Ordinary Beast Read online

  publisher’s note

  Rendering poetry in a digital format presents several challenges, just as its many forms continue to challenge the conventions of print. In print, however, a poem takes place within the static confines of a page, hewing as close as possible to the poet’s intent, whether it’s Walt Whitman’s lines stretching to the margin like Route 66, or Robert Creeley’s lines descending the page like a string tie. The printed poem has a physical shape, one defined by the negative space that surrounds it—a space that is crafted by the broken lines of the poem. The line, as vital a formal and critical component of the form of a poem as metaphor, creates rhythm, timing, proportion, drama, meaning, tension, and so on.

  Reading poetry on a small device will not always deliver line breaks as the poet intended—with the pressure the horizontal line brings to a poem, rather than the completion of the grammatical unit. The line, intended as a formal and critical component of the form of the poem, has been corrupted by breaking it where it was not meant to break, interrupting a number of important elements of the poetic structure—rhythm, timing, proportion, drama, meaning, and so on. It’s a little like a tightrope walker running out of rope before reaching the other side.

  There are limits to what can be done with long lines on digital screens. At some point, a line must break. If it has to break more than once or twice, it is no longer a poetic line, with the integrity that lineation demands. On smaller devices with enlarged type, a line break may not appear where its author intended, interrupting the unit of the line and its importance in the poem’s structure.

  We attempt to accommodate long lines with a hanging indent—similar in fashion to the way Whitman’s lines were treated in books whose margins could not honor his discursive length. On your screen, a long line will break according to the space available, with the remainder of the line wrapping at an indent. This allows readers to retain control over the appearance of text on any device, while also indicating where the author intended the line to break.

  This may not be a perfect solution, as some readers initially may be confused. We have to accept, however, that we are creating poetry e-books in a world that is imperfect for them—and we understand that to some degree the line may be compromised. Despite this, we’ve attempted to protect the integrity of the line, thus allowing readers of poetry to travel fully stocked with the poetry that needs to be with them.

  —Dan Halpern, Publisher

  dedication

  for my parents

  for John

  for you

  for always.

  contents

  cover

  title page

  publisher’s note

  dedication

  medical history

  a violence

  candelabra with heads

  hysterical strength

  legendary

  it’s not fitness, it’s a lifestyle

  happy birthday to me

  the first person who will live to be one hundred

  and fifty years old has already been born

  in igboland

  ♦

  legendary

  heretofore unuttered

  and

  cento for the night i said, “i love you”

  virginia is for lovers

  clue

  c ue

  unfurnished

  ♦

  imagine sisyphus happy

  underperforming sonnet overperforming

  legendary

  an apology for trashing magazines in which you appear

  even the gods

  in defense of “candelabra with heads”

  instead of executions, think death erections

  unframed

  object permanence

  notes

  acknowledgments

  about the author

  copyright

  about the publisher

  medical history

  I’ve been pregnant. I’ve had sex with a man

  who’s had sex with men. I can’t sleep.

  My mother has, my mother’s mother had,

  asthma. My father had a stroke. My father’s

  mother has high blood pressure.

  Both grandfathers died from diabetes.

  I drink. I don’t smoke. Xanax for flying.

  Propranolol for anxiety. My eyes are bad.

  I’m spooked by wind. Cousin Lilly died

  from an aneurysm. Aunt Hilda, a heart attack.

  Uncle Ken, wise as he was, was hit

  by a car as if to disprove whatever theory

  toward which I write. And, I understand,

  the stars in the sky are already dead.

  a violence

  You hear the high-pitched yowls of strays

  fighting for scraps tossed from a kitchen window.

  They sound like children you might have had.

  Had you wanted children. Had you a maternal bone,

  you would wrench it from your belly and fling it

  from your fire escape. As if it were the stubborn

  shard now lodged in your wrist. No, you would hide it.

  Yes, you would hide it inside a barren nesting doll

  you’ve had since you were a child. Its smile

  reminds you of your father, who does not smile.

