Poetry
Vacation on Earth
Chiefly, it is blue. People use
the old archaic words, which sound
larklike on their tongues,
not on mine. "I am fine,
thank you." Or: "Could you direct me
to the Mediterranean Sea?"
I ate an "ice cream" cone,
and I saw the recent Pope.
It is hard to believe
we have our source in this nightmare
tangle of vegetable matter and stone,
that this hell is where
it all began. Yet there is something
in the light or in the air...
I don't know what, but it is there.
I never thought I would descend
to such bathos! I did not come to Earth
to dredge up these worthless, weary myths.
There was no mother at my birth -
I do not need one now.
Yesterday I visited Italy: Rome,
Florence, Venice, and the famous church
museum. There was little I missed.
But tomorrow, thank god, I go home.
Tom Disch
What to Accept
The fact of mountains. The actuality
Of any stone - by kicking, if necessary.
The need to ignore stupid people,
While restraining one's natural impulse
To murder them. The change from your dollar,
Be it no more than a penny,
For without a pretense of universal penury
There can be no honor between rich and poor.
Love, unconditionally, or until proven false.
The inevitability of cancer and/or
Heart disease. The dialogue as written,
Once you've taken the role. Failure,
Gracefully. Any hospitality
You're willing to return. The air
Each city offers you to breathe.
The latest hit. Assistance.
All accidents. The end.
Tom Disch
The Prisoners of War
Their language disappeared a year or so
after the landscape: so what can they do now
but point? At parts of bodies, at what
they want to eat, at instrument panels, at
new highways and other areas of intense
reconstruction, at our own children smiling
into cameras, at the lettering on cannisters,
at streaks of green and purple, at the moon,
at moments that may still suggest such concepts
as "Civilization" or "Justice" or "Terror,"
and at ourselves, those still alive, who stand
before what might have been, a year ago, a door.
Tom Disch
Slides
This is a shot I took
of Charles and Marilyn
and the Grand Canyon.
The building over on the right, just inside
the picture, is where we ate
that night, I think.
This is the Grand Canyon,
and this is another view.
Me,
Charles again,
and here's Marilyn in the swimsuit
she found in Missouri.
This must be out of place.
Ah, here it is
at sunset.
Some of them didn't come out
the way we hoped,
but they give you an idea.
The cabin we stayed in.
Look at the dust on that car!
Marilyn and me.
Charles and Marilyn.
Me and Charles
with the sign at the exit behind us.
And this is the last one.
They say it's a mile deep.
Tom Disch
