by Mark Bibbins, Editor
To an Editor Who Said I Repeat Myself and Tell Too Much
The mouth works all its life to spit a vowel —
some long sound with feeling fenced in
by the sharp stops of a few right consonants, a howl
and a pen to keep it tame, a calm din
that won’t drown out the life it tries
to say, but won’t deny, either, that hell
is the sound we’re all born making, the cry
learned before the womb, which we tell
and tell and tell — too much, of course —
in the hope of draining (I must state it plain,
for there is no other subject — death, divorce,
depression — all words stand for pain)
that well, as if there were anything else to do.
You don’t enjoy my poems? Me neither. Fuck you.
True
If it were true it would make more sense. It must
not be true. It makes too much sense. The truth
makes no sense. Too true. It’s too good to be true.
It makes no sense, it must be true. Or must not.
But you need it to be true. It’s only true if you believe.
You believe so it must be true. You believe, so
it cannot be true. You believe in truth. What you
believe is the truth. So the truth is what you wish.
Wish come true, no longer a wish, but the truth,
which makes no sense, so cannot be true. The truth
is not the truth. Tell me the truth. Lie to me. Lie
to tell the truth. Little white lie. How tell the truth
from a lie? The truth is white, like a light, like a lie.
It’s a lie. If it were truth, it would make more light.
Variations on the Moment of Apprehending the Extent of One’s Responsibilities
1
that minute subdivision of time
during which the full consequence
flickers, just before the door clicks
shut but just after you could have
stopped it from shutting, when
you realize, your hand already
seizing your empty pocket, that
you have left your keys inside
2
that useless subdivision of time
in which what really happens
could never have been
prevented — it yawns so wide
though you can barely fit
a blink into it, like the moment
just before the door clicks shut
but just after you realize
3
you have left your keys inside.
So many things are unsatisfactory,
like the moment, like the baby
monitor, like your hand already
seizing your empty pocket,
useless. Consequence
flickers, what really happens
could fit behind a blink
4
that useless subdivision of time
in which what happens could fit,
flickers, could never have been
prevented, is so unsatisfactory
like the moment just before
the door clicks shut but just after
you could have stopped it from
closing with the back of your foot
5
your hand already seizing
your empty pocket, as if you could
go back, your keys inside,
and begin again, take your clothes
off, crawl back, deep into bed.
So many things are unsatisfactory —
that you have left your keys inside,
that this is when you realize
6
this could never have been
prevented, that what you realize
is not only useless but infinitely
painful, because minute,
irrevocable, like the baby
who flickers in the video monitor,
a blink in which the door clicks shut.
You could never have stopped it
7
till now, just after you realize
so many things are unsatisfactory,
just before, your hand already
seizing your empty pocket,
the full consequence flickers
behind a blink that is now
your measure of time, useless
because it already happened.
Craig Morgan Teicher is the author of Brenda Is In the Room and Other Poems, Cradle Book, and another collection of poems with a shifting title due out in about two years. He is a VP on the board of the National Book Critics Circle.
For more poetry, visit The Poetry Section’s vast archive. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.
