Poem about loving (mine).

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Loving you is just as full of color

 

as stepping off the train from someplace north

into the streets of midtown Manhattan and goodness

all the business women in their golden spires

of hair and heel and midday men with navy pocket

squares, even the children stop to stare at my patterned

country dress, my weak-tied ponytail. My duffel builds

a crease against my elbow’s hook—somewhere

in there, laid along the clothing and the slippers,

a jar of honey for a friend tilts and leaks, and the hive

at home goes on buzzing, run by a queen and the laws

of servitude, oh even the unemployed are dressed

in red and ready in New York, and I am standing

waiting for my ride, eyed by a policeman on the corner

like a villain sent from someplace blessed with vaster

spaces, and the taxis throw themselves with vigor

at the color green, and the city sky is purpling to black

with neon signs winking sales in capitals and every redhead

in the city is out here walking, no wait, shoving, past.

 

Poem I’ll recite today (Schuyler).

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Today is my last day of classes. Most significantly, today is the last day of the intro to creative writing class I’ve been teaching this semester. I will miss my class; they made me laugh & taught me about the Fibonacci sequence. They worked hard and wrote risky poems. We all have to recite a poem in honor of the last day, and then they will hand in their portfolios, and then I will want to hug them all, but I will not. And I will begin by reciting this, by James Schuyler:

 

Letter Poem #3

 

The night is quiet

as a kettle drum

the bullfrog basses

tuning up. After

swimming, after sup-

per, a Tarzan movie,

dishes, a smoke. One

planet and I

wish. No need

of words. Just

you, or rather,

us. The stars tonight

in pale dark space

are clover flowers

in a lawn the expanding

universe in which

we love it is

our home. So many

galaxies and you my

bright particular,

my star, my sun, my

other self, my bet-

ter half, my one

 

 

Joe Brainard loved pansies.

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Joe Brainard (painter, collagist, writer) loved pansies so much. He cut them out of everywhere. He collaged them onto pages, in to entire books, which he kept and gave as presents to people like James Schuyler (I’ve seen them in the archives at UCSD–they’re beautiful; they’re shiny and layered, dozens and dozens of PANSIES).

 

 

 

His love of pansies (and flowers in general) reminds me of how I’ve always wanted to love football. Or the “Twilight” books. Or skateboarding. I want so badly to love something so simple, something that other people love so much. It’s incredibly appealing, the idea that there’s some new thing out there to get all excited about–I want to love these things; they are so available and other people love them and I would like to join in on that. But I can’t tell where the goddamn ball is on that huge field, even with the camera telling me where to look. And Bella is SO boring to read about. And I’m afraid of falling off a skateboard and hurting my knees.

 

 

Joe Brainard got something right with his love of flowers. He was a normal, human person like the rest of us, and by that, I mean that he was self-conscious and sensitive and he wasn’t sure he was ever doing the right thing. He made art and he tried his best to do days well. He wanted to be loved and he wanted to be known, and not as a celebrity. He loved flowers, especially pansies, and he found them everywhere. He collected and saved them. He saved them for himself, but also portioned them out to people he loved. People learned this about him and so sent him stationery with pansies on it. People learned what he loved and then there was more of pansies in his life, and voila: more of love.