Gerald SternE. P.
Nothing matters but the quality of the affection, neither the bicyclist riding by in her black baseball cap nor the three trees I planted in my back yard, I should say four counting the small apple nailed to my neighbor's fence, nor can I discount the memory he had of Ferdie and Fordie, prick and snob though he was. But I never trusted his paradise, it was too literary, nor his final confession, nor what he said to Ginsberg-- imagine, imagine--nor, ah, the endless self-pity taking the place of character, so un-Kung after all, although there were two paradises, weren't there, lying master that he was, and one was a shut garden of pear trees, dancing Nancy.
E. P. III meant the personal and the social, or call it the historical if you like, I mean I meant there was a personal paradise and there was a larger one, be it aesthetic, be it political, theological, beauty was not only difficult, it was impossible, meester Pound, for Europe was poisoned. How you like Europe now? How you like Dubya vomit? Wyoming hath need of thee.
The GullsThe other side of the reservoir uphill from the tennis court he had to take two streetcars to get there he was running again and they were screaming only because there was no food though you'd think they'd go to the river Allegheny, leftover rotten fish and floating pork-- look, a gull, look, look a man running uphill, downhill, he catches his breath that way he is a fool, he imitates the gulls by lifting his arms and floating, the other place he runs is on an abandoned race track called the Oval, no gulls there, a pack of dogs getting closer, the moon as he recalls in one end of the Oval, the sun in the other since that is the way they shared the sky, dogs were distant and vicious then, everything was hungry.
Gerald Stern's most recent book of poetry is American Sonnets, published by W. W. Norton. A collection of biographical essays, What I Can't Bear Losing, was also published by Norton in 2003.
