The Bewitched Groom: A Dramatic Monologue (Hans Baldung Grien)

 

Where am I? Stretched on the floor,
the strength in my limbs a memory
of a moment before. My eyes could be
open or closed, but I'm not seeing
what I think I see, unless I've gone
mad! The witch! The fire-brained hag!
The seething toads and bunched snakes
of her soul are giving birth to blood.
She's flooded my veins with her water
to quench the hot Homunculus in my heart.
My reputation with purblind gossips
has blinkered her view to her daughter's
virtue. My darling, my perfect flower!
She doesn't love me, but I'm rich.
My love! Hers the downy and exquisite
flesh of a rose that is stripped
of its crimson. But what consummation?
The ejaculation of hate from a deaf,
goat-teated rawbones. Sprinkling horn
of gelded unicorn, wielding a faggot
spluttering with the black dust pinched
from the notch between her wizzled 
thighs, she's tweaked my inner ear
and banged the bones in my head abuzz,
so I, like a drunken ass, bed
the floor, supine, my crutches under,
jabbing at my spine. She wants me dead
on the day I am to wed. Damn her eyes!
When the bitch has exhausted magic
I'll have her carcass burned to ashes.
There's evidence in this paralysis
to prove what the village has known since
the century was born a breech, wailing,
and the moon began to burn yellow.
The Redeemer fail me? No. I know God.
I once drove my horses till they dropped
and punched my peasants for pennies,
but no more. Oh, I learned a lesson
or two, and paid penance with infirmity.
I even kept the mare that pitched me
on that rock pile. The soil is thin
in which she plants her spell: time
and righteousness, proper living dig
the maggots from my heart and prayer
persists-the leaching of my soul.
I must get up, damn her! Enough is
Enough! I will love her dear one,
keep her safe and use her sweetly.
I promise to veil her eyes from
lascivious men not fit to touch
their lips to her dress's muddy hem,
until my ghost departs this game clay
to ride the fleeter media. Won't one
muscle move? My thumb twitches-
something wooden and smooth. The handle
of a currycomb! The stable floor!
I should be grinning in my closet mirror,
draping myself with golden medallions,
and tying my codpiece with bows.
For all my resolutions, I am a broken
promise. There, now I've given
up hoping! Forgive me, my love.
I cannot come to you today.
Forces more subtle than mortality
and mortal sin conspire against me.
I would hum the song of my honeybee
heart, but Queen Mab would shout out:
"He fooled the child, but not the crone!"
See! See! See my eyes fly open!
She's found the window in my head.
She knows that I would farm you
by the moon and by the sun and stars;
your golden hair would shade my eyes,
a fancy cap; your legs would be my
legs for work, your hands helping me
to beat you. Any child you yielded?
Oh, he'd have learned his Papa's ways.
What's that? Behind! The mare!
Flared nostrils, glaring eye! Humiliation!
Land on me, falling world!
The girl will only remind me when
the cock pecked crow and not the hen.
I'll bathe and go about my business.
To Hell with love and sucking sighs.
I am a man of satisfactory wealth.
Proud to swing his crutches to Heaven.

Madame X, A Dramatic Monologue (John Singer Sargent)

 

Filthy man! He calls himself Artist!
We pay him a fat lawyer's fee
for his talent at offending me.
Those black eyes see naked flesh
where others see slips or camisoles.
He grins privately, licks his mustache,
strikes me in profile when my nose
is my least attractive feature,
and poses my bust straight ahead.
He's painting my blush, isn't he,
to set the whole world gossiping,
when I wouldn't let him touch me
with his brush! My husband hired
him, as usual, without a resume
or interview. I asked if he'd seen
a sample. "One, my dear," he said,
"which approximates our nephew's head."
My revenge had been this gown,
as expensive as it is décolleté,
and I suppose I dreamed a painter
to be schooled in professional behavior,
like my hairdresser and physicians,
to be marble-cool near bare shoulders-
but those eyes are blind to elegance
and see in sophistication only sex.
He flickers like black flame licking
the canvas with daubs of paint to show
that he's so serious in his art;
a wink and he'd be at me like a shark.
My neck! This portrait is overdue.
Aren't voyeurs prone to exhaustion too?
God would have had to think again
had he spent not seven days, but ten.
And when it's done, what will he have
made of me? Will I look exactly
as I am, well or badly drawn, my
beauty replaced by oily paint
or psychologically portrayed-
the face of hunger or deceit?
Will he trap each hair and mole, each
blemish like weird species in a zoo?
I'd be happier looming through a screen,
through a window dripping in the rain.
I should listen to my little sister
and have it done quickly by photographer.
Yes? Fine. So. He says it's finished
and invites me to look. A threat.
Let's see if it has been worth it.
My word! I'm so . . . do I seem so
to him? Yes, he's made a mistake
with my bosom, but my chin-
I hadn't thought the line that clean.
He teaches me to appreciate my nose.
My hair glows, darkness with a sheen.
My skin, alabaster everywhere, except
my ears, which do, I know, go red at
the least distress; my lips never
spoke such thoughts in mirrors; a kiss
from them I'd be wanton to bestow.
He's cut a heart out of my dress;
from waist to breast, the black cloth
flares and makes my shape a gift
to the admirer, while much else is left
undraped. Certainly the neck 
is false, too long, too muscular.
Perhaps it's all the pose he gave me.
My husband will conclude he raped me.
I was wrong and I will tell him.
Oh, he's gone! I didn't see him go!

