JOHN WALL BARGER
WHAT HAPPENED IN SAVONA
Why’s our train stopped
the purring behemoth breathing its steam
what portent
its long shadows on the platform
will befall us, o we marvelous
commuters, outraged commuters
shrilling into our phones
what wonder, what sign, what epistemology, what—
a conductor says
someone leapt on the tracks,
is alive—alive?
—a scene in De Humani Corporis
Fabrica, a hospital, dolly shot,
two old women walk down a hall
screams growing
from elsewhere
maybe a cat, piercing, screeching,
over and over the screams,
the camera seeks out
the source, turns a corner, turns a corner,
finally the camera, steady, says this,
this is the space,
a woman is huddled, cornered
on the verge of—
screaming into the camera,
at us, o nameless fragile
self-hurting
scared little thing, o Ligurian suicide,
there’s no word or paraphrase
for these falling coins
of dusk (I inhale
deeply) spreading the air
as ink in water,
for being alive today, here,
in this terrifying (I feel it)
tiny spider-sized moment of
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*** ** ***
GIRASOLE
The Italian word for sunflower
gira to turn sole sun
to turn toward the sun
or girasole is the flower
itself turning eternal gyre
mythic clock turned on
by the sun yet maybe these
aren’t my thoughts
but Van Gogh’s
in Philadelphia’s art museum
one is aware always
of his sunflowers
your proximity to them
while in front of a Cy Twombly today
the sunflowers
five rooms away I gravitate
toward them longing for them
to be near them then sitting
in that room the circular room
facing the Cézannes
to soak up the light
the sunflower light
I write in my notebook
watching from the corner
of my eye when the tour
group disperses
I stand before them
wondering how did it feel
for him to finish
this thing which seems
to have always been here
in this world my world
each of his sunflowers
is yellow the pot yellow
the table yellow
yellow on yellow
it’s almost too much yellow
and the shadows in that yellow
as Jon Fosse says of light
“both life and death
are things you can understand
but not with thoughts,
this light understands it in a way”
yes in a way this light
luce dorata golden light
so I wondered silly as it is
is yellow what happened
to Van Gogh did yellow
hide a shadow he followed
into an abyss
he could not get out of
I stepped away
among the other paintings
the faint yellow on my skin
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*** ** ***
YOU WERE SCHEDULED TO HAVE A DUEL TO THE DEATH WITH ELVIS PRESLEY AT THE BREAK OF DAY
At cockcrow a proxy trots up
wheezing, sweating,
waving a note.
Let’s call the proxy
Colonel Tom Parker.
Birds sing. A pretty morning.
You and Colonel Tom Parker
sit in the grass
under an apple tree.
He unfolds the note.
An illegible scrawl,
orange crayon,
maybe a drawing of a tiger.
The Colonel beams,
watching your face.
In the new light
his face round, genial.
Black bolo tie,
white cowboy hat.
Maybe the Colonel
will be your new friend.
He knows people,
he says. Stick with him,
you’ll go places.
You holster your gun.
“Folks like you,”
he says, “decent folks,
are a kinda grace
God bestows upon this world.”
With veneration he hands you
an orange clown wig.
You put it on.
“You’re a natural!”
he hollers, squinting for
an unseeable movie camera.
So the future uncoils,
inevitable, fated.
A herd of goats
trots by
like skeletal saints.
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*** ** ***
BLOSSOM STREET
A room with all my favorite people
welcomes me with a big
collective cheer.
A living room, lamplit:
my mother, my father, my wife.
Old loves and relatives
and current friends
mingle easily. Each gives me
their special little wave.
Dead ones are here, too.
I get a thumbs up from
Uncle Mike. Matthew whispers
what a great poet I am.
I sit on the couch,
heart full, crying openly.
My favorite student,
who resembles a young
Vladimir I. Lenin,
tells me he loves me
like a brother.
With a sleight of hand
he slips a knife into my heart.
He speaks gently:
Leave the knife in,
enjoy the party for an hour.
He watches, eyes radiant.
I thank him
and walk the room,
slow, knife in my chest.
Others also have knives
in their chests.
They nod as I pass.
Most cry with joy, as I do.
