The Circular Ruins

For two weeks he’s been watching the same girl,
someone he sees in the plaza. In her twenties maybe,
drinking coffee in the afternoon, the little dark head
bent over a magazine.
He watches from across the square, pretending
to be buying something, cigarettes, maybe a bouquet of flowers.

Because she doesn’t know it exists,
her power is very great now, fused to the needs of his imagination.
He is her prisoner. She says the words he gives her
in a voice he imagines, low-pitched and soft,
a voice from the south as the dark hair must be from the south.

Soon she will recognize him, then begin to expect him.
And perhaps then every day her hair will be freshly washed,
she will gaze outward across the plaza before looking down.
and after that they will become lovers.

But he hopes this will not happen immediately
since whatever power she exerts now over his body, over his emotions,
she will have no power once she commits herself—

she will withdraw into that private world of feeling
women enter when they love. And living there, she will become
like a person who casts no shadow, who is not present in the world;
in that sense, so little use to him
it hardly matters whether she lives or dies.

~ Louise Glück

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

~ Charles Simic 

Tangent

I will only touch you once.
And it will only be in passing.

No use calling me back
For more.

You will have plenty of time
To rehearse and remember
This moment,

To convince yourself
We’ll never part.

~ from Geometries by Eugene Guillevic

You simply go out and shut the door

without thinking. And when you look back

at what you’ve done
it’s too late. If this sounds

like the story of a life, okay.

It was raining. The neighbors who had
a key were away. I tried and tried
the lower windows. Stared

inside at the sofa, plants, the table
and chairs, the stereo setup.
My coffee cup and ashtray waited for me
on the glass-topped table, and my heart 

went out to them. I said, Hello, friends,

or something like that. After all, 

this wasn’t so bad.
Worse things had happened. This
was even a little funny. I found the ladder.

Took that and leaned it against the house.
Then climbed in the rain to the deck,

swung myself over the railing 

and tried the door. Which was locked, 

of course. But I looked in just the same 

at my desk, some papers, and my chair.
This was the window on the other side
of the desk where I’d raise my eyes 

and stare out when I sat at that desk.

This is not like downstairs, I thought.
This is something else.
And it was something to look in like that, unseen,

from the deck. To be there, inside, and not be there. 


I don’t even think I can talk about it.

I brought my face close to the glass 

and imagined myself inside,
sitting at the desk. Looking up
from my work now and again.
Thinking about some other place 

and some other time.
The people I had loved then. 



I stood there for a minute in the rain. 

Considering myself to be the luckiest of men. 

Even though a wave of grief passed through me.

Even though I felt violently ashamed 

of the injury I’d done back then. 

I bashed that beautiful window. 

And stepped back in.

by Raymond Carver  

It seems like I’m growing more and more like a clown. First of all, I’m always
sad. Secondly, all my knives are made out of rubber. Thirdly, it’s like my house
is on fire.

No, I’m definitely becoming more like a clown. I have a tendency to want to put
on clown clothes. As soon as I put the clown clothes on I feel faintly happier…

Another sign is that I constantly feel like I’m alone in a dressing room. Most
of the time I feel amused. Anyway, the only thing good about the circus is
the tigers.

I realize that I could get both legs cut off by the circus train or get frightened
by an elephant. But it’s very depressing to sit around in a clown suit and think
about death.

Sometimes I don’t feel happy unless I’m in my clown suit. And I enjoy hitting
people on the head with a foam club. I really do…

When people see me they realize that it looks very sophisticated to wear a clown
suit and smoke a cigarette. This is how I get all the ladies because they think I’m
very droll.

People don’t understand how you turn into a clown. You turn into a clown
because you feel more and more like putting on a clown suit. When you’re
around people you sense a kindliness. It makes you so nervous you can’t
stay calm. Which is why it feels perfeectly normal to wear orange pants.

Plus, it’s very subversive to wear bow ties. You can’t imagine how jolly
everything is. And the fright wigs… I don’t want to be a clown but I’m
sure to be one. My mother was a clown.

by Chelsey Minnis

there’s a man in a pay phone
dramatically lit
he’s saving himself
for his last cigarette

his face changes color
his hand’s dripping wet
as he digs for a quarter
and comes up with ten cent

~ Sam Shepard

When I got to the party and saw everybody
walking around in Christmas costumes,
I remembered I was supposed to be wearing one, too.
Bending slightly, I held out my hands
and waved them a little, wiggling my fingers.
I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips, making
a tree face, and started slowly hopping on one foot,
then the other, the way I imagine trees do
in the forest when they’re not being watched.
Maybe people would take me for a hemlock,
or a tamarack. A little girl disguised as an elf
looked at me skeptically. Oh, come on!
her expression said. You call that acting like a tree?
Behind her I could see a guy in a reindeer suit
sitting down at the piano. As he hit the opening
chords of “Joy to the World” I closed my eyes
and tried again. This time I could feel the wind
struggling to lift my boughs, which were heavy
with snow. I was clinging to a mountain crag
and could see over the tops of other trees a few late-
afternoon clouds and the thin red ribbon of a river.
I smelled more snow in the air. A gust or two whispered
around my neck and face, but by now
all I could hear was the meditative creaking
of this neighbor or that—and a moment later, farther off,
the faint but eager call of a wolf.

~ Jonathan Aaron

I drive to the beach at night
in the winter
and sit and look at the burned-down amusement pier
wonder why they just let it sit there
in the water.
I want it out of there,
blown up,
vanished,
erased;
that pier should no longer sit there
with madmen sleeping inside
the burned-out guts of the funhouse …
it’s awful, I say, blow the damn thing up,
get it out of my eyes,
that tombstone in the sea.
the madmen can find other holes
to crawl into.
I used to walk that pier when I was 8
years old.

~ Charles Bukowski

Any fool can learn to catch a frog—
the trick is to do it blindfolded,
lying there, in the wet grass,
listening for the hop and the croak.

And the real trick is to keep it alive,
not strangle it, or squeeze it dead—
that way you can take it home
and tame it, make it your pet.

But early on, keep the cat locked up.
Soon she’ll get used to her odd sibling—
meanwhile put a bit of time into
picking a suitable name for a frog.

And research a frog’s ideal diet,
also the best sleeping arrangement—
water somewhere nearby, of course,
and plenty of air, plenty of air.

Be sure to play the frog the right music
so it can learn hopping tricks—
one it can reproduce on the cleared table
when you have dinner-guests around,

while you find your blindfold and put it on,
holding your hands out and grasping
the air the frog has just vacated—
making it clear you’re deliberately missing.

~ Matthew Sweeney

At first, I saw you everywhere.
Now only in certain things,
at longer intervals.

~Part 3 from “From the Japanese”, Louise Glück