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Mysteries of
Afternoon and Evening
The wind is fitful now:
soot piles in the corners
of new buildings,
gulls stumble out of place
in ragged branches
to skin against a rise
of pond water.
The children watch, breathless
with the birds.
They feel an emanation
from this shuddering place.
This winter evening
the sky cracks with cardinal color
and we sit in cooing wonder
like dwarves at the Venetian court
must have done__
amazed at Tiepolo's sunshot ceilings;
like us, they were fickle,
aware of smaller inconstancy.
But the dazzle above, enclosing
seems fit or made for this
fragment of belief.
The Usual
This is what it's like:
you sit in the white room
singular, knees together
arms over your head
to break the noise from the radio
that is false as a drunk's promise
to loan you his car next week.
Of course next week never comes
lies continue, nobody disbelieves them
but some are ready for the real story
the young man involved breaks her tired heart
it's the usual: spilt liquor,
broken dishes, wrecked cars.
Occupation
The man who told me about war
said, it's the only thing
that keeps us busy.
I thought of your fingers
on my back
counting the vertebrae
one by one.
The only thing?
Los
Angeles/Boys
Two of them
with chests like blond silk
cornsilk hair
stalled in traffic
in the awful heat
they smiled
were they messengers
delivering through the open window
promises or lies or invitations?
Boys are everywhere
at noon they glide
between parched cars
bare broad shoulders
color of chestnut colts
in the poison dusk
they catch falling stars
in their silly mouths
for girls, for each other
their teeth gleam reflections
off blue rayon
this town
as large as it is
has one shimmering boy
in all the cars
and in every phone booth.
Venus'
Boyfriend
She sat on his lap for hours
pressed his face to her
large pink breasts her hands
moved through his hair
like fond snakes
she gave him curls, cleft
hooves beneath the flesh
marvelous flesh, and smooth shoulders
she taught him
how to use his tongue
to shape a heart
from a piece of ice.
Don J
If you knew what you wanted__
arms full of plastic women
(none of them lethal)
bottles of champagne and sweet liqueurs__
you would have a bathtubful
of alcohol, a yacht with pretty boys
to steer through the calmest
palm-lined bays,
your mind a pale cloud.
But the wars and severed limbs
explosions and fires in the night
come to you in grey visions:
sailors adrift and starving
you among them, waiting helpless
for the woman who will save you__
only you among them__
with the pure loins and tears
of a madonna.
Philosophy and
the Sunday Funnies
The perfect satisfaction
of wine, cigarettes, the sun
at an afternoon angle
passes through flesh
as if flesh were a sieve
to the direct point
the soul of matter.
Things fix time
although the sun moves
lazily, creating an image
that seems like motive
the wine transmutes
and becomes blood
cigarettes dissolve
to blue threads and ash
but the sun continues
in constant repetition
of its slow and rather boring dance.
With Child
You are not dormant your eyes
are still large still see as much
wary disdain for this cracking
place, cracked daily, knocked
against your conception of it
the world falls short of expectation
in a tea gown tea roses
roll on your soft lap
there is so much sun in this garden
you are so young
infanta with child
your face now
like a satisfied saint
yet your brazen hair betrays
such a pleasurable fall
and your smile is
a smile of perfect knowledge.
The Assassination
The last day of her life
the empress came to terms:
she looked at the glassy lake
as she had at so many mirrors
(fending off Jehovah with ice-packs)
and saw silver eels beneath the water's surface.
They slid like knives under the rocks.
Oblivion
I poured a whiskey and soda
watching the tree outside dissolve:
light going backward pushed to corners
to the white sliver of wood
around the door.
Where was that river seething with light?
I recall the banks menaced by wasps
swollen on summer sap, a cement hollow
stuck with their strange cradles
a woozy stench of damp clay
the blunt poison of water snakes.
I do remember someone
close warm flesh pushed to the sand
the ocean a dark noise
echoing gulls and a wail of forlorn love
moonlight like yellowed keys
on his antique piano
music across the water our song
tides pulled awful and endless
as the spine of memory.
The light is lost
my glass is hollow:
the door is luminous
like a firefly at midnight.
All poems from Mysteries of Afternoon and Evening by
Rachel Sherwood
(Sherwood Press/Yarmouth Press, 1981). Copyright 1981 by David Trinidad.
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Rachel Sherwood was born on
January 4, 1954 in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Southern California. She
attended St. David's University College in Wales and California State University
at Northridge, where she was active in establishing and editing Angel's
Flight, the college literary magazine. She also worked on the
editorial staff of 1822 and The Wallace Stevens Journal. In 1978
she won the Academy of American Poets contest at C.S.U.N. for the poem entitled
"Mysteries of Afternoon and Evening." She gave several poetry readings
in the Los Angeles area and published her work in Angel's Flight, Beyond
Baroque, and the anthology Foreign Exchange. At the time of her
death, she was enrolled as a graduate student at Northridge and was employed
there as a teacher of English composition. She died in an automobile accident on
July 5, 1979. A memorial poetry prize in her name was established at C.S.U.N.
David Trinidad edited and published (with Greg Boyd) a volume of Rachel
Sherwood's poems, Mysteries of Afternoon and Evening, in 1981. As editor
of Sherwood Press (1981-1984), created in her memory, Trinidad published titles
by such poets as Dennis Cooper, Amy Gerstler, Tim Dlugos, and Alice Notley. |