Read More: A Q&A with Eva Salzman
Trepanned
Bad enough, not to have trekked the Himalayas
or smoked a pipe in the back of a Volkswagon bus
with Storm the mechanic, who, with blessings from us
changed the oil and filter en route to enlightenment.
Let’s just say you were part of my dimmer days;
I turned the lights down low to cosmic bliss,
laughed at the spirit, in spirits, excited the men.
A corporeal slant. And all I wanted was this:
one little plastic piece of that five-and-dime belief,
a novelty axe to hack at the totems of numbers
on your PC screen. I wanted hand relief –
that is, the gentle touch just before you go under.
Nothing profound, nothing deep. Which is why
I let you drill that Black and Decker into my third eye.
Grief
I recognise those two full bottles, shared from hand
to hand, relieved of Campari or Martini Rosso
and tipping out a frothy wickedness I had forgot,
the summer light stretched to breaking point
across the park. At their age, it’s work to drink like that.
Loiterers beneath a Victorian clock stuck at noon,
the eldest craves a more demanding role –
Oh J’ai mal a la tete. Je me sens malade –
one of elegant degradation; if he only knew how.
Odd, how blonde they are, as if from the same gene-pool:
the final drop of darkness emptied out, from all eight
of those naughty children, cool sentinels, the imposters.
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Never over the nearly over
Gone before they’re gone, and mean, the mortally
ill move towards a black oak forest,
learning to bear brutal welcomes
of scraggy branches iced with bunting.
They’re privileged entrants to winter’s empire
pausing in the snow’s blue nightclub glow,
attuned to a silent thrum,
spurning the art of comfort and flowery
intentions, and our insubstantial yearnings,
not themselves the grieving ones.
Sorrow becomes us only. Long
before they’re gone they’re gone, drawn
inside brittle cold and Norwegian lakes,
progressing over wind-swept glaciers
shedding the people, scaling a redwood
monument for the hub of an owl’s stillness.
You want to go? I want to go
or think I do for the love of them […]
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Co-editor of the acclaimed anthology Women’s Work: Modern Women Poets Writing in English (Seren). Eva Salzman’s books include Double Crossing: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe) and Bargain with the Watchman (Oxford University Press). Her poetry, fiction and non-fiction have been widely broadcast on BBC radio, translated internationally and have appeared in publications such as the New Yorker, Kenyon Review and Ploughshares in the USA and, in the UK, in the Guardian and Independent newspapers as well as Granta, TLS, Poetry Review, Spectator, Dark Horse and Poetry Birmingham. Her libretti and lyrics, written for composers and singers Christine Tobin and Gary Carpenter, as well her composer father Eric Salzman, have been performed in Europe, NYC and at Buxton Opera Festival in the UK, and have appeared on CDs. Born and raised in NYC, and a dual citizen, Eva divides her time between USA and London, where she lectures at Goldsmiths University of London.
“Trepanned,” “Grief,” and “Never over the nearly over” originally appeared in The Independent, the New Yorker, and Granta, respectively.
Read More: A Q&A with Eva Salzman