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Overview
Following Pulitzer Prize finalist Ron Padgett's 2013's Collected Poems (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the William Carlos Williams Prize) Alone and Not Alone offers new poems that see the world in a clear and generous light.
From "The World of Us":
Don't go around all day
thinking about life—
doing so will raise a barrier
between you and its instants.
You need those instants
so you can be in them,
and I need you to be in them with me
for I think the world of us
and the mysterious barricades
that make it possible.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781566894029 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Coffee House Press |
| Publication date: | 04/20/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 84 |
| File size: | 605 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Alone and Not Alone
By RON PADGETT
COFFEE HOUSE PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Ron PadgettAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-56689-402-9
CHAPTER 1
What Poem
What poem
were you thinking of,
my dear,
as you breezed out the door
in your long coat fur-tipped
at the top?
What animal
once wore that fur
and licked it
with a long, raspy tongue
that lolled to one side
in the afternoon shade?
If only you too
could lope across
the Serengeti Plain
and grab something
in your powerful jaws,
instead of pausing
at the door and saying,
as if in afterthought,
"Write a poem
while I'm out."
The Roman Numerals
It must have been hard
for the Romans to multiply
— I don't mean reproduce,
but to do that computation.
Step inside a roman numeral
for a moment, a long one
such as MDCCLIX. Look
at the columns and pediments
and architraves: you cannot move them,
but how beautiful they are
and august! However, try to multiply
MDCCCLXIV by MCCLVIII.
How did they do it?
I asked this question some years ago
and never found an answer
because I never looked for one,
but it is pleasant,
living with this question.
Perhaps the Romans weren't good at math,
unlike the Arabs, who arrived
with baskets of numerals, plenty
for everyone. We still have
more than we need today.
I have a 6 and a 7 that,
when put side by side, form my age.
Come to think of it,
I'd rather be LXVII.
Butterfly
Chaung Tzu wrote about the man
who dreamed he was a butterfly
and when he woke up
wondered if he weren't now
a butterfly dreaming he was a man.
I love this idea
though I doubt that Chaung Tzu
really thought that a man would
think he is a butterfly,
for it's one thing to wake up
from a dream in the night
and another to spend your whole life
dreaming you are a man.
I have spent my whole life
thinking I was a boy, then a man,
also a person and an American
and a physical entity and a spirit
and maybe a little bit butterfly.
Maybe I should be more butterfly,
that is, lurch into a room
with bulging eyes and big flapping wings
that throw a choking powder
onto people who scream and fall dead,
almost. For I would rescue them
with the celestial music of my beauty
and my utter harmlessness,
my ætherial disregard of what they are.
Reality
Reality has a transparent veneer
that looks exactly like the reality beneath it.
If you look at anything,
your hands, for instance, and wait,
you will see it. Then
it will flicker and vanish,
though it is still there.
You must wait a day or two
before attempting to see it again,
for each attempt uses up
your current allotment of reality viewing.
Meanwhile there is a coffee shop
where you can sit and drink coffee,
and where you will be tempted
to look down at the cup and see
the transparent veneer again,
but that is only because you are overstimulated.
Do not order another cup. Or do.
It will have no effect on the veneer.
Sometimes the veneer becomes detached
and moves slightly away from reality,
as when you look up and see a refrigerator
in refrigerator heaven, cold and quiet.
But then the veneer snaps back
to its former position and vanishes.
This is a normal occurrence —
do not be alarmed by it.
Instead, drive to the store
and buy something
that looks like milk, return
home and place it in the refrigerator.
Days go by, years go by, people
grow older and die, surrounded,
if they are lucky, by younger people
who do not know what to do
with feelings whose veneers
have slipped to the side, far
to the side, and are staying there
too long. But eventually they will grow hungry
and tired, and an image of dinner and bed
will float in like a leaf
that fell from who knows where, and sleep.
The Chinese Girl
When I order a coffee that is half-real, half-decaf, with half-and-half, the women behind the counter invariably give me a blank look and wait for something to come clear in their heads, and when it doesn't I repeat, slowly, my order, gesturing with my fingers to demonstrate the half-real, then the half-decaf part. When it finally registers on them and they fill the cup, I point to the carton of half-and-half. Then one of the two — they work in pairs — asks, "Shu gah?"
However, the youngest of the morning crew of five understands better than the other four, so I always hope to have her wait on me, not only because of her better English but because she is the cutest. Of course not all Chinese girls look the same, but descriptions of them tend to sound the same, so I'm not sure that it would help to say that she has straight black hair, parted in the front and held in place by the bakery uniform's light-green kerchief, a slightly flattened nose, and dark eyes, with a small mole on the right above her top lip. Her modest demeanor lends her an air of innocence. She is what, around eighteen?
I always look forward to seeing her on my weekly visit to the bakery. This morning when I walked slowly along the display case of dazzling muffins, buns, rolls, danishes, and other pastries, trying to decide among them, I heard her voice on the other side, asking, "Can I help you?" Never before had one of the crew left the cash register area to do this.
