Fires. Essays, Poems, Stories

with
    only afterwards don't anyone stand close
    to an open window
    THREE
    MORNING, THINKING OF EMPIRE
    We press our lips to the enameled rim of the cups
    and know this grease that floats
    over the coffee will one day stop our hearts.
    Eyes and fingers drop onto silverware
    that is not silverware. Outside the window, waves
    beat against the chipped walls of the old city.
    Your hands rise from the rough tablecloth
    as if to prophesy. Your lips tremble...
    I want to say to hell with the future.
    Our future lies deep in the afternoon.
    It is a narrow street with a cart and driver,
    a driver who looks at us and hesitates,
    then shakes his head. Meanwhile,
    I coolly crack the egg of a fine Leghorn chicken.
    Your eyes film. You turn from me and look across
    the rooftops at the sea. Even the flies are still.
    I crack the other egg.
    Surely we have diminished one another.
    THE BLUE STONES
    1/ 1 call stones blue it is because blue is the precise word, believe me.
    —FLAUBERT
    You are writing a love scene
    between Emma Bovary and Rodolphe Boulanger,
    but love has nothing to do with it.
    You are writing about sexual desire,
    that longing of one person to possess another
    whose ultimate aim is penetration.
    Love has nothing to do with it.
    You w r rite and write that scene
    until you arouse yourself,
    masturbate into a handkerchief.
    Still, you don't get up from the desk
    for hours. You go on writing that scene,
    writing about hunger, blind energy—
    the very nature of sex—
    a fiery leaning into consequence
    and eventually, utter ruin
    if unbridled. And sex,
    what is sex if it is not unbridled?
    You walk on the strand that night
    with your magpie friend, Ed Goncourt
    You tell him when you write
    love scenes these days you can jackoff
    without leaving your desk.
    'love has nothing to do with it/' you say.
    You enjoy a cigar and a clear view of Jersey.
    The tide is going out across the shingle,
    and nothing on earth can stop it.
    The smooth stones you pick up and examine under the moons light have been made blue from the sea. Next morning when you pull them from your trouser pocket, they are still blue.
    —fox my wife
    TEL AVIV AND LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
    This afternoon the Mississippi-high, roily under a broiling sun, or low, rippling under starlight, set with deadly snags come out to fish for steamboats— the Mississippi this afternoon has never seemed so far away.
    Plantations pass in the darkness; there's Jones's landing appearing out of nowhere, out of pine trees, and here at 12-Mile Point, Grays overseer reaches out of fog and receives a packet of letters, souvenirs and such from New Orleans.
    Bixby, that pilot you loved,
    fumes and burns:
    Donation, boy! he storms at you time and again.
    Vicksburg, Memphis, St Looey, Cincinnati,
    the paddleblades flash and rush, rush
    upriver, soughing and churning
    the dark water.
    Mark Twain you're all eyes and ears,
    you're taking all this down to tell later,
    everything
    even how you got your name,
    quarter twain, mark twain,
    something every schoolboy knew
    save one.
    I hang my legs further over the banister
    and lean back in shade,
    holding to the book like a wheel,
    sweating, fooling my life away,
    as some children haggle,
    then fiercely slap each other
    in the field below.
    THE NEWS CARRIED TO MACEDONIA
    On the banks of the
    river they call Indus today we observe a kind of bean
    much like the Egyptian bean
    also crocodiles are reported upstream & hillsides grown over
    with myrrh & ivy He believes we have located the headwaters of the River Nile
    we offer sacrifice hold games
    for the occasion There is much rejoicing & the men think
    we shall turn back These elephants their emissaries offer
    are giant terrifying beasts yet
    with a grin he yesterday ran up a ladder onto
    the very top of one
    beast The men
    cheered him & he waved & they cheered him
    again He pointed across the river
    & the men grew silent
    The builders
    busy themselves with great rafts at the water's edge on the morrow we again set our faces
    to the East Tonight
    wind birds fill the air
    the clacking of their bills like iron on iron The wind
    is steady is fragrant with jasmine trail of the country behind us The wind moves
    through the camp stirs the tents of the Hetaeri
    touches each of the sleeping soldiers Euoi! Euoi!
    men cry out in their sleep & the horses
    prick their ears & stand shivering In a few hours they all shall wake with the sun shall follow the wind even further
    THE MOSQUE IN JAFFA
    I lean over