Read an Excerpt
Walking Four Ways in the Wind
By John Allman PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1979 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-06402-4
CHAPTER 1
ON THE ROOF
Natural signals: TV antennas, young trees,
strapped to chimneys; gulls wheeling through
radio waves like blanched crows, as you
lay back in fossil shadows from a lost sea,
impossible imprints in your back. Tar Beach:
the pop of punched metal, spray hissing into wind,
your first beer, and Marge tilted back, joined
to the ledge like a ship's figurehead, within reach,
her wrist North, her elbow South, her knees
to the sun like fists rubbed smooth of knuckles.
Up here, you forgot the deep cry and dry suckle
of baby brothers, you felt your angers unfreeze.
You came to Marge the brown-armed boy from drought-
stricken villages, iceberg lettuce crisp in your mouth.
THE MEASURE OF A DACHSHUND'S JAW
You seemed miles above, Frau Kissel,
yelling down the dumbwaiter shaft,
"What you do down there!" letting
your empty dogfood cans clatter toward us.
You seemed miles below, your voice
rumbling into the furnace
as we stole kisses from the super's Marge,
coal dust on our pants. O the whites
of your eyes, Frau, yellow as rest homes,
awful as grandmothers falling into liquor
stores. You shambled past Mendel's newsstand,
fingers flicking in and out of his money box.
Halloween, you held pennies in tongs
over the stove's hot jets, threw them down
into the alley where we sang like beggars.
Convert to St. Vitas, your touch trembled
like raw eggs in a river. You stretched neighbors'
curtains on your rack of needles, 10¢ an hour.
You clomped on the roof like Mr. Angelo
with stroke, shouting commands at pigeons,
letting loose your dachshund. We saw you
raise a fist to your husband in the sky,
his biplane breaking up over the Argonne,
ripping through calendar pictures of France.
And when you broke your hip on super's
icy sidewalk, no one brought groceries;
did your laundry; walked your dog
the level of a snarl. We left dead mice
at your door: heard you cry out
like the crazy lady in subways.
And months later, after your dachshund
bit Marge, you were yelling at the ASPCA truck
parked near the hydrant; dog biscuits
falling from your bag; money in a white
sweat sock that you swung like a club
beating the air, bruising whatever bruised you.
HER REPERTORY
Uneasy dreams. Gauze over her
mouth: father behind the arras,
hearing confession, giving her
violets on the tip of brother's
poignard. That play again,
like the coughing in tenements,
memories of her mother wheezing.
The boyfriend's back from school,
much taller, roses in his boots,
giving her sonnets & billet-doux:
husband, wanting her demure,
clean as his mother's teeth.
Could she handle his cold
eggs & querulous mornings ?
Her father whispers that deceit
is a woman's way, & besides,
that boy has crooked legs,
what would her mother say: bad
genes, bad blood. Marry wealth.
Button up. Keep smiling.
Her fingers close on the paring
knife, lifting it as they enter,
the angel intruders, Welfare men
with flushed cheeks, wings awry.
She's peeling onions, weeping.
Now she's walking in the queen's
garden, in mother's bright shawl.
No fog rolls in, this evening.
Father falls through the privet hedge,
his face blue, choking on a pearl.
CREEDMOOR: THE LOCKED WARD
I ask what she needs
write it down
she can't
her penmanship's
a five-year-old's
hair cut close to her head
mother wants a boy
and who doesn't
weeping into a balled-up tissue
next time bring tissues
and shoes
would I buy brown shoes?
tell mother to call
where is mother
tell mother to forget it
two fat women
in the immense dayroom
waltzing arm in arm
the boy who borrows cigarettes
behind them
singing a hymn
I can't buy shoes
without her feet
she'd give me
her feet
I'm thinking of my wife and daughter
I want to leave
bring tissues
between the casement windows
the young woman laments
her abortion at 20
who really had none
what happened to the dog
did you put him to sleep
where is mother?
I look across the room
at the unused pool table
cues lined up dusty as WWI rifles
small voices weeping
in my throat
smell cooking smell
canned peas and carrots
Salisbury steak
thin gravy voice
of the old schoolteacher
playing old songs
at the piano
the fat women
trotting in a circle
the boy with crinkled knees
saying his doctor
will never change
asks me for a nickel
asks me for a pencil
O it's time
traffic is heavy
the bridge-tolls up
I live across two rivers
I've filled
her shopping bag
full of Kools
cookies soft candies
a new robe
love to the family
don't forget love to the family
THE COLOR OF NEVILLE BRAND'S
FRONT TEETH
It begins in the back of the head,
gathering force like the strangler's
mop in Slam sweeping across the floor.
It changes shape like Willie's
sharpened spoon. You can feel it
between the ribs, it has traveled so
far in so short a time: like emotion
after a month on tranquilizers,
like a calendar nude to the guy
in solitary. At first, it seems
colorless as Louie's narrow hands
that could knit doilies or pick
pockets. It's bruised from the last
kidnapping. It seems to be weeping
in your viscera, under the lights,
denying everything. But give it
a break like the Puerto Rican kid
whose only fault was English,
it'll speak in tongues; it'll
rush to your palate like salt.
