Children with Enemies (Phoenix Poets) - Softcover

Dischell, Stuart

Softcover

ISBN 10: 022649859X ISBN 13: 9780226498591

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2017

Synopsis

There is a gentleness in the midst of savagery in Stuart Dischell’s fifth full-length collection of poetry. These poems are ever aware of the momentary grace of the present and the fleeting histories that precede the instants of time. Part elegist, part fabulist, part absurdist, Dischell writes at the edges of imagination, memory, and experience. By turns outwardly social and inwardly reflective, comic and remorseful, the beautifully crafted poems of Children with Enemies transfigure dread with a reluctant wisdom and come alive to the confusions and implications of what it means to be human.

About this title

About the Author

Stuart Dischell is the author of six collections of poetry, including Dig Safe, Backwards Days, and Children with Enemies. His first collection, Good Hope Road, was selected for the National Poetry Series, and he has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation. Dischell teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Children with Enemies

By Stuart Dischell

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2017 The University of Chicago
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-226-49859-1

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Harmless Poem, 
Because You Have Seen It So, 
A Different Kind of Person, 
The Wharves, 
The Passages, 
Fragment, 
Song of the Compatriots, 
When a Child Asks about Angels, 
Things Are Changing for Johanna, 
"The Sun on Falling Waters Writes the Text", 
In the Sequences of Traffic, 
Nothing about Dogs, 
The Mysteries of Aurora, 
Casualty Event, 
Memorial Day, Greensboro, 
Ring of Keys, 
A Visit to a Strange Land, 
His Name Means Handsome, 
Proclamation, 
The Best for Me, 
Why Poseidon Chose My Grandfather, 
Others Made It Back Over the Pyrenees, 
I Was Busy, 
My Uncle's Sketchbook from the Cold War, 
Little Narcissus, 
A Message from the Herd, 
Another Picture of the Future, 
The Squash Man, 
Couplet on an Ancient Visage, 
Standing on Z, 
On the Day after My Birthday, 
My Famous Broken Heart, 
Beneath the Blast, 
Questions for the Mariner, 
Attic and Basement, 
Okay to Others, 
Future Girl, 
Without Sunglasses, 
What Begins in Eros Ends in Elegy, 
Evening in the Window (Parts I–IV), 
Song of the Drunken Captain, 
If I Had Known You Were Listening, 
The Lives of My Friends, 
Translation from the Origins of Time, 
Notes, 

CHAPTER 1

Harmless Poem


Forgive the web without its spider,
The houseplant with few or many flowers,
And the stars for hiding in the daytime,
Forgive astronauts for distance
And surgeons for proximity,
Forgive the heart for the way it looks
Like something a dog eats from a pan,
Forgive goat-gods and wine-gods
And the goddess bathing in her pond,
Forgive the sea for being moody,
The air for its turbulence, the stomach
For its vomit, forgive the insistence
Of sperm, the greeting of the ovum,
Forgive orgasms for their intensity
And the faces they make in people's faces,
Forgive the music of liars, forgive autumn
And winter and the departure of lovers.
And the young beautiful dead and the persistence
Of the old, forgive the last tooth and hair.


Because You Have Seen It So

Sometimes here in autumn, usually after a rainstorm,
The trees one morning lose their leaves and the light
"Abounds earlie in the newly stripp'd branches"

Through the living room windows. The whole house
Gets exposed inside and out to its angles, the glass
Illuminating all sorts of patterns and prints
"Such the gazer might be delighted by passing clouds."

Certain spiders familiarize themselves with corners,
"Their webs flutter'ng in the breeze of the fire."
Dog fur and dust twine like ivy up the chair legs.

You can tell on the chapped lips of lovers, this winter
Will be long. A child will mourn the death of a houseplant
And draw it in its clay pot with green leaves.
The refrigerator door will keep it among magnets.


A Different Kind of Person

I encounter a woman from a long way off
Almost every morning when I walk my dog
In a certain park between certain hours
That have not changed the whole season long.
She owns several coats, all of them
The same length, yesterday a gray one;
Today deep red, and she smoothed her
Cheek as she went by. She sees me
At my worst, unshaven, in my sweats,
Bagging dog shit, my son's skateboard cap
Pulled down to my eyebrows. Hers arch
When she says, "Good morning," which is all
I have ever heard her speak with her accent
From somewhere between the Danube
And the Don, where I bet she modeled coats
In a capital city. How she got here or what
She does is none of my business, and I
Do not wish to say to her more than, "Good
Morning," or ask, "How are you today?"
And spoil the peace we have found among
The ornamental trees native to our region.