Glowing, attentive,
happy to see me.
A few slump
like hobos in a play.
My friend the addict
has a knife in each palm.
He raises them up
and asks, Haven’t I lived warmly
and with sympathy?
Yes, yes, I say.
From outside, a muffled roar:
wingbeats, a spring storm.
I sit on the floor.
Here is all the love I deserve.
It is more than enough.
Each with a knife
in the heart. Some smile,
nod off. I’m holding
someone’s hand.
It’s so late, I shut my eyes.
No sound but
the roar of the storm.
The best, by far, it’s ever been.
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*** ** ***
MY FRIEND IS ON SUICIDE WATCH
Doug and I were supposed to play chess
but his wife Barbara, who left him
for another man, called Doug out of the blue
which made him upset, he cried, he yelled,
so she, Barbara, called the cops just in case
Doug thought of hurting himself,
and it’s true he’s unmoored, distracted,
beyond-sad, and now will not even answer
his phone, whereas I have been so darn
happy lately, was hoping some of my joy
might spill over to Doug, as if simply
by playing a game of chess my elaborate
pageant of smiles might catch somehow,
like a virus, a joy-virus, which is dumb
I know but now I’m really worried,
writing Doug texts, suggesting that he walk
to CVS and grab a bucket of bourbon
vanilla bean truffle Häagen-Dazs ice cream,
then put on his pajamas, brush his teeth,
sleep, and other bromides spoken
in the patois of my own insufferable
married-guy bliss, but maybe as Spinoza says
the cup won’t bring its own shattering,
for there’s inertia always, driving us forth,
urging us to be ourselves and not anyone else,
making suicide impossible! Just then,
before my eyes, suicide steps out of the Book
of Revelation on my shelf, a Dapper Dan
in a tailored suit sewn with migraines,
and yes, I know, of course, it’s Doug, not me,
that must suffer each night, all night, dreamless,
staring at that Pompeii-red stain on the wall
where Barbara hurled a vegan hamburger at him
in anger, before they reconciled and made love
and lay beside each other with a contentment
never to be seen again on this earth, never, never.
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*** ** ***
UNIRONIC ODE TO THE FAMOUS ACTORS
Yes, they receive a million dollars,
or fifty million. What does it matter?
Shouldn’t it be more? It hardly seems enough
for what they endure, and the gifts they offer us.
They are the humble boatmen
ferrying us across the furious waters
of our lives!
*
With the press they must smile
and smile for many hours, which is called squinching:
keeping the facial features very still,
bringing up the lower lids
as if staring far into the distance,
as if thinking thoughts.
*
Ubiquitous paparazzi, iniquitous paparazzi!
Of course the famous actors must punch the paparazzi,
smash their infernal cameras.
*
The famous actor-mobster
with expedient hair, toothsome grief,
raises his useful chin. Digging the movie grave
for hours, take after take.
As if practicing for some future life.
*
Yes, friends, there are awful jobs
on this earth. God knows we know.
But most jobs allow you to distinguish
inside from out. The famous actors
are observed so much that, even with others,
they think they’re alone. When this happens,
when their souls turn, as milk does,
they don’t even notice. How can they discern
the great fires from “the great fires,”
or fealty from “fealty”? Are any of them
really married? Are they all just fools, King Lears,
after a few years? Who would tell them
if they were? Think about it.
They, too, lie on deathbeds, not just “deathbeds.”
*
To look in the mirror and think, Yes, Honey Trap, yes.
Alone and divorced in a silk robe
in the Hollywood hills like a wolf spider.
As if in a dream! Their eyes silently burning always.
Is there a glowing ember
behind their eyes? Yes! I think so, yes!
*
Yes, their names ring out on the internet.
Yes, they have sex every day
by a pancreas-shaped swimming pool,
and a Van Gogh in the foyer.
But at what cost!
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JOHN WALL BARGER
John Wall Barger is the author of six collections of poems and one critical collection, The Elephant of Silence: Essays on Poetics and Cinema (LSU Press, 2024). He’s a contract editor for Frontenac House, lives in Vermont, and lectures in the Writing Program at Dartmouth College.
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A Dozen Nothing 