William Waltz presents. . .a Poem by Dean Young

My friend and colleague the recently departed John Parker once told me a student of his believed that poems were written in code, which, once broken, would reveal the poem’s true meaning. This young man also believed there was a Rosetta stone of a book hidden somewhere in the library that decoded most of the canonical works. I would have enjoyed hearing John’s reply to such assertions.

This week’s poem is by the magnificent Dean Young. Mr. Young’s poems have appeared numerous times in the pages of Conduit, for which we are honored, thankful and, at times, downright giddy. “Original Monkey” first appeared in our “Neighborhood Gods” (#12) issue and later in his book Elegy on Toy Piano.

Dean uses a typewriter and white-out. His poems come with smudges. I like this. I can’t help wondering how his poems might be different if he used a word processor as 90% of the poets who submit do (or how the poems of the other 90% might be different if they didn’t). I like how Dean keeps sending us poems, how he feels at home between our covers. And, of course I love that he selected Zoo Music as the winner of the Slope Editions Book Prize, not just because he made me a winner but because he was a judge with whom I truly felt an affinity. I was glad to tell him just that when we finally met.

People often point out the humor in Dean Young’s poems, yet anyone who has ever laughed at him knows that behind every chuckle there is either agony or anger. Dean’s poems are long-legged animals running through the tall grass, following his instincts. His path is neither frantic nor methodical, but he always catches his prey. Sometimes it’s a monkey. Meaning, meaning in good poems can’t be seen straight on. One must look askance.

Original Monkey

I'm working on my vanishing point.
I'm practicing my zenith.
I used to rely on a piece of glass
to plunge into my heart but that's nothing
compared to my monkey. Usually
we meet on a bench by the whortleberries
to weep and watch the lambs disappear
into the chasm. Hey, it's a rotten world
for a monkey too. Just because
you've got opposable thumbs
doesn't mean you can untrip the trap.
My monkey though is very self-involved
so when the glass doesn't work
and the invisible girders are groaning
and I can't get back to the old country
of the great works of Western art
restored to the luminosity of Looney Tunes,
I call my friend who's drunk again\
like me like me and my moonbeam.
Wrong answer. Wrong ballistics report.
Wrong club membership. Wrong draconian
countermeasure. Wrong emergency room
where the client in the party hat
blinking blood says, It's nothing,
it's nothing. I'll be the judge of that.
We can see that once the work of interpretation
is done, the dream is the fulfillment of a wish
just as the injury is the fulfillment of a wish
and vibrating at the speed of E flat
and unloading heads into the furnace
and realism which is a form of surrealism
on a time-delayed fuse so what I'd like to know
is who's making all these helpful wishes?
My agony is no sillier than yours
even if it's riding a tiny unicycle.
All I'm asking for is a fellow monkey
to accompany my original monkey
in his bridal sadness. Once he was one
among many in tree. Once my piece of glass
was part of a larger piece of glass
which was part of a larger piece glass
which was…okay, you get the point.
As if back there somewhere
was something immense and intact.

-- Dean Young