  He’s murdered!

  Next he’ll complain

  Because we don’t keep a maid!

  He is murderous and lazy

  And I fear him,

  This small, white man;

  Who would be neither courteous

  Nor clean

  Without my help.

  By the hour I linger

  On his deficiencies

  And his unfortunate disposition,

  Keeping him sulking

  And kicking

  At the door.

  There is the mind that creates

  Without loving, for instance,

  The childish greed;

  The boatloads and boatloads

  of tongues …

  Besides, where would he fit

  If I did let him in?

  No sitting at round tables

  For him!

  I could be a liberal

  And admit one of his children;

  Or be a radical and permit two.

  But it is he asking

  To be let in, alas.

  Our mothers learned to receive him occasionally,

  Passing as Christ. But this did not help us much.

  Or perhaps it made all the difference.

  But there. He is bewildered

  And tuckered out with the waiting.

  He’s giving up and going away.

  Until the next time.

  And murdered quite sufficiently, too, I think,

  Until the next time.

  EACH ONE, PULL ONE

  (Thinking of Lorraine Hansberry)

  We must say it all, and as clearly

  as we can. For, even before we are dead,

  they are busy

  trying to bury us.

  Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay?

  Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow?

  Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person, country

  or politics? Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown?

  But, most of all, did we write exactly what we saw,

  as clearly as we could? Were we unsophisticated

  enough to cry and scream?

  Well, then, they will fill our eyes,

  our ears, our noses and our mouths

  with the mud

  of oblivion. They will chew up

  our fingers in the night. They will pick

  their teeth with our pens. They will sabotage

  both our children

  and our art.

  Because when we show what we see,