In Tandem
As my age gains on me, my mother stops short
of hers, buying toys yearly for my grown daughter —
who dug in her own heels at seven, skidded, overplayed
the cliff edge, and paused midair to doubletake
her abyss. Although her mother had borne down on
her, she lodged herself midway, to be borne in on,
cut from the blooded quick. We’ve learned to live
her birthdays up, she to make an entrance her exit.
Corpsing
“An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something
that it is like to be that organism— something that it is like for the organism.”
-Thomas Nagel
On my final visit, that stagey angle
of her head, once meaning “Methinks I
should know you,” now challenged with still lines
from not one hooked me — at screen edge, a man
appearing, speaking the hiss of TV. Unsure
of my part, I grinned long, kissed her skull,
shuffled and dealt us solitaire. Proudly looking
to the window, she carefully played club
on spade. My correcting her move she took as mine.
Slapping had been her mothering way. Fathered
at last by Buster’s Stone Face, I’d numb
my reactions, save for a cheek to sting her palm.
My deadpan lit a fear in her, corpsing our age-old
duo: Mommy Cuddles Her Hurt Boy, Nibbles His Ear,
Sips His Tears of Shame. When age drained her of names and faces,
she briefly spoke an English-as-a-second-language mother tongue —
for singles, her eyes snaggling on men chancing by. Once, her eyes,
distraught, implored mine aside: I thought of her yet-living
wits submerged, dying for a lifeline, struggling to surface.
With a long, side-long glance, she slowly raised her eyebrows,
and they did wiggle.
Fanfaring a glance at the ceiling, she played
black-lobed leaf on upturned black heart.
Chiding the card, I snatched it up. Ashamed,
I put it back. Which was good of me — is she not
my dear-old unlovable mother? I would, yet, like
to know.
There is something that it is to be her.
But there is nothing that that is like
for her.
My line, I’ll be back! Her role, oracular.
Game of Thrones, S1 E7
The whore master is training two of his ‘girls’
(in
Touching the Other)
to give convincing sways
and utterings. The three, a research team, are confirming
the behavioral definition of pleasure, while feigning
ignorance of the life of the mind. The implied hands
are off camera while, for statistical significance, it counts
nipples. You theorize your fear, qua viewer, to act
turned on or off by an onscreen moan you mouth.
Hudson Estuary
Her divorce paid for this Hudson view,
the double panes shielding her from noise.
Not that I’m free of how he made me see. Ripples
and scattered glarings hinted through the frosty
glass at … Backing away, her image shrank to girlhood,
but a few more steps — the river buoy appeared, above her rug.
To his face (coming to mind): Yes, I know, the thing’s not here.
But, well … why not a thing of light, magnified
by plates of glass? Saying the words excited
her to more of her own, A truthful illusion! —
till the phrase snagged on her “acting so smart”:
Oh please, as if I’d ever study optics.
One morning, she smiled at patches of river ice nudging,
rounding, and parting: Who needs conversation?
Near the water’s ceaseless power, she was less unsure
of supposing: These ‘pancakes’ make up a script
of river speech, touching what they say, meaning
the moves of the water beneath. She was the first
at reading river. Watching its width, “The sides go slower—”
No, that’s him. Again: “From mid-channel, one would see
(his curse lifted?) the sides slowing … or, yes, reversing,
even eddying.”
The Hudson’s lower course, whelmed up
shore to shore, rolled upstream, rising to foam
— she riding the tip of ocean’s curling tongue.
Alley Singer
As if reading a metaphor,
A live voice!
Long at Feds and Gangsters, I heard a thrilling, a live singing at my side.
you walk along a bridge and reach midway,
My head swiveled: no one there. I looked room to room:
none of my family singing up this presence in the air.
but the deck ahead is blocked.
I made-believe I knew it an aria, knew its foreign words
of moaning mourning … present, loud, unamplified.
You pace back and forth, still get no farther
My face colored ear to ear with dumb pleasure.
until you run up speed and fling yourself across.
The kitchen’s open window — air vibrating through
disarrayed light — was singing!
I peeked around the window frame—
Ricochets!
You land in a space without the Laws
They’ve tracked me down.
Good thing I’m armed and dangerous.
(At least I made Most Wanted.)
I shot back at them, scattering bullets
to cover my quick look down
to the ground.
of what was thought to be Thought.
The singer stood out bravely
from a wall, right arm raised, his deep voice
from underground.
“An alley singer,” Mom, stabbing me in the back, “a beggar,
throw him a dime.”
Over here, it is, is not,
I wrapped her coin in paper.
Afraid he’d see me, I closed my eyes, stood back a foot, and flung it.
is both —
A bullet aimed at me hit stone
— a chip nicking my chin.
He stopped singing to intone, “Thank you!”
To me! What to say back? Say? You fool, he’s hungry.
Taking a corner stool, spilling his few coins onto the counter,
he’d look up for the waitress and wait.
the middle included.
Resounding off courtyard walls
into my ears and other apartments,
his singing rose (weakening, but with no word heard left behind)
past our kitchen window, escaping, to and over the roof,
to be heard in the street,
to be overtaken by the speed of light.
They’ve got me cornered.
I’ve plenty of ammo.
They’ll never take me alive.
You, Again
Deathless Aphrodite, on your fine-tooled throne,
crafty child of Zeus, I call you. Don’t blame my
spirit — she knows not which is the she she longs for.
Hear me, my Lady.
You, again! As ever and now, must I leave
father’s golden home for these wheels of war, yoke
lovely, tiny wings of my fast sparrows, straight dive,
answer your rally?
Here, again! Now, who — I must smile though I’ve faced
countless times — who now do you suffer? Who cheats
you, your frantic heart, of a dearest fancy?
Who must I alter?
Fleeing all, she’ll turn herself round to give chase.
Snubbing gifts, she’ll offer her own up freely.
She unloving will — and unwillingly — fall.
Come to me, goddess.
If you ever favored this music, free me,
trapped in wanting. All I must have to be mine
seize for me — make mine. Come now, you, my ally,
win me these battles.
-after Sappho’s “Hymn to Aphrodite”
Constantine Contogenis‘s collection Ikaros (Word Press, ’04) won a First Prize “Open Voice Poetry Award.” He is co-translator of Songs of the Kisaeng: Courtesan Poetry of the Last Korean Dynasty (BOA, ‘97). Contengis was included in Joining Music with Reason: 34 Poets, British and American: Oxford ‘04-‘09, chosen by Christopher Ricks (’11), and Pomegranate Seeds: Greek-American Poetry, ed. Dean Kostos (‘08). He is published in such journals as Whiskey Island, Hayden’s Ferry Review, MAYDAY Magazine, Paris Review, TriQuarterly, Asian Pacific American Journal, MacGuffin, and Meridian Anthology. His work appeared in Poetry Society of America’s Poetry in Motion. He is a fellow with Incite at Columbia University.
