I think I would give just about anything to be present for a David Antin talk poem.
Excerpt from i never knew what time it was, by David Antin.
This is one of my favorite poems. I find myself coming back to it again and again, especially in times when I am dealing with a loss.
It is beautiful and powerful and it is also a bit long. So, you can quickly scroll past it if you want, but it is certainly worth the few minutes it takes to read through.
——————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————————
Definitions for Mendy
by David Antin
loss is an unintentional decline in or disappearance of
a value arising from a contingency
a value is an efficacy a power a brightness
it is also a duration
to lose something keys hair someone
we suffer at the thought
he has become absent imaginary false
a false key will not turn a true lock
false hair will not turn gray
mendy will not come back
but longing is not imaginary
we must go down into ourselves
down to the floor that is not imaginary
where hunger lives and thirst
hunger imagine bread thirst imagine water
the glass of water slips to the floor
thirst is a desert
value a glass of water
loss is the glass of water slipping to the floor
loss is the unintentional decline in or disappearance
of a glass of water arising from a contingency
the glass pieces of glass
the floor is a contingency
the floor is a floor
is a contingency
made of wood
the fire is a congency
the bread is burned
burning is not a contingency
the presence of the dead is imaginary
the absence is real
henceforth it will be his manner of appearing
so he appears in an orange jacket and workpants and a blue denim shirt
his hair is black his eyes are black
and a blue crab is biting his long fingers
he is trying to hold the bread
he is trying to bring the water to his mouth
his mouth is a desert
the glass of water will not come
the glass of water keeps slipping through his fingers
the floor is made of wood it is burning
it is covered with pieces of glass
arising from a contingency
his face is the darkened face of a clock
it is marked with radium
the glass is falling from his face
the face of a clock in which there is a salamander
whose eyes are bright with radium
radium is a value that is always declining
radium is a value that is always disappearing
lead is also a value
but it is less bright than radium
loss is an unintentional decline in or disappearance
of a value arising from a contingency
a value is an efficacy a power a brightness
it is also a duration
is there enough silence here for a glass of water
is it dark enough for bread
take a glass of water
hold it against a wall
it is not pure water
it is almost pure wall
glass what is glass
glass is a solution
of sand and chalk and ashes
fused by fire
it is a desert
that transmits light
the thirst is not appeased
water is a barrier
a glass of water is between us
you are there and i am here
is it a corollary of the fact that two things cannot
be at the same place at the same time
that two things can be at two different places at the
same time
you are there and i am here and i see you
but you are changed
two things at the same place at two different times
where you were the floor is empty
there is no shadow on the wall
i can only see the wall in my mind
i am not where i was then
but i still see your shadow the glass on the floor
in all matter there is an innate force
a power of resisting
take a glass fill it with water
the thirst is not appeased
take a glass of water
drop it on the floor
it smashes
it is wood and glass and water
the thirst is not appeased
a glass of water falling
is a falling body of water
and obeys the laws of falling bodies
according to which
all bodies fall
at a rate that increases uniformly
regardless of their form or weight
at the same altitude and latitude
the weight of a body is the force
with which the earth pulls the body down
mendy weighed one hundred and thirty-seven pounds
which is to say
that the earth pulled mendy down
with a force equal to that
exerted upon a mass of one hundred and thirty-seven pounds
at forty-five degrees latitude
at the level of the sea
the earth pulls all bodies down
the thirst is not appeased
i am trying to hand you a glass of water
i am trying to give you a piece of bread
i cannot give you anything
there is a glass of water between us
i can only see you by the light the glass lets through
there is a piece of bread between us
if we can only see it
no one doubts the efficacy of bread
bread is a power
if we can only release it
it is a body
containing light
there is a piece of bread between us
break it
bread is a barrier
bread is a body
water is a body
the earth is a body
the sun is a body
a clock is also a body
light is a body of a sort
what sort it is heavy and falls
three hundred and sixty tons of light fall
from the sun on the earth every day
physics imagine a black body
a black body gives back no light
*
duration
it is a stone
it is a fact
it does not move
it has no place into which it could move
it has no place to move out of
it is a stone
it is a fact
it is a stone on which water has dropped
it is a fact
it is hard
it is smooth
the water does not wear it away
it wears the water away
it is a fact
it does not mean anything
it cannot tell time
*
it is a fact
not having seen you for a long time and you
didn’t live far away you came to see me in the
winter it was cold in my apartment which was
heated with gas and you wore a scarf to keep
warm when i asked you what you were doing you
said you were sick and i said we were all sick
and it didn’t matter but you said you were really
sick you were dying and i asked you how did it
feel because i didn’t know what to say and
you said it felt queer
*
yellow
branches of willow
small flames of forsythia
soft air
black water
caressing the branches
sun
overhead
*
it is a fact
to hear the Grosse Fuge and Webern and the
great fugue was a great distance away like a
square masted ship tossed in a storm in an
old painting and the Webern was close and
dazzling light glancing off glass and water
we came back in the rain i never saw you again
it is important to learn what the eye can see and
the ear can hear
to record the truth
taking pictures of trees
the fountain of elm branches a spray of silver now
last of the maidenhairs timbre of a voice
drops of water sounds decaying on the air
choose/ to fix a body in space
choose/ unaccelerated axes
choose/ a frame to fix a face
the eye cannot discriminate true intensities of light
only their ratios
similarly the ear
cannot distinguish among sounds that are very high or low
in the dark all cats are black
what color are they in a blinding light
——————————————————————————————-
the initial definition of loss is quoted from page 22 of Principles of Insurance by Mehr & Cammack, & the initial definitions of value are from Webster’s New International Dictionary, 1927 edition
This morning I woke up at five am and didn’t hit the snooze button because I’m trying to quit it - cold turkey. Running through my head were lines from a poem I read a long time ago.
