Duck, Duck, Duck, Goose

 

1/

Ducks, the feathered biped, take to the air
And are transformed. We should keep faith with dirt,
Carpets and planking our relatives; but ducks
All but turn cartwheels, launching off of sky,
Air to air missiles. We are only earthed.

2/
You wanna buy a duck? You say, Duck, duck,
A bird. Who cares? I ain’t afraid of birds.
You say the secret word, and what you win
Is life eternal, if you’ll only die;
And who brings down the news, who marks the spot?
A duck, a duck. Your kingdom by a duck.

3/
We lay enmeshed in eiderdown, a pair
Professing satisfaction and perplexed
Our fluid situation had been stanched
And we were now what we were going to be.
She twitched the duvet, adjusting me, and hoped
I wouldn’t take too long to be re-lit.
A fire for my fireplace, she said.
She threw the cover back; unfeathered, made
A sight an angel would have molted for.
Ducks died so you could show yourself, I said.
What a canard, she answered, moving in.

I Am A Poem By Armand Crumple

 

I Am A Poem By Armand Crumple
is the name of a poem
by Armand Crumple.
I’m Armand Crumple.

Although I have a poet’s heart,
I am not a work of art.
You read my words. I come apart.
I, Crumple.

It’s easy to confuse the two.
I, Armand, do the things I do,
and some of them I write to you,
like this one.

And where I start and where I end,
though I pretend that I pretend,
I know I mean. Since light can bend
or crumple,

the things I mean, I mean to know,
and you can touch the parts I show—
bleak and barren, bare and blue;
exhibiting itself for you,
I am a poem
by Armand Crumple.

What We'll Always Have

 

Ah, zut, she said, we'll always have

Paris, where we were poor but brave.
And poor, I said. And sick of head.
You are not Gertrude Stein, she said.

Mais non. Agreed. The leaves were green
That spring. Horse chestnuts fell like rain.
I was not well. I know, she said,
I tried, and you were mostly dead.

Those were the goddamn days of yore,
I wrote. And yet you would not share,
She said. Too bad that we were bred
Gold to the bone, now flayed, now fled.

Noel, Noelle

 

As I wrote here in April, 2008, I found this poem in a drawer a while back. I don't remember when I wrote it, but it must have been a long, long time ago. It's pleasant to observe that my facility with blank verse has improved: this seems stiff to me, and the blank verse I write now is more limber—it can do tricks on the balance beam that this can't. On the other hand, I'm also pleased to find "Under the snow the dead are staying dead/again this year," lines I've often quoted without remembering that I was the one who wrote them. 



You claim that you live in Montana, somewhere
undisclosed but big, since it is Montana,
with dogs of course, under eponymous
big skies. It may be like The Ponderosa.
It may be just a little 50's house,
brick and right angles, all the rooms too small
for all the children's scheduled occupation.

Regardless, this is where you claim to be,
vacuuming dogs, shampooing your fiancé,
writing good prose, and waiting for the eve
of someone's savior's birth to change your world.
The eve will come, if not the savior.
Under the snow the dead are staying dead
again this year. Achieving the right tone

to talk about the still dead dead would tax
the festive certitude of anyone.
Your coming roster of visiting kin,
expecting nogs and cakes, presents and pizza,
won't want to hear about your doubts. They know
what Santa does and what he never says.
They like a creche. They like a mistletoe

above their heads, a Baldur's dart. You can
foretell what's coming, you and absent friends,
alone in your fashed kitchen, late late night,
toasting a yule, whatever yules may be.
The dogs asleep and snoring, dreaming dog,
you in your underwear and hoisting bourbon,
know what you know and not a nickel more.

Classical Education

 

Greek to me, it was just as though I read

A language I had never known, but wanted

To understand. Black squiggles on the page,

A scent of frat boys drinking beer on Sunday—

Pindar, Sophocles, and the Kappa Sigs.

I filled my mouth with pebbles—well, more like

Gravel: it lined the sea millennia

Ago, when I was still invertebrate—

Orating made me sound like I was mumbling,

Oatmeal and not Demosthenes. I thought

Of those of my friends who had studied Latin

While I picked Russian for its false prestige

And didn't learn even that. They could read Virgil

And think of Homer. I now read the funnies,

Laugh at them, too. I orated some oatmeal

And thought of slave girls, of the spoils of purchase,

How I could compliment in my own tongue:

Hey, baby, want to dance? I once knew Russian.

I thought, there must have been some Greek louts, too,

And they spoke Greek, even when they were toddlers,

But didn't say, It's all English to me.

They didn't know the stuff they didn't know.

Under the olive trees they thought of maples

Not even a little, wished to grasp the form

Of The Infield Fly Rule not all, nor thought

Of leaving home for Hollywood. Not once.

That made them classical, even with acne,

Even when sure they were misunderstood,

Phallically challenged, or divinely sent

To free the boy next door from some damned girl.

Waking Up the Bears

 This appeared in Raintown Review.

It’s just as though the hills were breaking up,

Freeing the little men to roam and search

For little women in the barns and byres,

To ride the cows across the salty marsh,

And cook spaghetti in our barley fields.

The hills seem stout enough. A bit of steam

Is natural; and if at night the songs

To Trinken send the black bears out in search

Of warm and quiet hollows, I am much

Like bears. A hot wind chivvies everyone.

The children say it’s party-time. They claim

That steam makes clouds, and clouds make rain, and rain—

I can’t remember what rain does. I’ve seen

Melted rock like stone soup. What if the bears

Get hot feet? There are 30 little men

In caravans on Brother Framley’s verge,

With duckpin sets and pantomimes and tall

Hats the shape of fungi. We are packed;

The mare has her best bridle on; the dog

Has wrapped his ball in grass to keep it cool.

The little men will have this place. I’ll miss

The fireplace I built myself, the slate

Hearth, and the smell of clover overnight.

A little man dressed in my boots has rung

The bell. He wants my whetstone and my wife.

Besame Mucho

 

I slept, but that did not improve

My circumstance.  Mostly the stars

And ceiling fan had stayed in place;

And Ursa Major barely moved.

I dreamed of you.  Sometimes you made

A different moue or sprayed your hair.

Sometimes you ran away.  Or cooked,

Patisserie or oxtail soup.

But I knew what I knew and woke

To bracelets tossed on your pillowcase,

An amulet on the ceiling fan,

And Draco Major roaring by.