Somebody Else Sold the World (Penguin Poets) - Softcover

Matejka, Adrian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143136445 ISBN 13: 9780143136446

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2021

Synopsis

A resonant new collection on love and persistence from the author of The Big Smoke, a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize

The poems in Adrian Matejka's newest and fifth collection, Somebody Else Sold the World, meditate on the ways we exist in an uncontrollable world: in love and its aftermaths, in families that divide themselves, in protest-filled streets, in isolation as routines become obsolete because of lockdown orders and curfews. Somebody Else uses past and future touchstones like pop songs, love notes, and imaginary gossip to illuminate those moments of splendor that persist even in exhaustion. These poems show that there are many possibilities of brightness and hope, even in the middle of pandemics and revolutions.

About this title

About the Author

Adrian Matejka's most recent collection of poetry is Somebody Else Sold the World. His other books are Map to the Stars; The Big Smoke, which was the winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and a finalist for both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize; Mixology, which was selected for the National Poetry Series; The Devil's Garden (Alice James Books, 2003), winner of the New York / New England Award; and Last On His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century, a graphic portrait of the boxing legend Jack Johnson. Among Matejka's other honors are fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and United States Artists. He served as Poet Laureate of the state of Indiana in 2018-19 and now lives in Chicago, where he is Editor of Poetry Magazine.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

somebody else sold the world

& before I knew it, the violet sky

flagged with the sun’s violent

demands: for magnolias in bloom,

natural light, any place magnanimous

without locks or doors. Different

kinds of masks for being & breathing.

The antagonists with their vanity tans

& usual mischiefs whistled jingles

about liberties & wars as we buttoned

up our confinement & dreamed about

hugging. We talked about was & when

when we missed our friends & dentist

appointments. Molars dropped out

without breathable air. Hair forgot

its natural colors without testimonies

at intersections & barbeques. Words

lost their family recipes. Friends lost

their words, then lost their parents.

A masked few found love somehow

in the gerrymandered grocery lines

& farmers’ fields upturned with unsellable

vegetables. So the antagonists cornered

the curfews, manufacturing arguments

with guns at the ready like henchmen.

The air around us was so ripe, it might

have broken in half if we could touch it.

 

on the b side

The song ends because the beginning

doesn’t jump-start again: red smudge

of a mouth, lipstick all over the place

like the afterthought a comet leaves

on its way out. What makes this moment

unfold like a woman raising herself

up from an unfamiliar couch? Honky-

tonk in the blue honey of an eyeball?

Perfume & its circus of heart-shaped

introductions? Innuendo always

stumbles in the lead-in, like a man

pawing around for his busted spectacles

after waking up in the world’s stubble.

Hand over hand he paws, through

guitar picks & record changers, busted

gut strings & clothing strung with

familiar vibrato outside the window.

He could be Bowie himself, exhausted

by skyscrapers cracked in the aftermath

of a smile. His eyes aren’t different

colors. They just have different focuses.

He could be a whole lot of nothing:

thinning hair, low change in his right

pocket jingling down the stairs.

He was given all of it & stole the best

of the rest. Even without glasses,

he sees her nearly dressed: 33 1⁄3 rpm

stacticky in the lead-out’s harmony.

 

it was over way back then

because of want & tumble?

Because of word crumbles

in the kitchen’s halogen?

No. Separate bedrooms

for years & here I am again:

up top in the kitchen light,

out front with a burnished

stove & the microwave’s

immaculate readouts. Up

here, my crosscut hands

greet the butter knife before

the big spread. What I want

now is a better ideogram

for instead after the skull

& crossbones on the pill bottles.

What I want is a bucket for

my panics & justifications.

My coddled addendums

downtagged on the sales table

each & every spring. Here

we go with that old seasonal

bullshit again. Earphones on

so your eardrums don’t get

punched out near the exit.

Tom Fords on, too, just

for the flex of it. Is it

too much to ask for quiet

after all my losses in this

insistent chorus of renew?

Is it too much to be momentary

in the morning grass, suede

kicks beaten up by the dew?

 

 

haul

I used to live in a sandstone house

wrapped up in flowers. They weren’t

tall like Neruda’s in his city next

to the sea. My flowers quickstepped

like the town I walked the dog

through—little magentas, roses,

singsong rehearsals of sing-along

yellows & winking whites when

the right breeze kicked up. Out

in the yard, neighborly blossoms

falsettoed to the canopy each & every

spring. Suburb of aromatic layers,

trimmed hedges pollenating the windows

while my little girl gospeled down

the long stair of revelry. Glory be.

