19 Poemes Elastiques: rubberbands around my heart
after Blaise Cendrars
1. Tower
Paris
I was eating an orange in front of the Orangerie
When suddenly—
it wasn’t my birth
it wasn’t a Metro strike
or the taxidermized animals
in the Natural History Museum coming to life
or the Seine flooding, water whistling
though the stacked bones in the Catacombs
or Jim Morrison rising in Pere Lachaise
whiskey bottle in hand
it was you
it was the Eiffel Tower
it was sex
O Eiffel Tower
I didn’t give you my umbrella for nothing
I didn’t leave my son’s stroller in your elevator
to leave & never come back
I didn’t write 2 novels with you on the cover
not to dream of you
when I sleep in a bed damp with sex
In Florida, palm trees are you
In Pennsylvania, rusting derricks
In Wisconsin, cell towers
In the Gulf, offshore oil platforms, blazing with light
the way fireworks, zodiac signs, arabesques exploded up your sides
in 1929
when you were the world’s tallest
advertising sign CITROEN
You are my spine—
the one smashed to dust & then
made whole
You are my gallows—
if I am ever hung for
my crimes as I should be
liar that I am
unfaithful daughter
of an unfaithful father
I have climbed other towers
I have eaten escargot in Windows on the World
on a table that—later—
fell burning
from the sky & took my waiters
with it
But you stand
But your elevators
still rise to the sky
Tower of towers, World Tour Tower
Paperweight, thermometer, desklamp
souvenir tower
I am, was born, hope to die in your
shadow
2. Poemerie
The door of my poem shop opens
on the boulevard
Its display windows
square cut diamonds of light
Listen to the accordions
Listen to the Bal Musette
& know you have stepped outside time
The typewriters never heard anymore
in the world clatter here—
tat-clack-tat-a-tat
Everything black or white
but still burning burning
On the corner, workers
from the night shift drink
red wine at a zinc bar
as if this were 1956 & I
were just being born
bloody, squalling, by the Canal St-Martin
From time to time
a car passes through the Arc de Triomphe
on its way to great victory
or to commit an infamous crime
Today is film noir
Today is Belmondo
Today is France under the old new management
& my American father
drives a vast American car
with fins like sharks
down the Champs-Elysees
& takes his sleeping bastard child
from the arms of her French mother
who is walking, always walking, by that same canal
The mother who is France
who is the winter sale at La Samaritaine
the airbrakes squealing at the Gare du Nord
the old aerodrome that survived the war
a girl & a maid & a whore—maybe
though one raised by nuns
who might have raised me—
in this Marcel Carne film version of my life—
near the Hotel du Nord
to no good end at all
& my life would have been—
a cigarette in the dark
a glass of vin ordinaire
short
dark
sad, maybe
but French
3. Portrait
I am asleep
I wake up
I write all this down
I write “Cathedral, possibly Notre Dame?”
I write “No such thing”
I write cow & you are one
I write knife &, by god, you are bleeding
or I am
I write cock—because I want one
inside me
as much as my mother did
For France without sex
is my body without thighs
I write “ass”
& it’s your ass
It’s yours, reader
It’s yours, lover
Who doesn’t have one, after all?
