Aimless Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

us part
    of a great historical discussion
    that included science
    as well as literature and the weather
    not to mention the lodger downstairs,
    who, someone said,
    had been seen earlier leaving the house
    with a suitcase and a tightly furled umbrella.
The Revenant
    I am the dog you put to sleep,
    as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
    come back to tell you this simple thing:
    I never liked you—not one bit.
    When I licked your face,
    I thought of biting off your nose.
    When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
    I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.
    I resented the way you moved,
    your lack of animal grace,
    the way you would sit in a chair to eat,
    a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.
    I would have run away,
    but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
    while I was learning to sit and heel,
    and—greatest of insults—shake hands without a hand.
    I admit the sight of the leash
    would excite me
    but only because it meant I was about
    to smell things you had never touched.
    You do not want to believe this,
    but I have no reason to lie.
    I hated the car, the rubber toys,
    disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.
    The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
    You always scratched me in the wrong place.
    All I ever wanted from you
    was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.
    While you slept, I watched you breathe
    as the moon rose in the sky.
    It took all of my strength
    not to raise my head and howl.
    Now I am free of the collar,
    the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
    the absurdity of your lawn,
    and that is all you need to know about this place
    except what you already supposed
    and are glad it did not happen sooner—
    that everyone here can read and write,
    the dogs in poetry, the cats and all the others in prose.
Carry
    I want to carry you
    and for you to carry me
    the way voices are said to carry over water.
    Just this morning on the shore,
    I could hear two people talking quietly
    in a row boat on the far side of the lake.
    They were talking about fishing,
    then one changed the subject,
    and, I swear, they began talking about you.
Fool Me Good
    I am under the covers
    waiting for the heat to come up
    with a gurgle and hiss
    and the banging of the water hammer
    that will frighten the cold out of the room.
    And I am listening to a blues singer
    named Precious Bryant
    singing a song called “Fool Me Good.”
    If you don’t love me, baby, she sings,
    would you please try to fool me good?
    I am also stroking the dog’s head
    and writing down these words,
    which means that I am calmly flying
    in the face of the Buddhist advice
    to do only one thing at a time.
    Just pour the tea,
    just look into the eye of the flower,
    just sing the song—
    one thing at a time
    and you will achieve serenity,
    which is what I would love to do
    as the fan-blades of the morning begin to turn.
    If you don’t love me, baby,
    she sings,
    as a day-moon fades in the window,
    and the hands circle the clock,
    would you please try to fool me good?
    Yes, Precious, I reply,
    I will fool you as good as I can,
    but first I have to learn to listen to you
    with my whole heart,
    and not until you have finished
    will I put on my slippers,
    squeeze out some toothpaste,
    and make a big foamy face in the mirror,
    freshly dedicated to doing one thing at a time—
    one note at a time for you, darling,
    one tooth at a time for me.
The Trouble with Poetry
    The trouble with poetry, I realized
    as I walked along a beach one night—
    cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
    a show of stars in the sky—
    the trouble with poetry is
    that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
    more guppies crowding the fish tank,
    more baby rabbits
    hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.
    And how will it ever end?
    unless the day finally arrives
    when we have compared everything in the world
    to everything else in the world,
    and there is nothing left to do
    but quietly close our notebooks
    and sit with our hands folded on our desks.
    Poetry fills me