Michael Rothenberg

GROWN UP CUBA!
                                         for J.

 

Oh no, not another broken heart!

                     Let Elian Gonzalez go home to his father
          The regime of doing without and not having, speaking
              forbidden against the holy president and king

          sleeping under leaking tin, one vote, one voter, one party,
                     one beer, just add six tear drops to each
            night clock, day watch, work week, moment, pulse

           exports hairy roots, tendrils, claws, assassins
                               internationally. Recite this bone-faced prayer
                    and the thimble of silence becomes sacred wine.

What you do not say. . .what she does not hear. . .

          *

                      "Date it!"

           Somehow I left off the date, this place
                     when I excerpted

                              the poem from the poem

          *

More Instructions from Another Side

          *

Dream I find note pad lost on airplane
Begin writing but don't remember what

          *

Ash Wednesday
Think of ash enso on forehead

          Walking down 5th Ave.

 

Suzi's office of Poetry and Day-trading
34th floor overlook skyscraper mushrooms sprout askew

           Talk business, Buddha, abstraction, fashion and inheritance

          *

Meet Wanda
Café della Artistes on Greenwich

Chocolate cake, diet cola
Exchange publications, tapes

She doesn't like what I say
Calls me a dick

Tell her to fuck off, shut up
I'm out of control

She pays her tab, walks out
She's out of control

We make up on sidewalk
Where's Cuba?

          *

                    "eyes like drenched violets"
                                             Orlando, Virginia Woolf

          *

Peanut butter sesame bagel, diet cola
1:30 am

                                 Idea of new trends in poetry an idea
                        of poetry as fashion—

                                             a horrifying mindset

"It's anxiety/depression."
Blasting nightlight skyline beyond river to Queens
          Suzi and I drinking ginger ale

          *

CUBACUBACUBACUBACUBACUBACUBA

                              1 am, March 13, Miami, Florida

          *

        Gale winds Jacuzzi bubbles 102 degrees
White cap swimming pool small craft warning

                               Miami now, will be for a week, maybe two

Black beans, rice, plantain

          *

Headlines USA Today: "GROWING UP IN CUBA"

          *

                       Bus stop Daly City lowrider green Impala boombox idling

          *

Joanne took Ritilin as kid. Tried to get some
           in Japan, made her sign a paper
                       "This is a drug!" they said

          *

"I try to call you, your phone is always busy"

         My phone always needs new batteries

               "I just need an assignment" to know
when we should begin

          *

"But feelings expressed     in letters
                                            seem so personal and finite.
 They frighten me
                    After all, the feelings we have
         on one day are exactly that.
                   There's nothing we could ever say

                             that we could always mean. Is there?"

          *

Depression reoccurring kung pao chicken
disassociation Academy Awards

                               but so many good things

going on high prices at the pumps
           I've always wanted

                               Is it performance anxiety?

Send out a poem like filet of raw nerve

            Money problems lease instability
            I don't feel close to anyone

Can't imagine what would feel good
so much fattening or habit forming
            chocolate cake

                                                     and Valium

Nothing can be solved
put it to bed and try              try to wake up
                      in the morning

           work harder workaholic mail write invent

but feel like killing myself
                               though even that lacks
a curry of gratification

             I'd expect from making
a clean sweep
             brush but it's a different kind

                                  of suicidal thought sweep

          *

                      (see "Japan and India Journals")

Go through journal for Selected: "Letter to Nemi Frost"

 

           "Anne Waldman already used that
           but whatever it is should be part of overall

                                           texture.

                    Just make notes"

          *

Bolinas and back

Pat Nolan travel journal Joanne remembered hosting library poetry reading
           beer on rip rap, later mesa party
   Rolling Stone interview with silver haired Great Mother

on late Richard Brautigan

          *

I see that night is now on me, my arms, in my hair

          what I did know
                     how I did it but there we were
you have to remind me

then there's. . .

          *

                                       Joanne says:

                  "Keep a journal" notebook by the phone

          *

Treadmill telephone call memory

                     "I'm not going to talk to you if you're going to talk to me
                     while you're walking on that."

