Hackett AvenueLeaves floating on the waterLike faces floating on the surface of a dream, On the surface of a swimming poolOnce the holocaust was complete.And then I passed through stages of beliefAnd unbelief, desire and restraint.Ad interim, until they began to seem quaintAnd I began to feel myself a victim of coincidence, Inhabiting a film whose real title was my name --Inhabiting a realm of fabulous constructionsMade entirely of words, all wordsUntil they meant whatever "I might mean.But they're just fragments really, No more than that.A coast away, And then across an ocean fifty years away, -- Bewitchment of intelligence by leaves -- A body floating clothed, facedown, A not-so-old philosopher dying in his bed-- At least I "thought I felt those things.But then the line went deadAnd I was back here in the cave, another ghostInhabiting the fourth part of the soulAnd waiting, and still waiting, for the sun to come up.Tell them I've had a wonderful life.Tell Mr. DeMille I'm ready for my close-up.---In ItalyFor Henri Cole1. Hotel Solferino I was somewhere else, then here. Somewhere else: call it an ideaLingering in the air like the faint smell of a rose Insensibly near; Or call it a small hotelTowards the end of Via Solferino, With a window open to the sunAnd the sounds of automobiles on the street below And adistant bell. Call it any time but now, Only call it unreal. In time's small room Whatever lies beyond its bordersCouldn't have been, like an imaginary perfume Nobody knows how To even dream of again.

Hackett Avenue	p. 3
In Italy	p. 5
Songs of the Valley	p. 10
The Other Side of the Canyon	p. 12
The Proximate Shore	p. 15
Dellius' Boat	p. 18
Crain Street	p. 20
Illiers	p. 24
Contemporaries and Ancestor	p. 25
Life Under Conditions of Uncertainty	p. 28
A Perfume	p. 31
Aus einem April	p. 33
The New Economy	p. 37
Forbidden Planet	p. 39
Y2k (1933)	p. 40
Moore's Paradox	p. 42
The Chinese Room	p. 44
Theories of Prayer	p. 46
Strangeness	p. 49
North Point North	p. 50
Gil's Cafe	p. 59
Your Day	p. 63
Montana	p. 64
Maps	p. 66
Process	p. 68
Level	p. 69
Mary Astor's Journal	p. 71
The Charming Brocade	p. 73
Boy's Life	p. 74
From Commerce	p. 76
Below the Coast	p. 83
Mission Bay	p. 85
Domes	p. 86
Some	p. 91
The Hand in the Breast Pocket	p. 93
Song	p. 97
Tiny Figures in Snow	p. 99
Men and Wives	p. 101
Satie's Suits	p. 104
Copley Square	p. 106
Objects in Autumn	p. 109
Dorothy Wordsworth	p. 112
Partial Clearance	p. 115
The Little Boy	p. 116
Picture of Little Letters	p. 117
A Refrain	p. 118
Malignant Calm	p. 120
The Narrow Way	p. 121
The Near Future	p. 128
In the Park	p. 130
The Late Wisconsin Spring	p. 133
The Substitute for Time	p. 136
Sunday Evening	p. 141
"I Heard a Fly Buzz ..."	p. 144
Mistral	p. 147
The Waiting Game	p. 158
Threnody for Two Voices	p. 160
Un Autre Monde	p. 164
Between the Lines	p. 166
What the Stars Meant	p. 169
The Constructor	p. 173
Fleeting Forms of Life	p. 181
Au Train	p. 183
A Parking Lot with Trees	p. 186
From the Porch	p. 195
The Constant Voice	p. 196
Sorrento Valley	p. 199
Songs My Mother Taught Me	p. 200
The Realm of Ends	p. 205
Argument in Isolation	p. 207
The Secret Amplitude	p. 211
The Interior of the Future	p. 224
Early Morning in Milwaukee	p. 228
Henrietta	p. 232
Falling Water	p. 238
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

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Excerpts

North Point North
New and Selected Poems

Hackett Avenue

I used to like connections:
Leaves floating on the water
Like faces floating on the surface of a dream,
On the surface of a swimming pool
Once the holocaust was complete.
And then I passed through stages of belief
And unbelief, desire and restraint.
I found myself repeating certain themes
Ad interim, until they began to seem quaint
And I began to feel myself a victim of coincidence,
Inhabiting a film whose real title was my name --
Inhabiting a realm of fabulous constructions
Made entirely of words, all words
I should have known, and should have connected
Until they meant whatever I might mean.
But they're just fragments really,
No more than that.

A coast away,
And then across an ocean fifty years away,
I felt an ashen figure gliding through the leaves
-- Bewitchment of intelligence by leaves --
A body floating clothed, facedown,
A not-so-old philosopher dying in his bed
-- At least I thought I felt those things.
But then the line went dead
And I was back here in the cave, another ghost
Inhabiting the fourth part of the soul
And waiting, and still waiting, for the sun to come up.
Tell them I've had a wonderful life.
Tell Mr. DeMille I'm ready for my close-up.

---

In Italy

For Henri Cole

1.Hotel Solferino

I was somewhere else, then here.
I have photographs to prove it, and new clothes.
Somewhere else: call it an idea
Lingering in the air like the faint smell of a rose
Insensibly near;

Or call it a small hotel
Towards the end of Via Solferino,
With a window open to the sun
And the sounds of automobiles on the street below
And a distant bell.

Call it any time but now,
Only call it unreal. In time's small room
Whatever lies beyond its borders
Couldn't have been, like an imaginary perfume
Nobody knows how

To even dream of again.
I suppose it was an ordinary day
In the extraordinary world where
Nothing ever happens, when in something like the way
A poem begins

I entered upon a street
I'd never imagined before, all the while
Concealed by that close sense of self
I know now is my true home, and by a passive style
That seemed to repeat

My name, that tried to consume
My entire world, that brought me to the entry
Of a small hotel where an image
Of my own face stared at me from another country,
From another room.

2.Expulsion from the Garden

It's hard to remember one was ever there,
Or what was supposed to be so great about it.
Each morning a newly minted sun rose
In a new sky, and birdsong filled the air.
There were all these things to name, and no sex.
The children took what God had given them --
A world held in common, a form of life
Without sin or moral complexity,
A vernal paradise complete with snakes --
And sold it all for a song, for the glory
Of the knowledge contained in the fatal apple.
At any rate, that's the official story.

In Masaccio's fresco in the Brancacci Chapel
The figures are smaller than you'd expect
And lack context, and seem all the more tragic.
The Garden is implicit in their faces,
Depicted through the evasive magic
Of the unpresented. Eve's arm is slack
And hides her sex. There isn't much to see
Beyond that, for the important questions,
The questions to which one constantly comes back,
Aren't about their lost, undepicted home,
But the ones framed by their distorted mouths:
What are we now? What will we become?

Think of it as whatever state preceded
The present moment, this prison of the self.
The idea of the Garden is the idea
Of something tangible which has receded
Into stories, into poetry.
As one ages, it becomes less a matter
Of great intervals than of minor moments
Much like today's, which time's strange geometry
Has rendered unreal. And yet the question,
Raised anew each day, is the same one,
Though the person raising it isn't the same:
What am I now? What have I become?

Excerpted from North Point North: New and Selected Poems by John Koethe
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.