_____________________________
I met this guy James in a poetry workshop during my sophomore year of undergrad. He was one of those incredibly dreamy guys - a couple of years older than me, wore corduroys and carried a worn leather satchel, and when I went over to his apartment to return the copy of Charles Bukowski’s Hostage that he lent me there were a few impossibly cool kids sitting around listening to obscure bands, drinking, and smoking cigarettes. He wrote this poem that I loved. And though I’ve forgotten most of it, and I’m sure at least part of what I remember is wrong, I still love it. It’s been over ten years since I’ve read it, but every time I cross the Walt Whitman Bridge I can’t help but repeat the first two lines in my head. And this morning, while resisting the urge to sleep for ‘just ten more minutes’, not a bridge in sight, there they were.
the cars are riding your spine, Walt Whitman
the cars are riding your spine
…
isn’t it enough for someone
somewhere to be happy
photo of Walt Whitman Bridge by Dick Swanson
untitled past
mocking me birds
waking sounds morning
mirrors of bathroom toothpaste
splattered dreamsdevil
birds waking me morning mocking sounds
11/09/2007
This was probably written in 2003-03ish, then edited in 2007 (and again this week).
I should really make an effort to write more often.
by David Antin
the police
being poisoned
being killed
being alone
being attacked at night
being poor
being followed at night
being lost in a crowd
being dead
having no stomach
having no insides
having a bone in the throat
losing money
being unfit to live
being ill with a mysterious disease
being unable to turn out the light
being unable to close the door
that an animal will come in from the street
that they will not recover
that they will be murdered
that they will be murdered when they sleep
that they will be murdered when they wake
that murders are going on all around them
that there are murderers all around them
that they will see the murderer
that they will not
that they will be boiled alive
that they will be starved
that they will be fed disgusting things
that disgusting things are being put into their food and drink
that there flesh is boiling
that there head will be cut off that children are burning
that they are starving
that all of the nutriment has been removed from food
that evil chemicals have been placed in the earth
that evil chemicals have entered the air
that it is immoral to eat
that they are in hell
that they hear people screaming
that they smell burnt flesh
that they have committed an unpardonable sin
that there are unknown agencies working evil in the world
that they have no identity
that they are on fire
that they have no brain
that they are covered with vermin
that there property is being stolen
that there children are being killed
that they have stolen something
that they have too much to eat
that they have been chloroformed
that they have been blinded
that they have gone deaf
that they have been hypnotized
that they are the tools of another power
that they have been forced to commit murder
that they will get the electric chair
that people have been calling them names
that they deserve these names
that they are changing their sex
that there blood has turned to water
that there body is being transformed into glass
that insects are coming out of their body
that they give off a bad smell
that houses are burning around them
that people are burning around them
that children are burning around them
that houses are burning
that they have committed suicide of the soul
_________________________________
I’m not going to lie to you guys. There’s some really awful poetry out there. And sometimes it’s really hard to slog though all the crap to find the good stuff.
David Antin is the good stuff.
This isn’t my favorite of his poems, but it is the first one I ever read, and there’s something about it had me hooked immediately.
I recently discovered a haiku I wrote too few years ago for it to be unembarrassing.
You can click through if you would like to read it.
Not suitable for children or those with delicate sensibilities.
