Jordan Stempleman (Kansas, USA): from Awfully
from Awfully
1.
I am Jim.
I am terribly worried
in the unease
of fact. I often
find myself thinking,
minus breathing, minus temperature,
minus, in addition,
or perfectly involved, there
we all grew,
there, all still grows.
I often feel
left out. I know,
sure, after time,
it’s only a matter
of time before
I, or someone else
lays down blanket
by the bush, and
calls out, hey,
fatboy, you’re still growing—
you still grow
and gain, happily or
tearfully as you
must—so she wept,
so we weep
for you, as surely
as you noticed
us, we too notice
you. It’s difficult,
I know. I’m Jim,
Jim can’t control
himself. This is why
Marie began quoting
from Boyle’s General History
of Air, then
she truly cried enough
for all things
solid, and all things
skinned. And fatboy
was no longer there.
2.
It was then,
when I first met
Marie, and she
loved how often, truly
often, I’d exclaim
goddamnit after I thought
things weren’t going
my way, that she
knew how Jim
was just being Jim.
I’m so scared
of all known anger,
any unreasonable way
of response, but she
isn’t. Marie loves
what may happen next.
I love Marie.
This is not according
to plan. This
is by no means
to avoid suffering.
This is what happens
when many times
continue to add up
and go well
for a long time.
I’d read somewhere,
there’s such a thing
as cloth calendars.
Though, I’ve never seen
a cloth calendar
before in my life,
and I’m thinking,
these soft, well-built calendars
are just right
for living. They do
what Marie sometimes
does with memories: freezes
the impossibly heavy
things that they are
into flexible, visual
encounters, that are right,
right for keeping.
I just get angry
with my memories
since they don’t do
what I want
or smell at all
how they did
when time was waiting
to claim them.
I once read, somewhere,
all self importance
comes from our memories,
and so, yes,
I became terrified, then
angry, so angry.
I began to imagine
a world without
the Greeks, or anyone
who so wanted
original realities to remember
their former lives.
What? But my childhood,
overcoming death, this
attitude I have, this
woman I’ll soon
forget. I’m so insensitive
to my wondering
of where we’ve been,
I tell Marie.
She knows. She knows.
3.
In random order
there was being hired
by associates, birth,
unusual intensity, and another
sun going down.
I said to Marie,
it is impossible
to tell which form
got to me
first. I truly believe
though, quietly, since
I don’t yet truly
believe, that intensity,
some very unusual intensity
is to blame.
She then got up
from her chair,
opened up the door,
the front door,
walked out, then closed
the door, then
waited a few minutes
before coming back
in and sitting down.
I can’t believe
how you’ve changed, really
changed, she said.
While I was gone,
tell me, what
did you settle for?
Change, I said.
And the impersonal way
I can be
with myself, really impersonal.
Then some imagining,
then more and more
of my quiet.
There is nothing I
can think of
like the panic, my
panic, that grows
so fondly in quiet.
4.
Very few people
know me as Jim.
It’s so puzzling.
Often, when I’m out
eating somewhere, or
shopping with Marie, someone
will approach me
and say, hey buddy,
whendyoustop returning mycalls?
I don’t make calls,
I tell them.
My name’s Jim, not
whatever you said.
Which comes out wrong
all the time,
so then I smile
embarrassingly, more embarrassingly
than I mean to
to make up
for being a stranger.
Marie keeps insisting
this makes things worse,
perhaps by pretending,
just pretending a little,
for a moment,
that I knew them,
or wanted to,
I could make friends
with some person
that has lost someone
they really hope
to find. But awkwardness
is so standard
in such a simple
life. In strangeness,
alone, or with Marie,
I feel fine.
But when I’m mistaken
for someone’s life
that I took nothing
from, or gave
nothing to, I’m stranded
to remember who
I might possibly be.
© Jordan Stempleman 2009
1.
I am Jim.
I am terribly worried
in the unease
of fact. I often
find myself thinking,
minus breathing, minus temperature,
minus, in addition,
or perfectly involved, there
we all grew,
there, all still grows.
I often feel
left out. I know,
sure, after time,
it’s only a matter
of time before
I, or someone else
lays down blanket
by the bush, and
calls out, hey,
fatboy, you’re still growing—
you still grow
and gain, happily or
tearfully as you
must—so she wept,
so we weep
for you, as surely
as you noticed
us, we too notice
you. It’s difficult,
I know. I’m Jim,
Jim can’t control
himself. This is why
Marie began quoting
from Boyle’s General History
of Air, then
she truly cried enough
for all things
solid, and all things
skinned. And fatboy
was no longer there.
2.
It was then,
when I first met
Marie, and she
loved how often, truly
often, I’d exclaim
goddamnit after I thought
things weren’t going
my way, that she
knew how Jim
was just being Jim.
I’m so scared
of all known anger,
any unreasonable way
of response, but she
isn’t. Marie loves
what may happen next.
I love Marie.
This is not according
to plan. This
is by no means
to avoid suffering.
This is what happens
when many times
continue to add up
and go well
for a long time.
I’d read somewhere,
there’s such a thing
as cloth calendars.
Though, I’ve never seen
a cloth calendar
before in my life,
and I’m thinking,
these soft, well-built calendars
are just right
for living. They do
what Marie sometimes
does with memories: freezes
the impossibly heavy
things that they are
into flexible, visual
encounters, that are right,
right for keeping.
I just get angry
with my memories
since they don’t do
what I want
or smell at all
how they did
when time was waiting
to claim them.
I once read, somewhere,
all self importance
comes from our memories,
and so, yes,
I became terrified, then
angry, so angry.
I began to imagine
a world without
the Greeks, or anyone
who so wanted
original realities to remember
their former lives.
What? But my childhood,
overcoming death, this
attitude I have, this
woman I’ll soon
forget. I’m so insensitive
to my wondering
of where we’ve been,
I tell Marie.
She knows. She knows.
3.
In random order
there was being hired
by associates, birth,
unusual intensity, and another
sun going down.
I said to Marie,
it is impossible
to tell which form
got to me
first. I truly believe
though, quietly, since
I don’t yet truly
believe, that intensity,
some very unusual intensity
is to blame.
She then got up
from her chair,
opened up the door,
the front door,
walked out, then closed
the door, then
waited a few minutes
before coming back
in and sitting down.
I can’t believe
how you’ve changed, really
changed, she said.
While I was gone,
tell me, what
did you settle for?
Change, I said.
And the impersonal way
I can be
with myself, really impersonal.
Then some imagining,
then more and more
of my quiet.
There is nothing I
can think of
like the panic, my
panic, that grows
so fondly in quiet.
4.
Very few people
know me as Jim.
It’s so puzzling.
Often, when I’m out
eating somewhere, or
shopping with Marie, someone
will approach me
and say, hey buddy,
whendyoustop returning mycalls?
I don’t make calls,
I tell them.
My name’s Jim, not
whatever you said.
Which comes out wrong
all the time,
so then I smile
embarrassingly, more embarrassingly
than I mean to
to make up
for being a stranger.
Marie keeps insisting
this makes things worse,
perhaps by pretending,
just pretending a little,
for a moment,
that I knew them,
or wanted to,
I could make friends
with some person
that has lost someone
they really hope
to find. But awkwardness
is so standard
in such a simple
life. In strangeness,
alone, or with Marie,
I feel fine.
But when I’m mistaken
for someone’s life
that I took nothing
from, or gave
nothing to, I’m stranded
to remember who
I might possibly be.
© Jordan Stempleman 2009
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