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Grace, and: Immortality, and: Correspondence, and: HIV Needs Assessment, and: Scariest Movie, and: Heel
- Prairie Schooner
- University of Nebraska Press
- Volume 79, Number 3, Fall 2005
- pp. 23-28
- 10.1353/psg.2005.0116
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Prairie Schooner 79.3 (2005) 23-28
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Six Poems
Roy Jacobstein
Grace
– Agha Shahid Ali, 1949–2001I suppose it's only human
nature to use trade jargon
to signify one's membershipin the guild, possession
of the arcane and potent
lore of the few, the elect –doesn't the alchemist have
his azoth, the bishop his ambo,
his ciborium – thus the physicianmasks the bitter draught
of diagnosis and prognosis
within an effusion of wordsso sweet in their sonic grace
when intoned slowly enough,
slow as an agonal breath, longwords of ancient provenance
that bespeak the toga, the oracle,
the goddess, achingly beautifulwords, ewers into which are poured
long vowels and multiple syllables,
like leukopenia, septicemia, glioblastoma. [End Page 23]
Immortality
Gatling and Colt,
Mauser and Lüger,
Kalashnikov, Uzi –you men of invention
live on in the hammer
and the grip, muzzleand buttstock, bluing,
fire, recoil – wherever
you are blood pools,wound and clot
flashing the code,
your family nameshattering bone.
Correspondence
if you see my other son,
cain, son of man,
tell him that i– Dan Pagis, "Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway Car"In the Hebrew of the Bible
and of today I understand [End Page 24]the di-syllabic word adam
is also the word for manso in the Arabic of the Koran
and of today must it not betrue that two like syllables
mean the same two things –Adam, man – and don't bin
and ben both mean son of
HIV Needs Assessment
Everywhere the faces, hair, limbs
are coal, obsidian, flawless black
sapphire, thus the rare mzungu*like me stands out the way
those few white moths once did
on industrial London's sooted trees.A month fluttering The Warm Heart
of Africa's long length on this Needs
Assessment. We've found the needsmany. But let us not talk of that,
as the people do not. Focus instead
on the vivid oleander & limpid sky [End Page 25]that domes the arid volcanic hills,
its lapis mirrored in the uniforms
of the file of schoolgirls who stridethe side of the road. And when the talk,
matter-of-fact, beyond resigned, bears
left at the roundabout, glances upona cousin's funeral attended yesterday,
the two added children your colleague
from Lilongwe is now raising alone,funeral venues for this weekend, just
sit there as the Project Vehicle propels
you onward to the next Site, pastthe lone ads for toothpaste
& for study opportunity abroad,
& the many for caskets ("lightweight,can be carried by one"), & say nothing.
Scariest Movie
Growing up, the scariest movie
I ever saw was Invisible Monster.
This guy in a dark trenchcoat
and dark hat carried the monster
with him wherever he went,
in a hard-sided, snap-lock suitcase. [End Page 26]
Every so often, to the dysphonic
strains of violins, he'd crack it open,
to give us a hint of its mighty force.
Hounds howled, lamp-posts toppled,
power lines hissed, we kids cowered
in the balcony. It was clear
there'd be no end to the havoc
should he open his suitcase wide.
Each night the unseen drove me
to the middle of my parents' bed,
twenty-three nights straight.
I can't recall the guy's face or voice,
but I swear he's still out there,
and my parents are dead.
Heel
Rhonda, my gentle and sturdy mix
of border collie and malamute,
who bears the endless probes
of two-year olds with that good nature
bred into pack breeds, and limits her urgency
to the never ending, always futile quest
for squirrel and vole, who would smother
any burglar so grossly ill-informed
as to hope a cache of riches awaited him
with her wet nose and dangly tongue,
whose pacific acceptance of restraint
and rebuke is Buddhist and boundless, [End Page 27]
has just torn for the throat of her fellow
mongrel, blind, gaunt, flatulent Maxx,
now-decrepit mutt...