Sometimes everything clicks in. Sometimes it doesn’t. This poem is about a week in my life when things went wrong. I was in my early twenties. A long-term relationship ended. A paperwork slip-up led to losing my job in a factory. It was time to leave the factory, but it’s always nice to be the one deciding these things. And then an unexpected potential relationship blew up.
I was writing a good bit at the time, and the words were flowing nicely. “In addition, it multiplies” just made me happy. And it seemed to sum up my situation.
I was obviously under the same structural spell as the poem THE BREAD FACTORY, with the elaborate indents mirroring the visual factory layout imprinted on my brain for 9 or 10 hours a day. I was reveling in words and shapes and lines. Despite the troubles, it makes me happy to remember that time in my life when things were simply happening. My body was strong from the brutal labor, and the poems were sliding onto the page. Despite the losses, opportunity still seemed everywhere.
I generally end my poems on a strong note, but this one just ran out. It took a couple of sessions to complete the poem, and when I got to the closing, my mind and hand were just tired. I didn’t know where the words were going. I knew they were getting repetitive and banal, but they didn’t stop. Then they just kind of ran out. I realized it was exactly the right ending.
On a fun note, about a year later, I had the opportunity to attend a reading by Diane Wakoski, one of my poetic heroes, at Beyond Baroque in LA. There was an open mic afterwards where I gave them this poem. As I got to the end, and the words started to slow, in the crowd of faces I saw a sly grin grow on Ms Wakoski’s face. Of everyone there, she anticipated the ending. Her smile remains one of my best memories.
The way Aidan John, Carver Folkes, and Jeannette Srinivasan, under Sonny Lira’s direction, interwove the lines onstage was brilliant and mesmerizing. I loved the “chair” work, and the overlapping lines. Sonny made a different choice at the very end than I would have, but that’s what made the show so brilliant overall – it was the result of a team of inspired and creative artists.
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE DEMISE OF:
Old lovers
and
Bad jobs
and if they make a practice of
occurring together
or is it just
the happy structure of circumstance?
And, if additionally they multiply,
making a further practice
of taking the new with them too?
Longtime lovers
and snappy goodbyes
Mix indelicately on the palette
especially if you have little taste
for the clash of styles.
While wondering curiously
or intently brings little,
for in addition, it multiplies:
Terminated telephones
and the stringing of unemployment lines
In circumstances, unexpectedly pleasing
Although the telephone clicks
and the secretaries' smiling of the news
in crowded restaurants amid last-
night goodbyes and . . . and
Again what but;
a wondering at this growingly
indelicate style
Ah, but fortunately there are those provisions
of caste and character
and old lovers can be succeeded
nor are past jobs to be the last
but still you sometimes wonder at the
seeming lack of style and grace?
I tell you: It is new to me
And in addition, it multiplies:
A five-day weekend for the unemployed and
a contemplative man observing:
Yes, it seems to be a change in style
and anticipating:
The morrow's eve
A new lover perhaps to please
And later, alone, still waiting
for the resolution of this
damned technique
Though fortunately there are those provisions
of caste and character
Which, as known by but perhaps
a few
But of only general concern
Only general concern
only sometimes
or wishing perhaps
not knowing, more so
but mostly