corey mesler : “an afternoon with two poets”

--What for the afternoon have we?

--Dunno. A little food?

--Yeah, food’s good. How about the new Sweet shop?

--Dessert for lunch?

--No, they have sandwiches. And the most ungodly French fries. French fries to curl your toes.

--I need curly toes.

--The afternoon spreads out before us like a patient—

--You know Eliot puts me off my food.

--Besides—lunch. Well, I guess we could call it lunch.

--A little late?

--Nah. I haven’t had anything since morning coffee.

--During the buzz of which you composed.

--Right. As per usual.

--I wish I was a morning poet.

--I wish I was a night poet, a middle-of-the-night poet.

--Insomnia has its pluses.

--Right.

--But you get that morning thing going, starts the whole day off right.

--When it’s working, when it’s good.

--Yeah, there’s that danger. Have a crappy morning, a morning of stubborn goo, and your whole day could turn that way.

--Thanks. Now I’m cursed for tomorrow.

--No, no, now. No such prefiguring is at work.

--Right.

--So, this new poem about Scarlett Johansson, it—rhymes.

--Scarlett Johansson, mm. She looks like she’s made out of cake. Fairy cake.

--So you say in the poem. It—rhymes. 

--Yeah, almost unintentionally. The first three lines rhymed and I thought, hm, maybe, just maybe.

--It doesn’t scan though.

--Hm?

--It doesn’t scan.

--It’s contrapuntal.

--It’s—it’s not.

--Really? Whatever. Hey, I got this new Bad Plus cd.

--The live one?

--Yes. You’ve heard it?

--No.

--Oh, well, I can put something else on. Some—ah, Ayler.

--I don’t care really. You’re in jazz mode today?

--Don’t have to be. Folk mode? Wanna hear Hamilton Camp?

--Jesus.

--What do—

--Listen, I thought we were gonna eat.

--Right, right. You meant now. Ok, yes, let’s go eat.

--Hey—I didn’t—you know, hit a wrong chord by suggesting—

--That I don’t scan?

--Well, yeah. I mean, I didn’t—

--It couldn’t matter less.

--Good, good.

--You. What are you working on?

--Oh, you know, that suite for Kim. Still trying to get a form for it, a form that allows me to experiment and still stay tight, stay fixed.

--Fixed?

--No, that’s not the word.

--Formal?

--Nah, no. Not formal.

--You want a pattern, a form. I dig.

--I guess. Well, you know. It’s long. It’s bigger than I’m comfortable with maybe, a chapbook length single poem.

--A suite.

--Yes.

--You can do it.

--Thanks for that.

--Is it the Kim thing got you worried? The dead tail that won’t fall off.

--Maybe. Perhaps.

--Ever see her?

--No. Never. I got her email from someone who knew her back in the day. Got her email and composed a friendly note, asking, you know, for connection. Just that. Just say hi, maybe exchange life stories. Check in occasionally with each other.

--Maybe talk about getting naked together again.

--Mm. No.

--She didn’t respond.

--You know this story.

--It’s an old story.

--I don’t understand. I mean, why not write back?

--Some don’t. Some people don’t.

--I guess.

--Kim was—well, a bit unbalanced maybe. Not unbalanced like moon-stricken. A bit—uncentered.

--Yes.

--But so goddamned beautiful it didn’t matter.

--Ha. Exactly.

--So, ok, let’s get some of those prodigious, unguinous French fries. I’ve got the car keys out. I am a man prepared.

--Yes.

--And we shall talk of many things.

--Ok.

--Of poems and women and dead tails and Bad Plus and morning writers vs. nighttime writers. And perhaps, just perhaps, we shall wring from the ether a little wonder, a little understanding about some small bit of the universe and how it works. An epiphany concerning some small task that the universe gets right, that it daily gets right. Is that too much to ask?

--I’m damned if I know.

--You’re damned if you don’t.

--Right.

--French fries.

--That’ll right your listing ship.

--Wonderful.

--Whatever.

--Yes. Who’s that in the red car?

--I—

--It’s—

--Fuck me, it’s Kim.

--And she’s looking at us.

--She is. Kim.

--It’s. Not her.

--It is. Kim.

--This is the poem. This is the poem writing itself. This is the gift the universe is giving us today, the poem, the continuation of the poem.

--No. Not that.

--Yes!

--I am at a loss for words.

--You really are, aren’t you?

--I am a loss of words, a tumble toward ataxia.

--You can tumble but the words will always return. It is in the nature of words that they return, like the swallow to the hookers.

--Ha. Ok. I’m calmer now. She’s driven away.

--Yes,

--It wasn’t Kim, just some pilgrim, lost, turning her ancient car around.

--If you say so.

--Kim would—well, I am the last man to know what Kim would do.

--But you are not the last man.

--No, there will be other men, for Kim, for the world to turn inside out. Other poets who will be wordless when the time arises for them to stand up and be counted.

--That sounds a bit like an Army recruitment ad.

--Sorry.

--No sorry, man. Tell me more about words, about poems aborning.

--No, not today. French fries today. Some days are just French fries and no poems. Some days are for both French fries and poems but this is not one of those days.

--Ok.

--Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow we shall speak of the stubborn ox called The Poem.

--Right.

--Ok.

--Friend—

--Yes….

--The red car is coming back.

--I am ready now. I am ready to speak.

 

Corey Mesler has published prose &/or poetry in Turnrow, Adirondack Review, American Poetry Journal,  Paumanok Review, Blood Orange, Yankee Pot Roast, Monday Night, Elimae, H_NGM_N, Center, Poet Lore, Forklift OH, Euphony, Rattle, Jabberwock Review, Dicey Brown, Cordite, Smartish Pace, & others.

 

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