Open Books

Open Books


Along with the sonnets and blank verse
comes this: the gossip
about which poet is sleeping
with which poet, about who left whom

for who. Don't you know
the formalists only go to bed
with other formalists
but the free versers will screw
anybody, except the novelists.

The promiscuous poets fill the shelves
with their thin volumes, the selected
and collected lovers, the beautiful lies

occupying a line or stanza
or even the whole poem. I am
reminded of R, the poet's son
who smiled when I told him
how much I loved his daddy's poems

especially the epic one about love and the canyon
and the sunset, all of it
coming together as he held the hands of his wife and son
as they all stood on the edge
of their lives, a mile above the river flowing, no, raging
between rock walls.

"Ha," said the poet's son,"I remember
my mother and I sat in the car
and watched my father pace back
and forth outside the ranger's station
at the canyon. Hell, we never
even got close to the actual

canyon. My father was all pissed off
because my mom hated the outdoors.
He gave us both the silent treatment
when we drove back to the motel.

Later on, my mother and I went out
for hamburgers while my father sat in the room
and wrote that goddamn poem."

Yes, yes, yes, let us now celebrate
fathers and sons, mothers and daughters
for we are all of those things.

Please, please, please, let us now celebrate
poets and liars, liars and poets
for we are both of those things.

Let us now celebrate the poet
who splashed his drink in the face
of the undergraduate woman
who would not "kneel and suck his cock,"
during th English Department party.

The poet who would never use
suck and cock in the same line
of a poem. Too percusive for him.
He employs long vowels
and soft consonants to seduce us. He fills
the rooms of his poem
with classical furniture. In his libido

there is no room for the post-modern.
His penis is a penis is a penis, the tool
of a working man, an artisan, sure
and simple. He compares the labia
with one flower or another, maybe all of them.

Let us now celebrate what may or may not be true.
Let us now celebrate the lies
that should be true because they tell us so much.
Let us now celebrate apocrypha.

Let us now celebrate the poet
who asked the woman for her name
as she stood in a long line
to receive one of his autographed books.

"You'd better remember my name," she said
"You fucked me last night."

I want to find that woman. I want her to be
the pretty one walking down the street. I want her
to be Annabel Lee. I want her to be the lady in red.
I want her to be the blue eyes on Gatsby's wall.
I want her to be the poet with revenge on her mind.

Let us now celebrate the litarary illusion.
Let us now celebrate the trope and the willful
enjambment. Let us now celebrate
the assonance and alliteration of all of it.
Let us now celebrate the sound of our own voices.

Let us now celebrate the long affairs between poets.
Let us now celebrate the one-night stands between poets.
Let us now celebrate the quick marriage and quicker divorce.
Let us now celebrate the fist and bruised face.
Let us now celebrate the knife.

Let us now celebrate the poet who shot at his wife
but missed once, twice, three tims. Thank God
he was a better poet than marksman.
Thank God for his poems: bitter, rude, profane.
Thank God for his poems: racist, sexist, pornographic.
Thank God for his poems: lovely, lovely, lovely.
Thank God he wrote love poems to his son
even as he beat the boy bloody into corners.

Let us now celebrate the poet who wrote odes
to her husband on the skin of her lover's back.

Let us now celebrate the poet whose poems adorn
the walls of museums, the walls of museums
while her children are raised by somebody else's parents.

Yes, yes, yes, let us now celebrate the children
of poets. Let us now celebrate the husbands and wives
of poets. Let us now celebrate the mothers
of fathers of poets. Let us now celebrate the neighbors

of poets who are kept awake by constant clatter
of keys and teeth. Let us now celebrate the lovers
of poets. Let us now celebrate the pets of poets,
the kicked pooch and the starving kitten, the venerated
horse and sacrificial cow, the kissing fish
and fossilized hamster.

Let us now celebrate the poet
who put the shotgun to his head
and blew his genius brains
into a glass of orange juice.

Let us now celebrate the poet
who put her head in the oven.

Let us now celebrate the poet
who put her head in the oven.

Let us now celebrate the man who married them both
and wrote the poems he orated when he buried
them both.

Let us now celebrate the muse, his muse and her muse, your
muse and my muse, their muse and our muse.

Yes, yes, yes, the poets prowl the aisles
of supermarkets and airplanes. They ride bicycles
through urban parks. They climb mountains
that have already been climbed. They pay for dinner.
They tell lies. They test drive the latest Ford
and the most recent Chevrolet. They teach
our children the difference between simile
and metaphor. They tell lies. They go to movies
and weep at happy endings. They tell lies.
They sing in the shower. Most sing poorly.
All of them tell lies. All of them tell lies.

Let us always celebrate the poets.

Please, please, please, the poets are scattered
around the room like stars. They blink and stutter.
They are light years away from us. They could die
today and news of their death, the shutting
off, would not reach us for decades.


Sherman Alexie..........from One Stick Song