Honey, Can You Hear Me

by James Tate

Alison stared into the mirror and combed her hair. How
beautiful she was! "I look awful," she said. I bent down and
tied my shoe and hit my head on the coffee table on the way up.
"Ouch," I said. "What did you say, honey?" she said. "I said
we ought to buy a new couch," I said. "I thought we just bought
one," she said. "We could buy another one so we'd have a backup
in case anything happens to this one," I said. She didn't answer
me, but continued to brush her hair. I stared down at my shoes
and said, "Something is so wrong there." "What did you say, honey?"
she said. I said, "It will be wonderful to be there tonight."
"Where's that, honey?" she said. "Wherever it is that we're going,"
I said. "We're not going anywhere," she said. "I meant here. It
will be wonderful to be here tonight," I said. "A little romantic
night at home," she said. What did she mean by "nomadic"? A little
nomadic night at home. There were times when I worried about
Alison. She hovered right on the borderline, about to cross over into
her own private realm, where nothing she sees or hears corresponds
to anything in the known world. I live with this fear daily. My
shoes are on the wrong feet, or so it seems to me now.

A Pedal-Pusher Said to Me

by Gabriel & Marcel Piqueray

A pedal-pusher said to me

No braykaiser

No sterfput

A-stepping and a-stoumping cretin-wise

Could drive a man to madness

Just as no thousand Orphas all draped in damp peignoirs

Doing their great kochera

With the prima donna

Of Iquzegdamoda

Of Paczevast

Of Anunec

Each Orpha in an evening gown

Imploring of our pedal-pusher

To go a-step and go a-stoump all over yet again

With a thousand mops

And a thousand sterfputs imploring them

The braykaiser in me

The sterfput in me

The mop in me

The kochera in me

The Paczevast in me

The Anunec in me

The Iquzegdamoda in me

And all the stoumpers

The steppers

The mops

The evening gowns

And all the Orphas

All the pedal-pushers

The damp peignoirs

The cretins

The prima donnas

Who beg

The kocheras

The Iquzegdamodas

The Anunecs

And all the Paczevasts

To step

And to stoump for the sake of love

The great flowering love

Of a thousand pedal-pushers

A-draped in damp peignoirs

Will lead no braykaiser

No sterfput

No mop

No kochera

No Paczevast

No Anunec

No Iquzegdamoda

To implore a man to madness

And that is what a-stepping and a-stoumping cretin-wise

A pedal-pusher said to me

Translated by Robert Archambeau & Jean-Luc Garneau

Have You Met Miss Jones?

by Charles Simic

I have. At the funeral
Pulling down her skirt to cover her knees
While inadvertently
Showing us her cleavage
Down to the tip of her nipples.

A complete stranger, wobbly on her heels,
Negotiating the exit
With the assembled mourners
Eyeing her rear end
With visible interest.

Presidential hopefuls
Will continue to lie to the people
As we sit here bowed.
New hatreds will sweep the globe
Faster than the weather.
Sewer rats will sniff around
Lit cash machines
While we sigh over the departed.

And her beauty will live on, no matter
What any one of these black-clad,
Grim veterans of every wake,
Every prison gate and crucifixion,
Sputters about her discourtesy.

Miss Jones, you'll be safe
With the insomniacs. You'll triumph
Where they pour wine from a bottle
Wrapped in a white napkin,
Eat sausage with pan-fried potatoes,
And grow misty-eyed remembering

The way you walked past the open coffin,
Past the stiff with his nose in the air
Taking his long siesta.
A cute little number an old man said,
But who was she?
Miss Jones, the guest book proclaimed.

Words of advice for Young People
By William S. Burroughs

People often ask me if I have any words of advice for young people.
Well here are a few simple admonitions for young and old.
Never interfere in a boy-and-girl fight.
Beware of whores who say they don't want money.
The hell they don't.
What they mean is they want more money. Much more.
If you're doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch,
Get it in writing.
His word isn't worth shit.
Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.

Avoid fuck-ups.
We all know the type.
Anything they have anything to do with,
No matter how good it sounds,
Turns into a disaster.
Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill.
Tell them firmly:
I am not paid to listen to this drivel.
You are a terminal boob.

Now some of you may encounter the Devil's Bargain,
If you get that far.
Any old soul is worth saving,
At least to a priest,
But not every soul is worth buying.
So you can take the offer as a compliment.
He tries the easy ones first.
You know like money,
All the money there is.
But who wants to be the richest guy in some cemetery?
Money won't buy.
Not much left to spend it on, eh gramps?
Getting too old to cut the mustard.

Well time hits the hardest blows.
Especially below the belt.
How's a young body grab you?
Like three card monte, like pea under the shell,
Now you see it, now you don't.
Haven't you forgotten something, gramps?
In order to feel something,
You've got to be there.
You have to be eighteen.
You're not eighteen.
You are seventy-eight.
Old fool sold his soul for a strap-on.

Well they always try the easiest ones first.
How about an honorable bargain?
You always wanted to be a doctor,
Well now's your chance.
Why don't you become a great healer
And benefit humanity?
What's wrong with that?
Just about everything.
Just about everything.
There are no honorable bargains
Involving exchange
Of qualitative merchandise
Like souls
For quantitative merchandise
Like time and money.
So piss off Satan
And don't take me for dumber than I look.

An old junk pusher told me -
Watch whose money you pick up.

Lies My Mother Told Me

by Elizabeth Thomas

If you keep eating raw spaghetti
you'll get pinworms,
then I'll have to make
a necklace of garlic for you to wear
each night while you sleep,
until they go away.
If you're mean to your younger brother, I'll know
because I have a special eye
that spies on you when I'm not home.
You cannot hide from it,
so don't try.
If you touch your "down there"
any time other than when using the toilet,
your hand will turn green and fall off.
If you keep crossing your eyes
they will stay that way
until the wind
changes direction.
It is bad luck to kill a moth. Moths are
the souls of our ancestors and it just
might be Papa paying a visit.
If you kiss a boy on the mouth
your lips will stick together
and he'll use the opportunity
to suck out your brains.
If you ever lie to me
God will know
and rat you out.
And sometimes
God exaggerates.
Trust me —
you don't want that
to happen.

Advice to Myself

By Louise Erdrich

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

Correcting an Unbalance
by Hal Sirowitz

I never listen to commercials, Father said.
They're aimed at trying to sell me something
I don't need. If I do need it I want to know
that the need originated from me & not
from others. I don't want to end up with lots
of junk I'm only going to throw out. Half
the things in this house aren't used. We
only really need food, clothing, shelter,
& of course, each other. You do need me.
Don't you? Your mother never gives me
much opportunity to talk. I'm supposed to listen.
I'm able to talk to you, but it'd please me
if you said something once in a while.