Whatever these are. Both of them were try-outs, only I was awake for the
newer one. I don't care about the first, I'm more interested in any
possibilities in the second.
OLD GIRLFRIENDS I
Old girlfriends seat themselves aslant from you in the subway,
behind the Times, visible only the angle of their jaws.
Old girlfriends from a distance draw light from the sun,
leave you in radiant darkness, the shared creation you made.
Old girlfriends pass hurriedly on midtown streets at noon,
pursued by the phantoms they have bequeathed you.
Old girlfriends sing the Miserere, the brass
pounds in the stomach like moonbursts of lust.
KTW/11-25-95
OLD GIRLFRIENDS II
Pat, Carol, Anne, and Margie were all women with whom
Ted had been romantically involved; his girlfriends often
later became his friends. -- Alice Notley
Plague-infected buildings where echoes rattle
I ignite and burn (or try) them out of memory
into my dreams convey sterility
but the purging does/cannot happen
for if they remember me as I them
it is with recollected caving beams
words spat out even after years apart
the embers flaring not from renewal
but with a danger never extinguished.
Not arch: Berryman spoke of waking at dawn
counting the spectres, weighing the ruins,
and they are always there like the werewolf's
victims on the London underground, throats
torn out, mocking their murderer victim.
KTW/8-26-09
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