It's the kind of rage the toothless
bandits felt when they shot off
Gary Cooper's big left toe and he
still wouldn't talk. By the time
it's in your molars, it's too late:
no good glossing it with Pearl Drops
or prayer. It's so much there,
you taste it biting into plums,
beefsteak tomatoes, your cell-mate's
arm.
WIVES OF GENIUSES
They wear eccentric hats and they listen.
They take children to the wrong museums
and talk too loud. They faint at parties.
They spill coffee on beautiful women.
They wear no panties. They forget books
with unhappy endings, and dream of obituaries.
They sit nude on Formica tables.
They ask your name and put it in diaries.
They write anonymous notes to critics.
They lose old friends like parking tickets.
They answer the phone. They keep their looks
at all hours, and stand in windows, like mirrors.
They sing behind doors. They cook in silence.
They smile like saints in empty churches.
THE VISITORS
They've been
in the guest room
so long
we think
they've died
in their sleep.
But they come out
smiling, his face
frozen & her
hair like straw.
They say the sheets
were torn. We
are ashamed
but they
forgive us.
They admire
our matching
robes, our days
off, our beautiful
skin. We begin
to praise their
eyes, but our coffee
gives them hives,
they scratch,
allergic, they feel
headaches coming on.
The phone rings:
snow ten feet high,
the return flight
is cancelled. Oh
too bad do you mind
please stay. We
apologize:
out of soap, milk,
aspirin, TV Guide.
All day they whisper
behind the bedroom
door. That evening
we're caught blushing
in each other's
arms. They didn't know,
o my God. They say
we look so pale.
The sherry is gone,
the lines are down.
We start losing at
poker. We tell
stories of summer
as he fills
the inside straight
& she bluffs
with two pair, we
lose a week's pay.
We moan
about the snow,
the lack of fuel.
Their eyes turn white,
they slump in their chairs,
we carry them to bed.
They complain
of last night's
nightmares, how
police beat them
with sticks &
children laughed.
We kiss them,
they wince.
All night we hear
them breathing like
derelicts on a beach.
We dream our funeral,
a two-car motorcade,
the mourners, he
& she, in top hat,
wrinkled dress,
they're waving,
our dear friends.
PUMAS
The female puma, savage queen in heat,
is backing him against the wall of brick,
her tail alive and straight up high, while he's
in a crouch, in a cage, low as her feet,
trying to nip her heels like a bruised snake.
She moans and turns over, but it looks all
wrong, her fluffy thighs opening like wings,
and he springs up to his ledge of oak boards.
His wooden stare is fixed on writhing birds,
his brain is circling like a bird afraid,
the king of fathers flying slow in heat.
He alights among the stiff bars of darkness,
swat! swat! She's an upright queen!
His bought mate, mirror, is now his fear,
her quick left jab prickling alive, her sideway
snarl. And fragile dreams die in his jaws.
It's eyeball to eyeball, and spit to spit,
the wicked lash of tails that break a glass.
The king is scratching scarlet ribbons on
his queen. Her fangs are naked with disgust.
WIDOW
It happens in ways I never expect,
like hailstones in summer. Going
uphill on the bike, I snap the chain.
In the tub, shaving my legs, I cut
my throat on my ankle. I sweat nightly,
pull back the blankets, see my
husband just lying down in the mirror.
I burn my hand on the iron
I test with spit: the children tumble
in from the yard with a dead bird.
I pretend, alone. I cook
for pale guests seen only at 10 p.m.
They forget to wipe their mouths,
chattering like starlings. I bang
the table and they disappear, black
coffee spilled on the white tablecloth.
I've given up smoking, I try push-ups ;
for lungs and double chin, I stand
on my head: watching the late news,
the bombs falling up the sky, the men
ascending in their bloody uniforms.
GIMPEL THE FOOL
"What about the judgment in the
world to come?" I said.
"There is no world to come."
Isaac Bashevis Singer
You got born somehow, your hands
already bigger than the midwife's,
laughter winging its way to Cracow.
They told you the crow in the cemetery
was your father. But you were a goat
tied back of the rabbi's barn, eating
a tinhorn's excuses, everyone's garbage.
Children said, quick, the graves are opening,
Gimpel, bring shoes, the dead have sore feet.
You married the town whore, who kept
more lovers under her bed than there
were uncles in Frampol. At dawn,
when your eyelids were glued shut
and sticky as bread dough, she said:
"Does the moon rise in the morning?"
So you boiled cabbage, scrubbed floors,
your lap grew wet with bastard kids.
You slept on your stomach and heard wolves.
Then your wife died and came back
in a dream: black seeds between her teeth.
She told you there was no bread like
your bread. Scared you out of home,
cash, and Sabbath hat. Schnorrer,
happy beggar, you deceived no one
but the Angel of Death asking which way
to the ghetto of Warsaw. You told him
turn left into the field where sages eat filth.