ICE

Most winters the river froze

A foot or more thick, visible,

Before the snows came,

By crack lines that struck

Down like lightning bolts.

I could step out fearlessly,

Though the loud zip sound

Of a fissure shot from yards

Away and ran between my legs.

As I skated the sounds of stressed

Ice followed me, just as I

Chased the schools of fish

That ran ahead of me. I was

Never quite sure what they were —

Panfish, cats, bass, carp or pike,

Never more than four or five,

Sometimes only one, like a finger.

They knew I chased them

From above their hardened sky.

The Error Of Innocence

It’s impossible, a contradiction

Of being, a false manipulation.

The mistake is in not knowing,

Like a child mimicking a curse,

Without any idea what it means.

At four I once told my brother,

“I wish you would go to hell,”

Then added, “no, don’t go to hell.”

Hell being no more than a word —

Yet I was vigorously punished

With a dozen stripes of a strap.

Some think we’re not born innocent,

Like the lion, the viper, or the lamb,

But by some withheld benediction

That can only be lost in the learning,

Which in itself taints the newly-wise.

The veins in a sick hand, febrile

And limp, are not guilty till lifted.

“The only truly innocent are dead,”

Some say. No greater lie ever said,

Because even they are burdened

By all that has come before. Not sin,

Not ignorance, but the spoken word,

The lie given breath willingly,

For no other purpose than my own.

The Curvature: Hobo’s Island

Hobos’ Island is surrounded

By shallow rapids, water on stones,

Its murmuring constant, dulcet.

I jumped off the train into woods

Banked a hundred feet above,

Onto a grass flat worn bare

By countless boots like mine,

Mud-caked, broken strings

Square-knotted, but no holes.

The climb down to the river

Was treacherous, muddy slick,

From constant spring rain,

But safe enough as I grabbed

Willow and poplar trunks.

When I stepped into the river, 

My feet felt cold and clean.

At first I saw three campfires,

Which went out as I portaged

My light, half-empty backpack.

I heard shouting and curses

And guns fired, I hoped,

Into the clear darkening sky.

Men crashed through trees

And ran through the rapids.

I laid down in cold shock,

Began to float downstream, hearing

Shouts rising through the woods

I’d just before descended.

I knew that was no way back.

Something bumped my shoulder —

A section of old picket fence.

I grabbed it, but didn’t climb

On until the fracas was well

Behind me. I lay on my back,

Not bothering to steer, just hungry,

The bread in my pack inedible.

The river deepened into silence.

A kind course, it stayed me from shore

As the banks curved right and left,

Like the creases in my palm.

I remembered there was a dam

Miles downriver, through town,

But I wouldn’t worry about 

What came next until it came.

 

The Curvature: Escape

Here, the river, my river, argues.

It speaks with whispered nouns

That name the parts of the word

I have come here once again to hear.

I say parts since the water cannot adhere,

As if having lost the battle to live.

(The old coliseums were flooded

And filled with elephants and lions

Who couldn’t drown but drowned

Even the gladiators who could swim.)

The waters are silent as ice tonight.

They are coming for me, getting close,

With their pikes and slung machetes,

And I’ve no place to hide — I dive,

Feel my ears fill, my lungs burst,

And, like all escapees, swim upstream.

They stand on the trestle looking down

And do not see a ripple in darkness

I swim deeply enough not to disturb.

When I’m alone again slipping I climb

A clay shoulder at the river bend.

I cannot rest, nor stray from the shore.

I marvel at the constant curvature

Of muddy banks. Nothing is straight.

I stop again and wait, a stone, hearing

Faint assurances I am here, now,

Just this once, and that’s enough for me.