Its Ghostly Workshop: Poems

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Its Ghostly Workshop southern messenger poets Dave Smith, Series Editor louisiana state university press Baton Rouge poems Ron Smith Its Ghostly Workshop Published by Louisiana State University Press Copyright © 2013 by Ron Smith All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America LSU Press Paperback Original First printing Designer: Laura Roubique Gleason Typefaces: Whitman, text; Helvetica Neue, display Printer and binder: IBT Global Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, Ron, 1949 Feb. 12– Its ghostly workshop : poems / Ron Smith. p. cm. “LSU Press Paperback Original”—T.p. verso. ISBN 978-0-8071-5030-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8071-5031-3 (pdf) — ISBN 978-0-8071-5032-0 (ePub) — ISBN 978-0-8071-5033-7 (mobi) I. Title. PS3569.M537963I88 2013 811'.54—dc23  2012027904 The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. ∞ This book is dedicated to Delores & Brooks ~ strength, wonder, invention, music ~ and to the memory of James Kendrick Smith (1923–2011) He loved the world he fought to save. This page intentionally left blank . . . one must divest oneself of the love of created things. —T. S. Eliot, letter to Bonamy Dobrée . . . happiness is not something uncreated. —Aquinas, Suma Theologica To perish . . . , swallowed up and lost / In the wide womb of uncreated Night . . . —Milton, Paradise Lost Deliver me from men who are without doubt. Doubt makes a man decent. —Harry Crews, “We Are All of Us Passing Through” Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower into a truth. —Thoreau, Excursions This page intentionally left blank Contents I Edward Teller’s Leg 1 II | The Stinkdark Mr. Poe Calls on Mrs. Shelton 3 Edgar Poe Tries to Get His Act Together 4 Poe’s Last Words 6 The Southern Poet Is Pursued by Eliot 8 Ford, Joyce, Pound, Quinn 10 Pisa 11 Shithouse 13 DTC 14 The Fascist Salute 15 A Negroni for the Master 16 III Supermoon 19 IV | Created, Uncreated At First 21 Piazza G. G. Belli 22 The Caravaggio Room 23 Roman Sleep 25 Early Christianity: A Poem 26 Rome 29 Bentornato, 31 The Rewiring 33 Napoleon’s Naked Sister 35 A Wizard in the Forum 36 Via della Scala, Trastevere 38 Campidoglio 39 Palatine 40 Galleria Borghese, August 41 x Satiro e Ninfa 42 The Tomb of the Scipios 43 Via Appia, Beyond Ciampino 44 κάθαρσης 46 V Little Gidding 47 VI | A Different World Album 51 Come on In, Come on Along 52 Yankees 54 Splitting the Doubleteam 56 The Day Jerry Suna Came to Baseball Practice Drunk 57 Double 59 A Different World 61 Distraction 62 Anecdote of the Half-Rubber 63 A Leni Riefenstahl Triptych 64 Incarnation 66 Flashes 68 Perfect Hit 70 VII Its Ghostly Workshop 73 Acknowledgments 75 1 I Edward Teller’s Leg for Lois & Cliff Schroeder The moon rose over Delphi’s plundered hush, darkness’ theatrical curve, your sheltered, luminous skin, delicate, sensuous air. Look, there, Teller whispered, and one star among astonishments of stars moved west to east. Sputnik, he said, as if he had launched it himself. And our breathing fell away down the mountain. We leaned back, the tinkling sky chandeliered with neurons. All the night before, we had nosed past Piraeus, then through the cyclopean slice of the Corinth Canal. Teller tattooed the deck above us. Morning, he wouldn’t show his notepad, its glimpsed black tangles, said it would take only a few bombs to widen the channel. Where would the people go? Lois asked. We’d move them for a few days, he said. They could have a holiday. Please watch Edward, she would say, his wife with the lovely name I always have to look up, a crease you could tell was already permanent between her brows. We sat near the rail and watched Edward levitate in the transparent water, a maimed starfish, whispered heart attack, stroke. Always, though, he paddled back, hopped up the clanging ladder, and Lois handed the dripping Teller his pretanned leg. Always 2 he came out of the water with that look of troubled satisfaction, that look that said, I have figured it out, and they will have to listen. So much gone—what we ate, how we made love in those narrow bunks. But Teller remains, out on the bow of the Cavafy...