CHAPTER 2
FREUD'S LAST DREAM
He's lying back on the couch
analyzing the fact of lying
on the couch: telling Ernest,
also bald, sitting behind him,
that Papa smelled like new shoes.
What did he think of that?
Ernest weeps. No weeping!
Things aren't so black. Have a
cigar. He saved a few things
from Berggasse 19: cigars, hankies,
Martha's beautiful eyes. Was that
the second time he said beautiful?
His bowel movements have been poor.
Last night someone told him
that for elimination raw spinach
is better than cooked goose.
He laughs. He groans. Ernest
is writing something down,
but he objects: it's his
impacted wisdom teeth the lady
dentist said wouldn't grow
back. Women shouldn't be allowed
to say wouldn't or shouldn't.
They had no gift for the subjunctive.
Ernest says he's confusing
the English future. He shrugs.
They had to purge society
of bed-wetters, find men with
beautiful jaws who could explain
themselves. Women only sat around,
unaware of what they're missing.
But he feels faint: he wishes
this were a dream of sunlight,
in a boat of bullrush reeds,
and he were floating down the Tiber,
into Rome, into a woman's hands.
THE ARTIFICE
It is a garden within walls
chromium roses glint in the headlights'
indirect moonlight
quotes from Emerson flicker in neon signs
a porcelain bluejay screams on the hour
I spray lacquer on the wooden beetles
I dip like a chemical bird
who cannot fall through glass
the birdsong tapes warble from the dead
tree twisted round with Woolworth ivy
a flag flutters in the wind of a restaurant fan
the bluejay screams and muzak pours from the statue
of a Siamese cat why am I kneeling to his mouth?
You pose in a mural unattached to the wall
no shadow falls behind you
I am running on the sinking turf never
quite reaching you who fade into the wall
in bas-relief your hands' ridges almost lifelike
LOSING
I complained about having no shoes
my feet disappeared
I ignored my children on weekends
they ran into Monday
I told my wife I was too tired
she nailed up my closet
I sneezed when the roses came early
they grew under my bed
I kicked the door of my office
it fell into the river
I gave all my money to the poor
I found lice in my hair
On the corner of forty-second street
I dreamed I was happy
LATE MORNING
So I do not get up. I avoid myself,
sheathed in blankets like an Indian
woman. I roll over, an old drunk,
I hear myself breathing the deep,
stertorous dreams in which I succeed,
saying, "Nothing matters." I am my
father, home from work again, and my
wife is puzzled. She tries the remedies
of love, gives me vitamins and good report.
She thinks I need more rest because I
tell her so. I am ill in slothfulness,
in fatigue that deepens with sleep.
I am the grizzled switchman with wino
breath, watching the men lay new tracks
and get up steam: a blue locomotive
charging into my shack-station dream.
I wave them past, holding sacks of mail,
the letters never received, the denials
I've written to the men who cannot read.
I see the graffiti on the station wall.
"You will never forgive yourself."
THE KNUCKLER
We knew your stooped figure in Astoria Park,
knuckle-bailer, your hand slow & disdainful
on the diamond beneath the TriBoro Bridge,
fingers forking behind your back. Whatever you
threw wobbled in the air like a soap bubble.
Your mother was the nicest woman in a yard
full of cukes & tomatoes. She bought you aquariums,
little oxygen pumps, a Schwinn, blowups of father.
She thought you too thin. She bought you huge
mittens, big-shoulder coats, while the McDonald
brothers spit on the metal doors of grocery cellars
where you slipped. Anyone at all could find
you in Mendel's, at the magazine rack, slipping
girlies between the pages of Sports Illustrated.
All those years, you waited for a fast sign:
a wave from the blonde divorcee in her bedroom
across the driveway. Through Woolworth binoculars,
webbing of blinds, you learned the moles & fine
track of her spine, the rayon slide of her buttocks:
her hands behind her back unhooking a fullness
in your head, behind your eyes, in your throwing hand
that had only a knuckler, only an odd way of holding on.
We couldn't hit you at all in those days,
the gray & muggy afternoons when the ball should
have carried into the East River. We popped up,
we grounded out, the boys from Seymour's Hardware,
& Baker's Garage, & Queeco's Beer, we whiffed in
sunlight, or under cumulus, in the shadow of a long bridge
But she died suddenly, thirty-eight, a bad heart:
released from your grip, writhing in a midnight glare.
It was obviously your fault. You stopped going
to Mendel's. Sold your Schwinn. Gave up fishing
for minnows in the bay near La Guardia: that airport
built on garbage, carriage wheels, father's shoes.
You stopped catching killies in bent window-screens,
stopped bringing them home alive in tomato cans,
& pouring them into the tank with your tropical fish,
like common children among angels, while your guppies
with the bulbous eyes gave birth & ate their young
beneath the 25¢ pink plaster bridges. You took apart
the pumps. You began to focus on empty windows, sparrows.
All morning, all afternoon, we hit you, O we hit you.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Walking Four Ways in the Wind by John Allman. Copyright © 1979 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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