The Wharves

Rising and falling on the rising tide
The floating docks at dawn sound
Whale songs along the metal posts.

Then the winches and pulleys begin.
There is fog and out to sea a sun
Yet to be seen and cabin lights

Coming on in the pleasure craft
And houseboats moored in the marina
Slips, where bright fenders bump

Against the pilings, lines extending
And slacking, tied to the cleats.
The trawlers are first going out

Against the tide. The largest lead
Ones take the full brunt of the swells,
The others go easy in the wake, while

Overhead gulls follow old bait,
But not all of them are circulating.
Some are fixed to the planks and pilings

Like lampposts. Ashore, two people
Lean against the dockside fence,
Light cigarettes, and drink from a flask.


The Passages

Some brightly decorated passages,
Lively and fluorescent until dawn,
Like stars are hidden in the daylight —
No signs, no numbers, no names.

Mostly, we live indoors.

I have a favorite pair of shoes
Manufactured in Argentina.
There is nowhere I wish to walk
In them but down those passages.


Fragment

When you consider your own land,
Remote as your childhood room
Where your body grew among
Trophies and pennants to the thing it is
Today,

* * *

  when you recall the first
Mirror you shaved your face before,
Your image, as a young man,
Weak as it was, appears handsome
From this distance like the city
Where you were born, seen from
The sea past the three-mile limit,

* * *

Then rub your body with lotions,
Take pleasure in the wealth of fresh water,
Remember the first time you saw yourself naked.


Song of the Compatriots

My friend and I are running on a trail
Along the hills outside of town.
I am winded, but he could go for miles,
For hours, for days. He could run
Through the night in the forest and by day
Across the desert along the highway
To Mexico or turn north to the pole.
He could find the land bridge to Asia
And run all the way to the coast of Spain.

We stop in the graveyard above the town.
He says to me, "fatso," though I am thin,
"I want to run for miles, for hours, for days.
I want to run through the night in the forest
And all day across the desert along the highway
To Mexico. I could turn north to the pole
Or find the land bridge to Asia and run
All the way to the coast of Spain,
But not today because you are my friend."


When a Child Asks about Angels

When my brother was swept away in a culvert
During a flash flood and entered a drainpipe
Under a road, the stopped motorists, two elderly
Sisters on their way home from church, counted
Their breath until he spilled out in the ditch
On the other side alive where they cheered him
From the rail and walked down the path in the rain
In their Sunday shoes, flowered hats, and dresses, and they
Guided him through the trees to the shelter of their car.
I am grateful forever to their blanket and thermos
And how they hugged him warm with their bodies
While he was trembling, their huge gorgeous bodies.


Things Are Changing for Johanna

I am a little afraid to walk face-level with the orange cat
Cleaning himself in sunshine on the fence post, so I say

"Hey kitts," to put it on notice I am cool about passing,
When a girl in a calico dress on her knees beside her mom

On the other side of the pickets, weeding the flower bed
And burying bulbs for an upcoming season, gets up

To tell me his name is Reginald but she calls him Reggie.
So I say, "Where it is, Reggie," and he stops washing a minute

And opens his mouth like he's about to answer then decides not to,
Which vexes me a little to think he'd rather lick his rear end

Than regard a fellow who knows something about the world,
When the girl says, "My mom kissed a man on the porch last night,"

And I smile down at her mom wearing overalls and a ball cap
Who is right now the most attractive person in the world.


"The Sun on Falling Waters Writes the Text"

I

Once a ray of sunshine broke
Away from the other rays and flew
Across the sky like a banner,

An act of joy.

II

Rapidly moving through a mown field
A goat in high summer
Noticed the bright ray in the sky,

Then snapped at a bee.

III

Woolly woolly,
The beasts of the earth,
The fleas on their bellies

In their own landscape too.

IV

The ray meant nothing to anyone
That did not see it. The ones that saw it
Thought about it endlessly.

I must have slept late that day.


