-
Road Music, and: Levis
- Prairie Schooner
- University of Nebraska Press
- Volume 77, Number 4, Winter 2003
- pp. 168-177
- 10.1353/psg.2003.0144
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Prairie Schooner 77.4 (2003) 168-177
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Two Poems
Jim Simmerman
Road Music
a set for Josh Maust (1978-1999)
There could be a dog
off-leash.There could be a bike.
There could be a kid
chasing after a soccer ball.There could be a car.
There could be a click
in the chest.There could be elk
in the trees.There could be a car.
There could be a bottle
and a bottle and a bottle
and so on andthere could be a car.
There could be a shim
in the steering.There could be a bubble
in the brain. [End Page 168]There could be boxes of
belongings
stacked in a garageand someone you won't be
running intoanymore....
*There could be a pig
squeal of brakes,stench of burnt rubber,
skid marks on asphalt
like soot smearedunder a sharpshooter's eyes.
There could be a car.
There could be a telephone pole,
a double yellow line.There could be a car.
There could be a bridge
and the black ice
a bridge wearslike spandex and what
floats under the bridgeyou don't want to see.... [End Page 169]
*There could be a car
and there could be
anyone in it: you or me
or the three mangled angelsassigned to forge elegies
in the blacksmith shop
of the ear. Listen.What do you hear?
A car backfiring
in the distancelike a rimshot?
A siren moaning
on the outskirts
of sleep?Maybe the zither
of hangers undressed
of their shirts and trousers?Then the ratchety music
packing tape makes
laying its little road....*There could be the idea
of a car and you wouldn't
be able to pass it. [End Page 170]There could be the memory
of a car and itwould tailgate
with its hi-beams lit.There could be the absence
of a car and so
you'd have to imagine:wind-brush on crushed
metal, impossible
jigsaw puzzle of glass andthere, in the ditch weed,
look, a boottwisted at the ankle....
*There could be a car
and there could be an elephants'
graveyard of cars andyou could go there,
any night,
with a hammer and a crowbarand try to make them sing.... [End Page 171]
*Or try to make a poem
about a car
and you could revisethe poem....
*I wish I could get into the car
a poem, that brief
embarrassment to silence....In a poem,
the car could stop.
Levis
You see, you must descend....
- Larry Levis, "Carvaggio: Swirl1Vortex"
How deep do you want to go?There is a lake in the brain
and a hole in the lake and you can takeyour time thinking about death.
If you think about it.
Also, there are those who will not acquit....
Which is not [End Page 172]a sadness, really,
but a souvenir of sadness:
a tear inside a thimbleinside a dimple of glass:
a paperweight.And the hole has a name.
*Souvenir, from the Latin: "come to mind" or
"come to aid" and either wayyou can take your time
polishing the splintered desks
in the empty schoolhouseMemory is custodian to.
Memory: working nights with its cartoon
lunchpail and stained thermosand closetful of chemicals and brooms
and you know it's true Memory lies
routinely just to stay in practice,and has no references,
and takes whatever work it can get. [End Page 173]
*Levis is dead and
so I am writing this poemin the fashion of Levis?,
which is workakin to performing the labors of Hercules
as a musical,if you think about it -
that's how puerile and insolent it isand believe me,
I think about it.It takes me deeper
and the only work I can getis shoveling shit in the King's stables,
whistling....*Who will come to aid and how
deep do you want to go?In all the stories of drownings
there are thosewho stand by the lake weeping,
wringing their hands and rending their clothes and...