Read Online Alone and Not Alone by Ron Padgett - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ron Padgett
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it.
You can keep it or pass it on,
but itâs a good idea to keep a small portion
for those nights when youâre feeling so good
you forget youâre human. Then drudge it up
and float down from the ceiling
that is covered with stars that glow in the dark
for the sole purpose of being beautiful for you,
and as you sink their beauty dims and goes outâ
I mean it flies out the nearest door or window,
its whoosh raising the hair on your forearms.
If only your arms were green, you could have two small lawns!
But your arms are just there and you are kaput.
Itâs all your fault, anyway, and it always has beenâ
the kind word you thought of saying but didnât,
the appalling decline of human decency, global warming,
thermonuclear nightmares, your own small cowardice,
your stupid idea that you would live foreverâ
all
tua culpa
. John Phillip Sousa
invented the sousaphone, which is also your fault.
Its notes resound like monstrous ricochets.
But when you wake up, your body
seems to fit fairly well, like a tailored suit,
and you donât look too bad in the mirror.
Hi there, feller!
Old feller, young feller, who cares?
Whoever it was who felt guilty last night,
to hell with him. That was then.
The Young Cougar
The doors swing open and in walks a young cougar wearing white shoes and light-blue socks, come to help his father. âWhere do we put this in the registry?â one servant asks another. Or
they
were wearing the shoes and socks.
Radio in the Distance
for Yvonne Jacquette
Beneath the earth covered with men
with snow atop their heads, down
to where it is dark and deep, to where
the big black vibrating blob of wobble
is humming its one and only note, I lie,
orange hair not in the idea of diagonal,
a Betty not composed of vertical fish
or dog with grid-mark cancellations,
but easy as an orchestra of toy atoms
lazy with buzz and fizzle in their drift
as if above this late and lost Manhattan
spread out like a diagram of what we want
from heaven, wherever it is when we think
we know what it is and even when it really is.
Face Value
From a face comes a body an entire body
and from a body everything
but I canât face you
fully
not yet
maybe never
and even if I did or thought I did
how would I know
How would I know
what face value is
From a face comes face value
and from face value a lot of baling wire
âthe face scribbled over with dark coils of it
I was born in Kentucky almost
There were no faces there
so I was born elsewhere
from inside a fencepost
to which barbed wire had been affixed
by Frederic Remington
The air was cool, the night calm
and each star had a face
like a movie starâs or someone in the family
They too had star quality I thought
but they had statue quality
and then turned sideways
like music blending into fabric and little curtains
along the kitchen windows
attractive kitchen windows
Now you can sit down at this table
and look me square in the eye
and tell me what youâve been wanting to
or you can stand up like a photograph on a piano
and sing to me
a song that has no words or music
Which is it? âBut
a heavy magnetic force pulls you to the wall
and holds you there
As soon as you get used to it
it lets you go
for a while
and then
your
heavy magnetic force pulls the wall to
you
and you walk around with a wall stuck to your side
The Wall of Forgetting
itâs called
but itâs not a wall itâs a mirror
that picks your face up off the floor
and whirls it onto a head
that has gone on without you
The Plank and the Screw
There
is
one thing.
In a fishing village on the coast of Norway
an idea came forth and spread
over the country and from there
to the rest of the world, namely
that floating inside the sun was its power source:
a plank and a screw
that had come loose from it,
and as long as they floated around,
never far one from the
You can keep it or pass it on,
but itâs a good idea to keep a small portion
for those nights when youâre feeling so good
you forget youâre human. Then drudge it up
and float down from the ceiling
that is covered with stars that glow in the dark
for the sole purpose of being beautiful for you,
and as you sink their beauty dims and goes outâ
I mean it flies out the nearest door or window,
its whoosh raising the hair on your forearms.
If only your arms were green, you could have two small lawns!
But your arms are just there and you are kaput.
Itâs all your fault, anyway, and it always has beenâ
the kind word you thought of saying but didnât,
the appalling decline of human decency, global warming,
thermonuclear nightmares, your own small cowardice,
your stupid idea that you would live foreverâ
all
tua culpa
. John Phillip Sousa
invented the sousaphone, which is also your fault.
Its notes resound like monstrous ricochets.
But when you wake up, your body
seems to fit fairly well, like a tailored suit,
and you donât look too bad in the mirror.
Hi there, feller!
Old feller, young feller, who cares?
Whoever it was who felt guilty last night,
to hell with him. That was then.
The Young Cougar
The doors swing open and in walks a young cougar wearing white shoes and light-blue socks, come to help his father. âWhere do we put this in the registry?â one servant asks another. Or
they
were wearing the shoes and socks.
Radio in the Distance
for Yvonne Jacquette
Beneath the earth covered with men
with snow atop their heads, down
to where it is dark and deep, to where
the big black vibrating blob of wobble
is humming its one and only note, I lie,
orange hair not in the idea of diagonal,
a Betty not composed of vertical fish
or dog with grid-mark cancellations,
but easy as an orchestra of toy atoms
lazy with buzz and fizzle in their drift
as if above this late and lost Manhattan
spread out like a diagram of what we want
from heaven, wherever it is when we think
we know what it is and even when it really is.
Face Value
From a face comes a body an entire body
and from a body everything
but I canât face you
fully
not yet
maybe never
and even if I did or thought I did
how would I know
How would I know
what face value is
From a face comes face value
and from face value a lot of baling wire
âthe face scribbled over with dark coils of it
I was born in Kentucky almost
There were no faces there
so I was born elsewhere
from inside a fencepost
to which barbed wire had been affixed
by Frederic Remington
The air was cool, the night calm
and each star had a face
like a movie starâs or someone in the family
They too had star quality I thought
but they had statue quality
and then turned sideways
like music blending into fabric and little curtains
along the kitchen windows
attractive kitchen windows
Now you can sit down at this table
and look me square in the eye
and tell me what youâve been wanting to
or you can stand up like a photograph on a piano
and sing to me
a song that has no words or music
Which is it? âBut
a heavy magnetic force pulls you to the wall
and holds you there
As soon as you get used to it
it lets you go
for a while
and then
your
heavy magnetic force pulls the wall to
you
and you walk around with a wall stuck to your side
The Wall of Forgetting
itâs called
but itâs not a wall itâs a mirror
that picks your face up off the floor
and whirls it onto a head
that has gone on without you
The Plank and the Screw
There
is
one thing.
In a fishing village on the coast of Norway
an idea came forth and spread
over the country and from there
to the rest of the world, namely
that floating inside the sun was its power source:
a plank and a screw
that had come loose from it,
and as long as they floated around,
never far one from the
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