In the Sequences of Traffic

I

Whether I was the doorway leading to the dust-bedazzled entry
Or the warped door leaning in the sunlight against the building
Was the question I asked on the sidewalk and answered both
Ways yes, desiring to trespass in the foyer and ring bells
And talk to people I don't know through their intercoms
Or just slouch awhile against a wall untroubled in the city
Appeared good choices, while through my sunglasses
Occasionally women flipped their hair with the backs of their fingers
In automatic gestures that made me so excited to be alive
I called out to one in a floral dress, "Mademoiselle votre
Cheval est très amusant," and she gave me a look
That strummed once across the strands of my DNA and I
Wanted to wear a t-shirt that said "LET'S SWIM IN THE MUD
TOGETHER" but by then she had joined the greater pattern
Of the avenue in the afternoon where others would encounter her
Waiting for the light to change and think things about the sunlight
On the flowers of her dress and the case they make against death —
And the painters mixed the color and the carpenter returned
From lunch to his recollected bits of song and when I looked
At the door again it was back on its hinges and painted blue.


II

The carpenter returned from lunch to the bits of song
The painters had heard him sing all morning as he planed
The door and sawed and nailed the new boards of the frame
While they painted the walls of the entryway and the hall,
Heard the same four notes they knew of Beethoven's Fifth:
"La dah dah dah," sometimes with words filled in,
Sometimes in English, sometimes in French,
"I love you so," "Elle s'appelle Claire," never getting
Beyond the last note, sometimes pausing several minutes
Or continuing right away, "Tee tee tee tah," notes
That made them wonder when the next might follow
Or whether they might cease forever and be replaced
By the new notes of a new song they would find themselves
Again anticipating, until he sang, "Voilà la porte,"
"Finish your work," and they mixed the blue color
As they traded glances beneath their painter's caps
And looked at their watches and made the best of the hours.


III

After lunch she walked back to the office in the sunshine
Past a carpenter planing a door against a building
And heard the American in dark glasses say something
Silly to her something about her being a funny horse
Which she certainly was not. Last night at the club
She was dancing with friends when a man in a gray shirt
With a fur collar tried to cut in like a man in a cartoon:
Big teeth in his mouth, a long nose, and swirling red circles
In his eyes that made him look as strange as he was.
His breath when he spoke smelled of liquor and meat.
She knew men who carried guns and boys who carried
Knives and knew the men who carried knives and the boys
Who carried guns were the ones to stay away from.
And men with big teeth. She had seen the American before
Talking outside a bar. He was thin and a lot of people knew him.
She would go to that bar and tell him he was the funny horse.
Tonight or another night she would do this.


IV

The afternoon admired itself, pleased by the way it looked
In sunshine on the avenue with so many people outside —
Especially a woman in a spring dress with blue flowers,
And the others — the butcher in front of his shop

Cleaning the glass of the rotisserie, the restaurant
Manager in an apron clipping the leaves off geraniums,
Painters working on the trim of a doorframe, a man in dark glasses
On the corner saying something to the woman in a spring dress

When she passed, a carpenter with his mouth open in such a way
It looked like he was singing, and the cars and buses stopping
And starting. People were looking. People were talking.
The afternoon could not hear them. It was deaf in its weather.


Nothing about Dogs

A yellow one and a silver one, both as shaggy
As a sixties bathroom carpet and toilet seat cover,
Sleep under the awning of the porch in a place
They have learned is out of the rain. The yellow one
Looks dirtier because it is lighter but the silver one
Is larger and smells worse, I am told, by a woman
Who appears out of nowhere in her driveway
(Nowhere being outside my field of concentration),
And says the yellow one is on its last legs,
And as if to prove it, it stands on trembling forelegs,
Before flopping down once again on its pal
Like old-time bums in a doorway.
The dust should rise, but the rain tamps it down.
She tells me, her neighbor, their owner,
Has been locked up in the state hospital
For the insane and she looks after them
In case he ever gets out. I recall the story
In the paper. A naked man in his yard fired
A rifle at the sky, but nothing written about dogs.


The Mysteries of Aurora

I

It is never winter where Aurora lives.
The trees keep their leaves to themselves.
Aurora likes to move through the world with the light
On her face. Like the wife of a president,
She wears a scarf and dark glasses.
But Aurora mourns nothing, not even her childhood.
I don't know whether there are always flowers there.


II

When Aurora says she is an open book
I think of the Kabala and other such texts —
Or my dream of another alphabet
I could not read in which I wrote my work.
Before I knew Aurora I traced petroglyphs
And dinosaur footprints. Now I picture
Her skin covered with invisible symbols.


III

Aurora tries to hide things in bright places
Where she thinks I cannot see them.
Aurora is that kind of magician.
Look over there, she told me,
That cloud looks like my birthmark.
When I turned she was gone,
But I knew which cloud she meant.


