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http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/3242955-the-poet-at-seventeen---larry-levis
The Poet at Seventeen
My youth? I hear it mostly in the long, volleyingEchoes of billiards in the pool halls whereI spent it all, extravagantly, believingMy delicate touch on a cue would last for years.
Outside the vineyards vanished under rain,And the trees held still or seemed to hold their breathWhen the men I worked with, pruning orchards, sangTheir lost songs: Amapola; La Paloma;
Jalisco; No Te Rajues—the corny tunesTheir sons would just as soon forget, at recess,Where they lounged apart in small groups of their own.Still, even when they laughed, they laughed in Spanish.
I hated high school then, & on weekends droveA tractor through the widowed fields. It was so boringI memorized poems above the engine’s monotone.Sometimes whole days slipped past without my noticing.
And birds of all kinds flew in front of me then.I learned to tell them apart by their empty squabblings,The slightest change in plumage, or the inflectionOf a call. And why not admit it? I was happy
Then. I believed in no one. I had the kindOf solitude the world usually allowsOnly to kings and criminals who are extinct,Who disdain this world, & who rot, corrupt & shallow
As fields I disced: I turned up the same grayEarth for years. Still, the land made a glum raisinEach autumn, & made that little hell of days—The vines must have seemed like cages to the Mexicans
Who were paid seven cents a tray for the grapesThey picked. Inside the vines it was hot, & spidersStrummed their emptiness. Black Widow, Daddy Longlegs,The vine canes whipped our faces. None of us cared.
And the girls I tried to talk to after classSailed by, then each night lay enthroned in my bed,With nothing on but the jewels of their embarrassment.Eyes, lips, dreams. No one. The sky & the road.
A life like that? It seemed to go one forever—Reading poems in school, then driving a stuttering tractorWarm afternoons, then billiards on blue OctoberNights. The thick stars. But mostly now I remember
The trees, wearing their mysterious yellow sullennessLike party dresses. And parties I didn’t attend.And then the first ice hung like spider latticesOr the embroideries of Great Aunt No One,
And then the first dark entering the trees—And inside, adults with their cocktails before dinner,The way they always seemed afraid of something,And sat so rigidly, although the land was theirs.
--Larry Levis, from his collection WINTER STARS
http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/3242955-the-poet-at-seventeen---larry-levis
The Poet at Seventeen
My youth? I hear it mostly in the long, volleyingEchoes of billiards in the pool halls whereI spent it all, extravagantly, believingMy delicate touch on a cue would last for years.
Outside the vineyards vanished under rain,And the trees held still or seemed to hold their breathWhen the men I worked with, pruning orchards, sangTheir lost songs: Amapola; La Paloma;
Jalisco; No Te Rajues—the corny tunesTheir sons would just as soon forget, at recess,Where they lounged apart in small groups of their own.Still, even when they laughed, they laughed in Spanish.
I hated high school then, & on weekends droveA tractor through the widowed fields. It was so boringI memorized poems above the engine’s monotone.Sometimes whole days slipped past without my noticing.
And birds of all kinds flew in front of me then.I learned to tell them apart by their empty squabblings,The slightest change in plumage, or the inflectionOf a call. And why not admit it? I was happy
Then. I believed in no one. I had the kindOf solitude the world usually allowsOnly to kings and criminals who are extinct,Who disdain this world, & who rot, corrupt & shallow
As fields I disced: I turned up the same grayEarth for years. Still, the land made a glum raisinEach autumn, & made that little hell of days—The vines must have seemed like cages to the Mexicans
Who were paid seven cents a tray for the grapesThey picked. Inside the vines it was hot, & spidersStrummed their emptiness. Black Widow, Daddy Longlegs,The vine canes whipped our faces. None of us cared.
And the girls I tried to talk to after classSailed by, then each night lay enthroned in my bed,With nothing on but the jewels of their embarrassment.Eyes, lips, dreams. No one. The sky & the road.
A life like that? It seemed to go one forever—Reading poems in school, then driving a stuttering tractorWarm afternoons, then billiards on blue OctoberNights. The thick stars. But mostly now I remember
The trees, wearing their mysterious yellow sullennessLike party dresses. And parties I didn’t attend.And then the first ice hung like spider latticesOr the embroideries of Great Aunt No One,
And then the first dark entering the trees—And inside, adults with their cocktails before dinner,The way they always seemed afraid of something,And sat so rigidly, although the land was theirs.
--Larry Levis, from his collection WINTER STARS
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