Apartments

Apartments
Poems by DNC Stevens
Copyright 2007, DNC Stevens


The Grasshopper

I press the joints of his hind legs together because
It gives me more control. My soiled fingers feel it
Straining against the press without success.
Four front legs flail mechanically like a monster
In a B movie and I think of the power I have over it.
Antennae whip like broken wiper blades flipping
Madly off the windshield to no effect.
Between his jaws grows a beard of saliva
And it looks like tobacco juice.
Straining again to hinge its hind hoppers
I feel it again strive to regain freedom
But I am in control and it is my victim.

Things like mercy and justice do not enter
My young mind; mercy is something that applies
Only to me at my age and justice is
Unimaginable because my parents control
Me like I control these hind legs. It feels good
To have something under my control for a change.

It cocks a goat-shaped head and I imagine
The plethora of me it sees in its faceted eye
And I suddenly feel awkward having captured
Him.
But I don’t know why.
I heave him skyward and he zig-zags unpredictably
Down into dry late-summer weeds.



Variations on a Poem by Donald Justice

I will die in Miami in the sun . . .

I will die on the Iron Range in the snow, when it is like fallout
In a movie I remember about the end of the world.
There will be an early autumn snow and I, quite unprepared,
Will involuntarily entwine myself with the precipitant freeze.
My private campsite fills with the flurry of flakes
And my dog, seeing me quiver because of the cold,
Will look at me and understand perfectly.
Surviving cousins, wrapped in their thick robes and sitting
On obese chairs, will read of it in the papers. “Senseless,”
They will say—and they will be right.

Dawn finds me in late Spring on a day like today;
The cool rain falls and slowly melts the winter’s snow pack.
The icy embrace of the early autumn snow is mostly gone,
And my body, preserved all winter, is lost far from trails.
Its scent grows more powerful outside the grave,
And the wind wafts the odor, mingled with the scent of the pines.
Carrion eaters will read the air and follow for their next meal
Bears smell it and, stunned by agitation, stop in their tracks
At first they sniff to identify the odor,
Then turn abruptly, out of respect.

DNC Stevens is dead. One Saturday, when the sun was out,
A procession of vultures descended slowly. They are like
Mourners at a funeral, appearing forlorn, but
Thinking of all the finger sandwiches available after the funeral.
And when the sandwiches gone, they will go their separate ways.
A few years later some hikers will leave the trail to camp
And see bones, strewn and sun-bleached
On the red-brown dirt of the Iron Range. “Some animal,”
They will say—and they will be right.



On the Disappearance of Mark Cooper

Mark Cooper and I sat and stared at the sky in the summer of ’85.
Talking Physics and God, watching girls on the quad walking by like we weren’t alive.
We would listen to tunes while the freaks and goons drank their vodka and J.D.
And the Beastie Boys were the background noise as we thought how it might be.

Remember New Orleans and those girls in blue jeans drinking hurricanes galore.
Drove down to the Square sucked the midnight air into our bodies though every pore.
And the little real jazz the Crescent City has found its way into our ears.
We just sat there all night thinking that we just might rise above our deepest fears.

Mark Cooper and I never did say goodbye in the summer of ’95.
He left without a word; no one has seen or heard whether Mark is dead or alive.
If he didn’t belong or if I’d done him wrong I guess it wouldn’t be so bad.
But he’d just had enough; that’s what makes it so tough losing the best friend I ever had

While the rhythms were Brazilian and the words were Japanese
Matte kudasai, be patient, but the spirit disagrees.
If I’d known you’d leave forever, I’d have something more to say
But the only words I think of come from records that I can’t play.


Portrait of a Rancher

This is no subject for a poem: Christ
Couldn’t save this man from the land
Or vice-versa. Sure
The sun sets just like the end of a western movie.
Somewhere there is a coyote howling at the moon, but
Here on this ranch there is nothing
But security. Boring.
No subject.
The fence he built perimetering the ranch with two layers of chicken wire.
It is buried two-and-a-half feet deep:
No canine would attempt to dig that.
There are white-washed buildings
With piped-in water
And electricity and I swear
There’s a brass hook for a ragged pith helmet.
The animals on this ranch know
No fear of death, but the rancher
Slides his brown leather shoes
Through the dust. The wind lifts
And he shields his eyes—
But this is no subject for a poem
And I know that he will sleep long
Before this ranch does.


Room 2580, 3:13 AM

The ex-pharmacist lies
On the bed in the otherwise
Peace of the early morning.
He is rigid; his hands
That used to count pills
Grasp the steel bars around his bed
That keep his body from falling.
His mind,
Used to counting pills,
Must be seething like a jacuzzi
Because his eyes move beneath their lids
Like two snakes, trapped in bags.
He takes a long breath and speaks:
“A E A E E I E I B I B I belong
To you U E U E I E I . . .”
He pronounces each letter
With the precision of a pill-counter.
And standing nearby is the pretty nurse. Peaceful
As this early morning she says “here,
Take this.” The ex-pharmacist,
Used to counting pills,
Takes the pill on his tongue
And without the aid of water,
Swallows.
He takes another deep breath
And resumes the litany
“O E O E I U A O E I E I belong
To you E U E U . . .
The non-chalance of the pretty nurse
Is evident when she says “he’s CTH.
Crazier Than Hell. He won’t remember
Any of this.”
I will.


Apartments

I walk into my apartment and hear it
Drone with the hum
Of intricate motors—all maintaining
An atmosphere for me.

I walk into my bedroom to see my clothes
Piled on the covers of my bed.
Pictures hang like familiars
Above the clutter on the floor
And the nightstand and the desk.
My telephone is off the hook—the receiver
Lies upside-down like a beetle on its back.

Is this place mine? If I left it tonight
It would not change. I can turn out
The lights, lock the door, leave this place.
I can walk outside and imagine
The earth is an apartment with an atmosphere
It sails like an old ship as it drifts
Into familiar waters


Meditation in the Celestial Room

--With apologies to Robert Hass

Guilt is in everyone, though most refuse to see it.
This is the old idea of pride. For example—
Pride makes me forget
The weeks past sins when the sacrament tray
Passes to me. In the same way,
The Lamanites justified murder with an old
Lie about a birthright. I think
I am some tragic sinner far removed
From my spirit. Even David had no other flaw
Than the bramble of Bathsheba,
A name that symbolizes compromise.

I took the vows again tonight and in my voice
There was a wavering commitment, a tone
Almost blasphemous. Acting this way,
Everything enthralls: pride,
Lust, hate, envy. There is a person
I love more than God and in holding him
I feel a violent comfort in everything.
I buy him a couch, a car, a stereo.
I take what I want because he has
Everything to do with me.
His longing, I say, is desire filled
With endless distances.
Always my body, my desires as numerous
As Lamanites, and the flesh searching
For compromise in the evenings,
Calling Bathsheba, Bathsheba, Bathsheba.