Stephanie Brown

Invective

The point is: F. You.
That's all it--(everything)--ever meant, ever.
That's all it's for.
It's a bummer how significant you grew
And how I so need to revenge you.
All I do and will do is a way to get back at you, to this I am dedicated.

I'd like to watch you really stew in your own shit,
when I pull off a complex psychological mind-f-er.
(Yeah, you can do it though it may take years.)1
E.g., the point of my successful career as a _____________ is: F. You.
and the point of my unlined face is: F. You.
And the point of my sobriety is F. You.
And the point of my boob-job is F. You.
And the point of my twelve-year-old car and my million $ house is: F. You.
And the point of the beautiful new paramour?
So the old will say, "How could you!"
And the point of my unfailingly sincere smile is: F. You.
And the harsh little digs of a compliment are one-of-a-kind F. You.
Oh, indeed, without you, my life has no meaning.
Oh, indeed, I wish you
Envy and covetousness;
Let me be the teacher who teaches you about your pratfalls and weaknesses!
Because then you could "eat your heart out,"2
You could grimace and ache with regret, bile, and gas pains.
I'd rather that you cry--don't disappear or go very far away, my lovely dear--
Who, then, would incite the throb of your varicose veins?

Sorry, you're not my type. Honey, get some help.
Okay--you were right about that--
So you told me--so I did--get help--
Oh yeah, I understand now,
Come n get it--I get it all now--
It's all about: F. You.
You taught me that screw.
When the meek get their due,
They get a chance for: F. You.
And you were right--I was a loser, all right, and you, a hammer-on-anvil armstrong.
But don't gloat too much while you stand away your life on your
Rose Parade Float.3
Don't forget to make eye-contact with your legions

Your lovers who loved your cruel maneuvers;
And still love you with unmentionable unreason.
Before you stumble,
and cookies crumble,
before you look into my eyes as I say,
"You'll never know how much you meant to me."4
With a cold, new kind of smile.

Notes
1. (But it's worth it.)
2. This language is probably not fresh enough for you. Here: here's a head of lettuce for you.
3. Yeah, like this is really some obscure reference. Don't make trouble!
4. I will really be saying, "F. You." And thanks.

Pension, Venezia

He sized up their marriage: That it had been made from a handshake
And therefore she shouldn't say poetic, juicy words about her husband
(As she was doing, while marmalading her roll)
Because it was a handshake. Because it was a body-mate
And not a "meeting of true minds."
He overheard as he sat alone--
He overheard the wife's erotic language every day,
as their stay included a breakfast at numbered tablecloths
They sat beside each other, as their room doors sat beside each other.
He heard the couple talk! And how they did!
So endlessly, into the night, and then they'd fuck;
He thought the couple were sort of stupid
Though they pretended to be educated
Though that was questionable, as he tends to look askance at any Californian's education.
They talked like gum-chewers, like bad-asses.
He was a man who whiffed decorum and so on
If he sat on a chaise it was a shez and so on
And he noticed that the couple had affected the German habit of saying "and so on"
While talking to some English-speaking Germans at the table to their right
"They sound like mannered, enthusiastic idiots," he marvelled,
"And they're making inaccurate and lame-o interpretations of American presidential politics."
They were not quick-witted but wholly and fat-tissuey sincere and earnest
Like Americans are--
With their practical, cringe-inducing, sexual marriages.
While he was, well, he was--
While the couple was so unpoetic and unjuicy They were so
--I mean, they were really, really low.

Not that he, my creepy green-ugly character, would choose any of these words
to marinate his frisson-minded mind in:
juicy,
lame-o,
bad-asses
fat-tissuey sincere and earnest. The wife--a plea bargain in a dress--
Sees that he does not suspect his very-pronounced candy-assness,
Or that his raiment speaks of the Roger-Moore-era-James-Bond-fop;
He thinks to quote the Gordian Knot of the Peloponnesian Wars is a delicious appetizer
on his way to dazzle, erection, execution,
When he cheats on his wife--
who, who, who--well, she is a perfume-gift type.
(He pegs the couple as the type who think germane is an intellectual's word,
and knows that they eat deep-fried.)
Her rolls split open and the butter laid on
Morning Buon Giorno! with coffee;
And then the wife of the couple
She says the Italian phrase, in Spanish, all wrong.

And so what do you think of the picture I've drawn?
I can't end it here, can I?
I have concluded nothing, given you nothing to chew on, nothing
To bite, to take away and love.
Who is "in love" and for what reason?
What is a marriage?
Maybe this is the couple's honeymoon?
Why do we travel to faraway places?
Why do I portray that all-alone man as an asshole?

---

Stephanie Brown is the author of Allegory of the Supermarket (University of Georgia Press). Her essays about poetry are forthcoming in two anthologies: one about poetic influences, edited by Stephen Berg (Paul Dry Books), and one about poetry and motherhood, edited by Brenda Hillman and Patricia Dienstfrey (University of California Press). She is a recipient of a 2001 NEA Literature Fellowship photograph by Derek Christiansen contents | previous | next