GEOFFREY
BABBITT
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Woman Who Evokes Female Chauvinism in
Men XXVIII
Superhero Goes
to See the Biographer of Desire, Who Is Not a Real Doctor
Man Whose Body Is Not Exclusively His
LXXIII
Boy with a Toenail on the Head of His
Penis XII
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Geoffrey Babbitt is underway with a wild cantata of
damages and sublime dysfunctions. His
voices, each unprecedented, each accompanied only by the cry of his or her
occasion, step forth into sound, resound, and then are gone again. As I began
to know this ensemble of isolatos, I thought at first
of that beautiful opening sentence of Ford Maddox Ford’s The Good Soldier:
“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” Babbitt’s
voices strive in their syllables for loving contact, for human understanding, more poignantly and
more unguardedly than words can say. Their stories, it seemed to me, were sad
because their saying unsaid them. But I read on and read again, and I was both
delighted and instructed to find that I’d been wrong. In the music of their
persistence, Babbitt’s voices reach beyond sorrow into the
isolation of a perfect union with isolation, an Absolute in which origin and
destiny sing one and the same.
These poems are themselves alone but altogether, whole
beyond harm. Here are the High Ghosts John Calvin adored and Jack Spicer loved
to imagine. How fine it is that a new American poet conducts them to us so.
--Donald Revell
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LITTLE BOY BLUE IX
I called to my father, “do not walk so fast,
or else I shall be
lost like the little bird
picking up crumbs under
the door.”
For a week, I waited for him
to come back. He left everything scattered on the floor
even his finger. I went looking for him,
putting up my tent in the
wind until hair
came in under my arms.
I do not know how to say my name.
WOMAN WHO EVOKES FEMALE CHAUVINISM IN MEN
XXVIII
The garden grows deep.
Yes, they
said that of the rose
because the sky is
overblown.
The tile floor is puddling
shine. Zombies
in suites are all
brothers.
The desert looks onto nothing, but the
river does not look at all.
BIOGRAPHER OF DESIRE XVIII
Abraham dressed in the attire
demanded of him—
wristwatches from whoever
saw him. He knew
that it was God calling
to ax his child
because it
made no sense.
“Up-and-through-it
you come,” said the
owner
of reason. Sarah shattered
each dish
into twenty-seven
pieces,
and then put all the
doilies
to better use as
shoulder pads.
SUPERHERO GOES TO SEE THE BIOGRAPHER OF
DESIRE,
WHO IS NOT A REAL DOCTOR
S: I
have a pain in my leg.
B:
Please describe it, using precise pain language.
S:
What it’s like to see red.
B: Are you sure that’s pain? You could be wrong.
S:
You can’t be wrong about seeming.
B:
Yes, for instance, it might seem like the sky has the property of being
blue, but it might not in actuality.
S:
That’s different. The sky might
seem blue and might not have that as an absolute property, but I can’t be wrong
that it seems blue to me. My leg might
not be injured, but it hurts.
B:
Well, have you ever been in love?
S:
I’m known to have been that way from time to time.
B:
Then have you not once believed you were in love—it seemed that way, but
then you later learned that you lied to yourself and that it never seemed that
you were ever really in love.
S:
Of course, but legs usually do not lie.
Besides, that would only mean that I thought it seemed I was in love,
but I was wrong and later realized that it never seemed that way. We are back to the sky now.
B:
No, you just admitted that you were wrong about the way that it seemed.
S:
But pain is seeming. If it seems painful, then I am indeed in
pain.
B:
But maybe it doesn’t really seem that way.
S:
Well how can I be sure?
B:
You can’t. There’s really nothing
more I can do here.
MAN WHOSE BODY IS NOT EXCLUSIVELY HIS
LXXIII
Thus have I heard. Shall
we are is
and new.
I’ve returned
to all that
comes of itself. I
swilled
wine
and scribbled. I don’t
see
anything to
resent. Sorrows
of distance. The
rapport
of things is tangible in divine blessings. The moon
in water is perfect joy.
Nights
infuse things with clarity. Sunfish
follow
rapids further.
BOY WITH A TOENAIL ON THE HEAD OF HIS PENIS
XII
I have always feared sleep. I wander
in the moonlight
because I sense a resting
place ahead, but it
keeps
pushing further. The nose leads us
forward by unclaimed
powers.
The night does not repeat itself,
nor does the
desert. I must wander
and scritch all night
without repetition. Down at the bottom
of the page is a
little monster.
VUG XCI
You keep doing everything twicefully
As I sit back and watch my speech affect
you.
If a sailor’s blind to the North, he knows
the needle can see.
I’ve only ever seen myself peripherally.
I’m your tickler and will always be a
genius to you,
You who keep doing
everything twicefully.
My friends have left, but the dark is good
company.
Your face serves as a mask, and I’m after
you.
A sailor’s blind to the North but trusts
his needle can see.
What you do with your husband is still
cheating on me.
The green is palatial when it follows you,
While you keep
doing everything twicefully.
Hence the dish. I drink myself so seriously.
Tread on the light and the sky will fall
under you.
North is true, and blind sailors use
needles to see.
The night watchman knows my booze drinks
me.
Your moves describe the earth will forgive
you,
Since you’ve always done everything twicefully.
What of the North do sailors know that
needles can’t see?
SUPER VILLIAN CVII
I can’t feel my feet—they’re too far
from my mind. Manning drakes
swiffling underfoot. Opposites
do not entail
formulas
of undoing. If the ghosts of logic
haunt, it is the
cornerstones
they threaten. Keys are for
tripping. Oil is for the disregard
of oneness of
place. Logic was there
when the mind divided
itself. Trees speak.
What if the way is
an illusion? What if the way
is illusion? Language
was the first machine
but the second
invention. Using words as
images does not bring
them closer
to their deeds. High voices do not distract
from the hallways of my
mind. Adjustment
was the first vice to
follow
the first vice. The keys are all
voices, and they sound
like
many. I promise to go wandering.