Forty-Fourth Entry

It's really not my place, but if any of you know where EARSHOT can hold their readings this month, you should let a brotha know. They lost their space indefinitely.

When the heck is it gonna get cold around here? Not that I want it to, but I'm apprehensive that any day now there will be a blizzard.

I just finished Alan Alda's biography. What an interesting weirdo.

A. Benko was here for a week and filled my heart with sandwiches. And he forced me to write several good poems in spite of myself, which I will be putting up over the next week.

He also helped me begin a novel. Oh dear.

Here's my poem:

TONSIL REMOVAL POEM

Attempt to Translate #1:
I am speaking in English.
You are on the terrace of a townhouse in the Netherlands,
trying to forget life as a dental assistant,
hoping the brisk mist will swallow you up
and you will drift away.

I am catching you in a butterfly net
while you attempt to drift away. You knew it would be hard
to replace my tonsils, because of your feelings, and I’m
an important head of state or Indian Ambassador; in short,
there are security issues.

Attempt to Translate #2
In India, I recite the poem
“I am a piece of ice.
You are a napkin,
used to wipe up the spilled nutmeg
mother has poured onto the ice cream
that cools my throat,” I recite this over and over.

You are at the desk, finishing the puzzle.
The puzzle is a diagram of a tonsillectomy
with a cartoon mouth agape, if you do not
finish, I am not sure I can conduct
the operation on myself, and you will never
get the chance to touch my hollow, swollen throat.

Attempt to Translate #3
I am my own tonsils, cooling on the terrace,
and I am trying to speak with much difficulty.
You sing your wayward American song, hot,
drifting, your hands across your chest, my young bride,
singing your American pop song in the mist like you were on fire.

We are rich and live in such extraordinary circles,
we have traveled the continents, our cocoa-colored lips
have accepted honeysuckle, tibouli, pig’s knuckles, mole’,
tom kha, curried lamb, quarter pounders, beefsteak tartar
and chicken chow mein, our hands have touched rough wood, soil,
sand, riveted metal, checkers, silk, and one another.