Mercury

by Levin, Phillis (Author)

• ISBN13: 9780140589283
• ISBN10: 0140589287
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-04-01
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Summary

In this new collection, Phillis Levin offers thirty-three luminous poems that extend her reputation as a master of form and an alchemist of the vernacular. In her work, she pushes the boundaries of sound, syntax, and sense--and ultimately makes structures incarnating the complexity of consciousness and the transfiguring power of memor

Table of Contents

PART ONE
Part	3	(1)
Ontological	4	(2)
Cumulus	6	(1)
Morning Exercise	7	(1)
Nocturne	8	(1)
Final Request	9	(1)
Face to Face	10	(1)
Conversation in an Empty Room	11	(1)
Instead of a Letter	12	(3)
Afternoon Sketch	15	(1)
A Portrait	16	(1)
Fugue	17	(3)
Mercury	20	(7)
PART TWO
Archaic Notions	27	(3)
There	30	(1)
Nativity with Mother, Child, and Chair	31	(2)
Table Manners	33	(2)
Elegy for a Magnolia	35	(4)
Dancing with Allen Ginsberg	39	(2)
Double Figure	41	(1)
Beginning to Count	42

Excerpts

Chapter One

    Part

Of something, separate, not

Whole; a role, something to play

While one is separate or parting;

Also a piece, a section, as in

Part of me is here, part of me

Is missing; an essential portion,

Something falling to someone

In division; a particular voice

Or instrument (also the score

For it), or line of music;

The line where the hair

Is parted. A verb: to break

Or suffer the breaking of,

Become detached,

Broken; to go from, leave,

Take from, sever, as in

Lord, part me from him,

I cannot bear to ever

    Ontological

for Elfie Raymond

If it were not so bright,

Not so dark;

If there had been another hour,

Another storm,

Something to keep track of

Or something to hold at bay;

If there had been no bird

On the barest tree,

With one bitter crumb in its mouth,

One little speck;

If the honey surrounding that crumb

Had not been sweet,

If the evening had been less silent,

Humming one note

Without leaving any name,

Calling me to a field whose sickle moon

Made it clear

That nothing would speak;

If the way to the field

Had been less glorious,

A drop of dew beside a milkweed seed,

A ladybug scampering toward light,

And flowers on fire

Swaying among tall grasses--

A river of paper lanterns at dawn;

If the gift had not been

A cluster of wild cyclamen,

Whose scent continued

To spill its horn of plenty,

Outlasting the final kiss of day.

    Cumulus

They, too, labor,

And if we envy them we should remember

How brief their stay in the ether is.

Unfolding without reason, like forgiveness,

Or summoning

Themselves at the wind's bidding, they flee.

We do not know where they go, we go

As carelessly, as helplessly, finally

Too full of time.

But we are true

To ourselves so rarely, while they are always

Open to darkness, squandering light.

A floating prison, a dream-balloon,

The setting sun's

Chameleon, or the sliding screen of the moon-

When nothing else contains us we turn to them,

And all we ever gather appears

Less tangible.

    Morning Exercise

Line by line I unremember you:

Places your mouth hid, and where

Your teeth almost bit through

My skin, leaving a necklace

Whose blue pearls lingered

For days--a few scattered across

My chest, as if you broke a strand

Whenever you left. Say nothing

About how you are, or who

You have been, say nothing

Now that there is nothing to say.

It is useless to ask for a word,

Useless to know what is true.

Line by line I unremember you.

    Nocturne

Two waterfalls we were

The night we lived all night

Together like two drops

Of rain slipping

From god's gold back

After a day in the garden

Before the world began:

We were a single stream

And then arose

Pouring through each other

No more than silk and fur

Entering and entered

Until a cooling drop

Of light was all we were.

    Final Request

If I die I will need a cross

To carry me to the next world,

The one I do not believe in.

But a cross will carry me

Anyway. When I meet the dory

That overturns despair--When

he who could not

Let love carry him over

Weeps, finally weeps there,

Where he does not believe

He will go--my arms will be

So cruel. Whether or not

They hold him, whether or not

I want to they will want to.

    Face to Face

I sing of love, sacred and profane,

Of knowledge lost, strangely found again;

And time that travels with us till we die,

Boarding the train, waving a last goodbye.

What I have learned appears on every leaf,

For the first sign of growth is belief;

The countersign of life is a lie,

Following fast after No and Why.

I have believed in truth, beholding it,

And many times have been deceived by it;

For love is double, even when it joins,

And dispossesses everything it owns.

    Conversation in an Empty Room

    You were still alive, then.

    Yes, I was.

    And we had a lot to say to each other.

    But not enough.

    There was a high level of chatter, very intelligent.

    Of course, us being who we were.

But I was always at the edge of disappointing

Or annoying you, or delighting you,

Which was worse,

Since I feared you might want me,

And I did not want to be wanted.

I wanted to be heard, to listen, standing

In a room with you--

Really, you could have lain down beside me

At least once. It wouldn't have been

The end of the world.

But it would have been.

And now that it is?