A Stinking Voyeur in the House of the Dead
My brother drove me to the Brooklyn morgue since I needed to look at dead bodies for my novel [Blue Eyes]. The morgue attendant took me and Harve around. All the dead men looked like Indians. Their skin had turned to bark. I distanced myself from the corpses, pretended I was touring some carnival with refrigerated shelves. It was Harve who sucked Life Savers and seemed pale. I was only a stinking voyeur in the house of the dead.
Introduction to Winter Warning — Jerome Charyn
The above paragraph is nestled between more paragraphs. For each one I have to stop. I re-read and savour.
The problem with reading Jerome Charyn (even though he does not consider himself to be a poet) is the problem I have in reading novels (Homero Aridjis) and short stories (Jorge Luís Borges) by the poets they are. I have to stop.
While I had no brother who was a policeman as Charyn did, I did have a very good friend who was the Federal Police Chief of Acapulco. In my time I have gone to many morgues and seen my share of corpses.
But what makes reading Charyn so special for me is that I met and photographed him in his native New York City years ago. When I read Charyn I read it in his voice.
Perhaps tonight I might get through the introduction. I will do my best to postpone that.
My blogs on Jerome Charyn
Winter Warning
The Vampire of Paris
Blue Eyes
Vanesa
Glock-Verb- Transitive
The Czar’s Daughter
Currer Bell
And Zero at the Bone
The Dark Lady From Belorusse
I Am Abraham
I Am Abraham — which one?
Teddy’s Desk
Malamud
Charyn & J. Robert Janes
Jane Jacobs & Jerome Charyn
Marilyn the Wild
Dee
The Dark Lady from Belorusse
Margaret Tolstoy
Princess Hannah
Bitter Bronx
Seducing a Cockroach
The Electric Dark of the King Cole
The Little Duchess
Wolf Dogs in Central Park
The Polish Rider at the Frick
Dee- Eddie Carmel
Tanya’s Legs
The Colt
Flicked Away a Tear
Laurencia Riley
With Lines from Emily Dickinson
Without the power to die
Emily Dickinson’s White Dress
Originally published at blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.
