No Second Eden: Poems

A Different Perspective on A Rebours

A Different Perspective on A Rebours Accordingly, he resolved to have his turtle’s back glazed over with gold. Once back from the jeweler’s, who had taken it to board at his workshop, the beast blazed like a sun in splendor. At first Des Esseintes was enchanted with the effect; but he soon came to the conclusion that this gigantic jewel would not really be complete and perfect till it was incrusted with precious stones. —J. K. Huysmans I My father, who in snapshots scorns biology To look like Rudolph Valentino bred with me, I have few recollections of. And here also It’s mock the laws of nature. I am two years old; He’s to his elbows in a paint-store window, in— Prepare yourself—a living mound of terrapins Whom he has painted powder blue. The store is his; The luckless creatures serve as samples or as ads. A morning in the swamp provides unstintingly, And brushwork does the rest. Our pastel spectacle Is stopping traffic, although it is self-defeat, Since Mississippi in that distant period Has lots of catching up to do. Art here is life. Illiterates, on whom the lettering is lost, Assume the coloring to be an act of God. But then, illiterates do not redecorate. In 1933, no one redecorates. The business goes broke, thank God, or I might be Today the most sought after decorator there. I cannot tell you what befell the terrapins, Nor do I wish to know. A shell of powder blue Cannot have been a help if Father let them loose: 39 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. Reintroduction to the wild as color chart. I do not even think the paint was very good. I seem to see it rubbing off on sheikhdom’s shirt; For these, as any self-respecting hardshell would So tarted-out in painted color, huddle up And must be redistributed. The Horsemen Four Take on my handsome father, but you see from whom I have my functioning imagination. Nice To say I thought of him and of that color guard When I encountered A Rebours, but I did not. I did, though, finding on menus in Baltimore Terrapin Maryland. Does it taste much of paint? And Mississippi? It is there in blood and sand. Or would be if its swamps had sand instead of mud. 40 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. II In recollection number two The swamp is all around us. Des Esseintes the father and the son Are on a fishing afternoon. The elder, who can bring a knife Edge crease to khaki, does. No one Could possibly resemble less A bodyguard of Huey Long. The younger is an unstarched mess, But being somewhat under three Is looked at mostly from above. Not by request, but nonetheless Specifically to let me see, My father from his tin bait bucket Lifts instructively the lid. Below me, in a shining dark, I see the circling minnows crowd, And even in a summer swamp I smell at once the primal smell. It is another world, and has, I think, not much to do with me, Although I am not squeamish. Hook Inside the lip, a bait that bleeds, Do not disturb me, as I know Much else can happen. On our last Excursion Father caught a hook In his own lip. It took morphine, The surgeon’s knife, and two stiff shots 41 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For tetanus to get him through. It has occurred in later years He may have thought his fine white scar Well worth it. I, though, at the smell Of minnows, welcome back the lid. 42 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures...