Every once in a while white
lines appear in my field
of vision, curling sometimes
at the top of it and I
realize once again that there
is an invisible rectangle
around everything.
How do I know it’s there?
I just put it there,
that’s how.
And those white lines?
Little hairs
straggling from my eyebrows.
Source: Padgett, Ron. “The Field.” Big Cabin, Coffee House Press, 2019, p. 78. Print.
the land of opportunity
immigrants came to the tower
of terror the land of dogs
and self-improvement created
by dragging hustlers who
impoverish the person and opportunity
and immigrants who came to this wastebasket
at dawn looking hustled
who was expelled from the negro streets
of war and poverty of lead listening
hustler who bared in the best under minds
personed and peopled and dogged self-improvement
cool eyes hallucinated through new bustling
in the quintessence palestine is a never
in this wastebasket at dawn lookin’ hustled
who expelled the ancient creation
out for new business starvin’
the academies connected destruction
to opportunity
It’s funny how
if you just let go
of things they
will come to
you. That is to say
sometimes. So what
good is such a
generalization?
Ah, it makes you
feel good to say
such things from
time to time,
as if you actually
and really and truly
knew something!
Source: Padgett, Ron. Collected Poems. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Coffee House Press, 2013, p. 415.
hands grasping the
ornamental knobs of
the man-ropes father
mapple cast a
look this color
orange tries to
remind me of
you lay down
and be slumbering
a cabinet is
kind the and
when i’m cornered
at the final
blown it seems
from room in
clouds peeks at
ourselves in the
mirror brain inside
the test tube
is still alive
the thing that
death gave you
themselves christian thorns
you bet apples
bananas sour as
sweat sweet as
melons the tongues
and tigers hotly
towards dancing away
from your cars
by the frond
of the sea
i live of
rain made out
to ask me
whether we were
again to be
bedfellows i told
him yes whereat
content and there
let him rest
all our arguing
with him would
not avail let
him be in
and out a
window will never
create hay back
me up then
to ask to
arrive late and
be polite so
you are do
you know here
is the corner
a couple of
men jump up
7th as a
little there’s only
one option
It’s spring come out Esther you should
Take a walk in the pretty woods
The hens are clucking in the yard
Dawn’s pink folds are shooting skyward
And love is coming to steal your heart
Mars and Venus have come back anew
They give each other mad kisses
An innocent interlude
While beneath the fluttering roses
Lovely pink gods are dancing nude
So come my tenderness is queen
Of this flowering that appears
Nature is beautiful and touching
Pan is whistling in the trees
The wet frogs are singing
Source: Apollinaire, Guillaume. “Aubade Sung at Laetare a Year Ago.” Zone: Selected Poems. Trans. Ron Padgett. NYRB Poets, 2015. 25. Print.
screech
in green darkness
and
stamp
my
talons
wet
leafy flesh
the
master has built
there
will be
many bones
a small mouthful
of mouse
a
fatty
bite
i’ve
been
in here i don’t fit in
new
york
took me about a week i don’t know
where
i don’t see people
and occasionally fail
as
a
person because i
don’t
see people who are
obsessed by
their
lives are
like i don’t fit
in
here i don’t
know i don’t
know
where i
had totally failed
as a person because
i had to
recover from
the delusion i failed as a person because
i don’t know where i had my
photo taken
i don’t know where
i don’t
see people who are like i don’t know i
don’t see people and
it took
me about about a
week i don’t
see people who are like i don’t
see
people
Sources: Moshfegh, Ottessa, and Kristine McKenna. Certain Age. Harper’s Magazine Foundation, May 2016. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. Padgett, Ron. "Survivor Guilt." Best American Poetry 2015. Eds. Sherman Alexie and David Lehman. New York: Scribner, 2015. 106-107. Print.