Written by
Anna Akhmatova |
Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,
not sticks of burning incense.
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.
You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes,
and suffocated inside stifling walls.
Alone you let the terrible stranger in,
and stayed with her alone.
Now you're gone, and nobody says a word
about your troubled and exalted life.
Only my voice, like a flute, will mourn
at your dumb funeral feast.
Oh, who would have dared believe that half-crazed I,
I, sick with grief for the buried past,
I, smoldering on a slow fire,
having lost everything and forgotten all,
would be fated to commemorate a man
so full of strength and will and bright inventions,
who only yesterday it seems, chatted with me,
hiding the tremor of his mortal pain.
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Written by
Frank Bidart |
"When I hit her on the head, it was good,
and then I did it to her a couple of times,--
but it was funny,--afterwards,
it was as if somebody else did it ...
Everything flat, without sharpness, richness or line.
Still, I liked to drive past the woods where she lay,
tell the old lady and the kids I had to take a piss,
hop out and do it to her ...
The whole buggy of them waiting for me
made me feel good;
but still, just like I knew all along,
she didn't move.
When the body got too discomposed,
I'd just jack off, letting it fall on her ...
--It sounds crazy, but I tell you
sometimes it was beautiful--; I don't know how
to say it, but for a miute, everything was possible--;
and then,
then,--
well, like I said, she didn't move: and I saw,
under me, a little girl was just lying there in the mud:
and I knew I couldn't have done that,--
somebody else had to have done that,--
standing above her there,
in those ordinary, shitty leaves ...
--One time, I went to see Dad in a motel where he was
staying with a woman; but she was gone;
you could smell the wine in the air; and he started,
real embarrassing, to cry ...
He was still a little drunk,
and asked me to forgive him for
all he hasn't done--; but, What the ****?
Who would have wanted to stay with Mom? with bastards
not even his own kids?
I got in the truck, and started to drive
and saw a little girl--
who I picked up, hit on the head, and
screwed, and screwed, and screwed, and screwed, then
buried,
in the garden of the motel ...
--You see, ever since I was a kid I wanted
to feel things make sense: I remember
looking out the window of my room back home,--
and being almost suffocated by the asphalt;
and grass; and trees; and glass;
just there, just there, doing nothing!
not saying anything! filling me up--
but also being a wall; dead, and stopping me;
--how I wanted to see beneath it, cut
beneath it, and make it
somehow, come alive ...
The salt of the earth;
Mom once said, 'Man's ***** is the salt of the earth ...'
--That night, at that Twenty-nine Palms Motel
I had passed a million times on the road, everything
fit together; was alright;
it seemed like
everything had to be there, like I had spent years
trying, and at last finally finished drawing this
huge circle ...
--But then, suddenly I knew
somebody else did it, some bastard
had hurt a little girl--; the motel
I could see again, it had been
itself all the time, a lousy
pile of bricks, plaster, that didn't seem to
have to be there,--but was, just by chance ...
--Once, on the farm, when I was a kid,
I was screwing a goat; and the rope around his neck
when he tried to get away
pulled tight;--and just when I came,
he died ...
I came back the next day; jacked off over his body;
but it didn't do any good ...
Mom once said:
'Man's ***** is the salt of the earth, and grows kids.'
I tried so hard to come; more pain than anything else;
but didn't do any good ...
--About six months ago, I heard Dad remarried,
so I drove over to Connecticut to see him and see
if he was happy.
She was twenty-five years younger than him:
she had lots of little kids, and I don't know why,
I felt shaky ...
I stopped in front of the address; and
snuck up to the window to look in ...
--There he was, a kid
six months old on his lap, laughing
and bouncing the kid, happy in his old age
to play the papa after years of sleeping around,--
it twisted me up ...
To think that what he wouldn't give me,
he wanted to give them ...
I could have killed the bastard ...