Or I could be genteel &
say the “ass” belongs to
my fiance, not to you
Just as I could say my mother
was a milkmaid
or a midwife
not a woman with good tits, a nice ass
Or so I am guessing since my father slept with her
when he was married to someone else
Me, I was born in thanks to a knife
the Eiffel Tower the corkscrew
looming overhead
Christ dying on the cross
in 1000 nearby churches
even on the afternoon I was born
It gave me a taste for blood
Watch out—
I have ink left
I could cut your throat
4. Dance
Call me a wandering Jew
since my mother was one
No place for her in Paris
parents deported
she & her sister left at a convent
me, in turn, given away to a new life in a new land
But once sent on my way
I found I could not stop moving
continually coming & going
I became a woman who flies above
the world
gazes, disconnected, from a tiny window
at the blue or green or white below
Even the news doesn’t interest me anymore
flicker/drone
Dance of disaster
Dance of daily deaths
intercut with the failed marriages
of those famous merely for being famous
But even those who fly
fall
One day, I will pirouette
Turn on one toe
Come down
from the clouds
If I die
If you die
I will smell it
the way I can smell
falling
snow
5. I Have A Body
I am wearing skin not
just clothes
Never mind the wrinkles in both
it is Glorious, this having flesh
body wired with the most sophisticated sensors
my upraised palms are scales that weigh
the truth of everything
I can feel how much you want me
just by touching
my lips to the small of your back
O yes
Everyone else in line for the morning reveille
steps back, leaving you
the lone volunteer
The sun undresses us
clothes fall to the floor
until we are only our skins
moving
Nothing in this universe ever stands still
Outside is the river
I can hear carp slapping, spawning
in the shallows
body on wet body
I love you too
6. Hammock
There is one on the porch
of this cabin on the Wisconsin River
There was one in the house
in Florida where I grew up
As a metaphor—
the hammock is not cotton or nylon net
but the curve of the earth
between where I stand & France
My future always my past
I sit today on a river that on early French maps
is spelled Ouisconsin
& read Apollinaire
Of whom Cendrars writes
“Apollinaire
1900—1911 for 12 years the only poet in France”
Apollinaire,
dead 92 years
& voila
still, he lives
Am I that alive?
7. Carnival
This year I was in Montevideo
it was carnival—
Mardi Gras—
& I was writing of France
Foolish me—always my heart
in another country
But I was not the only one—
everyone in Uruguay is an immigrant
or refugee or transported slave
or their descendent
all dancing through the streets
of the Ciudad Viejo
to the drums of the candombe
to the Desfile de las Llamadas
I bought a copy of El Pais Uruguay &
in it were the futbol scores—Penarol, Nacional
& the reviews of the murgas—
which group sang the most
satirical lyrics
Carnival!
All printed on the front page
next to the latest casualties from the latest wars
& a picture of the First Lady of France
herself a singer
Even in South America, the world brought me
the foolish beauty of France—
wrapped in newsprint
framed by the names of the dead
8. Siren
It is a song
It is static
Tour Eiffel as radio tower
television tower
cell tower
In Rene Clair’s film
Paris Qui Dort
the city is frozen
by a mad scientist’s invisible ray—
every human paused, midstep,
like a stopped watch
Only the watchman at the top
of the Eiffel Tower
& the passengers on an aeroplane
just making a grassy landing
move in the morning sun
The silence total
except for the phonograph they steal
& take to the top of the tower
to dance in their equally stolen fur & pearls
The film moves
but the world below is
still
as a B & W photograph
A soundless world
Not like now—when the Spanish King
snaps at the President of Venezuela,
“Por que no te callas?” Why don’t you shut up?
& it echoes on Youtube
as downloaded ringtones
Shut up Shut up Shut up
Weatherunderground promises
“A fair day for Paris”
but in this new century
I smell hellfire
I smell war
There is no future but the past
No, no scratch that
I am going to send this stripped chassis
of a poem on a long trip
by snail mail, by sea
to you in Uruguay
Let it be the future
Let it arrive—
infant Moses in papyrus basket—
on the doorstep
of a new world
9. Journal
Jesus
It’s been decades since I thought of you—
not since I married then abandoned a husband
who was a Methodist minister
who saw you even in Star Wars
thought pop songs on the radio
were about loving you
Christ
My life has changed since then
except what hasn’t. I am still the same
I wanted to become a writer
I still do
Here are the books I’ve published
shelves of them
For me, each one is about me
thinking about you
Jesus
what a life
shipwrecked, shellshocked
Everything sunburned
skin splitting like an orange
My books hurt just looking at them
none the paradise, the peace treaty
I longed for them to be
Today, I spent a sad damp morning
thinking of dead friends
& writing in my journal
reading the Times online
Christ
the whole world ends up crucified
in the morning paper
arms spread, wing spread, spread eagle
bombs
ululation
cries
You’d think another airplane was
falling from the sky
but it’s you
it’s me too
10. Breaking News
Alabama Evangelist Gets Life For Dead Wife in Freezer
Mobile, Ala, May 20, 2010—
An Alabama evangelist who
authorities say
terrorized his family while preaching at revivals
has been sentenced to life plus 51 years
for killing his wife
& storing her body in the home freezer
Hopkins, 39, showed no remorse
The Asst. District Attorney called Hopkins
“evil of the worst kind”
She said he taught his eight children things about Jesus
the Bible tells us are not true
Found poem, Associated Press
11. Midnight Express
The life I lead
is designed to keep me from suicide
Everyone else leaps
throws themselves under iron wheels
in a universe of ambulance sirens
& sad last calls in all the bars
on this planet
Get thee behind me, Satan!
