Written by
John Ashbery |
The first of the undecoded messages read: "Popeye sits
in thunder,
Unthought of.
From that shoebox of an apartment,
From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges: a country.
"
Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: "How
pleasant
To spend one's vacation en la casa de Popeye," she
scratched
Her cleft chin's solitary hair.
She remembered spinach
And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any spinach.
"M'love," he intercepted, "the plains are decked out
in thunder
Today, and it shall be as you wish.
" He scratched
The part of his head under his hat.
The apartment
Seemed to grow smaller.
"But what if no pleasant
Inspiration plunge us now to the stars? For this is my
country.
"
Suddenly they remembered how it was cheaper in the country.
Wimpy was thoughtfully cutting open a number 2 can of spinach
When the door opened and Swee'pea crept in.
"How pleasant!"
But Swee'pea looked morose.
A note was pinned to his bib.
"Thunder
And tears are unavailing," it read.
"Henceforth shall
Popeye's apartment
Be but remembered space, toxic or salubrious, whole or
scratched.
"
Olive came hurtling through the window; its geraniums scratched
Her long thigh.
"I have news!" she gasped.
"Popeye, forced as
you know to flee the country
One musty gusty evening, by the schemes of his wizened,
duplicate father, jealous of the apartment
And all that it contains, myself and spinach
In particular, heaves bolts of loving thunder
At his own astonished becoming, rupturing the pleasant
Arpeggio of our years.
No more shall pleasant
Rays of the sun refresh your sense of growing old, nor the
scratched
Tree-trunks and mossy foliage, only immaculate darkness and
thunder.
"
She grabbed Swee'pea.
"I'm taking the brat to the country.
"
"But you can't do that--he hasn't even finished his spinach,"
Urged the Sea Hag, looking fearfully around at the apartment.
But Olive was already out of earshot.
Now the apartment
Succumbed to a strange new hush.
"Actually it's quite pleasant
Here," thought the Sea Hag.
"If this is all we need fear from
spinach
Then I don't mind so much.
Perhaps we could invite Alice the Goon
over"--she scratched
One dug pensively--"but Wimpy is such a country
Bumpkin, always burping like that.
" Minute at first, the thunder
Soon filled the apartment.
It was domestic thunder,
The color of spinach.
Popeye chuckled and scratched
His balls: it sure was pleasant to spend a day in the country.
|
Written by
Lisa Zaran |
after, when you are driving
75 miles one way just to get to her
and her wind-touched hair,
bleached white by the September
sun, the gray sky coughing up clouds,
that is when the doubts surface,
hard as stones.
it is late afternoon by the time you arrive,
the storm has already been through here.
you are not in your own element.
you are a runaway.
but, then she is there, standing right in front
of you, wet with rain, slender as a branch.
you watch as she makes her way over
and your heart gardens, rupturing red.
Originally Published in Lily, Volume 1, Issue 8, July 2004
Copyright © Lisa Zaran, 2004
|
Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
This weeping willow!
Why do you not plant a few
For the millions of children not yet born,
As well as for us?
Are they not non-existent, or cells asleep
Without mind?
Or do they come to earth, their birth
Rupturing the memory of previous being?
Answer! The field of unexplored intuition is yours.
But in any case why not plant willows for them,
As well as for us?
|