          *

Double Rainbow
Storm blue-black-silver-clouds

Good Fortune or Danger?
I feel them both

Hurry up kids
Get out of the pool!

Still splash screaming
Raindrops on sunglasses

It could be as easy as going inside
But why hide from the perils of beauty?

So I go down to get closer
It disappears

          *

                      "It's great things are timeless but
                              I was talking about someone's death…'
       On the mesa or that flower bowing over the fence onto the path
             from Dennis Breedlove's insane Chiapas garden

          *

       L. Russo asks for contribution for Jacket feature
                       her part Joanne, the other being Philip

           belonging to someone else. I explain difficulty
I have writing about people as things
                    It's difficult to summarize anyone that

                    "Academic"

    Right, so I want to find a phrase, Latin phrase
         like caveat emptor to put at the end to keep
                   the people and flowers open
         like meaning this is what I think today only it might change
in another moment

                       "There's a whole bunch of good ones
                                 like cogito ergo sum"

Or something that means we know we don't, but in Latin, know

          *

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few."
                               Shunryu Suzuki

          *

                       "Compulsive about dates "

Editing, putting out only careful arrangement, ikebana
          Spicer and Duncan puttering around clippers and scissors
                    in baseball cap and Martha Stewart bib
I'm going to Miami where pink hibiscus and gold anthers bow

                    "Go to Cuba!"

          *

250 pages journal assignment per Joanne

          *

Someone said between you and Philip it seemed
I was editing the whole
CANON

                      "Oh, the canon, yes, the canon, that's better
                                 than the pistola"

          *

Buy a cigar, do the rumba down on Deco Dr.
South Beach
            where gramps would run numbers from Carlyle to Carlton

                        "It's good Ricky Martin didn't win
                                what do you call it the . . ."

Grammies. . .Oh, that Latin fever in the drum

                                      "for his cheesy hip-swinging . . .on TV. . ."

"La Vida Loca", isn't it the truth

          *

Blue skies, white clouds
Airplane landing
Lady seated beside me with one ear plug

Blue bay, white wake
Speedboat aquaplaning
Paint brush stroke follows inboard/outboard motor roar

          *

The Cubans, grew up with them, Miami, Bay of Pigs, never bothered me

Paradise always up for grabs, song of my youth . . .
Why should I be the last hot shot rocket topdown palm town?

                       "That was part of your life? I didn't know about that
                                           Explains your style . . ."

I knew I'd get something wrong, trip up on the way
   Joanne, sooner or later

in a hurry to approach
        the imbalance of iris and cherry blossom spiking
                                                     curved against obsession

          *

                                         "Keep a journal.
                             Paragraphs beginning with big letters—
                                                             CUBA!"

          *

Vernal Equinox
Pack bags
Send mail
Eat bagel
Buy sponge
Bakery brownie
Call California
Count lucky stars
Edit poem
On balcony
Watch bay clouds
Nobody belongs anywhere
A few people knew me
A few people know me
Make plans
Schedule love
Between work & family
Said & done

          *

I ask Roshi how you get rid of obsession
He says, "Burn incense"

Check space, dates
Don't be an autocrat!

So I burn incense and nothing happens
smoke vanishes

But I knock over the vase
in such a hurry to be done and correct

Broken flesh, the celadon glaze

          *

                   "Cuidado"

I've got my passport

                    "You're going to Miami, that's the good son thing to do
                         But you should go to CUBA!
                      Keep a journal I'll leave you notes on your
                                                            answering machine."

My mother with emphysema, I can't take care of that

                    "CUBA!!"

Okay, Cuba
What about Cuba, crazy with reflection at a later day, for Cuba
The one with the drum who holds my hand like a brother, comes out for me?

Contract comes in and nice letter from Paul Slovak
                      …when we should begin work on editing. . .

                      "CUBA!!!"

Maybe I will go, not a bad idea, Cuba, dragging phone cord
           around the room, stepping on curly wires, curly mind

           in jeweler's cabinet where I keep my recent thoughts
I've got my passport right here

                    "Pues, Adios!"

 

February 23-March 31, 00

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