Codes, Precepts, Biases, and Taboos by Lawrence Joseph

Author:Lawrence Joseph
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466873261
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

I PAY THE PRICE

Memory slipping more and more,

whole days no longer exist.

It’s not that I don’t feel well.

Pulse 77, 76, I’ve learned

nothing will pass. Yesterday

the news full of dead,

the Dictionary on Historical Principles

open on the table

at the definition of “sentiment,”

today I hear market analysts

expectantly attend the latest

conferences on chaos.

Before the picture window vista

of the East River, I hear Miss

Newman—she insists she be called

Miss—expound her aesthetic.

“This city, the ultimate art!

Masses of steel and light

jutted beyond heaven, a miracle

that is human and works.”

This city of my own, dull gray,

rose, yellow, murky pink skies.

I know what I’m saying. I know

tomorrow I may forget

the man whom I see tonight

on Pearl Street under the Bridge

who appears at first to have no head.

He asks me to tell him

who he is, to take him, please,

to the police. He is sick,

mentally. He hasn’t controlled

his bladder or his bowels.

Tomorrow I’ve also a big day ahead of me

protecting interests.

Though I don’t have the appropriate letters

to get where I want,

my progress continues.

I distance myself to see myself

say to myself even before

I hang up the telephone, “I love this!”

From my apartment, from which I’ve a good view

of the same Bridge, I watch

a workman standing on the pier, looking

across at the coast turning toward

the Narrows, his hands bandaged,

victim of a work accident

who doesn’t know what to think

or what to do and hasn’t enough

to buy himself something to settle his mind.

I walk about my rooms

composing arguments in my defense.

“Live and die before a mirror,”

Baudelaire says, sipping espresso

at the corner of Hudson and Barrow.

I live in words and off my flesh

in order to pay the price.

When the ancient fury persists,

I pay the price.

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