I have an accordion!
I have music
when poetry leaves through
the screen door like a stray cat
like a lover who came for the night
without so much as a toothbrush
I have blood
microscopic bits of human tissue
under my fingernails from clinging
to the ones I love
when the tsunami tried to suck them—
time & again—
into the black
salt that is no earthly sea
But I don’t know any more. I don’t
understand what you are saying
Is that a poem? That last one?
Is that the tiny thing
a camera & a phone?
I was born in a great city
rubbed raw by war
My son was born in a town
so quiet
I can hear my neighbors dreaming
He is 12 now & tall
How could he have ever come
first into
then out of my body?
If I told you the story
of human reproduction
& you weren’t human—
you’d laugh
I no longer read books from libraries
dead Dewey Decimal world
This poem will be the last
I write with a pen
Bon Voyage, books I have written
See how you like
being alone—unloved—
in this world
12. BOTNIA
I am torn
I grew up in Florida
I have smelled the stench of paper factories
seen the pus yellow discharge in rivers
Seen the perfect rows of trees
soldiers at attention
waiting to die
But Uruguay is such a small country
Botnia, Finnish paper giant, invested
40 million euros in that factory in Fray Bentos!
More than a million euros for every Uruguayan!
No matter the new President, Mujica, wishes it otherwise
no matter I do
He is never going to shut that paper factory
No matter the Argentinean piqueteros blockading
the bridge, closing the border
No matter the small print
on the Treaty of the Uruguay River
No matter any ruling by
the World Court in The Hague
For 150 years, an earlier factory in Fray Bentos
sent enough tinned beef
across the ocean to feed the British army
as it built an empire
fought two World Wars
So I ask—
1. If there were no rations
would armies still march?
2. If there were no writers
no readers
would we still need paper mills?
For 2, the answer is yes—
the world needs its boxes
its touchably soft toilet tissue
For 1, as well, yes—
Armies march
& eat what they find
13. At the Crossroads
4 houses sleeping
in the sun
an old dog, fur knotted like a bathmat
Dare to shout
Pirouette on toe
Movement color light
melting on my mouth
like chocolate
me, translucent
blazing
in the dusty street
Love, you said
I didn’t know how to open
my eyes
But here I am—
blinded by the light
14. Tricolor—& the sun
Blue
only the sky over Paris
never the Seine
White
all the paper
the bureaucracy requires
even in this digital age
to decide if I am a citizen
Red
My mother’s blood—
giving birth to me by cesarian
Her mother pricking a finger
on a needle the morning
of her deportation—
the only blood she shed in France
which so neatly outsourced
the murder of its Jews
~
Red
coming to America
crying until my eyes
were swollen shut
White
the thin sheet of paper
declaring me
American
&
Blue
the color of my
American father’s eyes—
my American mother’s were hazel
but so sad
they looked blue too
~
& if there is a third flag for me—
Uruguayan bandera with stripes of
White
blank as the page before I stained it
with these words
Blue
as the ocean
on the nearly empty beach
No red, no blood shed here
yet by me or mine
Only a yellow sun
with rays like a lion’s mane
& a cartoon face
staring, wide-eyed
at the future
15. Les Vampires
November, 1915 found the walls of Paris
plastered with posters
of a woman’s masked face
question marks wrapped around her neck
like hangman’s nooses
Qui? Quoi? Quand? Who? What? Where?
