Richard Silberg, Poetry Flash Associate Editor
Richard Silberg was born in New York City in 1942. He
received his B.A. from Harvard in 1963 and his M.A. in Creative
Writing from San Francisco State University in 1973. He is Associate
Editor of Poetry Flash, host of the recently relocated Poetry
Flash at Cody's reading series in Berkeley, and teaches "Writing and
Appreciating Contemporary Poetry" and poetry workshops at UC
Berkeley Extension. His poetry has appeared in The American
Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, VOLT, New American Writing, North
Coast Review, City Lights Review, Parthenon West Review, The Addison
Street Anthology: Berkeley's Poetry Walk, edited by Robert Hass
and Jessica Fisher, and other publications. His poem "The Audience"
is featured in the Berkeley Arts Commission's Poetry Sidewalk.
His books include a study of speculative social philosophy,
The Devolution of the People, (Harcourt, Brace and World) and
two books of poetry from the Korean, which he translated with Claire
You:The Three-Way Tavern by Ko Un (University of
California Press) and Flowers Long for Stars by Oh Sae-Young.
His essays from Poetry Flash were published as Reading
the Sphere: Essays on Contemporary Poetry (Berkeley Hills
Press, 2002). His poetry collections include Doubleness
(Heyday Books), Totem Pole (3300 Review Press),
Translucent Gears (North Atlantic Books) and The Fields
(Pennywhistle).The following two poems
appear in his latest book Deconstruction of the Blues (Red
Hen Press, 2006).
Crow
Were you inside or outside the flesh
when the pain hit? That was the boundary
of fire or fortune Not unlike stage lights
dividing performer and audience Or
working in a zoo asking yourself the positioning
question who was the animal and not
As a young man I was playing across dancing
that line by knowing my patients My attendant’s
white love
Harold was my favorite
We could talk head to head hanging
in the hallway traffic
We could banter Harold was almost cute a
lisping
babyish touch to his speech Steepness
behind his eyes suggesting love or mockery
My alter schizo I felt
we were in some hangout doublethink way
the same
So end of the summer leaving the hospital
when he asked me would I take him to a movie
I felt bound
But meeting him on 125th St he looked older
humpbelly jiggle to his walk like an old man’s
dilated the crow in him a flicker of hilarity
It was strange outside
I eighteen he late thirties
I sane and he crazy or
crazy in remission
Then in the movie dark he wouldn’t
stop talking
“Do you like that woman? Do you?
Do you like her titties?
Her titties are killing me If you die
in a movie are you dead?”
I could feel him speeding
raw zero
nothing between us but questions
“We should have gone to that other theater, hunh?
We could still go to that other one
You probably don’t want to do that
I bet you won’t take me to a movie again, hunh?”
Someone hissed I went cold and a little scared
“People are getting angry, Harold Let’s go
to the lobby”
In the lobby he started to wheedle
popcorn sodas chocolate bonbons The colder
I got the more agitated he became
I began to feel like Harold’s mother
his cold bad mother He was smirking
sucking at me clammy as death
“You know I don’t have money You’re
taking advantage”
As if the mirror cracked between us
Indian women sew bits of mirror in their clothing
so malevolent spirits will see their reflection
scare themselves away
a sidewise tusked look
demon brimming teeth big as guns
Harold attacked me Nothing
a brief flailing fingers nails
he ripped at my face But he was wincing
ducking his head blindly
as if he wanted to creep inside
Then we stood looking at each other split faces
In the theater lobby where no one
seemed to notice concession girl other patrons
Maybe they thought we were playing
Harold gone dull inward half smirk
his round heavy cello body
Should I have said no? No movie Would that
have been cleaner?
He wanted to hurt me for leaving him To claw
through the boundary between us Deeply I imagine
he wanted to kill me and eat me and have me inside
And I wanted to be rid of him
Harold burden clammy baby
I walked him outside he just jiggled
along
saw him onto the bus and never saw him again
That was the way
I blurred smeared out of the hospital
dream kill romance of madness
My father was a show business agent, so when I was
a kid I saw way too many standup comics, and I grew to hate them. So
maybe that’s way I wrote this poem whose premise is the elimination of
jokes, moving directly to the punchlines. — R.S.
Stilts
Naomi I left you on the Charles River bank
high raincloud
alternate lives
Take my wife please
The poem of punchlines walks on high hips
long radii from the pelvis
with the speed
of acronyms
Good shot, ma right in the cunt
You’re the one with the dirty mind
you
with me in this poem because I’ve said your
name
long muscled
river
Each joke begins in sorrow My wife is so fat
that
There’s this woman
with a dog named Uranus
a despair
and laughs it off out
wits it
So Saint Peter turns to God and he says
“Look you wanna play golf? or you wanna fuck around?!”
A new laugh life nano life in
endorphin city
We’re imaginary people
with the same names as the
real people
only now we’re walking on stilts
You’re still there Naomi by the river in my
mind
although I backed out of your life
although you rose up above me
working like a high raincloud
That’s no ladle that’s my wife
The telephone book walks on stilts
the dictionary
frozen dynamo all the words laid out on spokes
to the heart
What do you think that is? a piece of
shit?!!
So Thomas Edison leans in over the test
tube…“Hello-o-o?”…
Everything is a
punchline
for the right joke
a white crumbling
coltlike face rain blond hair
your features working
as though you were going to call to me
backing out
between lives
Tough luck, tootsie wrong kind of
vampire!
They both had a beard
except the mouse
Some people can tell ‘em and some people
can’t
But I kept
strapping on my stilts
backing
and filling
I wanted
the alternate
Naomi colt
Naomi cloud
jokes and jokes years and
years
you echo
become my psychedelic straightwoman
in our bandshell by the Charles
Why are you writing
a poem of punchlines
when you loved me?
I puff
on my cigar
To get to the other side
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