Nacre & Other Poems
Nacre
If the late daylight should break in and reach the black box of your soul, muttering dulcet anathemas, let it carry you to the edge where it may kindly let you go, when you unfasten unknowable wings to gather inward all the wind—as if it were pain; though, like a martyr without a god, you have no flesh: Open your wings like a forbidden gift, like a casket made of stained glass, nacre, and alabaster, with a gramophone in it playing a song you’d once loved but since forgotten; if the late daylight should do this, you might hear someone say, “Please,
No dancing.
Thanks.”
Plausible and Implausible Truth
1.
He: “The marigolds are not here in abundance.”
She: “Honey, put your noose back on.”
He: “Dear, I’d really rather not right now.”
2.
Language deals with absent things. These include fictions, such as those of ghosts and gods, as it deals as well with literal things that simply aren’t present, i.e., anything that could take place in the future. Take the statement, “The marigolds are not here in abundance.” This means: Because it is possible for language to represent an absent object in a mode of simulated presence, the menacing possibility so arises that even objects present to the senses are somehow absent, insofar as they have been represented by language. The objection to this claim would be the ancient idea that when one pronounces the word “chariot,” a chariot effectively passes through the mouth of the speaker.
The Philosophy of “Objects”
The teaching assistant for the course on ethics says he specializes in the philosophy of “objects.” I say the object doesn’t exist without the mind that perceives it. He says no one believes that. I say, “What about Berkeley?” A twenty-something with a British accent and nice legs says, “Berkeley was a maniac.” She’s not incorrect. The British girl looks frumpy today. She looks frumpy when she’s not showing off her legs. We are preparing for an exam. The conversation turns back to ethics. I ask, “So what if you bake a cake for your grandmother’s birthday, knowing full well she has diabetes—but the cake is your specialty?” The British girl laughs. I’m still not quite sure if I was trying to be funny. I had recently read an account in the biography of a poet about a man who fell off the fire escape he was sitting on at a cocktail party. I imagined myself at the cocktail party seeing a man smile whimsically, and then quite deliberately lean backward and disappear. There are only a handful of things you can’t do ironically. Fall backward into empty space from several stories up with a drink in your hand is one of them. That said, have you ever read Plato’s Apology? Socrates, they say, was a great ironist. If you are having suicidal thoughts, call 911.
Two sparrows on the strip of shrubbery
Dividing the parking lots
After a night of rain—
Only one of them is green
As of yet unmaimed
By time and by the speed of light
I sent a letter to a person
Who’d already died
“See you when I return.”
Ray Corvi has been published in DASH Literary Journal, Evening Street Review, FRiGG Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, The Penmen Review, The Seattle Star, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, A Thin Slice of Anxiety and Triggerfish Critical Review.