  Nor does he believe you are his. “You look just like

  your mother,” he says, “who looks just like a fire

  of suspicious origin.” A body, I’ve read, can sustain

  its own sick burning, its own hell, for hours.

  It’s the mind. It’s the mind that cannot.

  candelabra with heads

  Had I not brought with me my mind

  as it has been made, this thing,

  this brood of mannequins, cocooned

  and mounted on a wooden scaffold,

  might be eight infants swaddled and sleeping.

  Might be eight fleshy fingers on one hand.

  Might be a family tree with eight pictured

  frames. Such treaties occur in the brain.

  Can you see them hanging? Their shadow

  is a crowd stripping the tree of souvenirs.

  Skin shrinks and splits. The bodies weep

  fat the color of yolk. Can you smell them

  burning? Their perfume climbing

  as wisteria would a trellis.

  as wisteria would a trellis.

  burning? Their perfume climbing

  fat the color of yolk. Can you smell them

  Skin shrinks and splits. The bodies weep

  is a crowd stripping the tree of souvenirs.

  Can you see them hanging? Their shadow

  frames. Such treaties occur in the brain.

  Might be a family tree with eight pictured

  Might be eight fleshy fingers on one hand.

  might be eight infants swaddled and sleeping.

  and mounted on a wooden scaffold,

  this brood of mannequins, cocooned

  as it has been made, this thing,

  Had I not brought with me my mind

  Who can see this and not see lynchings?

  hysterical strength

  When I hear news of a hitchhiker

  struck by lightning yet living,

  or a child lifting a two-ton sedan

  to free his father pinned underneath,

  or a camper fighting off a grizzly

  with her bare hands until someone,

  a hunter perhaps, can shoot it dead,

  my thoughts turn to black people—

  the hysterical strength we must

  possess to survive our very existence,

  which I fear many believe is, and

  treat as, itself a freak occurrence.

 
legendary

  I’d like to be a spoiled rich white girl.

  VENUS XTRAVAGANZA

  I want to be married in church. In white.

  Nothing borrowed or blue. I want a white

  house in Peekskill, far from the city—white

  picket fence fencing in my lily-white

  lilies. O, were I whiter than white.

  A couple kids: one girl, one boy. Both white.

  Birthright. All the amenities of white:

  golf courses, guesthouses, garage with white

  washer/dryer set. Whatever else white

  affords, I want. In multiples of white.

  Two of nothing is something, if they’re white.

  Never mind another neutral. Off-white

  won’t do. What I’d like is to be white

  as the unsparing light at tunnel’s end.

  it’s not fitness, it’s a lifestyle

  I’m waiting for a white woman

  in this overpriced Equinox

  to mistake me for someone other

  than a paying member. I can see it now—

  as I leave the steam room

  (naked but for my wedding ring?)

  she’ll ask whether I’ve finished

  cleaning it. Every time

  I’m at an airport I see a bird

  flying around inside, so fast I can’t

  make out its wings. I ask myself

  what is it doing here? I’ve come

  to answer: what is any of us?

  happy birthday to me

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  What was I saying?—

  Oh, yes. I don’t mean

  to be a bother, to burden

  you with questions. But

  did you know I wouldn’t

  last? That I would lose?

  Had you asked, I could’ve

  told you I’m not doing

  especially well at being alive.

  the first person who will live

  to be one hundred and fifty years

  old has already been born

  [FOR PETRA]

  Scientists say the average human

  life gets three months longer every year.

  By this math, death will be optional. Like a tie

  or dessert or suffering. My mother asks

  whether I’d want to live forever.

  “I’d get bored,” I tell her. “But,” she says,

  “there’s so much to do,” meaning

  she believes there’s much she hasn’t done.

  Thirty years ago she was the age I am now

  but, unlike me, too industrious to think about

  birds disappeared by rain. If only we had more

  time or enough money to be kept on ice

  until such a time science could bring us back.