--Naturally, I just got right back in the car,
and believe me, was determined, determined,
to head straight for home ...
but the more I drove,
I kept thinking about getting a girl,
and the more I thought I shouldn't do it,
the more I had to--
I saw her coming out of the movies,
saw she was alone, and
kept circling the blocks as she walked along them,
saying, 'You're going to leave her alone.'
'You're going to leave her alone.'
--The woods were scary!
As the seasons changed, and you saw more and more
of the skull show through, the nights became clearer,
and the buds,--erect, like nipples ...
--But then, one night,
nothing worked ...
Nothing in the sky
would blur like I wanted it to;
and I couldn't, couldn't,
get it to seem to me
that somebody else did it ...
I tried, and tried, but there was just me there,
and her, and the sharp trees
saying, "That's you standing there.
You're ...
just you.'
I hope I fry.
--Hell came when I saw
MYSELF ...
and couldn't stand
what I see ..."
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Written by
William Topaz McGonagall |
A pathetic tragedy I will relate,
Concerning poor Fred. Marsden's fate,
Who suffocated himself by the fumes of gas,
On the 18th of May, and in the year of 1888, alas!
Fred. Marsden was a playwright, the theatrical world knows,
And was highly esteemed by the people, and had very few foes;
And in New York, in his bedroom, he took his life away,
And was found by his servant William in his bedroom where he lay.
The manner in which he took his life : first he locked the door,
Then closed down the window, and a sheet to shreds he tore
And then stopped the keyholes and chinks through which air might come,
Then turned on the single gas-burner, and soon the deed was done.
About seven o'clock in the evening he bade his wife good-night,
And she left him, smoking, in his room, thinking all was right,
But when morning came his daughter said she smelled gas,
Then William, his servant, called loudly on him, but no answer, alas!
Then suspicion flashed across William's brain, and he broke open the door,
Then soon the family were in a state of uproar,
For the room was full of gas, and Mr Marsden quite dead,
And a more kind-hearted father never ate of the world's bread.
And by his kindness he spoiled his only child,
His pretty daughter Blanche, which made him wild;
For some time he thought her an angel, she was so very civil,
But she dishonoured herself, and proved herself a devil.
Her father idolised her, and on her spared no expense,
And the kind-hearted father gave her too much indulgence,
Because evening parties and receptions were got up for her sake,
Besides, he bought her a steam yacht to sail on Schroon Lake.
His means he lavished upon his home and his wife,
And he loved his wife and daughter as dear as his life;
But Miss Blanche turned to folly, and wrecked their home through strife,
And through Miss Marsden's folly her father took his life.
She wanted to ride, and her father bought her a horse,
And by giving her such indulgences, in morals she grew worse;
And by her immoral actions she broke her father's heart;
And, in my opinion, she has acted a very ungrateful part.
At last she fled from her father's house, which made him mourn,
Then the crazy father went after her and begged her to return,
But she tore her father's beard, and about the face beat him,
Then fled to her companions in evil, and thought it no sin.
Then her father sent her one hundred dollars, and found her again,
And he requested her to come home, but it was all in vain;
For his cruel daughter swore at him without any dread,
And, alas! next morning, he was found dead in his bed.
And soon theatrical circles were shocked to learn,
Of the sudden death of genial Fred Marsden,
Whose house had been famous for its hospitality,
To artists, litterateurs, and critics of high and low degree.
And now dear Mrs Marsden is left alone to mourn
The loss of her loving husband, whom to her will ne'er return;
But I hope God will be kind to her in her bereavement,
And open her daughter's eyes, and make her repent
For being the cause of her father's death, the generous Fred,
Who oft poor artists and mendicants has fed;
But, alas! his bounties they will never receive more,
Therefore poor artists and mendicants will his loss deplore.
Therefore, all ye kind parents of high and low degree,
I pray ye all, be advised by me,
And never pamper your children in any way,
Nor idolise them, for they are apt to go astray,
And treat ye, like pretty Blanche Marsden,
Who by her folly has been the death of one of the finest men;
So all kind parents, be warned by me,
And remember always this sad Tragedy!
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