Chinese Apples New and Selected Poems

by DI PIERO, W.S.

• ISBN13: 9780375711435
• ISBN10: 0375711430
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-07-14
• Publisher: Knopf

Summary

Now in paperback: the "lovely and evocative book" (San Francisco Chronicle) of poems both new and old that celebrates a quarter century of passionate engagement with real life and its transformation into poetic form: the pull of faith and the poet's suspicion of transcendence, urban worlds and the mysterious jazz of street language, desire and sexual need, love and loss.

Author Biography

W. S. Di Piero was born in South Philadelphia in 1945. He is the author of eight previous books of poetry, as well as three volumes of translation from the Italian. He writes about art for the San Diego Reader and has published three collections of essays and criticism on art, literature, and personal experience. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award. He lives in San Francisco.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpts

Smoke

We loiter in the cobblestone alley,
Beans, Clams, Yom-Yom and me,
smoking punk. Snip the wiry stem,
trim the nubby end, scratch fire
from a zipper then pass the stink around.
William Penn designed these blocks
squared off, brick, crosshatched by alleys
to prevent the spread of fire. So fire
runs down my throat, reed
turning to iron inside my lungs.

Yom-Yom has an uncle in Bucks County.
Country boys sneak behind barns and puff
on cedar bark. Smoke’s the only thing
we have in common. Smoke when our breath
meets cold moist air, though no smoke rings
in winter, while sullen cars drag gray on gray
down city streets or country roads.
Someday I’ll smoke Camels, my father’s brand,
then Gauloises to prove I’m stronger than him
in burning whatever’s inside that won’t sleep.



Stanzas

At the Cole and Carl dog-run park,
mutts and poodles sniff grass,
couples laugh, the N-Judah
sharks from its tunnel. I’m druggy
while my doctor fools with dosages
to stagger my soul’s bad chemistry.

I need a looser world and words for it.
Last night I watched the Dog Star burn
blue then frosted mercury.Late Show
station break, I write lines like these,
looking for exacter, plainer poetry
while more stars appear. I hate mornings–

my bed’s a mudlake writing pulls me from.
Poetry’s muscled homemade demon
sits on me and asks: “What next?”
A mockingbird sings from its nest,
dark or light the same, singing
end to end, while the kitchen light
curls me over short, easy books,
dumped crosswords, andVanity Fair.
Then life’s casual rush stops,
everywhere I look
the lymph in things goes dead,
though the world still shines the same.

Medicated to this willowed balance,
I don’t weep now to see dogs run
or wild fennel bend to winds
kiting a tern from its brilliant marsh.
I don’t get sick with fright to hear
an eyelash click across the street.

Little lab-rat gods rattling
in my jar, keep me close enough
to smell dog fur and fresh-cut grass.
Take away whatever you want,
but deliver me to derangements
of sweet, ordered, derelict words.



The Wedding Dance

Indigo sequins trash
the circle’s center,
and she knows that,
dancing there,
she’ll outlive everyone.
Women jitterbugged.
Men clutched sweaty
Seven-and-Sevens.
Roast beef sandwiches,
cream soda, red-eyed heirs
skating sawdust boards,
somewhere a bride and groom.

At our table, my father
(“Let’s break this up”)
grabs my arm and gimps
toward the dancers’ circle
and its untouchable one,
where he light-foots
snappy fat-man moves,
happy storybook dragon,
boilermakers on his breath,
sexed up, cutting the boards,
while itchy at the edge
I blur into forgetfulness.

We’re never really free.
Because he’s not dancing,
but stops at the sizzling edge,
watches, bums his bad leg
back to our desolate table.
What pity if not born to live
in a world you’re born to?
Rim shots knock for us who are
too far to see her turn
and laugh inside the circle,
her alluring moves for us
and anyone who dares.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Excerpted from Chinese Apples: New and Selected Poems by W. S. Di Piero
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.