Concealing my surprise, I asked her, "Are the croissants ready yet?"
"I will see."
When she came back from the kitchen she said, "Five minutes."
"Then I'll have one of these danishes."
"You want small coffee, no? Half-regular, half-decaf, with half- and-half?"
Astonished, I said, "Yes, that's right. You have a good memory."
"I remember you," she said, causing my heart to flutter. But my composure returned when she asked, "Shu gah?"
At the register she handed me the change from a five. I took a single and, pointedly ignoring the tip jar, handed it to her, saying "This is for you. Sheh sheh."
"Thank you," she said, lowering her eyes and almost imperceptibly drawing back.
I got the signal, so I headed toward an empty table, where I removed the plastic lid from the paper cup and took a bite out of the danish. A band of steam rose from the coffee, like a curtain on a miniature stage. The Chinese girl and I are living in a remote part of China. Our past lives have been erased. She is unspeakably devoted to me and I adore her. We say little, passing our days in a state of calm I could never have imagined.
Smudges
Smattering of gray puffs rocks are they
large ones but if you pick them up light
too light but fun to lift and marvel at
they don't make "sense" they
aren't broken they are what you
have laughing in you almost out
smudges come out of the rock
you breathe in and out the same gray
rock each time as if looped in a cartoon
of a sleeping man from whom z's
emanate
Smattering of gray puffs a man is one of them
a cloud a smudge a powder of stone
from which a city arises with people in it
and ideas that flow toward you and through you
it's too late it's already happened to the next
you and the gray smudge that is your face turning
into your next face the one you forget
as soon as it happens as you fall away
among other smudges that are falling away
smudges and puffs falling away
It Takes Two
My replacement in the universe
is the little tyke who'll soon arrive
and let me be superfluous if
and when I feel like being so.
I don't really mean that.
It's just the openness
of what will or might be,
when what matters most
is the right now of now,
which,
when I draw back and look reveals
an old fool in the foggy bliss
of whatever this morning is.
Straighten up, old thing!
You aren't that old and he or she
will reach right up and grasp
some years and break them off
your psyche — what is it? like stardust?
glittering on those tiny tiny fingers.
The First Time
The first time Marcello went outside
the sun and moon were at his side
(his happy mom and happy dad)
(also the happiness known as granddad).
The first time Marcello breathed the outside air
he seemed to like it there.
The first time he got in a car
it zoomed him fast and far
(for such a little guy)
to Brooklyn: "Hi,
Brooklyn!" he didn't shout:
his words were too little to get out.
But clearly in his sleeping face
he felt comfy in the human race.
Circles
Marcello sees
the sun is yellow.
But then at night
it's white.
No, that's the moon
or a white balloon
above his bed —
wait, it's his head!
Colored circles rise and fall.
Marcello seems to like them all.
Grandpa Brushed His Teeth
This morning Grandpa brushed his teeth
so hard it knocked Marcello down
but he got back up to watch
Grandpa brush those teeth
Ah Grandpa brushing up and down
with joy he sang almost Glug glug!
The toothpaste tasted excellent
and the brush it zigged and zagged
It's a good thing he has teeth to brush
and that he likes the brushing of them
The only missing ones are Wisdom
and Marcello does not need them
And Grandpa doesn't either
Good-bye to Wisdom teeth and Wisdom
Buon giorno to Marcello
Little toothbrush fellow
Coffee Man
She might be hearing the burbling song of the bird outside, but it is impossible to tell, since she has rolled over and I think gone back to sleep. If I were to say quietly, "Good morning, dear, here is your coffee," she would open her eyes and manage a groggy "Thank you." But when she realizes that I am standing there without coffee, I would forget which tense I'm waiting to lift from the jar with the red lid in the kitchen.
Where Is My Head?
It makes you nervous to think not about death
but about dying and being dead yourself
but when you don't think about it
it doesn't exist,
at least in your universe.
And since that's the universe you happen to be in
you want to stay there:
you have to fix the world
and then save it,
you have to do that one thing
you can't remember what it is
but you know it's there somewhere
like the death you forgot for a moment.
I should have spent my life
meditating so deeply that the thought of death
would be relaxing like a breeze or a feather
but instead I have spent it promising myself
that someday I would go to that special place
in my psyche where the spirit enters and leaves
and make my peace with the beast I call myself.
I hate myself for dying, how
could I have done this!
But all I did was nothing
other than believe that I was actually important!
Everything my mother did proved it.
But when she died she just glided away —
she didn't mind at all.
She didn't think she was important
and she had a farmgirl's view of dying:
chickens do it all the time,
they run around the yard with blood
gushing from where their heads used to be.
I wish I could do that!
In Paris the heads that dropped into the basket
— were they still thinking about the executioner?
Today I am my own executioner.
Survivor Guilt
It's very easy to get.