Her harmony bent me like a stark

song in the back talk. Euphonium

along the length of yawning houses,

those For Sale signs & empty

windows with timed lights. Every

thing sang its entropy. Almost

everybody grew eventually. Not by

revolution but realization: nostalgia

made mnemonic. What else could

I do after leaving that house other

than become part of the chorus?

Glory be my aberrant attendance,

still trying to itemize the litany

of sunstruck days the way

Sisyphus did, hauling his bundled

shipwreck up to the recycler

for a few copper coins & a smoke.

Glory be my busted, fatherly heart.

 

gymnopédies no. 1

That was the week it wouldn’t stop

snowing. That was the week five-

fingered trees fell on houses & power

lines snapped like somebody waiting

for payday in a snowstorm. That snow

week, my little girl & I trudged over

the busted branches fidgeting through

the snow like empty digits through

a hungry pocket. Over the termite-

hollowed stump, squat as a flat tire,

then up & over the hollow the fox dives

into when we open the back door.

That week glittered like a Christmas

card while we poked around for

the best place to stand a snowman.

A pinecone-nosed one. One with

thumb-pressed eyes to see the whole

picture once things warm up.

 

hearing damage

I had a trumpet shaped

like a downward heart

& I played it recklessly.

All of its dented iterations

of brass & bell. Three-

valve marginality.

Marching band possibility

pointing at the muddy

dirt. I had a double-talk

as slick & overachieving

as a kid trench-coated

with a boom box overhead

in the rain. His socks:

wet & ankle loose

in their blueness.

Argyle wonder caught

up in high school’s sloppy

gears, greedy for moments

of matriculated attention.

& none of it worked—

when the tape deck got

soaked, the tape stopped

playing. When the music

stopped, her shades

barked when they shut.

As if attention itself

magnetized, stretched

around eager reels, then

fed itself into the machine.

Click, click, click.

As if my bleating pleas

weren’t big trumpets

for attention, but gentle

half notes trimmed into

funny polyester hearts,

future palpitations of glory.

 

somebody else sold the world

So much yellow gold

on me like a beehive

—future

Everything goes better with gold

for the antagonists. They gild teeth

& toilet caps with it. They write

grocery lists & postscripts with it

while the rest of us cluster around

the jewelry shop hoping we’ll catch

a sale before it’s Valentine’s Day

again. Old traditions of huddling

against the elements learned

back in the butt-naked day, mewling

at the sky’s conditions. I’m jewelryless

& archaic, sure, still calling love

by its twentieth-century name.

I’m abiding by the general rituals

while making all the wrong choices

right next to a case full of pendants

blinking like my future paramour’s

eyes. I’m still looking upward, sure,

prayer hands folded on top of the leather

hymnal. Every one of my busted loves

chaptered & bound with gold leaf

& not even the stars that gold comes

from could save my copper-plated

routines. Future called it astronaut status,

ATL skyline glamorous behind him.

Some astronauts’ smiles look like

golden cityscapes. Some astronauts

have gold wings & wedding rings,

too, cast from the first available cluster.

 

love notes

Do you love vague commitments?

Do you love bad news in crooning shapes?

Whole or half, tattoos mooning on

conjoined rib cages? Check this box &,

like a breath, you’ll feel mostly bygone.

Like one of those early recordings, you’ll

be scratchy & demystified. Untranscribably

confessional until the last quarter note

is a processional. You’ll be absolutely fine,

flipped to the B side of this note’s high-lined

referendum. Magnificent & stark inside

the addendum, like a big breath exhaled

through the smart part of a question mark.

 

highest

I’m the highest in the room

—travis scott

I rise up, therefore I must be like Descartes

if he didn’t finish all the reading. I raise up

like the highest Black hand in history class.

I am risen like the blood pressure of anybody

Black mimeographed in the chronic textbook

of this monochromatic year. That’s infant

mortality rate high. That’s high-top fade high.

Most everything up here hangs threadbare,

squarely in the redline of summery excuses.

Everything else up in here, from the cop

apologies to the solidarity statements: a double

tap of distraction for somebody else’s

high sign. That’s unemployment high. That’s

Machu Picchu high. What a relief hardly

anybody stuck around to see me on the low

side of the mountain. What a reprieve because

I kept rising stealthily—past my historical

anxiety, way past all my inherited hearsay

until I am so high up on the shelf I eye-

level alchemy. Even up here, I’m adept

at shrinking myself for safety. Even up here,

my shoulders hunch like a small analogy.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0143136445
• ISBN 13: 9780143136446
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96