Les Vampires
Feuillade’s silent serial
starring the great Musidora in skin tight black
as Irma Vepp—as thief & murderess—
her very name an anagram of vampire
Every turn of plot
really about death—
male actors disappearing from the serial
to die as soldiers in the trenches
Every plot twist
really about sex—
Every scene
really about desire—
Why else would Phillipe Guerande, crack reporter,
pull a tiny gun on Irma Vepp
only to find she has stolen his bullets?
All he wants is Irma Vepp
All we want is Irma Vepp
To peel off her tight black body stocking
To be her when she stabs a banker
through the heart with her hat pin
& throws his body off the moving train
All Phillipe wants is
not to live with his mother
not to be the one too weak to be a soldier
For once
to be the one grabbing Irma Vepp
around the neck in the Apache Dance
their breath, their tight, hot chests
the bellows of the accordion
For once
to be a naked with a naked Irma Vepp
For once
for her to escape & take him with her
But all he gets for being good
is a single bed, night after night alone
In the final episode, The Bloody Wedding
Irma Vepp dies
a bullet in her heart
& leaves Phillipe to his life as a reporter
Better to have been stabbed by that hat pin
Better to have been thrown from the train
Better to have been gassed at the front like Apollinaire
Better to be a poet, liar, thief of words,
than a reporter—
16 million dead in WW I—
responsible, in the end,
for all the world’s unpleasant
truth
16. A Life in Titles
Home Is France, 1956
Falling to the Sound of My Mother’s Voice
We Step Quietly into the Future
I See God in the Movies
My Life is a Silent Movie
Things That Have Escaped Me
Grief in Paris
Last Poem
Bang
17. Rock ’n Roll
has a Hall of Fame
and in it
Buddy Holly’s high school diploma
a very skinny pair of Dylan’s jeans
Never mind—
turn the radio on
turn the stereo up
let’s go for a drive with the bass cranked
as far as it will go
Rock is the music of America
It is the best thing I have found here
I live in a town where Otis Redding’s plane
plunged into a cold deep lake
& still the music plays
Take that, Edith Piaf!
In the next life, no pens only drum sticks
In the next life, sex, drugs & an electric guitar
18. Constructivism redux
Black & white & red
no need for other colors
I think about sex all the day
I think about you sometimes
I think about God more often
The earth is full of molten magma
The sky is full of snow
Everything—through my eyes—grows
dimmer, less in focus
even with trifocals
But
if the print is big enough
if the art is sharp enough
I feel the knife edge like the old days
Hear the breath of both humans & machines
Feel you trace a tongue along my spine
I gave birth the way my mother did—
split wide open
See me? Dressed in black like Irma Vepp
Qui? Quoi? Quand? Who? What? Where?
Wet nurse for future poets
Engineer of student souls
See? In arabesques writ large
across
an accordion of sky
My portrait
19. Every end has a beginning
I have seen the Seine pushing hard
against its stone quais
but I am not there, not yet
I have walked along the Canal St-Martin
crossed a bridge, looked
into that oil slick water
for a past unmarked by any stone
My passport says I’m still there
I have waited, bundled, on a platform
at the Gare du Nord
for a stranger to take me in her arms
Mother taking me from mother
Twice, I waited until they came to get me
Twice
then I decided to be born
not yet,
but soon 
Jesse Lee Kercheval’s most recent books are Brazil (CSU Poetry Center, 2010), which won the Ruthanne Wiley Memorial Novela Award; Cinema Muto (SIU Press, 2009), a collection of poems about silent film which won a Crab Orchard Open Selection Series Award, and The Alice Stories (U of Nebraska Press, 2007) which won the Prairie Schooner Fiction Book Prize. This year, she is living in Montevideo, Uruguay.
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