Just keep living and you'll find yourself
getting more and more of it.
You can keep it or pass it on,
but it's a good idea to keep a small portion
for those nights when you're feeling so good
you forget you're human. Then drudge it up
and float down from the ceiling
that is covered with stars that glow in the dark
for the sole purpose of being beautiful for you,
and as you sink their beauty dims and goes out —
I mean it flies out the nearest door or window,
its whoosh raising the hair on your forearms.
If only your arms were green, you could have two small lawns!
But your arms are just there and you are kaput.
It's all your fault, anyway, and it always has been —
the kind word you thought of saying but didn't,
the appalling decline of human decency, global warming,
thermonuclear nightmares, your own small cowardice,
your stupid idea that you would live forever —
all tua culpa. John Phillip Sousa
invented the sousaphone, which is also your fault.
Its notes resound like monstrous ricochets.
But when you wake up, your body
seems to fit fairly well, like a tailored suit,
and you don't look too bad in the mirror.
Hi there, feller!
Old feller, young feller, who cares?
Whoever it was who felt guilty last night,
to hell with him. That was then.
The Young Cougar
The doors swing open and in walks a young cougar wearing white shoes and light-blue socks, come to help his father. "Where do we put this in the registry?" one servant asks another. Or they were wearing the shoes and socks.
Radio in the Distance
for Yvonne Jacquette
Beneath the earth covered with men
with snow atop their heads, down
to where it is dark and deep, to where
the big black vibrating blob of wobble
is humming its one and only note, I lie,
orange hair not in the idea of diagonal,
a Betty not composed of vertical fish
or dog with grid-mark cancellations,
but easy as an orchestra of toy atoms
lazy with buzz and fizzle in their drift
as if above this late and lost Manhattan
spread out like a diagram of what we want
from heaven, wherever it is when we think
we know what it is and even when it really is.
Face Value
From a face comes a body an entire body
and from a body everything
but I can't face you
fully
not yet
maybe never
and even if I did or thought I did
how would I know
How would I know
what face value is
From a face comes face value
and from face value a lot of baling wire
— the face scribbled over with dark coils of it
I was born in Kentucky almost
There were no faces there
so I was born elsewhere
from inside a fencepost
to which barbed wire had been affixed
by Frederic Remington
The air was cool, the night calm
and each star had a face
like a movie star's or someone in the family
They too had star quality I thought
but they had statue quality
and then turned sideways
like music blending into fabric and little curtains
along the kitchen windows
attractive kitchen windows
Now you can sit down at this table
and look me square in the eye
and tell me what you've been wanting to
or you can stand up like a photograph on a piano
and sing to me
a song that has no words or music
Which is it? — But
a heavy magnetic force pulls you to the wall
and holds you there
As soon as you get used to it
it lets you go
for a while
and then your heavy magnetic force pulls the wall to you
and you walk around with a wall stuck to your side
The Wall of Forgetting
it's called
but it's not a wall it's a mirror
that picks your face up off the floor
and whirls it onto a head
that has gone on without you
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Alone and Not Alone by RON PADGETT. Copyright © 2015 Ron Padgett. Excerpted by permission of COFFEE HOUSE PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
What Poem, 1,The Roman Numerals, 2,
Butterfly, 4,
Reality, 6,
The Chinese Girl, 8,
Smudges, 10,
It Takes Two, 11,
The First Time, 12,
Circles, 13,
Grandpa Brushed His Teeth, 14,
Coffee Man, 15,
Where Is My Head?, 16,
Survivor Guilt, 18,
The Young Cougar, 20,
Radio in the Distance, 21,
Face Value, 22,
The Plank and the Screw, 25,
102 Today, 27,
The Pounding Rabbit, 28,
Mountains and Songs, 29,
It All Depends, 30,
The Elevation of Ideals, 35,
Birgitte Hohlenberg, 37,
Pep Talk, 39,
Preface to Philosophy, 40,
You Know What, 42,
A Bit about Bishop Berkeley, 44,
The Step Theory, 45,
My '75 Chevy, 48,
For A., 49,
Art Lessons, 50,
A Few Ideas about Rabbits, 51,
The Value of Discipline, 54,
Pea Jacket, 55,
The Ukrainian Museum, 57,
The 1870s, 59,
One Thing Led to Another, 61,
The Rabbi with a Puzzle Voice, 62,
Syntactical Structures, 64,
The World of Us, 65,
Curtain, 68,
Homage to Meister Eckhart, 69,
The Incoherent Behavior of Most Lawn Furniture, 72,
This Schoolhouse Look, 73,
The Street, 74,
Paris Again, 75,
London, 1815, 76,
Of Copse and Coppice, 77,
Manifestation and Mustache, 80,
Shipwreck in General, 81,
French Art in the 1950s Three Poems in Honor of Willem de Kooning, 82,
I Felt, 83,
The Door to the River, 84,
Zot, 85,
Alone and Not Alone, 86,