pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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THE UNDENIABLE PRESSURE OF EXISTENCE

248.

THE UNDENIABLE PRESSURE OF EXISTENCE
by Patricia Fargnoli

I saw the fox running by the side of the road
past the turned-away brick faces of the condominiums
past the Citco gas station with its line of cars and trucks
and he ran, limping, gaunt, matted dull haired
past Jim's Pizza, past the Wash-O-Mat,
past the Thai Garden, his sides heaving like bellows
and he kept running to where the interstate
crossed the state road and he reached it and he ran on
under the underpass and beyond it past the perfect
rows of split-levels, their identical driveways
their brookless and forestless yards,
and from my moving car, I watched him,
helpless to do anything to help him, certain he was beyond
any aid, any desire to save him, and he ran loping on,
far out of his element, sick, panting, starving,
his eyes fixed on some point ahead of him,
some possible salvation
in all this hopelessness, that only he could see.

�

I received the following e-mail at 2:30 PM on Tuesday, but didn�t check my mailbox until 3. Nice that they gave me two whole hours� notice to do all this research!

Here�s my guess. She was supposed to compile this informaiton months ago and ignored the task, then her boss reminded her that it�s due tomorrow.

Our publications generate over a million dollars in sales annually, so that�s a lot of information to compile in two hours.

Here�s the message:

Our office has been asked to gather information about the use of color in state-funded publications.

May we ask you which of your state-funded publications are printed in full color (include your school catalog if appropriate), what is their purpose, how are they distributed, and how many copies are printed of each? Please include not only publications that are geared for students, but publications that go to other audiences as well (e.g., counselors, administrators, general public, etc.).

You may wish to follow this format:

Name/# of copies:
Purpose:
Distribution:

If you are not sure which of your publications are state-funded, please include them anyway.

We realize this is short notice, but we will appreciate any effort you can make to send your reply by the end of today.

Now here�s another piece from shock and awe: war on words. It�s Adrienne Rich�which means, of course, that she has odd line breaks and deep indents ... only I can�t figure out how to create those deep indents in HTML so you get it all flush left. She wouldn�t like that one bit, would probably come up with some kind of hyphenated obscenity with which to put me in my place.

COLLABORATIONS
by Adrienne Rich

I
Thought of this �our� nation :: thought of war
ghosts of war fugitive
in labyrinths of amnesia
veterans out-of-state textbooks in a library basement
dark
didn�t realize it until I wrote it

August now apples have started
severing from the tree
over the deck by night their dim impact
thuds into dreams
by daylight bruised starting to stew in sun
saying �apple� to nose and tongue
to memory

Word following sense, the way it should be
and if you don�t speak the word
do you lose your senses
And isn�t this just one speck, one atom
on the glazed surface we call
America
from which I write
the war ghosts treading in their shredded
disguises above the clouds
and the price we pay here still opaque as the fog
these mornings
we always say will break open?

II
Try this one on your tongue: �the poetry of the enemy�
If you read it will you succumb

Will the enemy�s wren fly through your window
and circle your room

Will you smell the herbs hung to dry in the house
he has had to rebuild in words

Would you weaken your will to hear
riffs of the instruments he loves

rustling of rivers remembered
where faucets are dry

�The enemy�s water� is there a phrase
for that in your language?

And you what do you write
now in your abandoned house tuned in

to the broadcasts of horror
under a sagging arbor, dimdumim

do you grope for poetry
to embrace all this

�not describe, embrace staggering
in its arms, Jacob-and-angle-wise?

III
Do you understand why I want your voice?
At the seder table it�s said

you reclined and said nothing
now in the month of Elul is your throat so dry

your dreams so stony
you wake with their grit in your mouth?

There was a beautiful life here once
Our enemies poisoned it?

Make a list of what�s lost but don�t
call it a poem

that�s for the scriptors of nostalgia
bent to their copying-desks

Make a list of what you love well
Twist it insert it

into a bottle of old Roman glass
go to the edge of the sea

at Haifa where the refugee ships lurched in
and the ships of deportation wrenched away

IV
for Giora Leshem

Drove upcoast first day of another year no rain
oxalis gold lakes floating
on January green

Can winter tides off the Levant
churn up wilder spume?

Think Crusades, remember Acre
wind driving at fortress walls

everything returns in time except the
utterly disappeared
What thou lovest well can well be reft from thee

What does not change / is the will
to vanquish
the fascination with what�s easiest
see it in any video arcade

is this what the wind is driving at?

Where are you Giora? whose hands
lay across mine a moment
Can you still believe that afternoon
Talking you smoking light and shade
on the deck, here in California
our laughter, your questions of translation
your daughter�s flute?

�

Today is Thursday and I�m still not sure if Shakespearee got an appointment, if she�s coming Friday, Monday, or when. I�m also not sure she should drive. Last I remember, she had become a very scattered, dangerous driver (from the chemo). Shelby always drives her here, but she�s in Kentucky right now helping her mom do something or other, so I may need to drive down to South Cackylacky and pick her up.

Shakespeare was undergoing daily chemo treatments back when I took those dangerous car rides with her (before I insisted that it was time for me to drive her to and from her appointments for the duration of her treatment), so maybe she�s not like that anymore. Maybe Shelby just drives coz she�s Shelby and she likes to drive. I will probably just come out and say �So, Shakespeare, would you like for me to come down and pick you up, deliver you to the front door of the cancer hospital?,� maybe couch it in an excuse for her to grade papers or write a lecture or something.

Cybrarian�s cookout last night was fun. BeeBee and DeeDee grilled out really good cheeseburgers and DeeDee�s best friend Richie made a pi�a colada cake which he served with ice cream.

He and his daughter also made one of those church punches with gingerale and lime sherbet islands floating on top, which was fun and reminded me of Baptist receptions. We were all trying to remember the details of the first time we met Cybrarian, which was also fun. And I took some good pictures of Cybrarian�s daughter playing naked in the hot tub.

Tonight we�re meeting for margaritas at a Velveeta Mexican place in a trendy renovated tobacco warehouse with trendy stores and restaurants on the bottom floor and lots of beautiful people in the courtyard. My old (and tres cool) press office is on the second floor of the warehouse and I can still smell the aroma of avgolemono soup cooking in the Greek restaurant downstairs as it wafted up through the ventilation system.

8:58 a.m. - 2005-09-15

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