Last Words of Gramsci
“Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”

I think that when my former students think
of me, they think I’m thinking
about them, and what I’m thinking
is what I should have said
the last day of the semester. And when
they formulate (or not) some
heroic-pessimistic slogan
like Gramsci’s, above (which I’ve always
secretly disliked:
could it not also have been spoken
by a fascist?), a dim dirty pride
that they have never lived by it
appears in some; in others
a wish that they remembered what it was.

But what I want to have said or to say
now is Forget it, kids; you’re off the hook.
(I taught creative writing, by the way.)
Though the world exists to be put into
a book (that’s Mallarmé),
it isn’t one you have to read, or write.
Let your career be your Idea
as Spengler said. And the resentment
I didn’t start or help or dissipate
or focus may become
a poem – one poem, left for retirement.


Assignment

A course; the assignment
a modern-classic memoir-novel
about a family. She made the mistake
of asking if we liked it.
Many at once, then each, vehemently,
yes. Tears cited. “I was there.”
“That was my father. And mother.”
“Could be any culture.” “Beautiful.”
“I had to skip, it was so painful.”
“I didn’t finish,” I said, reluctantly
and only when asked. “Why not?”
“I found the father insufferable –
a loud, dismissive egotist.
And for over a hundred pages they simply
accept him, never criticize,
love him … then from what I gather
she married someone exactly like him.
No one rebels.” Immediate, general,
scornful or flippant protest.
“Rebellion isn’t always – “
someone began, more mildly; another:
“Life – ” She asked me to go on.
“I’m allergic to novels
about families. Actually, to families.
I wish there was another way
to construct personalities.”
“I’m curious what you would say,”
she mused, “if they weren’t
characters in a book, but standing here?”


Nachlass

I’m not sure who it was. His mother
had boxes, bundles, frayed shopping bags full
of work, and humbly, tearfully begged me
to confront them. As I sorted,
red pencil in hand, she became not
his mother but his ravishing (exotic?)
wife/soulmate/enabler, with stories to tell,
the apartment no longer a mother’s shrine
but the usual booklined burrow. I lost
my long white selfless wings but gained
attraction and intentions towards
the wife. But presently editors, scholars,
hovering, benign yet vampiric, blocked
his battered lamp. Had she summoned or
become them? Fierce grad students
pounced; I hadn’t known him (or don’t think I did)
but made something up, uncertain whether
any of this was happening …
The red pencil, there to send
gnarled stanzas, whole mad books to Parnassus
instead of the possibly more interesting
shelves of oblivion, didn’t.


The Recruit

Cults multiply, even among liberals,
who are not immune
to the general secret yearning to be zombies
(free of the self and shame and capital)
and tend to disappear when they’re alone.
I attend introductory meetings
of one of the few that let in Jews
as long as we aren’t too overtly
you-know. Inept, like liberals:
after they set out
their creed, they actually ask
(instead of seducing me further) what I think.

“I’m prepared to agree,”
I say, “that the craziness
of the subatomic world doesn’t end there.
That worlds and space itself are round and crowded
because we perceive them lazily, and what really
exists are floating visionary platforms,
yours over there, mine over here …
What I want to be sure
you accept is that my platform
is temperate and safe, with rolling hills,
vast cenotaphs of bigots, fools,
and the other unmourned, a table set
before me in the wilderness, and
when I tire, a well-appointed bungalow
with a view of the edge.”


Night Table

A dusty stack of urgent reading.
A learned journal, which
if finished would at last make one learned.
A lamp, too large for its space, but
an heirloom. Some old pill bottles that
may yet come in handy,
or reassure because no longer needed.
Near the edge, tonight’s pills, awaiting water:
for sleep, for regularity, for
the heart. Considered as a still life
it would be a bad joke,
except in the sense that it’s still life.