IV

When solar particles collide with
The atmosphere Aurora parties till all
Hours of the summer night — Aurora likes
To dance, and I am nasty at the edges
Of the room where young men compose their texts.
Aurora gives out her number but seldom answers.
With Aurora even the echo would be half itself.


V

How unreal, Aurora, a hider in the night,
A personality breeding amid the rookeries
Of stars. Sweet self, how was it
I ever held her, that she held me above
And between saying yeah and oh yeah?
And morning kisses in the garden with coffee.
(A songbird hit the window of the room I wrote this in.)


VI

We walked between the double rows of the plane trees.
I wore the shirt with the pattern she loved. She gave
Herself as only she could. Her auburn hair in highlights newly cut.
Nearly autumn. The leaves in the gutters scuttled in the breeze.
Soon the rails would sing an aubade to the station. Past Aubervilliers,
Flatcars and ridelles idled on the siding. I believe their emptiness
Cheered her for departure with thoughts of their possible cargo.


VII

I live in latitude where the day is brief
And sometimes I sleep through it,
And waking in the middle of the night
I say Aurora is a water glass,
Aurora the pillow, Aurora the blanket.
I think of all the things I have to tell her.
Aurora, the mice who were our witnesses are gone.


Casualty Event

Amid predictions of the end of the world
And individuals who do their small part
In marketplaces, schools, and airplanes
To turn each other to dust,

I step out of the hospital for a smoke,
And think of the beautiful skin of my father.
His suicide by tile
In the hall he would not carpet

Because it looked so "byoo-tee-ful"
Took nearly three months and a few days into
The New Year. He had heard
Mom call from the other room

When he took his bad step —
And woke only to sing once
To the nurses and offer
Invitations to accompany him abroad.

His skin was
Translucent in the overhead.
His eyes flickered twice
Along with the flat line
Of his ventilated smile.
He is a statue of air now,
And I, both hands in the night,
Pickpocket of sorrow.


Memorial Day, Greensboro

My neighbor loves
This country more
Than the rich do
Because it's all

He's got maybe
Other than his plot
Of earned lawn
Made green with work

And chemicals
His tidy detached
House with someone
Else's family

Initial on
The screen door
(S for Smith?)
A chain link

Fenced yard dog
To patrol amid
Swings and monkey
Bars and his great

Grill flaming
Below traditional
Cuts of meat
He is inside now

Preparing what's next
No one walks
Down the street
It is so quiet

When his air
Conditioner stops
Running the fat
Hisses on the red coals

A greenfly circles
The perimeter
The dog scratches
Its neck and ears

Each flap
Of the flag
Brings us to
Attention


Ring of Keys

Too many keys on one ring
And most of them open nothing
Anymore. The old suitcases
Lost in the attic eaves
Of the house that poetry
Paid for, the door to the shed
Peeling in the rain, or
To a basement storage unit
In Cambridge twenty years ago
Where I left a mattress
And blanket in case
I might need to crash there.
Here is a long one
To the ignition of my Prelude
And a short, moon-face
To a stolen bike chain.
My locker at the gym
Holds someone's extra
Socks and deodorant,
And this skinny saw blade
From Fort Bliss
Federal Credit Union
Went to a safety deposit box.
(No guns or money there now!)
These toothy ones belong in
The cylinders of my parents'
Apartment in Florida.
They say do not duplicate!
And the last key fits the deadbolt
In the door to my room.
Its millings won't turn
Until I get it just right.


A Visit to a Strange Land

Because I could not get my lips around those
Words others spoke like buoyant packages
Along the river of tongues, I could not
Enter the nightly conversations at the inn.
I became all smiles in my responses, trying to
Repeat a successful sound that brought me food,
A greeting that elicited a woman's delight.
The citizens were helpful. They poured my wine
And named the objects laid out on the table
Before me, but I could not get beyond
The walls of their words, and my would-be teachers
Each day grew angrier at my progress
And some felt insulted I had not learned their instructions
And corrected me repeatedly each time
I asked for something to eat. They mocked me
Behind and in front of me and to the side —
One night shouting in my ear saying what
I knew were vulgar phrases, their gestures
Not dissimilar to ones I had been given
In other corners of the world. Then the village
Idiot thumped me hard on the back
And a waitress spilled wine on my lap
And everyone pointed and laughed, till the owner
Stepped out of the kitchen and brought a glass for each
And we joined in a toast I pretended to know.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Children with Enemies by Stuart Dischell. Copyright © 2017 The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
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Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 022649859X
• ISBN 13: 9780226498591
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 72