Judith
Goldman
Working Note
This poems had its beginnings, oddly enough, in some reading notes on the Iliad, in particular the spectacularly violent episode in which Zeus and Hera argue over the fate of Sarpedon and the role of divine intervention in human battle — should they allow his life to be extinguished? That seems very far in the background now, hardly part of this text. The poem took its final shape as I became very close with a friend as he grieved the death of his murdered girlfriend. Founded on the loss of someone I’d never had the privilege to know, our friendship was openly both discomfittingly and comfortably haunted. This poem, insofar as it can be considered a representation, stands in for my continual lost encounters with that girl and my experience of and strange identification with his extreme grief. I was always aware that the sense of loss I came to feel was highly mediated. The text’s return to its own material surface, visually and aurally, seems to stem from losing what I never had, what was never mine to break over.
losing
the heart has its reasons which
the reason knows nothing of
— Pascal
bliss to recall what has wandered: [fall past
the past & alight
sympathy of noise, breath
wordless
as flight, but o
light of
life]
casement clattering
loose in
the wind
latch broke, so
they broke in
honor
among
thieves :
turning back
to check against
checking
high, high threshold
clearing
sunlight is
energy, & energy
is hard
of hearing, or
hard to hear
from
elsewhere
falling
up-
wards of
head
losing
in permanent
attention :
life forms
thin, too thin
a skin, little
heart out, held
up
a face in the firewood
sparks fall
past.
the last
thing you wanted
was
at the deep end
pennies at
the bottom
of the bottomless pit
sparks singing in
the pitch
clear water-
traps at,
dividing
spoils sunk, so
conservation is
lean, held up
to the light
held up, held
the moon : in
close quarters
in conversation
empty but so
full of
night.
you
didn’t
at first
but now
you have it :
to pull it
from a hat
you first
must have
[the rabbit]
the dove, the coin
words, wand, or
1, 2, 3
magic
trips
up up-
holding & we
see
seeing into
past the past, past
lights
of all passing vessels
bound coastwise,
they rise
o how
they
appear
to appear
hard to see, hard
to hear.
first you
have it, now :
you don’t. even
light won’t
fall for
the taking,
break or
breaking
waves to
wavelengths
as they pound
[the shore], forcing
air in or
does air force
one with-
drawing to
fisticuffs’ shadow :
pounding a pillow
air forces
feathers
to float,
to fall
a pound of
feathers : lead
a stray home
& fed it
liver & kidney
dinner, milk
cause lies
in the unit
of measure
cause lies
shamelessly,
comes to
the surface
telephone
rings, coffee
cools, is energy
is feathers, is
bone outside the
body, is egg,
is no more. precision
is a feather
but what is better
a window or
a door? :
depends
on
what
you need it
for, detour or pure
bliss to recall
what has wandered
after
your own
heart, catching
sparks
it takes one to know one,
but only one to know, so
it adds up to zero.
no :
some
one
left
after
all
to wool-gather, dreaming
“the lambs lied, so
the shepherd cried”
the golden mountain sleeps :
shhh
no more crying
stammering :
[there was feathers,
scabs]
[isn’t that]
[it isn’t anything]
[everything]
Bio: Judith Goldman is a Ph.D. candidate in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She is the author of “adversities of outerlife” (chapbook; Poet’s coop 1996) and Vocoder (Roof 2001). She has recently relocated to Berkeley, Ca.