  Of late my mother has begun to think life

  short-lived. I’m too young to convince her

  otherwise. The one and only occasion

  I was in the same room as the Mona Lisa,

  it was encased in glass behind what I imagine

  were velvet ropes. There’s far less between

  ourselves and oblivion—skin that often defeats

  its very purpose. Or maybe its purpose

  isn’t protection at all, but rather to provide

  a place, similar to a doctor’s waiting room,

  in which to sit until our names are called.

  Hold your questions until the end.

  Mother, measure my wide-open arms—

  we still have this much time to kill.

  in igboland

  After plagues of red locusts

  are unleashed by a jealous god

  hell-bent on making a scene,

  her way of saying hello or how dare you,

  townspeople build her a mansion

  of dirt, embedded with bone china,

  decorated wall-to-wall with statues

  made from clay farmed from anthills—

  statues of tailors on their knees

  hemming the pant legs of gods;

  statues of diviners reading

  sun-dried entrails cast onto cloths

  made of cowhide; statues of babies

  breaching, their mothers’ legs spread

  wide toward the sky, as if in praise.

  Sacrifices of goats and roosters

  signal headway behind the fence

  that hides the construction. A day is set.

  Next spirit workers disrobe and race

  to the fence, which they level, heap

  into piles and set ablaze, so the offering

  is first seen by firelight, not unlike

  a beloved’s face over candlelight.

  The West in me wants the mansion

  to last. The African knows it cannot.

  Every thing aspires to one

  degradation or another. I want

  to learn how to make something

  holy, then walk away.

  ♦

  legendary

  You want me to say who I am and all of that?

  PEPPER LABEIJA

  What girl gives up an opportunity

  to talk about herself? Not I. Not today.

  I won’t bore you with my biography—

  just a few highlights from my résumé.

  I don’t aspire; I’m whom one aspires to.

  The most frequently asked question isn’t

  WWJD? It’s what would Pepper LaBeija do?

  Really the question should be what hasn’t

  she done? I’ve been walking now two decades

  and got more grand prizes than all the rest.

  I hate to brag, but I’m a one-man parade,

  Jehovah in drag, the church in a dress.

  Outside these walls I may be irrelevant,

  but here I’m the Old and the New Testament.

  heretofore unuttered

  As if god, despite his compulsions, were decent

  and hadn’t the tendency to throw off

  all appearance of decorum, here I am

  admiring this single violet orchid.

  How lucky am I to go unnoticed

  or so I imagine, when, at this writing,

  there is a red-tailed hawk, somewhere,

  tracking the soft shrills of newborn songbirds—?

  and

  Withstand pandemonium

  and scandalous

  nightstands

  commanding candlelight

  and

  quicksand

  and zinfandel

  clandestine landmines

  candy handfuls

  and contraband

  and

  handmade

  commandments

  and merchandise

  secondhand husbands

  philandering

  and

  landless

  and vandal

  bandwagons slandered

  and branded

  handwritten reprimands

  and

  meander

  on an island

  landscaped with chandeliers

  abandon handcuffs

  standstills

  and

  backhands

  notwithstanding

  thousands of oleanders

  and dandelions

  handpicked

  and

  sandal
wood

  and mandrake

  and random demands

  the bystander

  wanders

  in

  wonderland.

  cento for the night i said, “i love you”

  Today, gentle reader,

  is as good a place to start.

  But you knew that, didn’t you? Then let us

  give ourselves over to the noise

  of a great scheme that included everything.

  That indicts everything.

  Let us roam the night together

  in an attempt to catch the stars that drop.

  White clouds against sky

  come humming toward me.

  One closely resembling the beginning

  of a miracle. There’s

  the moonlight on a curved path

  lighting the purple flowers of fragrant June.

  I dreamed him and there he was

  silent as destiny,

  lit by a momentary match.

  Men are so clueless sometimes,

  like startled fish

  living just to live.

  We are dying quickly

  but behave as good guests should:

  patiently allowing the night

  to have the last word.

  And I just don’t know,

  you know? I never had a whole lot to say

  while talking to strange men.

  What allows some strangers to go past strangeness? Exchanging

  yearning for permanence. And who wouldn’t